It’s needless to say, but this new life is far more generous than my last. My former life saw me born as ‘Tanya Degurechaff,’ the daughter of a soldier who died at war. Left to be raised in a poor orphanage, my first years were that of struggle up until I joined the military for yet even more years of struggle. Enjoyment was, suffice to say, fairly scarce. 

 

The reasoning behind the vast differences in this life compared to my last life is simple; Being X isn’t here to fuck with me. Being X’s sole goal was to make my life a living hell in hopes it would make me desperate enough to be his bitch, which was in turn supposedly to make me worship his God. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t end very well for the bastard. 

 

In this new life, it seems Michael’s set me up quite nicely. It’s pretty obvious that rather than holding me back, the heavens now wish to enable me to push forward in my endeavors. After all, I could hardly ask for a better start even when comparing it to my first life in a 21st century Earth world.

 

I was born as Tanya Sawn, a name no doubt influenced by Michael for my own convenience, yet it's the last name that truly matters. My father, with his very confusing name of Sean Sawn, was arguably the best innovator in the kingdom, and whom I’ve found myself born to.

 

The Kingdom itself is fairly average as far as medieval fantasy tropes seem to go. The capital was a grand-looking place, even despite the massive war going on constantly sucking away manpower and resources. Though due to the nature of magic in this world, there were clearly defined ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes, and I was born into and currently reside in the ‘upper’ class. In fact, simply having access to magic was enough to place one in an entire league above those without it, enabling them to obtain connections with those more fortunately born. As one would expect, there wasn’t a single noble without some degree of magical prowess, although competency varied highly from person to person.

 

From what I’ve learned in my five years of life in this world, its magic system is significantly different from my previous life’s magic, although built on some of the same fundamentals. Magika is the unrefined form of magic here, which is eventually turned into either Mana, Vigor, or Psyka.

 

These three magical elements are far more refined and generally easier to use, however, that comes at the cost of each of them being far more specialized compared to Magika. Though limited in their capabilities, each one is able to execute said capabilities fairly effectively. 

 

Each magical element is restricted to one of three ‘Crests’ known throughout the kingdom. The first are Knights, who utilize Vigor. Then there’s Warlocks, who use Mana. And lastly, there’s Summoners, who use Psyka.

 

I appear to have been born as a daughter to a Warlock, and as such, I have been born as one myself. Warlocks appear to be the closest thing to conventional mages that one would usually expect from a fantasy world, particularly in the higher proficiencies. Eventually, I should be able to cast spells and make enchantments, though as only a five-year-old, I still have over ten years before I can start doing so.

 

Knights are largely what their name implies; they are physical fighters who utilize ‘Vigor’ to strengthen their body and their attacks. Summoners meanwhile, as the name also implies, summon either creatures or weapons. Though summoners are considered the weakest, they are also usually the most intelligent on average as their ‘Psyka’ power is one that is cast through the mind.

 

Though the Mana that warlocks use shares the same name as the ‘Mana’ of my last life, they hardly function the same. Mana in this world is far more refined than the ‘Mana’ in my last world, which is actually called ‘Magika.’ This means, in theory, with enough time I may be able to eventually use Magika itself to recreate some formulas, however, with the presence of more refined magic, that’s not only harder but probably not worth my time. I can take the magic of my past life to new heights, after all. No use working with inferior firepower and accuracy!

 

The class that one is born with is decided by the crest on the back of their hand, if they have one. Each type of crest has a different style it likes to follow, although it’s not common for two people to have exactly the same crest image imprinted. In what was no doubt directly done by Michael, my crest looks like the symbol used on the Silver Wings Assault Badge in my last life, that being two pairs of wings that make an X shape with a single circle above it.

 

Apparently, Knights tend to have straight lines that often look like slash marks, while summoners tend to have sharp geometric shapes, although I lacked knowledge of anything specific. I am only five, after all, my knowledge is limited to what my father has taught me so far.

 

Luckily for me, my father has a tendency to ramble on about various concepts, going into so much detail that there was no way in hell any normal five-year-old could possibly hope to keep up. Fortunately, I’m not some normal five-year-old, I have two lives' worth of memories after all, meaning I can keep up with a good portion of his one-sided conversations.

