By the time Charlee came to get me for dinner, I had already manufactured several items. A pocket knife, a t-shirt, belt for my jeans, a small hatchet with holster and a crossbow with several bolts. I could have made a bow but I haven’t used one in years. I also learned that the more drained I was the longer it took for me to recover. The larger the item the more energy gets used. If I wait 10 minutes in between sessions, I was able to fully recover. I also made a small pile of silver dust. I have no silver and so I tried to create some in the palm of my hand and to my surprise I was able to. This however took a lot more effort than making grass into clothing.

Dinner was the same as before, boiled beans and watered down mash. I seriously need to make creating salt a priority. I plan to start hunting and we will need a way to preserve the meat. Part way through the meal, I worked up the courage and asked Willow “Willow, where are your parents?” She froze in place and then slowly put her spoon back into her bowl before she answered “My mom died giving birth to Charlee 5 years ago.” Willow reached over to pat Charlee’s hair. “My dad was conscripted into the army 2 years ago. We haven’t heard back since.” “I’m sorry, I didn’t know” I said to her. I looked down to Charlee, she was big for her age. I thought she had been 8 or 9.

I wanted more information about the world so I asked her “There’s a war going on?” “Yes, Blasmar is fighting off Ironford. They are a kingdom like us. Ironford is ruled by a King while Blasmar has always been ruled by a Queen. Ironford wants to unite all of the kingdoms under them so they tried to force the queen when she was still a princess to marry their old king who is already an old man. Of course Blasmar refused and the war started.” Willows short rant was dripping with bitterness. I had wanted to ask more but everyone had finished their bowls and Charlee had already started to collect the bowls. I grabbed a few more logs and took them with me to my room. I saw Willow giving me a curious stare as I entered my room.

I wanted a bed. A real one, spring mattress and all. A bed is basically a wooden frame and springs of steel wrapped with cloth. I didn’t have any more grass handy but wood is also plant fiber so it will probably work. I know that I don’t need the actual materials to make stuff but it seems to make it easier and a bed is larger than anything I have tried to make so far. I decided to go for it. My first try failed and I had a feeling that going for a queen sized bed was way out of what I could do at the moment. I downgraded to a twin size and I saw that it had worked, too bad I passed out right on top of my new bed.

Not sure how long I had been unconscious for but the room was pitch black. There was something I had been very despite to try out. If this worked then it will allow me to do so much more. It seems like the longer I am in this world for the stronger I will become. Even with just these 2 days I could use magic several times a day. Unlike in those stories where mages are physically weak, I seem to be getting stronger. My body is not yet at the level of a Greek god but it’s getting there. I feel that I am also growing taller.

My height has always been something I felt I lacked. Due to my mixed heritage, I got that exotic look. Dark hair roots ending with golden blond tips, high cheek bones with dimples on both cheeks, my eyes were crystal blue and my distant Asian sharp chin. The only thing I lacked was my height. 5’ 6” is not short but it’s not tall either. My father was nearly 7 foot tall while my mother was only 5’ 1”. I ended up in between but I had always wished I was taller. I took of my clothes and folded them up to use as a pillow again and sat cross legged on my bed to carry out my plan. If fantasy novel knowledge was correct then there may be mana in the air or something. I just need to absorb it somehow.

The obvious first method was to meditate and try to pull mana into my body. Hands on my knees I relaxed whole holding my back straight and head so that my spine was straight. Eyes closed I began to focus on my breathing. With slow even breaths, I tried to clear my head and then after a while it became a routine and started to expand my area of focus. I could feel my pulse in my thumbs and so I began to trace it back to my wrist then to my elbows and finally all the way back to my heart. Once I got to my heart, I became aware of my entire vascular system. Blood goes everywhere and soon I knew everything about my body. I tried to examine the microorganisms in my body and realized that my immune system has grown so strong that I will likely never get sick anymore. Best of all I knew why I haven’t needed to use the toilet at all since I have been in this world.

My body could now absorb 100% of the bio material I ate and turn it into something useful. I have only needed to pee that 1 time because it had only recently arrived and the process was in its infancy. Reaching beyond my own body there was all sorts of things but I felt this energy kind of floating in the background. Was that mana? I tried pulling it into myself and indeed I started to gain energy, at the same time my room started to cool rapidly. I stopped. Oh sit, oh shit, oh shit.

That wasn’t mana at all, it was the heat energy from the air. If what I was pulling in was heat energy then can I take energy from a bon fire and use it to power my magic? Wait, wait, heat is energy, can I absorb other types of energy like electricity? Kinetic? Vacuum? I froze as a thought hit me. If E=MC2 then can I take matter and turn it into energy? If a fist size ball of yellow cake can flatten a city, can I use a pebble and have it slowly decay and use the energy it releases to power machinery? Should I just skip fission and go straight to fusion instead? This was all more than I can do in one night and so I laid down to go back to sleep.