The next morning, I wake up before the sun has fully breached the horizon.
I throw the covers off and sit up. The lingering heaviness of last night's thoughts is gone, replaced by a buzzing, quiet energy. I dress quickly in my tunic and trousers and head downstairs.
The house is already awake. The smell of frying cured pork and warm dough fills the air.
Roxas is in the middle of his morning ritual. He stands near the door, tightening the straps of his heavy leather apron. He checks his pockets, ensuring his measuring tools and pencils are in their designated spots. He looks like a soldier preparing for battle, except his weapon of choice is a hand plane.
"Morning, Percy," he grunts, flashing a tired but warm smile as he grabs a piece of toast from the table. "You're up early."
"Morning, Dad," I reply.
In the kitchen, Sylvia is moving between the hearth and the table. The iron skillet hisses as she flips the meat, and a basket of freshly baked bread sits in the center of the table, steam still rising from the crust.
"Sit down, Percy. Breakfast is almost ready," she calls out without turning around.
We eat together, the sounds of chewing and clinking cutlery filling the silence. Once Roxas leaves for the shop with a wave and the heavy thud of the door, I get to work.
I may be five, but I pull my weight. I clear the table, carrying the wooden plates to the basin. I grab the small broom Roxas cut down to fit my height and sweep the kitchen floor, chasing the dust out the back door. Then, I head to the woodpile on the porch, carrying small armfuls of kindling to restock the box near the hearth.
Sylvia watches me stack the wood, offering a simple nod of approval. She doesn't clap or coo over me anymore; she's used to my efficiency. To her, this is just normal. I'm just her smart, helpful son.
Once the chores are done, I spend the rest of the morning with Sylvia. I sit at the kitchen table while she mends a tear in one of Roxas's work shirts. We talk about small things. The garden, the weather, the upcoming village festival. I keep my expression neutral, hiding the fire burning in my gut. I don't say a word about the decision I made last night. I just act like the son she thinks I am.
Around midday, the sun is high in the sky, flooding the house with light.
"Mom," I say, hopping off my chair. "I'm going out to play."
Sylvia smiles, biting a thread to cut it. "Alright. Be back before dinner."
I step out into the afternoon heat. I walk down the front path, unlatch the gate, and turn toward the open fields.
As I walk down the dirt road, kicking up small clouds of dust with my boots, my mind shifts gears. I'm not just going out to play. This is step one.
I head toward the hill with the solitary oak tree, but I don't go all the way up to the shade today. Instead, I veer off into the open field that sits between the slope of the hill and the edge of the lake. It's quiet here. Private.
As I walk, I replay everything Maria told me yesterday. I break it down, analyzing the mechanics.
First: The Mana.
It isn't just a pool sitting in my chest. It's a substance that fills the body. Maria said I have to feel it inside me, like water filling a vessel.
Second: The Incantation.
Maria was clear on this. You can't just push the energy out. You need the words. The chant is what tells the mana what to become. Without the incantation, the magic won't form. It's the requirement to make anything happen.
Third: Visualization.
Block out the noise. Focus. Picture the result in your mind as you speak.
I nod to myself as I walk. It makes sense. Feel the energy, speak the command, picture the result.
My mind briefly drifts to the other path, swordsmanship.
I'll figure that out later, I decide. Right now, I have a textbook for magic. Or at least, the memory of what Maria read to me.
I reach the field. The grass is waist-high here, swaying gently in the breeze. The lake laps quietly against the shore a few yards away. It's the perfect spot.
I stop walking and take a deep breath, planting my feet firmly on the ground.
The next hour is a grueling exercise in failure.
I stand in that field under the baking sun, repeating the process until my throat feels dry and my legs ache from holding the stance.
"Spirits of the Red Flame... Fireball."
Nothing.
I shake out my arm, frustration bubbling in my gut. Maybe I'm too tense. I try to relax my shoulders, loosening the muscles like I'm shaking off a bad pitch. I try again, this time whispering the words, trying to coax the mana out gently.
"Spirits of the Red Flame... Fireball."
Still nothing.
I change my approach. Maybe it's the visualization? I close my eyes tighter, scrunching my face up, trying to picture a fire so hot it burns my mind. I try to force the static hum in my chest to move faster, to ignite. I push it violently toward my hand.
