After that, we kind of just stayed there for a while, not moving and not talking to each other. We only went inside once actual rain clouds appeared.

So, I’ve got both good news and bad news. The good news is that I can now practice moving my mana around and doing whatever with it. The bad news is that I’m not allowed to learn any spells for another 3 years. Yup. I scared her enough that she banned me from magic for 3 whole years!

Now, for an elf, that may not be that much time, but for me, who has things to do quickly in this world, it’s a lot of time. Of course, I can’t start adventuring until I’m at least in my teens, but I want to practice early so that I am a strong boi.

Of course, this punishment makes sense. I almost killed myself by trying to process too much information. If I had access to real spells, like the ones that can create, I don’t know, fire, then I might get burned. To Mom, I must be too immature for real magic. Oh well.

I’m only allowed to practice my mana manipulation when Mom’s there to watch me. But that’s more than enough for me. I get to use magic! And using it I have.

At first, I was just practicing feeling my mana. Now that I’ve used magic, I could tell that there was something there, but I needed to actually focus on my mana pretty hard to feel it. I can’t manipulate it if I don’t know where it is.

And so, I practiced every day for four months. You may think that that’s a lot of time for a 5-year-old, but, as I’ve said before, there’s only so much a 5-year-old can do. It is much more fun using magic than it is “learning” common. Especially since I already know it, while magic is new.

I still can’t unconsciously tell where my mana is, but if I focus on it, I can tell where it is. That might not seem like much, but now I can do it with accuracy. Well, some accuracy. Like, I can tell how many fingers someone is holding behind my back, but now how long their nails are.

I keep my magic controlled around me as much as I can, just like Mom said. It feels pretty weird, but also good? I don’t know how to describe it, but I’ll try my best for you guys.

It feels like you are suddenly following the dress code at some sort of fancy party, while before, you were wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt; like you are finally back to playing on your PC while before you were stuck on your Kindeto Flip. You just get better at playing all of your favorite games. Of course, there’s a bit of an adjustment period, but after that, you’ll become a better gamer.

Hey, that’s a pretty good description. Who would’ve guessed that using magic is like playing video games? Well, pretty much everyone would, but they wouldn’t think the connection was like that.

So, what I’ve found is that the mana is originating from the inside of me; around where my heart is. The mana that is around me is coming from there. Of course, this means that there is mana inside of my body, like in my arms, my head, etc.

Well, what I’ve found is that it’s much easier to manipulate mana inside of your body than it is outside. I figured this out pretty early, and I am so grateful for it.

Do you know how good it feels to move your mana around your body? It feels like I’m getting a full body massage both physically and spiritually. I love it. I may or may not be addicted. I wish to execute my right to remain silent.

Of course, this has let me find a few things out. My body seems to grow stronger, heal and move faster, my reflexes get better, and have more energy when I’m consciously manipulating my mana through it. I figured this out when I accidentally cut my finger while helping my mom cook dinner. I just went like, “what if I did this…” and it worked.

Did I mention that I’m practicing cooking? I was horrible at it my past life. For someone who lived on their own, that meant that I ate a lot of take-out and easily heatable meals. My diet suffered. So, I decided to learn how to cook in this life.

Elven food is a bit gamey, but it’s still really good. I don’t know their specific names, but there are certain fruits that you can cook with the meat that create this flavor that is otherworldly good. Pun intended.

Anyway, back to magic. Certain parts of my body have different effects when loaded with mana. My arms and legs make the most sense; they get stronger and the skin gets harder. The weirdest two are my eyes and my brain.

I’ll start with my brain because the eyes will require some more explanation. When I focus my mana on my brain, the world seems to slow down. What’s actually happening is that I am speeding up. After checking my ‘Status’ after it, I gained the「Thought Acceleration」skill.

Sadly, the rest of my body doesn’t speed up with my thoughts unless I run mana through it as well. But I tire out really quickly when I do this. Like, I can keep it up for maybe 10 seconds at best, but then afterward, I can’t move for a few minutes and I’m exhausted.

Actually, just speeding up my thoughts requires a lot of energy. A lot less than speeding up my whole body, sure, but still a lot. The good thing about this is that the more magic I use, the more magic I seem to get. It’s like a muscle that I’m training over time.

Now, back to my eyes. This one’s weird. Well, first I’ll describe what happened afterward. After I moved mana into my eyes, my「Observe」“evolved” into the「Analysis & Appraisal」skill. Evolve is in quotes because that's the word that I used to describe it. The system just changed, no notification, nothing. Anyway, the description of 「Analysis & Appraisal」is this:

Analysis & Appraisal: The user is able to learn more about the target of this ability. The ability uses the user’s own knowledge and perception to gather information about the target.

So, at first, this may not seem to give many details. But that couldn’t be any more wrong. Basically, it means that I can see the power level of my opponents. However, this power level is based on how I would rate them.

I’m just guessing here, but I think that the skill pieces together various small details that I wouldn’t normally notice, along with some nifty magic, to rate the target. So, this skill wouldn’t work for something unimaginably powerful. Similarly, this skill wouldn't pick up on hidden abilities or tricks.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

So, long story short, I shouldn’t rely on this skill. But that means that others may. I tried to use it on myself, but only got back the amount of mana that I possessed. It didn’t appear in front of me on a screen, instead entering straight into my head.

It was a weird feeling.

Using it on objects is almost pointless. Almost. It only really does something with magical objects. I get a basic feel for what the object does, and what kind of magic it possesses. On other objects, it just gives me basic descriptions like “Wall” or “Chair.”

Actually, the first time I used the skill, I got an awful headache from too much information entering my brain at once. I have to focus on the object before I activate it, or else everything in my line of sight would be a target of the ability.

