Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t exactly obese or anything, but ever since I left college I had always been a little on the larger side, with love handles for days. Though I preferred to say I was cuddleable rather than chubby. Now however, there was barely any fat left on my body. I was as thin and wispy as a stick, with the kind of 6 pack you see on someone suffering from severe dehydration. On one hand, I was happy to have finally shed those few extra pounds to look better, but on the other hand, I was now stuck in the middle of a forest, and that fat was an extra energy source to help me survive a little longer without food.
“I was wondering when you would notice the change in your appearance. Check your reflection in the river.”
I did as she suggested and looked. My face had always been one of those odd ones where if I grew out my facial hair, I looked to be in my late 30s, whereas when I was clean shaven, I looked to be in my teens. Now however, the missing fat from my body had also disappeared from my face, causing me to lose my babyish features and somehow both younger and decidedly masculine, the face of a man undoubtedly approaching mid 20s. My hair, which was always somewhat messy, had also seemed to grow significantly longer, almost reaching my shoulders. I looked good, but in a bad way. As though I had just overcome a terrible illness and needed to spend some time getting back into fighting shape.
“Remember that this world exists in the same 3 dimensional space as your old one, but twisted away by magic. In order for you to exist here, I either had to remove your soul and put it in the body of someone else here, or spend about a year gradually attuning your body to magic. I figured you would find it uncomfortable to try to completely take over someone else’s life, so I opted for the second choice. I regularly used magic to stimulate your muscles so that they wouldn’t atrophy too much, but that also caused you to burn through all of the fat you had previously possessed.”
“Hold up, so you’re telling me that I was asleep for a year?! Dang, where was I that entire time? Were we just chilling in my room until you finally managed to attune me or whatever?”
A chuckle escaped from Sophia as she answered, “Not at all. I created a subspace not part of any world, and used that as the medium to gradually attune you to mana.”
My eyes lit up, “Yooooo, space magic. That sounds convenient as hell. I’mma definitely try some out later. Unlimited storage, teleportation, the possibilities..”
“Space magic is notoriously difficult to use. While your past life on your Earth certainly makes the visualization easier for you, you do not yet possess nearly enough mana to use it. The concept of space is inherently tied to the concept of stability, so in order to manipulate it, you must first possess enough mana to break past that barrier of stability. And even then, using space magic poses several risks, such as accidentally separating things into two separate spaces, thereby destroying them, causing a shattered space where anyone who approaches gets banished into an infinite void of nothingness, Or connecting to a place with an inhospitable environment, causing it to bleed into where you are. For example, connecting to hell and having an ocean of flame pour out and engulf the world.”
I gulped, thinking about all the potential consequences provided. “Okay then, no space magic until I’m strong enough to fix any potential fuckups aye.”
I decided to put space magic out of my mind for now and focus on why I came to the river in the first place. I need a way to purify this water. I finish taking my shirt off, and hang it on a tree branch while I sit and relax. I’m going to need my full mana capacity to do what I plan to do. After a couple hours pass, I feel a sense of completeness I hadn’t expected. Like I was a car that had been running on empty and now I had a full tank of gas. Understanding that I now had all of my mana back, I got to work.
The first thing I needed was a way to store the water. It would absolutely suck if I went through all of the steps to purify it, then ended up letting it splash back into the river or on the ground as I ran out of mana with nowhere to put it. I bent down, and filled my pocket with a large amount of sand. I then made my way over to a thick tree branch and pulled out the sand I had gathered. I used my mana to pick it up, and start rotating it as fast and as straight as I possibly could. The end result was a circular saw made of sand, and I quickly pushed it into the branch. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to keep this spell running, so I didn’t stop to admire my work. After about 45 seconds had passed, I had only made it through about a third of the branch, and my mana was going to run out soon, so I took a few seconds to slow the sand down to a safe speed, then had it return to my pocket.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
About 50 seconds was my new maximum time for a spell. Almost double my previous record. Between the slightly increased efficiency and the expanded mana pool, I was definitely making real progress. The visualization I had used for this spell wasn’t anything too interesting. Rather than considering the concept of sand, I had just pictured a sanding tool often used in woodworking to smooth out projects. It wasn’t the most efficient way to completely cut through wood, but considering my lack of other tools, it would have to do. I spent another hour in meditation, going over the spell in my head and mentally refining both my mana usage and my visualization.
