I walked through the woods with my arms crossed over my chest. My forehead was furrowed into a frown and although one might say I looked angry I was actually just deep in thought. The late summer sun warmed my back as I stepped through the trees, avoiding bushes and large rocks in an absentminded manner. All the animals of the mountains at this point had either left the territory or had learned to just live with my presence. I wasn't worried about stepping on them by now which I was thankful to have off my mind.

There was going to be a big party in my honor you see, something I was actually kinda dreading. For whatever reason I'm not the social butterfly type. Something from my previous life I remember that seems to still apply to me. I had come up into the mountains to spend some time writing and practicing a bit of magic to clear my head and prepare myself for the whole ordeal. The village was obviously doing it to celebrate me and I shouldn't be all timid or nervous during it.

I walk up to the river where I was getting all the mud for the tablets. I hadn't been here in a while and the other tablets I had left here were still laying where I had left them. These were only blank ones though, as I had brought all the ones with writing on them back to the village already. Right now I wanted to write down some ideas for infrastructure in the village.

"Well lets re-wet these and get started" I said walking over to the river.

Using my hands I scooped up some cold water from the river and brought it over to some of the tablets. Carefully I washed the top of one of the tablets and let the water soak in. This allowed the clay to soften again enough for a tree pen to write letters on the surface. I repeated this process enough times to get two tablets ready for writing. I then grabbed a nearby fallen tree and snapped the ends enough to make it a writing utensil.

"Lets get started with plumbing." I said aloud to myself. "I suppose the first thing to do is figure out the method of getting water into the village."

I put the pen on the tablet and tapped it up and down in thought. Obviously pipes would the best option, but those required much more metal than was possible to get in one place and forge at the moment. I remember that some cultures had stone or wood pipes, not sure how exactly sanitary those were though. At the top of the tablet I wrote down these ideas of building material.

A water wheel at the river would be the best option for getting water into the system. Water pumps required power to operate and- Hey! Well a waterwheel could generate electricity. All I would need to do is remember out how those worked.

"Too complicated. What about aqueducts?"

I sighed to myself. Those would take a lot of material too. But they would be easier than pipes. Maybe water wheel and aqueducts combined. The waterwheel would also be able to be used for electricity. I held my forehead in my hands and closed my eyes.

"How did those damn things worked? Please father help me remember."

From what glimpses I can remember I knew the spinning had something to do with it. Something inside spinning around making the electricity. Started with an M. Magnets! Yes! There was a big magnet inside that was wrapped in a metal, a brown one. Copper then. That somehow made the electricity because of the magnet pushing on the metal.

I wrote down all this information on the second tablet and made a diagram of it. At the top of the first one I wrote "water system" and the second one I put "power system." Then I thought about how to best expand the systems from there.

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After what seemed like a few hours I sat up from the tablets. I had filled out two tablets for each of these systems by now. Written information, building materials, diagrams, maps of the village and surrounding area. This was all great and I felt a sense of accomplishment. Whether or not these ideas would come to fruition I didn't know, but I planned to do my best to make them a reality to raise the standard of living for these people.

"My hand kinda hurts." I said touching my left wrist.

I was left handed of course, something I had just noticed with any significance. It was rare from what I remember, sometimes even claimed to be a sign of a curse. Silly superstition and nothing else. If anything it made me special is what I say.

After putting the tree pen aside I stood up and stretched with a little squeal. My arms going all the way up into the air and my body sort of twisting around. I rolled my shoulders to loosen them up and stretched out my legs too.

"Dang. I was sitting down for awhile huh?"

I looked around and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Maybe I can do a little magic practice before heading back. And I mean a little. I don't want a repeat of last time."

Closing my eyes I examine my inner heads up display and take note of my mana bar. It seemed pretty close to full so I could do a bit of magic. Leaving the tablets to dry I walk a short distance away into the mountain forest and flex my hands.

"Time to try something really cool. Levitation!"

I open my eyes and look at a nearby rock. It wasn't a big one, maybe as big as my fist. I realize that makes it a pretty big boulder for humans, but for me it was as big as my fist.

Anyway my goal was to lift it up using only the power of my mind. That's a neat magic trick I remember existing since the beginning of time itself. If I can do that then it would be an amazing power to have at my disposal. Its pretty good for playing pranks too but that's not why I would want it. I'll have to keep a close eye on my mana meter during this too.

I focus my gaze in on the rock and imagine it floating up into the air. Slowly I raise my arm and hold my hand out towards the rock. I try to picture my energy flowing through my arm and out my palm, flowing through the air and into the rock.

"Up rock!" I say aloud. "Go rock go!"

