The relentless wail of a newborn echoed through the cramped farmhouse. My mother had just given birth. I sat on the woven rug near the hearth with my legs crossed, watching the chaos unfold in our living room.
Usually, our house was just loud. Today, it was packed.
Mom rested in the large bed in the corner. She looked completely exhausted but happy. Wrapped in a bundle of thick woolen blankets in her arms was the newest addition to the family, my baby brother, Remydas.
"Strong lungs on this guy," a booming voice declared.
It belonged to Rynded, my paternal grandfather. He was basically an older, wider version of Dad. He had a wiry beard and hands so calloused they could probably deflect arrows. He came from a neighboring village to see the birth. He looked incredibly pleased as he stood over the bed.
"Good, sturdy Mudborn stock. He'll be pulling a plow by his tenth winter, Reynan."
"Let's let him learn to walk first, Dad," Reynan chuckled nervously. He hovered near Mom with a cup of water. He looked like he hadn't slept in three days, and honestly, he probably hadn't.
"Oh, he is just precious, Lena," Aunt Laika cooed. She leaned over Mom's shoulder.
Laika was Mom's younger sister. She had the same brown hair and warm eyes, but she lacked Mom's tired, veteran-parent aura. Laika had just gotten married a few months prior, and she definitely still had that newlywed energy.
Beside her stood her husband, Uncle Purth. He was a tall, gangly man who looked like he was constantly afraid of knocking something over.
"Look at his little hands, Purth," Laika said. She reached back and pulled her husband closer by his tunic. "We need to pray to the Goddess tonight. I want one just like him."
Purth blushed deep red. He shifted from foot to foot under Grandpa Rynded's sudden glare. "Y-yes, dear. Whenever the Goddess sees fit to bless us."
I figured they'd be having one of their own soon enough. Purth's awkwardness was pretty funny to watch.
While the adults crowded around the new baby, I noticed my sister sulking by the dining table. Lianne was almost five years old now. She had her arms crossed so tightly over her chest she looked like she was trying to strangle herself. She stuck her lower lip out in a massive pout.
Ralph had been trying to peek at the baby through the wall of adults. He noticed her sulking and poked her arm. "What's wrong with you? Don't you want to see Remydas?"
"No," Lianne huffed. She turned her back to him.
Grandpa Rynded turned around and raised his bushy eyebrows. "What's this? Little Lianne doesn't want to greet her new brother?"
"I don't want a brother," Lianne declared. She stomped her foot. "I wanted a sister. Boys are loud. Ralph is loud and he breaks my mud-pies. Rowan is quiet, but he talks like an old man and won't eat dirt with me. I wanted a girl!"
The adults burst into laughter. Lianne's face turned bright red.
"I'm sorry, sweetie," Mom said from the bed with a tired smile. "But the Goddess gave us Remydas. You'll just have to teach him how to make mud-pies when he's bigger."
Lianne scowled at the bundled baby. "If he breaks my pies, I'm throwing him in the creek."
"I'll keep an eye on him," Ralph volunteered proudly. He puffed out his chest. "I'm the oldest. I'm going to teach him how to fight Orcs!"
I sighed and shook my head. Great. Another loud boy in the house.
I pushed myself up from the rug and waddled over to the bed, squeezing past Uncle Purth's legs. Dad noticed me and reached down. He hoisted me up so I could get a good look at the baby.
Remydas was red, wrinkly, and currently screaming his head off. He looked like a furious little potato.
"Meet your new brother, Ro," Dad said softly.
I stared at the tiny infant. From a purely logistical standpoint, this was a nightmare. The house was already cramped. We were going to need more food, and Mom wouldn't be able to help in the fields for a while. We were a peasant family. A bad harvest meant starvation.
But then Remydas stopped crying. He opened one blurry eye and looked in my general direction. A strange, protective warmth flared in my chest.
Alright, little brother, I thought. I reached out to gently poke his foot. Welcome to the family. This world is harsh, but don't worry. I'll figure out a way to make us some money so we don't starve.
