The first thing that I felt was the itchy touch of the grass beneath my bare skin and the rays of sunshine bathing my face.
Once my mind stirred awake, I noticed something unusual.
I haven't opened my eyes yet, and yet, I'm so sure that my memories were in disarray.
The thing is, I can't remember much at all besides the basic stuff everyone on Earth should know. That being said, my mind is in a complete mess memory-wise.
Past experiences were flashing before my eyes one after the next but each one were being constantly stolen away by something as if trying to leave me into a mindless husk.
Fortunately, the fact remained that I'm oddly calm and somehow didn't feel too upset about it.
Am I right in the head? Maybe.
Am I being delusional? Most likely not.
Well, forget about that.
"Where is this?"
As I slowly lifted myself off the ground, a beautiful clearing with the span of more than a hundred meters greeted me.
A plethora of bright and colorful flowers spread across the grass like a soft carpet, groves of oak and elm trees stood rooted on the earth from a distance.
There were even bees and birds sweeping though the air. The congregation of nature was pleasant to look at and gave me a sense of peace and belonging.
But push that aside and what the heck is going on?
I don't even know who I am, let alone what I am and I'm suddenly in some kind of paradise?!
As if to answer my confusion, the ground tremored and something rose from a distance. Something that didn't look like a tree but an infrastructure.
A cottage?
Wasting no time, I immediately headed to its location, seeking for answers.
That or it's some kind of trap...
After a few minutes of trudging through fields of herbs and berries, I eventually arrived to the building's doorsteps.
"This looks... Too cozy it's suspicious."
The exterior of the cottage in front of me looked lived-in and slightly whimsical in nature, matching the surrounding environment. Its first floor's walls were made of rough stone and the second floor of wooden planks. It was a two-story building with only a few windows and a circular door. The roof was made of thatch but it gave off the feeling of being brand new and that it could handle a storm or two.
On top of the roof was a stone chimney protruding from its surface, releasing smoke... Which means there must be someone living here.
"Hello?"
No answer.
Well, here goes nothing.
I gulped then cautiously approached the arched doorway. Avoiding the flagstone path beneath my feet as if it would trigger a trap mechanism.
Once I was in front of the entrance, I knocked against the door thrice.
No answer.
I knocked again, six times, nine times.
There still wasn't any response from inside. After a brief pause, I pushed the door open with a creak.
Different from its outer appearance, the interior was mostly empty. There was almost nothing inside except a table and a chair, the lit fireplace from the chimney I saw outside, a basin, another door and a wooden spiral staircase leading to the second floor.
This place felt more and more suspicious by the second but I still stayed inside anyway and proceeded to surveil the room.
Except for the ones I already mentioned, nothing new popped out in my line of sight.
Now that my inspection of the first floor was done, I carefully moved up the staircase and reached the second floor, this one had only one furniture, a simple and clean bed.
But on top of the bed were a few things I couldn't help but notice.
Clothes... A fine white robe patterned with intricate streaks of sky blue and gold, it had a built in hood and several useful pockets that could be opened with its zippers.
I had the urge to try the clothes on right away but two pieces of parchment caught my attention with words written in hangul characters that I could roughly read.
I reluctantly picked it up then began to decipher the writings.
"You must be wondering who you are and why you're here, I am the god governing this world, #7-&*, your previous incarnation wished to be reincarnated but keeping your previous memories aren't allowed so that's why you're in the state that you are. This place you're in, no not the cottage, the whole forest or world you're in is a subspace woven from your ability. There are three books under the clothes I prepared for you and some useful tools and equipment inside the messenger bag on your bed. All I can say is that you're welcome, you deserve this new life. Farewell."
The written message ended there. So to put it simply, this entire place, this world... It's all mine? So going with that logic, this cottage is mine too so I don't have to worry about anyone living here or it being some kind of trap. I was worried it belonged to some kind of cannibalistic witch.
By the sound of it, it seems the god who wrote that letter favored me a bit. Who exactly was I before?
Well, no point dwelling on questions I can't answer right now.
I swiftly and efficiently equipped the jet-black trousers and tunic that came with the white robe before wearing the robe itself.
What was left on the bed were three books the god mentioned and a messenger bag that looked to be made out of tough hide.
I took my time exploring the items for hours, and by the time I was satisfied, the sun outside was already setting. But the knowledge I learned was priceless.
The messenger bag contained food enough to last me a month, magical items that can help me in any situation and a bunch of empty scrolls, notebooks and books. Its compartments are massively expanded to accomodate so much space, almost half of which is already taken by the tools inside.
