I made a rule for myself early on: never fix anything when someone's watching.
It wasn't fear, exactly. It was just… I didn't have a good explanation.
There were no manuals, no rituals, no glowing staves or magic words. No one had taught me how to do what I could do—not even the so-called god who reincarnated me. I just knew that if I touched the right material and pictured the right thing, I could mold it like clay and reinforce it with the soft, humming power that ran beneath my skin.
But people in this world weren't dumb. They might not have my knowledge, but they had common sense. If a baby could fix a cracked axle better than a trained carpenter, people would ask questions.
So I fixed things in secret.
The first time was with old Herrel's cart.
He was a thin, leathery man with missing teeth and a face like weathered bark. His cart had one wheel warped and listing hard to the left, a death sentence for any load heavier than a bale of hay. One day the wheel cracked entirely, and Herrel started cursing up a storm, ready to burn the thing.
"I ain't fixin' it again," he muttered, kicking the broken spokes. "Damn thing's cursed. Twice I've fixed that wheel, twice it's broke."
I toddled over and pointed to the axle, feigning childish interest. Herrel chuckled. "Eh? You want it? What's a baby gonna do, chew on the wood?"
I gave my best blank baby stare and said something that vaguely resembled a "yes."
He left the cart beside the goat pen and walked off.
That night, once the village had quieted and my parents were asleep, I snuck out. Or rather, I stumbled and crawled out. I wasn't fast yet, but I was determined.
I dragged the axle behind the shed and activated the system.
[Material Absorbed: Rotten Wood (x2)]
[Structural Integrity: Poor. Mana Conductivity: None.]
[Suggestion: Reinforce with fibrous additive.]
I chewed on a piece of dried straw and split it into fibers with a sharpened nail, then packed the strands around the axle's break. I layered bark slivers like veneers, infused them with mana, and sealed the structure with compacted dirt laced with more straw and a pinch of iron dust from the old smithy's floor.
[Project Mode: Axle Reinforcement]
[Resulting Object: Reinforced Wheel Hub (Basic)]
[Durability: Acceptable]
[Maintenance Interval: 3 seasons]
It wasn't pretty, but it would hold.
I returned the axle before dawn. Herrel grunted when he saw it the next day, scratched his head, muttered something about "the gods testing his memory," and reattached it.
He never asked how it got fixed.
Over the next few months, I built a reputation—not as a miracle-worker, but as a quiet child with an uncanny eye.
"Kleo pointed to the leak," my mother would say. "He kept staring at the roof tile until I checked it—sure enough, cracked."
"Found the broken beam under the floor," my father once muttered. "I don't know how he noticed it. Not a creak to be heard."
I let them believe whatever they wanted.
All I knew was, if I could help without drawing suspicion, I would.
My real work happened in the small lean-to behind our house.
It was barely more than a roof of nailed planks and some patched canvas, propped up beside the chicken coop. But it was mine. I kept my "tools" there—splinters, stones, scraps of tin and bone and old twine—and worked under cover whenever I had time and no watchers.
I started small.
A spoon for my little brother, Brian, who kept chewing through his old one. A straw-wrapped bowl that wouldn't crack when dropped. A bucket pulley that could lift with half the normal effort.
[Project Complete: Counterweighted Pulley (Basic)]
[Efficiency Increase: +42%]
[Mana Infusion: Passive, Low Draw]
Bit by bit, I explored what the system would let me do. It didn't guide me exactly—it responded. When I understood mechanics, the menu opened up. When I didn't, it stayed quiet. No matter how hard I stared, it wouldn't design things for me. But it would let me design.
It was like having a 3D printer powered by willpower and a physics engine fueled by magic.
But everything cost mana.
And the more I did, the more I realized I couldn't draw from thin air, but i could manipulate it wherever it was.
One afternoon, while adjusting a rusted hinge I'd scavenged, I felt a pulling sensation in my chest. I had just used a bit too much reinforcement for a bolt I didn't really need to perfect.