"FIREBALL!" I shout this time, adding force to the blueprint.
The mana surges, slams into my elbow, and dissipates into nothingness again. It feels like trying to shove a river through a straw; the pressure is there, but there's no outlet.
I wipe sweat from my forehead. My conviction hasn't wavered if anything, the repeated failure is hardening it like tempered steel. I will learn this. I refuse to accept that I was reborn into a world of magic only to be a dud. If Maria can do it, I can do it.
"Damn it," I hiss through gritted teeth after the fiftieth attempt. "What am I doing wrong?"
I look at my open palm, which remains mockingly empty. Is it really this hard? Or am I just looking at it the wrong way?
"Alright," I mutter, exhaling sharply. "Let's scale it back. Maybe Intermediate magic is just too big of a leap. Let's try a Beginner spell."
I walk over to the edge of the tree line, my boots crunching on the dry grass. I gather a small pile of fallen twigs and dry leaves, arranging them into a little pyramid in the dirt. A campfire.
I stand over it, extending my hand. The spell Maria read was simple. Create Flame. It's the magical equivalent of a matchstick.
I go through the ritual again. I ground myself. I block out the wind. I feel the hum of mana inside me.
"Spirits of Fire, grant me a spark. Ignite. Flame."
I wait for the heat. I wait for the crackle of dry leaves catching fire.
Nothing happens. The twigs sit there, brown and lifeless.
I try again. And again. For twenty minutes, I stand there chanting at a pile of sticks like an idiot. The mana moves, I can feel it shifting inside my torso, but every time I try to push it out to create the effect, it just... vanishes.
"Why is this so hard?" I groan, kicking the dirt.
I take a step back, running my hands through my hair. Okay. Clearly, Fire isn't working for me right now. Maybe it's my affinity, or maybe I just don't understand the nature of fire well enough yet.
Let's switch gears.
I search my memory for the last spell Maria mentioned. It was Earth magic. Stone Bullet. Or at least, the beginner version of it: creating a small pebble.
I take a deep breath, shaking out my limbs. I need to reset. I've been getting frustrated, and frustration kills focus. I need to get back to zero.
I close my eyes.
Don't just stand there, I tell myself. Get in the zone.
I let my mind drift back. I imagine the weight of a baseball in my right hand. I imagine the texture of the leather seams digging into my fingertips.
I visualize the mound.
I am standing on the pitcher's mound in Koshien Stadium. The air is thick and humid. The crowd is roaring a wall of white noise but I don't hear them. I tune them out. The screaming fans, the brass bands, the cheering teammates... I turn the volume knob down until the world is silent.
There is only the tunnel.
It's a long, dark tunnel connecting me to the catcher's mitt. Nothing else exists outside of that tunnel. My heartbeat slows down. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It's a steady, rhythmic drum in my ears.
I feel the calmness wash over me, cold and absolute. My breathing evens out. In, through the nose. Out, through the mouth. My body feels loose, yet coiled with potential energy. The static hum of the mana inside me settles, syncing with my pulse. It stops buzzing and starts flowing, heavy and waiting.
This is it. The Ace's mindset. The absolute focus required to throw a ball ninety miles an hour into a target the size of a plate.
I raise my hand slowly, palm open, keeping my eyes closed. I am still in the stadium in my mind, but the ball in my hand changes.
I need to picture a rock.
I don't think about minerals or atoms. I think about feeling.
I imagine digging my hand into the garden back home. I picture the gritty, rough texture of a stone against my skin. It's hard. Unyielding. It's heavy for its size. It's made of packed dirt and time. It's solid.
I visualize the color a dull, dusty grey. I visualize the imperfections, the little chips and jagged edges. I imagine the mana inside me turning into thick, heavy mud. It isn't light and airy like wind, or hot and erratic like fire. It is dense. It is sludge moving through my veins, gathering in my shoulder, flowing down my bicep, pooling in my palm.
It takes time. I build the image layer by layer in the darkness of my mind, packing the mana together, compressing it tighter and tighter until it feels like a physical weight in my mind's eye.
I keep the image locked in. I feel the pressure in my hand.
I open my mouth. The Incantation is supposed to be: "Spirits of the Earth, gather the soil. Harden and become stone. Create Rock."
