When hunger woke me sometime later I was looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling, a fire crackling in the background. I lay there for a few moments, wondering what I was doing here, before I remembered the darkness. Panic surged through my being, and I jumped up, ready to flee or fight for my life and freedom.

Or that’s what I wanted to do anyways, as I couldn't even get my head up, much less actually moving my body or standing up. My emotions got the better of me, and I started crying loudly. I tried my best to shut up, to not warn anyone of my waking, but my efforts felt hopeless, completely futile.

Soon enough a giant woman entered my field of view, and picked me up.

She smiled down at me, and I honestly didn't know what to do, or think. What just happened? I smiled back regardless, something I could luckily do, and waited for her to do something. Perhaps she didn't want to eat me? I never smiled at my food!

Though to be honest what just happened was so completely outside of my expectations that I just went along with the flow, and when the woman started feeding me I just went along, with my cheeks burning with a blazing red.

Once my hunger was satisfied I tried asking her what happened, but I couldn't speak, just like I had next to no control of my body. It was terrifying! As the giant left I looked at her, and had to wonder, she looked just like a normal human, which made no sense.

She could pick me up like an infant, which meant she had to be at least six metres tall. And beings that tall couldn't have the shape of a human! Well, they could, but a human shape wasn't meant to be that tall, it wouldn't be something one naturally evolved into.

Wait.

I was small, small enough someone who looked like a normal human could easily lift me. The normal looking person was huge. I cried easily.

Oh no. I didn't want to. Nope. The woman was a giant, nothing more.

Still in denial I tried to remember the last thing I did before the darkness, but came up blank. I remembered going to bed, but that's about it.

I tried moving again, to prove I hadn't changed, only to find nothing had changed. I was still weak, unable to move under my own power just like an infant. I was different. And felt different.

Damn.

I was reincarnated. Without even meeting a god, what a serious letdown. I looked around, but couldn't see anything. The walls of my crib blocked my view of just about everything. And I felt too weak to even turn my head!

So, I closed my eyes, and tried to remember what I saw when my probable mother fed me. A room. Everything looked wooden, walls, floor, ceiling, furniture. And not the new, modern looking wood, no. The wood looked old and worn.

With some serious problems I turned my head just a little, and focused on the wood in front of my face. It looked brown, with no paint, and without the polished look every parent would want to have near a newborn if they had a choice.

That combined with the large fireplace, small window and the smell I did my best told me all I needed to know.

The world’s technological level seemed to be close that of the middle ages, or something very close to them. The times of famine, of hunger and of war.

Great.

Why couldn't I be reincarnated in some cozy science fiction world without work or problems?

But no. I had to be born in the middle ages. The darkest period of human history. Well, I had been reborn, so perhaps not all was as bad as it looked. Reincarnation did imply the presence of something more, something bigger after all.

And then there was this nagging feeling that I tried my best to ignore ever since I woke up. Like something trying to enter my body through my skin.

That feeling could mean many things though, but I decided it meant the most interesting. Magic. The only possible upside I could think of, so the one I decided to look for. For if I learned magic I should be able to solve the biggest downsides of living in such a savage, unhealthy time with little problems.

And perhaps start the industrial revolution early. I didn't know how to build a steam engine, but I knew the theory, so how hard could it be? People found out how to build them in the seventeenth century, without all the theory behind them.

First I had a grueling six months ahead of me though, months without the ability to move under my own power. And even worse, I highly doubted I'd leave the room in all this time. Just great. Trying to learn magic would probably be my only companions in all this time.

I didn't want to dwell on those depressing thoughts though, so I closed my eyes. I'd sleep for a bit, and try to learn magic right after.

I didn't immediately cry for my mother when I woke up and instead closed my eyes, and ignored my sense of sound, smell and touch.

I didn't know the first thing about magic, but figured it would involve some kind of extra sense, a connection to the world, something different from my memories. Like the nagging feeling I still felt. If I managed to find its origin I should be good to go. And all feelings came from the brain, so I focused my attention on my head.

I did not find anything tangible in the little time I managed to ignore my hunger, but felt I made a little progress nonetheless. I knew something felt different after all, so it would only take time and patience to find the feeling’s source. Time I had more than enough of, and patience would come in time. Because I had nothing better to do anyways I felt supremely confident I would succeeded.