Laying on the bed next to the messenger bag were three books.
The first was a thick and thousand paged compendium of this new world's common knowledge.
The second book was a treatise for learning magic. Allowing a person to shift from an ordinary commoner to a decent independent magician.
The third book was another thick compendium, but this time it was for all the well-known creatures and plants inhabiting the world.
Since I studied for almost half the day, I acquired so much information that I'll summarize it for now.
The world I'm in is the result of my ability "Subspace". I am one of the rare individuals in the world with an in-born ability which make up only 1% of this world's general population.
While the world outside is diverse of magical creatures, the planet itself has no name since no inhabitant has ever seen it from the heights of space. They all seem to be Flat Earthers according to the book.
And as far as I'm aware, I can generate a portal between the outside world and my safe subspace, but the thing is, I don't intend to go outside until I determine that I'm ready.
As for my definition of ready? I have to master the basics of magic first, build up my physique and read every page of each book.
According to the Compendium Of Common Knowledge, the world outside is merciless and brutal. So much deception, naivety could be fatal, kindness can be foolish and sometimes cleverness can be defeated by misfortune.
Before embarking on a journey, I have to be physically fit, magically inclined and wise in making the right choices.
I remember the body workouts and military training from my old world and with the help of the Treatise Of Magic Learning, I could learn basic spells.
My subspace ability will also allow me to improve physically and magically without risking my safety.
Taking all these factors into account, it works in my favor.
That being said, isn't this set-up way too convenient? Is this orchestrated by my past self and the god that sent the letter?
Whatever the case, I want to live and explore the outside world. Maybe I could even find fragments of my memories.
I kept studying from sunfall to midnight, the reason for my consistency was my growing curiousity for the interesting contents of the books.
Since I had no memories about my past life, there was an overwhelming desire to acquire knowledge and fill in the empty void in my head.
"Time to hit the sack, training starts tomorrow."
I put the books aside and fell face-flat against my bed's pillow.
"Ugh, gotta pee."
The first floor's other door I saw earlier turned out to be the door that led to the comfort room.
After relieving myself, I groggily climbed the soft white bed in the second floor again. It was bouncy and fluffy at the same time which would definitely aid in recovering quicker from my arduous training starting tomorrow.
Finally, the exhaustion from the events of yesterday took a toll on me and I fell asleep while in the middle of reading.
The next day at morning. I ate a generous amount of bread for breakfast and began training for magic. The training area was the open clearing of grass outside my house.
"Let's see. Imagination, huh."
In this world, the easiest basic magic to learn which everyone starts with is materializing a dwindling fire on top of your palm.
The first step would be to write the corresponding symbol of the element, with fingers outwardly releasing magic power that matched its elemental attribute.
That means if I'm going to cast fire magic, I have to eject that specific fire energy to write the symbol and if I'm going to use water magic I need to write using water energy.
There were six primary elemental attributes in the realm of wizardry; Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Light and Darkness.
Each had a role and specialty unique to its nature. But most people often focus on just one or two attributes in order to avoid dividing their focus.
After writing the symbol for a fire attribute pell I proceeded with the second and last step which would be to imagine.
"Ignis Inferioris."
I didn't need to chant, but I did anyway because I remember that wizards chant words when using magic spells.
At that moment, a tiny flame sparked to life. It danced at the palm of my hands, it was warm to the touch but it wasn't hot enough to burn my palm.
"So this is magic..."
At my thought, the tiny flickering flame swerved in the direction I wanted it to. Although it was difficult, it was possible.
They say that the more you use magic, the more proficient you become at using it. I just have to do this everyday until my magic power ran out and I'll wake up with higher mastery and a higher magical power storage the next day.
However, it took me atleast an hour of practicing spells before I finally ran out of fuel.
I used all sorts of spells. They were the basics of the basics for every attribute, starting from creating a blob of water to forming clumps of rocks. I found Earth magic to be the most difficult out of all six elements.
The good thing is I successfully memorized each element's respective rune.
"This should suffice. Next is physical training."
In this world and even in my past life, I don't know what drives me, but I know I have to train my physical strength.
"Alright, let's just do a couple of push ups today."
I collapsed with just twenty repetitions...
Now I know why I had the urge to do push ups. From my knowledge, I know this kind of limit was below average...
I still have some energy left, and there's plenty of space in my subspace, I'm going to go on a jog.
Just like that, two weeks had passed with my free time all spent on studying magic and strength training.