But I'm so deep in the trance, so focused on the feeling of the mana and the image of the stone, that my tongue slips. I rush it.
"Spirits of Earth... Gather... Rock."
It's sloppy. It's short. It's barely a blueprint.
But the mana doesn't care.
I feel a sudden, violent lurch in my stomach, like I've just been punched in the gut. The heavy, sludge-like energy I gathered rips itself out of my palm.
Whoosh.
I snap my eyes open.
Hovering about three inches above my open hand is a swirling vortex of dust. The air distorts, grey particles manifesting out of thin air, drawn together by an invisible magnetic force.
They slam together with a sharp clack.
The dust clears instantly.
Floating there, suspended in the air by the lingering traces of my mana, is a rock. It's small, maybe the size of a marble, and it's rough and ugly, looking more like a hardened clod of dirt than a river stone.
It hangs there for a fraction of a second, defying the laws of physics.
Then, the invisible grip of the magic vanishes.
Thump.
Gravity takes over instantly. The rock drops straight down, landing with a dull, heavy impact in the center of my open palm.
It sits there. Cold. Solid. Real.
I stare at it.
My breath catches in my throat, locking the air inside my lungs.
The wind blows through the grass around me, rustling the leaves of the oak tree, but I don't hear it. I don't blink. I don't move a single muscle. I just stare at the small, grey lump of matter resting against my skin.
Time seems to stretch, seconds bleeding into eternity as my brain tries to process the physical reality of what just happened.
"YES!"
The shout rips out of my throat, breaking the silence of the field. I squeeze my hand shut, feeling the grit of the conjured stone digging into my palm. It's real. It's actually real.
"I did it... magic."
I open my hand again, rolling the rough, marble-sized pebble between my thumb and forefinger. It feels just like any other rock I'd find in the dirt cold, hard, and abrasive. If I hadn't watched it materialize from dust, I wouldn't believe I made it.
But then, the excitement cools into confusion.
"Wait..." I mutter, staring at the stone. "How?"
I replay the last thirty seconds in my head. I was focused. I had the image locked in. I felt the mana flowing like sludge. But the Incantation... I butchered it. I didn't say the full blueprint. I basically just mumbled "Gather Rock."
According to Maria and by extension, the general knowledge of this world that shouldn't have worked. The spell should have collapsed without the proper structural command.
Unless...
I drop the pebble onto the grass.
Unless the words aren't the only way to build the structure.
I think back to the visualization. I was so deep in that mental state, so focused on the physical properties of the rock, the weight, the texture, the density that the image in my mind was crystal clear.
If the Incantation is just a blueprint to tell the mana what to do... maybe a perfect mental image can do the same thing? If I know exactly what I want, down to the feeling of it, maybe I don't need to tell the mana out loud.
"Interesting," I whisper.
I look at my empty palm.
If I'm right, this changes everything. There is only one way to find out.
I shake out my arm and reset my stance.
"Again," I say softly. "But faster."
I close my eyes.
I don't need to conjure up the stadium or the crowd this time. I know the feeling now. I dive straight inward.
I reach for that static hum beneath my skin. It's easier to find this time, like a muscle I've just flexed. I grab hold of it. I will it to change.
Heavy. Dense. Earth.
The static turns to sludge instantly. I pull it from my chest, dragging the heavy energy down my shoulder and into my forearm. It pools in my palm, a swirling mass of pressure waiting for a command.
I keep my mouth shut. I bite my tongue to ensure I don't make a sound.
Instead, I scream the command in my mind.
ROCK. Grey. Rough. Hard. Solidify.
I push the image into the mana. I force the energy to obey the picture in my head.
Release.
I snap my eyes open.
Whir-CLACK.
The air distorts above my hand, faster than before. The dust swirls violently for a fraction of a second before slamming together into a solid mass.
A second rock, identical to the first, hovers for a heartbeat before gravity claims it. It drops into my hand with a satisfying thud.
I stare at it, a grin spreading across my face.
It actually worked.
As the adrenaline fades, a sensation washes over me. It isn't painful, but it's noticeable. My limbs feel a little lighter, a little looser. A faint wave of lethargy settles behind my eyes, similar to the feeling of having skipped a meal or waking up a little too quickly.
I flex my fingers, shaking off the slight heaviness, and look down at the two small rocks lying in the grass.
I smile.