Nothing happens and I drop my arm in frustration. With a quick glance at my mana meter I notice that its a little bit lower than it was before. Cor! That means it is working. I'm just doing something wrong. I lift my arm up again and hold out my hand. This time I close my eyes, keeping an imagine of what the scene is alive in my minds eye. I take a deep breath and concentrate, imagining the rock floating up into the air.

I wait several moments and then open my eyes to look at the rock. It was hovering in the air! It was actually floating!

"Hot damn!"

My exclamation of celebration totally devastated my concentration of course and the rock fell down onto the ground with a deep thump. I calmed myself and looked at my mana bar. It seemed a little bit came off, but not very much. I'll try the trick once more but then move on to something else. I cant do too much magic until I figure out how to expand my mana bar, which probably has something to do with how many worshipers I have.

I leave my eyes open this time and try to focus on lifting the rock again. I hold my breath again and my field of vision closes on the rock. Slowly but surely it starts to lift off the ground. My eyes go wide and I struggle to not get excited again. My heart is racing in my chest but I take measured and slow breaths to calm myself as best I can.

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Slowly the rock lifts higher into the air, little by little it spins like a leaf in a river. The higher it goes in the air the more strain I feel, like I'm actually lifting it with my body. I decide to bring it back down and focus on that. Halfway down I get too tired and it slips out of my grip, falling to the rest of the way to the ground with a thump.

Well that used a bit more of my mana but it was a success. I know that the more worshipers I have the more magical feats I'll be capable of. I stand up straight and take a deep breath. I feel proud of my accomplishments. I bet all the wizards of this world who had masters to learn under would laugh at what me, a supposed goddess, am capable of. Well I bet not all wizards had teachers in this world and here I am teaching myself how it all works. Any would be so called spell slinging snobs should just wait until I have a big enough powerbase to show them what a goddess is really capable of!

My imagination went wild with the thoughts of controlling the weather, causing earthquakes, making it rain food, and teleporting around the world to stop evil wherever it reared its ugly head. Maybe I'll be some kind of superhero goddess and stop crime? Who knows at this point.

I shake my head and focus on the here and now. I'm a goddess of a village and have people to take care of. Any magic I learn will be to their benefit, not some world saving fantasy of mine. Well at least for now anyway. As my powerbase expands and my territory with it I'm sure I'll have more expansive problems to solve. Those will require more complex and nuanced solutions and magical powers will be a big boon for such endeavors.

"Damn my inner monologue is wordy sometimes."

I guess its actually verbose, but there I am doing it again. Whatever reason I'm this affluent in dialogue must have something to do with my previous life. What was I? A scholar or something? Whatever. It doesn't seem to effect my spoken speech much at least, probably because I'm so nervous I'm tripping over my own tongue.

Looking up at the sun I see its midday already. I should probably head back to the village soon. I'll spend like an hour more practicing with my magic and then head back there. Nothing too big or fancy though. I wont allow my mana bar to drop below fifty percent, that seems like a good number, the halfway point.

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After about an hour of magic practice I began to feel it. I was getting very tired. To be honest I barely did any magic during that hour because I had to sit down for breaks quite often. It felt bad to only be able to do such tiny spells and see such impacts on my mana meter. Most the hour was spent figuring out possible elements and testing to see if I could get them to exist in some manner in my hand. So far I got quite a lot of them and had gone back to add them to a tablet.

What elements were there in this world? Well so far I identified: water, fire, wind, earth, ice, stone, plasma, darkness, light, electricity, plant, and sound. There were also some to be speculated or assumed such as metal, poison, ether, and anima. Anima being life energy of course and ether being the realm of souls. Aether is another one I can think of but that's like space magic. Pretty wild stuff to be honest.

Really the definition of any magic being elemental or simply a type is an argument I wasn't willing to get into with myself much less anyone else. Magic is magic. Its literally whatever you imagine it to be. That's the whole point. If I could remember the fundamental forces of the universe those would probably be the literal only "pure" elements or whatever. It really isn't worth the brainpower or hassle to decide what is and what isn't an element of magic.

"Magic. Soon I'll be an expect just you wait world!"

Well with this practice in hand I felt pretty good about myself for the day. Time to head back to the village and check out this celebration thing. First I walk over to my tablets and give them a final look over to see if they were drying nicely. They were still pretty soft but it had only been like an hour for some of it. I'll come back later after the party to pick them up. I'm actually sad they cant be read by the villagers because spreading knowledge is going to be my biggest goals in the upcoming years.

"Well off to the village!"

I turn to walk away when I suddenly pause. Something felt wrong. What was it?