On my second attempt at the branch, there was a noticeable difference. The increase in mana efficiency was negligible, but the saw itself saw a marked improvement. This time I had managed to carve out an entire half of the branch, leaving only 1/6th of it to attach it to the tree trunk. I tried to push and make it snap off under its weight but unfortunately it was still solidly attached. Oh well, I would still have to use the saw about three more times anyway, so I sat back and relaxed for another hour.
While looking for the river I had spent about 5 hours walking around, and 3 more had already passed while trying to cut off this tree branch. Needless to say, the sun had begun setting by now, and my visibility was soon to become nonexistent. Before that became a problem, I gathered some nearby sticks and leaves, then surrounded it with a ring of river stones to create a makeshift fire pit. I then used magic to light it, instantly spreading a sense of security over the area. Once I had enough mana again I went back to the branch, and finished sawing it off of the trunk. I then laid it down and used a rock to mark two additional cuts. One to split off a piece I would then fashion into a makeshift pot, and the other I would take my time slowly carving into a bow. By this point, my ability to use the saw was good enough to make the first of the cuts in one go.
Now that I had the piece that would become a pot/large bowl, I prioritized the ability to gather water over the ability to hunt, sat down with my piece of log and a particularly rough rock I had found, and spent some time stripping it of all bark, to give it a clean appearance. I then roughly carved out an indentation on the top face of the crudely carved log, placed some of the bark and leaves inside of it for kindling, then took some embers out of the fire and placed it on top. This way, the fire would do most of the work, burning out a hole inside of the log, so I wouldn’t have to hollow it out by hand.
“A question: Why does it seem like you know what you’re doing? From what I know, you lived in a world where none of this was necessary, as mankind had already tamed much of Earth, creating a society where you did not need to do these sorts of tasks.”
Given that all I had to do at this point was tend the small fire inside of the log, making sure it didn’t spread too far outwards and stayed strong enough to hollow it out, I was able to afford a bit of distraction, so I answered.
“When I ran away from home, I was kinda done with people, so for a while there, I just kinda fucked off into the woods, surviving like this day to day. It was ridiculously inconsistent though, so I eventually made my way towards a city where I could scrounge food and whatnot, and never had to worry about finding a clean water source, but still, I would frequently look back on that time in my life and think about ways I could’ve done it better, or more conveniently. My ex-wife also introduced me to a bunch of videos of people doing this kind of stuff so I ended up seeing ideas other people had come up with and tried.”
Sophia then became silent, and I continued my work. After the fire reached a little more than halfway down, I extinguished it, then dumped the log in the river to cool down the embers. I then grabbed the rough rock and spent a few more hours grinding out the sides and bottom to make the bowl as wide and deep as I could, without accidentally making it fragile. Once I finished, I placed it next to the fire to dry out the wood, and collapsed in exhaustion.
When I awoke, it was dark. I had apparently slept through sunrise as well as the entire day, bringing night back around. Given that it’s not like I was scheduled to be anywhere, I merely shrugged and went to finish getting water. I grabbed my shirt off of the branch I had placed it on, then took my new bowl to the edge of the river. I laid the shirt overtop of the lip of the bowl so that it was completely covered, then dipped the lip into the river. The shirt filtered out any potential unseen contaminates in the water, leaving only the risk of bacteria. I then brought the bowl back by the long dead campfire, poured mana into the water, and recalled everything I knew about heat transfer. After a dozen seconds or so, the water began bubbling, and I knew it was hot enough. I then did the same thing again but pictured the heat escaping from the water into the surrounding atmosphere. After another half minute, the water was so cold that I could see ice begin forming on the surface. I then stopped, looked up at the sky, and grinned.
“Voila, one order of fantasy world refrigerated water!”