About a month later I was glad I had something to do. Searching for something different was one of the most boring things I had ever done, but perfect for my situation. I would sleep, search for magic until I couldn't ignore my hunger anymore, cry until I was fed and finally move my body as much as infantly possible until I fell asleep.

I had just woken up, and was ready for another round. Doing meditation such as this bored me out of my mind by now, and I already tried to find another way, but only meditation and introspection seemed to produce any results, get me closer to the source of the feeling. Furthermore I knew I made steady progress, as the vague sense of something different had transformed into the knowledge of something being just out of my grasp.

I got ready for another half an hour of grueling boredom, took a deep breath and closed myself to the world.

Immediately I felt something different. Somewhere in my torso, where I knew my lungs to be, something had changed. Normally I didn't feel much when doing this meditation, but this time was different. I just knew that one muscle right above my heart was right there. Which surprised me, considering I hadn't even known I had a muscle there.

My perception, usually spread over my whole body after a month of just focusing on my head, immediately zeroed on that feeling and vague knowledge that came with it.

I felt my perception expanding beyond its previous bounds, all the energy that suffused my whole body, not just the small part I finally noticed, rushing towards my brain. Not literally, as it stayed right where it was, but figuratively as the knowledge of its presence rushed in my mind.

That feeling, that expansion of myself was too much for my small body to handle. I fought against the blackness threatening to enclose me, against the feeling of losing control over my mind in addition to my body. I held to the new feeling in my body, the feeling of energy.

When I came back to myself I felt ravenous. Food! Everything else had to wait. I started wailing, loudly, until my mother finally came to take care of me.

After she lay me in my small bed again I had time to check on the condition of my body. Time to check what happened. As always when training to perceive magic I closed my eyes, only to be surprised.

I had a very vague feeling of my body, how it looked, like a subconscious feeling had been lifted to the forefront of my mind for the first time of my life.

There was more though, I could feel how my lungs connected me to the outside world, a small steady stream of energy entering my body and blood through them. The very same energy that I felt pressing against my skin ever since I woke up, trying desperately to get in.

The energy felt charged, full of life, movement and possibility.

There was so much of it too, not in my body, but in the air in my lungs. And only a very small part of it entered my body at all times.

It was fucking annoying!

How could any self respecting infant even begin to think about sleeping when they felt something like that? I didn't have to feel it all the time though, as of now I had to focus to perceive this energy, something I knew would change the more energy my body contained.

I shifted my attention from the energy in my lungs, towards the energy I felt filling my body, to try and see what it did. I felt it nourishing my body, slowly being absorbed and used to supplement my food.

Most of the energy was concentrated in my torso, around my lungs and heart, while the least was found in toes and fingers.

That wouldn't do!

I had to find a way to control this energy, as I was sure it would be better to concentrate the energy just about anywhere else in my body. Where though? My heart would be the most obvious answer, as it would spread the energy through my body with my blood. But did I dare do that? After all I already felt the energy supercharging my body where it was, and a supercharged heart sounded like a recipe for disaster, like a heart attack.

So somewhere else. Where though? My other organs had the same possible problems as the heart, though less deadly. Perhaps my blood? But how would I do that? Wait. Blood. Bone marrow produced blood, and just didn't if you had enough, and bones couldn't be too tough. That sounded like a good idea.

Just fill my bones with the energy, let it radiate outwards into my body naturally, through blood and, if the energy did that, diffusion. That it would diffuse was an educated guess though, after all how would I have any energy in my body otherwise, the energy in my body felt different from the energy in the air after all.

Perhaps a quantitative or qualitative change? Or my body didn't accept all energy, only beneficial energy? Well, I had ample time to find out.

Days turned into weeks as I tried to find a reliable way to control the energy. I tried imagining mental fingers, to take and drag it, forming a sphere of consciousness to encase a small part to move it, just willing it to move and many more, yet none of them worked.

I had no vague feeling to guide me this time, so I spend most of my time experimenting. Still, after weeks of no progress I was frustrated, and would have probably have given up if I had anything better to do.

