I awake to my forth day in this peculiar world.

While doing my morning stretches I listen to the relaxing sound of birds chirping nearby.

“Wait birds chirping?”

My body freezes mid-stretch.

If I can hear the sounds of birds chirping, doesn't that mean there are birds near me? There are no creatures smaller than Minotaurs around this area. I take a deep gulp as I slowly turn my body around.

Upon turning around I find a bird that looks like a robin.

Well that’s if robins were three times taller than an average adult human and had six giant bright red eyes.

A breath moment of silence passes between me and the monstrous bird.

“I don’t suppose you’re friendly?”

The bird opens its beak wide and performs an extremely loud and high pitched shriek.

“I guess not.”

I immediately take flight and the bird gives chase.

It seems that while using wind magic I am capable of out pacing the bird with relative ease.

“Perhaps I can beat it.”

I look back towards the bird creature as it continues to chase after me.

Its movements were gradually slowing; it seems this creature lacks stamina.

I start to fly in reverse and begin to launch fireballs towards the robin. The fire balls hit the robin dead on. However it seems they prove completely ineffective, without even betting an eyelid it continues its charge towards me.

While rethinking my tactics the bird’s beak opens. Balls of fire start forming in front of its mouth.

“I've got a bad feeling about this…”

As suspected the balls of fire begin to launch themselves towards me in quick succession.

I try to avoid the fireballs, however due to the sheer quantity getting fired I fail to successfully avoid all of them. I close my eyes and brace for impact as my body gets engulfed in the flames.

“Huh..?”

I open my eyes moments later to find myself completely unharmed. Though the flames engulfed me no pain was felt. I could feel that the flames were definitely hot, but for some reason they did not seem to burn.

“I see.”

It appears I have a good amount of heat resistance just like this bird monster.

I wipe the sweat off my brow and release a sigh of relief. The bird continues to send fireballs one after another in my direction. It seems it hasn't realised that I am heat resistant, instead of trying to avoid the oncoming waves of flames I casually allow them to hit.

It’s a peculiar feeling; if I were to describe it, then perhaps it feels similar to a hot hair dryer but body size. The bird finally stops firing fireballs. We are currently both flying still in the air looking towards each other.

My fire magic doesn't work against it and its fire magic doesn't work against me.

“A stalemate.”

The bird looks exhausted and worried.

Could this bird specialise in magic?

“Perhaps.”

Though the bird looks quite large maybe it’s actually weak close combat. While I'm stuck in contemplation the bird starts to dart away from me as if in fear. It seems the role has reversed.

“The hunt is on.”

A familiar grin surfaces across my face as I give case to the monstrous bird.

It took little time for me to catch up to the fleeing bird monster. Without losing any momentum I tackle the bird into the ground with great force.

The bird monster seems to have stopped moving, I suppose the impact to the head was quite strong. I give one last punch directly to the head in case it was only concussed. I feel a small bone cracking sound under my fist and blood starts to collect around the birds head.

Upon the completion of killing the bird monster I proceed to eat my earnings.

Though the bird felt weaker than the Minotaur leader the meat was tastier. I guess that fire magic wasn't for show.

Upon eating the corpse like always I gain a sensation of my body becoming stronger.

“This really is convenient.”

If it wasn't for this ability to gain strength by consuming these monsters, I would still be hiding in the woods somewhere scared of the common Minotaur.

It feels so long ago it’s strange to think that it was only a couple days ago. Am I feeling nostalgic over stuff that happened not even a week ago?

“However this has raised a problem.”

Though I was lucky this time and the bird monster happened to be fatigued and weak to close combat, what if close combat had been its speciality.

What if I get stuck in an encounter with a monster which was not only strong in close combat, but was also heat resistant?

“Clearly my fireball wouldn't cut it.”

I need to learn to be more flexible in my magic. I haven’t touched on either earth or water magic yet. Can I even use water and earth magic?

“hmmm.”

If magic works on feeling rather than visualising then how would one feel the earth? I guess the earth under my feet is the first thing that comes to mind.

I close my eyes and try to imagine what it would be like for the earth to raise underneath me. Imagining almost being inside an elevator I focus on the momentary feelings of acceleration and weight loss as well as the pressure that would be felt on the soles of my feet.

Almost like a podium the earth rises underneath me.

