"I am hungry."
Years had passed since I started my new life in this world.
I was turning three.
I spent all my time training my mana since I hadn't done it during my baby phase.
As a result, I came to understand a couple things.
There seemed to be two types of mana. The one that existed inside the body (inner mana), and the one outside the body (outer mana). [1]
Apparently, the air also contained mana.
I could inhale outer mana with my mouth and fuse it with my inner mana.
Ever since I noticed that, I tried to fuse the two types of mana in my lower core, and controlled it so it would spread throughout my body.
Thanks to that, I became able to smoothly refine my mana.
However, I had one problem.
The fact that I couldn't use magic yet.
Apparently, the magic that my mother used couldn't be practiced unless I went to the "church".
When a child had grown up to some extent, they would be brought to the church and received a ceremony.
After that, they would be able to use simple life magic such as 'Illuminate', 'ignite', and 'clean water'.
Meaning, I wouldn't be able to use magic unless I went to the church.
Thanks to that, my parents weren't be able to teach me magic even if I asked them, since they could only use life magic.
However, that didn't mean I was giving up.
Sure, I wanted to use magic as soon as possible. But perhaps, it was also due to my self-consciousness that had existed since I was too young to move around.
Also, I had a lot of free time.
I did it all over again with trial and error, wondering if I could use magic somehow.
After I was able to speak, I desperately kept trying to see if magic could be activated by muttering the proper words.
And finally, I started to feel a response lately.
The trigger was when I went out to the field.
***
The house I was reincarnated in was by no mean wealthy.
Rather, I could easily say that we were poor.
I had this thought when I was looking around this house since I was a baby, that I was born to a farmer household, and lived in this worn out house.
Everyday, we were doing everyday tasks in the same tattered clothes and grew wheat in the fields to earn a living.
However, since most of the crops that we grew were collected as tax, the things that we could eat daily were very few.
I had never seen an occasion where we were eating until full.
I left the worn out house and went out to the field since I was too hungry.
However, how sad I was.
There was nothing that I could eat right away.
However, I didn't give up just because there was nothing to eat.
I decided to grow the crops myself, since I was fine with anything as long as I could eat.
I took a space for myself at the edge of the field at the back of my house.
Crouching down and placing my small hands on the ground, I closed my eyes.
I took a deep breath and exhaled.
Intending to replace all the air inside me, I took a deep breath again and directed my consciousness to the core of my body.
The inhaled outer mana was slowly, but steadily fused together, being refined.
That mana, which had thoroughly refined in my lower core, was now raised to my heart, and spreading out to my head, arms, and legs.
The spread out mana finally managed to reach every tip of my body, and returned back to my core.
Carefully, I started to slowly but adeptly flow my mana without a break.
And repeated it many times.
Just how many times did I take a deep breath already?
The accumulated mana in my core had increased so much that it had nowhere to go.
This time, I directed it towards my palms, which were now placed on the ground.
Mana that existed in the air was just like an invisible gas, like oxygen.
However, the refined mana in my body had transformed into something like thick liquid.
Though I said that, it wasn't exactly a liquid since it didn't drip off from my hands.
Still, the mana was absorbed into the soil through my palms.
That refined mana was spreading out and assimilating into the soil.
Calm down.
I can't lose concentration here.
I told myself.
Last time, I had done it up until this point.
And I sensed a response to my magic around this phase.
However, it ended up in failure.
I guessed that the cause of my failure was due to me losing concentration at this phase last time.
Life magic given by the church seemed to be easily used by casting spells.
As I held that impression in my mind, I assumed that I failed at casting the proper word for the spell.
The mana that I had been painstakingly refined was absorbed into the soil and dispersed in a blink of an eye.
After reflecting on myself, I didn't cast the spell carelessly this time.
Just like how I refined my mana, having an image was important.
In my previous life, I used to help my grandma who lived in the countryside with the field work.
I was the so-called part-time farmer. And although I had other jobs, I still remembered seeing fertilizers on various sized fields and rice fields.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that the fundamental of a field was the quality of the soil.
A rich soil, which was soft, fluffy, and slightly warm to the touch.
The field I stood in now was by no means having a good soil.
Rather, it made me wonder if this was truly a field owned by a farmer household.
Maybe they only cultivated the soil within the bare minimum of which vegetables could be raised, just by removing stones that got in the way.
And perhaps, there wasn't any agricultural technology that could be compared to the 21st century.
It wasn't strange for having those thoughts.
There wasn't such things like machines, even when life magic in a small range of effects existed.
Facing such a field, I recalled the field where my grandma was growing vegetables and imagined the soil.
A dark soil which contained all-purpose fertilizer, that could be used for most vegetables. The most commonly used field.
A soft, well-cultivated field, which had all its weeds removed, and had ridges for drainage and proper sunlight.
Imagining that kind of field, I poured my mana into the soil.
How much time had passed?
I couldn't tell precisely.
However, I felt like I had crouched down on the field with my eyes closed for such a long time, that I felt my throat getting dry.
Opening my eyes, I couldn't think of anything further after consuming all the mana inside my body.
Only a few meters rectangle in one section of the field had changed in appearance.
It had transformed to a completely different state from the rest of the soil, as the space was filled with three ridges of rich soil.
With that, I succeeded in my first magic.
T/N
[1] I made up the "inner" and "outer" thing, since it would be weird to call them "inside body mana" and "outside body mana". And also, they're a lot shorter.