"Hi, Remy," I said aloud. I offered the baby a toothy smile.
"See?" Laika beamed and leaned against Purth. "Rowan loves him already. Oh, they grow up so fast!"
Faster than you know, Aunt Laika, I thought. Now, if everyone would kindly clear the room, I have some magic to figure out.
Now that I was two and a half years old, my motor skills were finally somewhat normal. I no longer waddled like a drunken penguin. I could walk, run short distances, and even sneak.
Mom was occupied by the relentless demands of baby Remydas, so no one was really watching me. Ralph was usually off fighting imaginary Orcs, and Lianne was busy terrorizing the local worms. That left me free to pursue my main goal. I needed to study my dad.
I spent hours sitting on a wooden bucket at the edge of the vegetable patch. I watched Dad work the soil. To anyone else, I was just a quiet toddler enjoying the sunshine. In reality, I was carefully analyzing how he cast his spells and why they exhausted him.
It was mid-afternoon. The sun beat down on the turnip fields. Dad knelt beside a row of crops that looked slightly wilted from the heat. He wiped his dirt-stained hands on his trousers, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
I leaned forward and rested my chin on my hands.
A faint, flickering green light emanated from his palms and seeped into the dry soil. The wilted turnip leaves shuddered and slowly perked up as the magic coaxed life back into them. It was a basic spell to help the plants grow.
But the aftermath always baffled me.
The green light faded. Dad slumped forward and rested his hands on his knees. He panted heavily. His chest heaved like he had just sprinted up a hill. Sweat poured down his face and cut tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. He looked completely drained.
Why does it take so much out of him? I wondered for the hundredth time. I watched him push himself up to move to the next row.
I closed my own eyes to block out the bright sun. I turned my focus inward.
I had been practicing this in secret for weeks. Whenever Dad used his magic, I tried to mimic the internal sensation. I didn't know the chant, and I didn't have a wand, but I remembered the feeling.
I concentrated. I searched for the mana inside my tiny body. In most stories, magic came from the heart, the chest, or the stomach. But the more I searched, the more I realized that wasn't how this world worked.
The source wasn't in my chest. It was in my head.
Right behind my eyes, deep in the center of my brain, I felt a distinct, heavy pressure. It felt like a dormant muscle. When I focused hard enough, trying to pull that energy forward like Dad did, the pressure built up. It was a cold, sharp sensation, like pressing a block of ice against my forehead.
I flexed that mental muscle and tried to push the feeling down through my neck and into my arms.
Almost immediately, a dull throb blossomed in my temples. A headache.
I let out a breath and dropped my concentration. The pressure receded, and the headache dulled to a faint sting. It felt exactly like staring at a textbook for twelve hours straight while studying for a chemistry final.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands. They weren't shaking. My breathing was normal. My toddler body felt completely fine.
I looked back up at Dad. He had just finished a second patch of turnips and leaned heavily on his hoe. He looked like he was about to pass out from exhaustion.
Something is wrong here, I realized. I furrowed my brow.
If the magic originated in the head, and it was a purely mental exertion that caused headaches, why was Dad suffering from physical fatigue? His muscles were failing. His strength was depleted.
Is he doing it wrong? I hypothesized. I tapped my finger against my chin. Is he accidentally using his physical strength to force the magic out because he doesn't know how to isolate the mental energy?
Or was I the one doing it wrong?
Maybe the headache was a warning sign. Maybe human bodies in this world weren't meant to hold that much mental pressure. Dad's method of venting it through physical exertion might be a survival mechanism to keep his brain from frying.
If I tried to cast a spell using only the pressure in my head, would I just give myself an aneurysm?
I decided there was only one way to find out. I looked past Dad toward the far end of the garden. A small, isolated patch of sickly beans grew near the fence line.
It was time to run a test. I needed to do it where Dad couldn't see me.
I slipped off the wooden bucket and kept my profile low as I waddled toward the edge of the garden. Dad sat in the dirt a few rows over with his back to me. He took a long drink from a waterskin and tried to catch his breath.