[Mana Core Stress: 68%]
[Symptoms: Fatigue, Headache, Nausea]
I collapsed behind the shed.
By the time I dragged myself back inside, I was pale, dizzy, and cold all over. My mother wrapped me in a blanket and blamed it on "sensitive digestion," something I'd trained her to believe by pretending to gag on porridge the week before.
I recovered overnight, but I made a note:
Mana is real. Mana has limits. Mana pushes back.
So I began experimenting in earnest.
I collected samples: stones from the riverbed, charcoal from the smithy's forge, sand mixed with iron flakes. I tried reinforcing bones, softening clay, and compressing raw earth into geometric bricks.
I built a small windcatcher blade that spun when mounted to a stick—simple, but it taught me a lot.
[Project Complete: Air-Capture Rotor (Primitive)]
[Rotation Efficiency: Low]
[Mana Draw: Passive, Trace]
Could I make motion?
Real, independent movement?
That became my new goal.
Lisette visited often.
She was older—almost seven now—and always full of questions.
"You're always behind the coop," she said once, catching me scribbling diagrams in the dirt. "Are you drawing worms?"
"No," I said. "I'm planning."
"For what?"
"Fixing things."
She giggled. "You always say that."
She brought me wildflowers, little charms, and sometimes leftover bread from her house. Her family weren't serfs like mine—they were commoners, which meant her brother had a chance of becoming a wizard if he passed the test when he turned six.
"Magic runs in our blood," she said proudly. "We're descended from an old line."
I didn't say anything. I wasn't sure what I was descended from anymore.
One evening, after a shared slice of dried fruit, Lisette mentioned something new.
"My brother's going to the academy next year," she said.
"Academy?"
She looked surprised. "You don't know?"
I shook my head.
"It's where they send people with magic. If you're a sorcerer or a wizard or even a knight-in-training, you go there when you're twelve. They teach you to control your power, or cast spells, or fight monsters."
I stared.
"Do serfs go?" I asked.
She frowned. "Not really. Unless you get really lucky. But… I don't know. You're weird. You might get in."
I smiled faintly. "Thanks."
She leaned in. "Don't tell anyone, but I think you're magic. You're always looking at broken things, and they stop being broken. That's not normal."
My stomach twisted. I changed the subject.
That night, I started working on something new.
An automaton core. Nothing fancy—just a rotating arm. It would sit on a base and spin when infused with mana. It wouldn't serve any purpose… except to prove that I could make motion without direct input besides mana.
It took me three weeks of nightly work.
I used beetle shells for the casing, clay for insulation, and a coiled strip of smoothed iron to hold kinetic charge. When I finally set it on the floor and activated it, it whirred once, sputtered—and began to spin, slowly, evenly, smoothly.
[Project Complete: Crude Automaton Joint (Type A)]
[Activation: Mana Pulse Detected]
[Sustained Motion: 11 seconds]
[Potential Applications: Rotational Power, Limb Articulation, Remote Triggers]
I sat back, breathless.
It worked.
It actually worked.
One Year Later
I was four and a half now.
People thought I was just a quiet boy with good instincts.
They didn't know about the pulley system I'd installed in the barn rafters to help my father lift heavy barrels. They didn't know the sharpening stone that never wore down was one I'd remade using mana-infused basalt. They didn't know the latch on the chicken coop had been replaced three times—always overnight, always better.
My parents still thought I had a funny way of noticing things. My mother called it a "craftsman's eye."
She wasn't wrong.
Lisette passed the mana assessment and was deemed a sorcerer. Her parents were overjoyed and immediately hired a tutor to prepare her for the academy.
She was also learning her letters now. She liked to tell me about them like she was a teacher and I was her favorite student. I pretended to be impressed. I liked her company.
Her brother had passed his test.
He was going to the academy next spring.
I wondered if I'd ever go. I don't even know if I wanted to. Sure, it would be pretty cool going to a fantasy world academy or whatever but… I was growing fond of my family here. And considering our status I doubt i would be able to visit them much.