The moment he gained his vision back, he was no longer the self he knew before.
Now he had named himself anew.
Ronata. That's his name.
And he was a Puddle.
A normal, 1-meter-wide, and 5-meter-deep puddle, in the middle of a grass plain.
'Hello, new world!'
___
•Name: Ronata.
•Type: Clean Puddle(1 m wide, 5 m depth.)
•Age: 0 years.
•Mass: 15
•Density: 0(Liquid Material)
•Magic: 5
[Normal Skill:]
1. Fast Witted°1.
[Magic Skill:]
1.Mana Eye°1.
2.Natural°1.
[Trait:]
—Water-bless, Concentrated, Dissolve, Compact, Mana-Water, Adaptable.
___
Since he was now a Puddle... Well, there's not much he could do with his new body.
So the first thing he did after successfully reincarnating as what he wanted was to let himself loose and relax. The feeling of relaxation felt strange and alien since he was now a Puddle; water that patched and gathered together inside a hole on the ground.
'It feels like I'm always in a relaxed state all the time, so when I willingly order my body to relax, it...'
'... BEGAN TO BE ABSORBED!?'
A sudden sensation of falling woke his previously relaxed mind. He had let himself loose so much that the ground began to naturally absorb him into the soil.
After Ronata focused himself to some extent again, finally, the absorption stopped. He mentally sighed.
'Ah, shit, I thought I would die there...'
He didn't know whether his new body would be able to experience death or not since he was, after all, merely water, but he still couldn't care less and let his second chance of life just slip away like that. That's just straight-up foolish and wasteful, and he doesn't like to be a fool who wastes everything.
After calming himself, Ronata relaxed again, this time more carefully. He relaxed himself just enough for him to be relaxed enough to let his mind rest, but not too relaxed that he began to lose control over his body and let himself be absorbed by his new browny neighbour.
He let his traits work, gathering water from his surroundings, slowly dissolving anything that fell into his body, and passively absorbing Mana from the air—all while he himself rested his tired soul.
'Ahh~... Peace... What a wonderful time...'
Ronata doesn't know what his sight would look like if he hadn't taken Mana Eye, but now with Mana Eye, his new body's sight is slightly different from a Human's sight. He could now see shimmering and colorful things that filled the places scarcely, which he suspected were what the Goddess referred to as Mana.
Except for that, he could only see vague figures of things. If it were a grass blade, it would only look like a bunch of green dust forming a figure of the grass itself. If it were the sky, he could only see a vast expanse of blue, green, and white dust that dominated the sky. When the night came, the blue and white dust would fade away from the sky and be replaced by dark and purple dust instead. The same rule applied to other things.
He remained in that state for at least three days before Ronata finally sighed contentedly inside his mind. He feels refreshed. The passive abilities of his that allowed him to gather water and Mana, also dissolving things that fell into his body, were like a gentle message for him; unnoticeable consciously, but would continue to make his body feel anew and great without pause.
Since he didn't consciously encourage his traits, the rate of absorption and dissolving things was so slow and unremarkable, but it's not a problem for Ronata since he reincarnated without any grand goal and only to let his tired soul have a rest time in a peaceful long session with Mother Nature itself as a sole companion.
On his fourth day, Ronata stopped passively letting his body work and began assessing his new self and his surroundings more closely.
Now that he began consciously inspecting all of that, he started to find more about himself and everything around him.
First was his Mass. After three days of passive water absorption, his body water had increased slightly. All of that is gathered from morning dew, underground water, and bodily liquid from insects that are unfortunate enough to fall into him and are dissolved by him. Since he was a Clean Puddle, his water remained as clear as ever even after being added with all of that. He seemingly has a hidden ability to purify his own water.
Second was, of course, about his Magic. The passive absorption session has increased his Magic from 5 to 7. He could clearly feel that his water body now contained more Mana than before, and it felt warm and cold mysteriously and comfortably at the same time, which was a very strange but not unpleasant experience for him.
He doesn't know whether his Magic growth was considered excellent or not since he doesn't have any subjects to become his reference, but he didn't really care anyway. The feeling of continuous growth felt great for him, and that's good.
Third. He noticed that the only reason why his water body was neither being absorbed by the soil nor being turned into steam by the heat of sunlight was thanks to his trait, Compact, which granted him the ability to increase the union of his water body. If not, he would either be absorbed by the soil or be turned into steam that, in the end, would join with steam from all other places to form a cloud. He's not sure whether he would still be alive if any of that happened to him, but at least he was sure that he's not going to test it out anytime soon.
His fourth finding was that he was not alone here. No, there's no other 'living' Puddle like him here. He has a feral neighbour now. A little, white-furred rabbit, which had created a home for itself beside him while he wasn't paying attention. He decided to just ignore it for now.
And the last and the Fifth finding was his Water Magic. He was immediately able to use it. The appearance of a new skill called Water Magic in his status Magic Skill section was proof of it.
With only a thought and a bit of Mana, he could manipulate water from his Puddle to form any kind of shape with a little bit of focus. He is also able to generate water out of thin air, but it requires much more Mana than simply manipulating the existing water.
With higher mastery and more Mana, he might even be able to move his Puddle and wander around this world!
While he wouldn't complain with his current peaceful and uneventful life, now that he is already free from Human society and the so-called Job, he would like to see what world would present itself before him. It would be interesting to do so, that's why he began practicing his Water Magic whenever he had free time, and since he was a Puddle without any particular goal in this life, he had all the time in the world for himself to practice.
That way, time continued to fly by. One day would pass full of sunlight, while the other day was rich with delicious raindrops.
A small Puddle that calls itself Ronata is growing little by little as time continues to pass.
The Puddle itself focused solely on improving itself in silent ambition; work hard when it was motivated, while relaxing around when it felt like chilling off the day.
Without the Puddle even realizing it, the Spring wind has abandoned this land, giving the right of ruling this place to its fierce relative, the Summer.
As always, the white-furred rabbit returned from the forest to curl beside Ronata when nighttime came.
However, the Puddle was surprised as it found out that its herbivorous little beast neighbour was not alone this time. Following it from behind, a brown-furred rabbit curled beside it.