“However.”

Though a success at earth magic, how was a podium supposed to defeat a monster?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Not only was the shape wrong, the rate at which it rose was also inadequate. If I want to damage a monster I need something like a spike to rise quickly skewering the enemy.

“Perhaps I'm being too ambitious.”

Though it didn't go exactly as planned I decided to persist further.

Next I imagine myself standing some distance away from where I am and the same phenomenon happening. I successfully raise the earth into a similar podium looking structure. Still unsatisfied I try to pay more attention to the pressure felt.

After many attempts I had finally managed to successfully create a spike.

“There is one major problem.”

Though after a great number of attempts I did manage to create the spike shape, it was much too slow.

There’s no way a monster would stand still as they see a spike slowly creep from the ground towards them. The amount of concentration required to make a spike far exceeds that of a simple podium or even a wall.

In fact I would say the wall I managed to successfully create is much more practical than the spike.

Unlike the spike the wall can be raised much quicker, not only that I also have more control over the tilt of the structure. Whereas the spike I could only make point straight upwards, with the wall I can tilt it as far as forty five degrees in any chosen direction.

“This could prove useful.”

Looking at the morphed landscape around I begin to re-evaluate my magical situation.

Though I have gained a useful defensive magic, my offensive magic has been at a standstill.

Abandoning the spike idea for now I begin to refocus my attention on my fireball spell. I can’t help but think that it was a little too weak. Even against the weakest creatures like Minotaurs, it can take as many as twenty shots to kill.

I conjure a fireball in front of me. I go through the various steps until a raging fireball is in front of me.

“It’s not enough.”

The reason why I couldn't make the flame any hotter was because there wasn't enough oxygen around it for it to consume. The flame has to wait until more oxygen replaces the oxygen consumed.

I stand looking at the flame for a few minutes until an answer comes to mind.

“It’s so obvious!”

I had been a fool! I was too busy thinking about altering the fire magic I didn't think about combining the fire magic with magic I already know.

“Wind magic is the solution!”

If the problem was that the fire wasn't getting access to enough oxygen all I needed to do was to direct more oxygen towards it.

I was already quite proficient in wind magic so I just needed to use wind magic to direct more air into the fire. Such a task should be quite simple for someone like me who’s accustomed to using wind magic to fly.

Though simple in theory it took a while before I could get the combination between wind and fire correct. It seemed that if I provide concentrate on wind magic making the air enter the flame I also need to then concentrate more on the flame consuming more oxygen.

In the end I managed to come up with two new fire spells.

“Well fire and wind spells technically.”

The first was a super powered version of the fire ball spell I had used previously. It simply channelled wind towards the flame and had the flame consume more oxygen progressively. It continued for about five seconds until the flame became hot enough to turn blue. I then fire the flame very quickly towards the target so the air consumption doesn't falter.

The second was something like a flame thrower. Using the wind magic I create something like a miniature cyclone from my hands. I simply use fire magic inside the cyclone and have the fire magic consume the oxygen accordingly.

The technique can be sustained as long as I have mana reserves. Though very mana hungry the flame thrower should cause devastating damage in close combat.

I look towards the scorched and morphed landscape around me and feel satisfied that my experimentation had been quite successful.

“But, damn am I hungry!”

I fly into the air and quickly search for a nearby Minotaur herd. After quickly finding a Minotaur herd walking near a river not far away, I quickly dive over to the Minotaur leader.

Needless to say they were quite surprised by my sudden arrival.

I immediately begin scorching the nearby Minotaur leader and company with the new flame thrower spell. It proved very effective, after some time the whole herd was killed. The smell of cooked beef floats in the air causing my saliva to collect inside my mouth.

“I'm going to enjoy this meal.”

I eat all the Minotaurs in the nearby area. However to my surprise the cooked meat didn't taste any better than it would've uncooked. Though it did taste different and familiar it hadn't the same zing that the giant robin had.

“Perhaps my taste pallet has changed somewhat.”

I look towards the already dark sky. It appears that I had quite the active day today. I don’t think I will be able to find the tree in these light conditions.

Since I don’t feel too safe going to sleep somewhere so low down, I use my earth magic to create something like an open top hut. Now raised from the ground with some walls protecting me I at least felt slightly more secure.

Exhausted from the long day I swiftly enter my slumber.