On the plus side, I learned that I can now process more information than when I first started practicing magic. That’s good, right? Totally worth a migraine, right? I think so. No pain, no gain.

At any rate, I’m slowly but surely getting better at this whole magic thing. I think that it’s impossible for me to be one of those instantly OP protagonists. I mean, I have a few advantages, sure, but I don’t have some sort of cheat skill or crazily high growth rate.

If I compare myself to other characters, I am much closer to a certain spider than I am to the generic isekai protagonist. For example, I have no desire at all for any kind of harem. Just gotta put that out there, since it was one of the main reasons why I didn’t read many isekai stories.

I guess my only cheat skill would be the classic knowledge cheat. Then again, I’ve learned enough history to know the consequences of that kind of thing. I have no desire to progress warfare by hundreds of years. If everyone suddenly learned about nuclear bombs and modern firearms, the casualties would exponentially increase.

So, I’m only going to use knowledge cheat for myself. For example, If I ever get my own house, I’m definitely installing modern plumbing and maybe electricity. I don’t know, magic can replace a lot of what electricity could do. You know what, it would be pretty fun to mix them together. Magitech. That would be cool.

Now I want to learn enchanting. Uhgg, too much to do and not enough time. I need to get out and see the rest of my classmates. We’ll explore this world together and have so much fun. Maybe I could introduce my parents to them. My parents would probably think they’re weird, though.

I can’t wait.

So, there are a few discoveries that I’ve made in the past year or so of manipulating my mana. Yeah, there was another time skip, but what am I supposed to do? Show you guys every single day of my life for 2 years?

Now, I’m almost 7. Just a few more months and I’ll be able to learn spells. I’m not in any sort of hurry, though. I have enough to do just manipulating. I’ve made a lot of progress in the last year, though.

I am able to restrain my mana unconsciously, to an extent. I can’t keep it all inside of my body, but now it stays around me like a second skin. I definitely have more energy, and am stronger than any 6-year-old has any right to be.

Well, at least any 6-year-old from Earth. I’m not sure about 6-year-olds from Illentia, though. I’ve met a few, but the sample size is just too small.

Oh? You want to talk about my social life? Well, I would if there was anything there. Haha, just like my last life, I am awful at talking to other people. I mean, now it’s even harder. Everyone my age is just sooo annoying, you know? They are literal children. My parents have tried to set me up with a few playdates, but after repeated bad results, they gave up.

From what I’ve gathered, my parents are sort of important in the Kingdom of Arand, the name of the nation that I’m currently living in. Most of the people that I’ve met have been nobles. I’m not sure what this means for me, saying that I at least don’t think I’m a noble. I mean, I have etiquette lessons and stuff, but I don't have a noble-like education.

If I had to guess, I would go with either us being an offshoot of the main family or my parents being very talented commoners. The latter is much more probable, saying that they are both craftsmen. Craftspeople? Craftselves? How would you say that?

Anyway, I’ve been doing the mandatory social interactions, but nothing more.

Back to magic, here are some of my basic observations:

- I can feel where my mana is

- Mana can interact with the world

- Condensed mana gains some physical properties

- Using mana requires energy

- The more I use it, the more mana I have

Now, that might not seem like much, but by using these properties, we can begin to guess what mana actually is. Oh yeah, I’m going full scientist mode right now. Let me quote one of my favorite animes, “It’s not that there are things that science can’t explain. You look for the rules behind those things.”

Yup, I’m going to beat fantasy with science!

Jokes aside, I want to use my knowledge cheat to the best of my abilities. To do this, I need to know what mana is. I’ve come up with the following hypotheses:

* Mana is a force, similarly to gravity. I thought this after seeing how my mana can affect my surroundings.

* Mana is an energy, similarly to light. This one would make the most sense, especially due to the condensing effect.

* Mana is an invisible muscle that all people of this world have. This one makes the least sense, but it is still possible.

If I had to guess, It’s a combination of two of these. The “muscle” guess is too out there. I only really said it because the whole “making your magic stronger” being like exercising a muscle.

So, the assumption that I’m going to be working on is that mana is a form of energy that can manipulate other matter. I think that it has a few special properties, too, but it should be similar to what I know of energy.

I’m not able to do much with this theory yet because I don’t know any spells, but there is one thing I can do. Magic into matter. This is one of the reasons why I thought of magic as an energy. To simplify it, matter is energy, kind of. E=mc², you know?

Basically, I am able to turn my mana into matter. I think that I”m condensing it, but I’m not 100% sure. I was a highschool student that looked at a lot of Wikipedia, not a real physicist. Anyway, that’s the term I’m going to be using from now on.

By condensing my mana, It creates this weird, translucent substance that is the same color as my mana. Later on, I learned that it’s called「Non-Attribute Magic」. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the name, but whatever.

I guess that this means that, as there is non-attributed magic, there must be, well, attributed magic. Knowing how bad the devs are, it’s probably something cliché like “water, earth, air, and fire,” though “air” might be replaced with “wind.” I told you that I would have to be on the lookout for them.

Non-attributed magic seems to be just raw mana. Rather, the mana isn’t turning into anything else, like fire or water. That’s basically all I know about it. I can’t seem to transform it into a pure liquid that easily, for some reason. It goes into a weird, flowy solid thingy. That is my scientific explanation for the condensed mana. Flowy solid thingy. Pure genius, am I right?

Honestly, if I didn’t, well, die, I would've gone far in my life. Welp, Earth will never know of my 2000 IQ. Too bad for you. Instead, I’m just gonna have to flex on Illentia.

In all seriousness, I have no intention to “flex” on this world. I don’t care if I fade into obscurity as long as I can meet my classmates again and live with my parents. That’s all I need to be satisfied in this world.