I reached the fence line and dropped to my knees in front of my target. It was a single, pathetic runner bean sprout. Its stem drooped, and the few leaves it had managed to produce were a sickly, pale yellow. It was dying.
Alright, little guy, I thought. I brushed some of the dry, dusty topsoil away from its base. Let's see what we can do for you.
If I just tried to push raw life into the plant the way Dad did, I had a feeling I'd end up with the same result. Biological growth requires energy and mass. Dad was basically trying to substitute the plant's missing nutrients with his own physical life force. It was brutally inefficient.
But I wasn't just a toddler with a magical headache. I was a former chemistry major.
I knew why the plant was yellowing. The soil here was overworked and lacked nutrients. Specifically, it lacked nitrogen. There was plenty of nitrogen in the air all around us, assuming the physics of this world mirrored my old one. But plants can't breathe it in. It has to be fixed into the soil as ammonia or nitrates.
Breaking the bond of a nitrogen gas molecule requires a massive amount of activation energy. In nature, it happens via lightning strikes or specific bacteria.
Or, I hypothesized, via magic. I pressed my chubby little hands flat against the dirt on either side of the sprout.
I closed my eyes. I reached into my mind and found that cold, heavy pressure nestled right behind my eyes. I didn't think about growing the plant. I thought about the air trapped in the dirt. I visualized the molecular structure of nitrogen. It was two atoms locked together in a stubborn grip.
Snap it, I commanded my mana. Break the bond.
I pushed the pressure from my head, guiding it down my neck, through my shoulders, and out through my palms.
Immediately, a sharp spike of pain pierced my temples. I winced and gritted my teeth. It felt like an intense ice-cream headache. The pressure behind my eyes throbbed.
But I didn't sweat. My heart rate didn't spike. My arms didn't shake with fatigue. I held the connection and acted as the chemical catalyst. I forced the nitrogen in the soil to bind with the trace hydrogen and oxygen in the dirt's moisture.
After about ten seconds, the headache flared sharply.
I had done enough.
I severed the mental connection and fell back onto my rear end with a soft thud.
I kept my eyes squeezed shut for a moment. I rubbed my tiny temples with my thumbs until the sharpest edge of the headache faded back into a dull ache. My breathing was perfectly steady. My muscles felt fine.
I opened my eyes and looked at the bean sprout.
My jaw dropped.
It hadn't grown into a giant beanstalk. The size was exactly the same. But the color was different.
The sickly yellow was gone. From the base of the stem to the tips of the leaves, the plant had flushed a deep, unnatural emerald green. The stem looked thicker and sturdier, as if it were suddenly filled with water and nutrients. The leaves were no longer drooping. They stood rigid and reached toward the sun.
It was the healthiest looking plant I had ever seen.
Holy crap, I thought. A grin spread across my face. It worked. Chemistry actually works here.
I glanced over my shoulder. Dad was still resting and wiping his brow with a rag. He was completely oblivious to the miracle of botanical science that had just occurred ten yards behind him.
I looked back at the green sprout. My mind raced.
My hypothesis was right. Magic wasn't tied to physical strength at all. Dad was suffering from extreme exhaustion because he didn't know how to isolate his mana. He was flexing every muscle in his body, subconsciously burning his physical energy to force a biological reaction he didn't understand. He was using brute force.
I, on the other hand, was just applying science. By using my mana purely as a chemical catalyst, the energy requirement was drastically lower. The physical toll was nonexistent. The only limit was my own mental capacity, dictating how long I could go before the headache became unbearable.
I can replicate this, I realized. I looked down the row of sickly beans. If I can train my mental endurance, I can fix the soil composition of the entire farm. I can make premium fertilizer.
I patted the dirt around the green bean sprout. I felt a surge of genuine excitement. I might have been born into a poor farming family with no special status.
But for the first time since I reincarnated, I felt like I had a real advantage.
Just you wait, Dad, I thought. I stood up and dusted off my knees. I'm about to min-max this farm.