I close my eyes on focus on my internal display. It felt like there was a presence somewhere nearby. Mayhaps it was time to test my theory about sensing non worshipers and animals. If the element anima truly exists here, which it certainly does, surely I'll be able to sense it. It might take a bit of mana but I'll try doing a scan of sorts of area.

With deliberate imagery I picture a green scan bar sweeping the area around me.

"Beep. Beep. Beep."

The audible beeping was to help sell the effect for myself moreso than as some verbal spell component. To my delight and somewhat surprise as well some things showed up on my internal map. Small blips of life in the trees, birds to be sure, as well as something within the rocks a short distance away. It was bigger than a small animal but smaller than a big animal. Was it a person?

"Hello? Is someone there?"

I start walking towards the signal and with my eyes open can see its within the large rock faces and small cliff of stone nearby. As I walk closer I can see the rocks shifting about a slight bit and smaller stones jumping about.

"Shit!"

If someone or some animal was stuck down there in the rocks my earthquake footsteps could shift the rocks and crush them flat in an instant! But how am I supposed to help if I can't walk closer?

"Hey!" I call out. "Is someone over there?"

A small panicked voice comes back. Deep, male, middle aged, human.

"N-No please! D-Don't come any closer! I don't want to be a sacrifice!"

What in the world? Is this guy not from the village or something? I know the people of the world had a negative view of goddesses but what did he think I was going to do? Eat him?

"Listen dude" I reply curtly. "We both know you're in deeper than you can save yourself from. I understand I'm the only goddess you've ever seen or heard of before but I am actually trying to help you here."

There was the sound of scraping on rocks, clearly him trying to climb out of the crevice he was in. He was unsuccessful. His timid voice came back.

"Listen g-goddess. Y-Your footsteps are shaking the stone and causing it... You're going to cause it to crush me!"

Yeah I figured that much out already. There had to be some solution, I was a goddess for goodness sake.

"I'll figure something out" I said. "You just sit tight." I blink. "Sorry right. Bad phrasing."

I put my hand to my chin and closed my eyes. What could I do to reach him without walking closer? Maybe one of the elements I could use now would hold the solution. Water or wind? No. I'm not going to get him out with lightning either. If only I had a long rope I could- That's it! If I could get a vine over there...

"Alright I'm going to get you out of there. I got something."

The man shouted back at me. "W-What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to do the best I can" I replied.

I slowly bent down onto the ground and placed my palm on the dirt. I then closed my eyes and focused on the life within. I found the seed of some plant and gave it some mana, forcing it to grow and twist into a vine. I then caused it to grow along the ground towards the rocks where the man was stuck. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the vine kept going until it made it to the crack he was down.

"I'm lowering a vine down" I said. "I want you to grab it and not let go ok?"

He called back his confirmation as I made the vine grow down into the crack. I felt it go tense and then made the vine pull back on itself, sort of taking my mana back from it and causing it to grow in reverse. Soon it was retracted back onto the surface of the rock face and I opened my eyes to look up. There was the man laying on the stone and breathing heavy, still gripping the vine in a death grip.

"Well well" I said more to myself than him. "Looks like my little plan worked out after all."

I walked over to where he was laying, the cliff only being waist height to me leaving me to loom quite high in the sky over him. Looking down at him I tried to look as friendly as possible but it was clear he was terrified of me.

"S-Stay back! P-Please." he said as he sat up and scooted backwards.

"I'm not gunna hurt you" I replied leaning down a bit. "Just calm down ok? You almost died just now. You're lucky I came along otherwise you would have died in there."

The man looked down gulped. He was avoiding eye contact but that was fine. "T-Thank you for saving me. Are you really a goddess?"

"I sure am. Goddess Jenna at your service." I did a little bow. "You're welcome too. You must not be from around here."

The man shook his head.

I then take a step back. "Well can you make it home safely from here? You must be from that other village."

"Yes I can" he said. "And no. I'm out here hunting from a nearby town."

I nod my head with my eyes closed. "Mhmm well be safe getting home then."

I then freeze and look straight ahead wide eyed in shock. A nearby town? I'm gunna get my territory expanding farther then I thought. After a moment I take the look of shock off my face and sigh to myself. No I wont. No one is going to believe him about me. Well whatever that's fine.

"Is something wrong?" the man asked.

I shake my head. "Not at all. Now like I said: be safe getting home ok little guy?"

With that I turn and start walking away, my footsteps shaking him around on the rock face he was sitting on as I turn. That had cost me a decent chunk of mana, but at least I was still over forty-five percent. It was worth it in the end though, I had saved a human life. As I walked through the forest I felt a joy rising up in my chest, I had actually made a difference today using magic.

As I walked I did wonder, what was that man doing up here alone? The thought quickly faded from my mind though as I shifted my focus to what this celebration was going to be like.