I didn't, and so I closed my eyes again, thoroughly demotivated but unwilling to waste my time moping about my inability to move. Something I did sadly regularly.

As my mind concentrated on my body I didn't know how to continue. I tried everything I could think, and my mind was completely blank. Perhaps this was it?

I let go of my worries, my dreams and wishes, and just immersed myself in the feeling of energy entering my body.

I focused on the energy, and suddenly I saw a mountain. A dragon. A huge wolf. An ocean.

Surprise shocked me out of my meditation, and a huge grin spread over my face.

It seemed the energy saved glimpses of its previous users. A way out! A way to escape the insanity I slowly felt creeping up on me!

Another three weeks passed, and while I had yet to make any significant progress my mental state had improved significantly. Seeing the outside world, even only a glimpse of it, felt great, refreshing. Like I regained a little of the freedom I had when I could move around with my own power.

I wanted to move, to explore the world I now had a deeper connection with, more than ever before. It would take years though, but until then I was resolved to continue to gain magic. To gain the power to travel this world, for I would need it, considering some of the beings I saw in the energy.

I would once again bask in the outside today, I decided, I had years to find a way to control the energy. My mental health was just as, if not more important than my physical health.

Once again I simply immersed myself in the feeling of energy entering my body with every breath, even the smallest perceivable unit being full of glimpses of its past, waiting for me to be experienced.

I once again immersed myself into the ebb and flow of the life giving energy, marvelling how much my perception of energy had improved as time went on.

I dove deeper, letting go completely, ready to leave my problems behind me for a time. Then it hit me. I was so dumb.

I only ever tried to force the energy, and never to guide it, without any forcing. I already knew energy diffused into areas of lesser energy concentration, so perhaps I could try to create an artificial area without energy? I had to try that now, so I thought about how to best move the energy. It seemed to want to diffuse within my body anyways after all.

In the last month I had spend some time watching the energy, and how it moved. It seemed to prefer to follow my veins, but a small part of it would diffuse outward from its original location even without any veins.

It was time to try. Heart pumping like crazy I concentrated on my pinky finger, vaguely feeling where my bones were located in it, and concentrated on the energy surrounding them. Instead of forcing my will on the energy I imagined my bones to be void of any energy, and send that picture into the energy in my finger.

Ioh and behold, the energy moved, some of it faster, as it had blood vessels to catch a ride, but all energy in my pinky finger moved towards my bones, and the void in them. Well, the energy I wanted to move anyways. There was no void in reality after all, so the rest of the energy stayed where it was.

It took a whole day to move all energy in my pinky finger, and I could feel that the energy slowly radiated outwards again, but my bones had proven to be surprisingly good at stopping the energy from diffusing, so I was confident most energy would leave as part of new blood.

Now I only had to do that for all other bones and energy in my body. I let out a groan, that would take ages! There had to be a better way to do it, humans did things smarter, not harder after all! Otherwise we would have never conquered the world. Or did we? I had no clue what our place in this new world was.

So, how did I do this smarter? Of course I could try and imagine all bones as a void at the same time, but I very much doubted I had the mental capacity to do that, and it seemed like a case of trying harder regardless.

But perhaps I wasn't all that wrong, only my method was. When doing my experiment in my pinky finger I imagined all four bones individually, but did I need to?

I already knew the energy was far more than simple energy, otherwise how could it be influenced mentally? Perhaps I could be vaguer?

Could I concentrate on all energy in my body at once?

No way to find out but try.

I spread my attention over my whole body, trying to connect with all the energy present in my body. It worked, but to a lesser degree, I didn't feel as deep a connection to the energy as before. Still, it worked, even if not as good as hoped.

Nearly perfect.

I imparted the energy in my body with the impression of my bones, and specifically my bone marrow being completely devoid of energy and waited.

I did not specify which bones, but hoped it would work regardless.

It did.

I could feel all energy in my body slowly moving through my body, towards the nearest bone, leaving only a token of energy behind. Well it also moved slower, but it moved, which was enough for now.

Perfect.

I still didn't know what the energy was used for other than strengthening the body, and a quick experiment revealed I couldn't actually project any energy out of my body, it was stopped by the same thing stopping the energy outside to move in my body. Regardless I had a lot of work to do for now.

Potential uses would have to wait.