 

Well… That’s partially true. In short, as Michael had warned me, I don’t remember anything personal about my first life. I can’t remember my former name, I can hardly remember anything beyond a vague age range, and I’m not even certain of my gender in that life. All the information I learned from that life, whether it be from something like college or my job, I still remember vividly, however, I have no recollection of when, how, or why I learned said information.

 

All of my memories of my first life are impersonal, they lack emotional attachment compared to others, and I lack attachment to them beyond mere sifting through them for odd bits and pieces to utilize. It feels more like I watched a documentary of all the stuff I learned in my first life, rather than having actually lived it despite knowing I lived through all of it for decades. My second life is the opposite; I remember it vividly, though it feels somewhat jarring to have only lived to be a teenager yet have the mental capacity of someone who was far older. How much older? I don’t even remember, just that my past self had learned that their age range would be considered an entire generation apart.

 

It’s hard to view my actual age as anything higher than what it was in my last life, though that’s likely more a result of not remembering how old I was in my first life rather than a warped perception of age in general. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter too much. My main worry going forward is handling puberty, I had lucked out and died before I really had to deal with it in the past, but something tells me I haven’t had to deal with female puberty before, more specifically the mental influences it may have on my mind. Was I a male in my first life? No, if I was turned female by Being X, then Michael wouldn’t have kept me as one as part of his compensation. I was probably female in my first life… I think? Ah, it's in the past now, it doesn’t matter.

 

Nevertheless, before I can progress in this world and build up my magical power, I need to unlock my first ‘Authority.’ Authorities seem to function as the sort of ‘tiers’ that this magic system follows, and have their own implications for social relations that I’ll get to later. Unlike the computational magic of my last world, this one seems made for easier use, although it means I don’t fully understand its innermost functions as I did before.

 

There are twelve Authorities for each crest, though not everyone gets to the top, and certainly not everyone gets to use them to the best of their abilities. In my last life, one’s magical power grew with training and experience, creating more of a linear slope of progress if a person graphed it out. In this life though, it’s more of an exponential staircase, with each Authority being significantly stronger than the previous. Though there is a slight linear increase in each Authority, there’s only so high one can climb before they need to advance to the next one. And when one does advance to the next Authority, they get a major jump in their power, hence the staircase analogy, but the steps only become steeper over time.

 

Of course, a major drawback of this system is that if you mess up at a certain point when it comes to cultivating power, it will be largely permanent. Don’t do all the steps right, and it will be harder to climb from plateau to plateau. This means that doing every step well is essential for one’s growth, and it also means that I can’t rush things either, much to my disgruntlement.

 

Luckily for me, my father is a Marquis, even though his wealth rivals even the richest dukes of the kingdom. Going forward, I’ll likely have all that I could possibly hope for in order to optimize my cultivation, and if I can manage to understand enchanting as well as my father, then I’ll be able to build a foundation for a true military-industrial complex. I can improve the equipment from my previous life, after all, especially with a far higher magical power ceiling. 

 

For now, my focus is on my own personal foundational growth, turning Sawn Industries into the Lockheed Martin of this world can come later. For now, I want to study up on the magic of this world. I have two lives’ worth of knowledge, so studying for the rest of my academics matters little. I had graduated college in my first life, and though I may not remember the specifics of what I did there, I retained all the knowledge I learned, thus putting me easily above at least 90% of the population and likely at least half of the nobility.

 

In short, I had plenty of time to focus on learning about this world’s magic. I wanted to be prepared for every step of the way going forward, knowing the ins and outs of every Authority along the way. Luckily, the place where I live seems to be a giant tower known for being the center of all things magical research. Filled with countless warlock enchanters and Summoners for their keen minds, the tower in which my father basically lives is arguably the best place to find out all I needed to know. If I have a question, somebody has an answer.

 

My current curiosity lies in the magic I sense around myself and even around others. In my last life, magic was known to emanate from people, but this was largely when magic was being cast in some shape or form. This allowed people to detect and track mages in my last life through what was known as a ‘magical signature,’ pinpointing exactly where they were and to a certain extent what they were casting. One’s magical signature was like their sort of magical fingerprint; no two were the same.

 

This, however, differed somewhat from magic in this world, as it is not only far more noticeable, but also more specialized and potent. I could still sense a magical signature from myself, and to a lesser extent from others, but unlike in my last life, I didn’t seem to need a computation jewel to sense it, nor did I need to cast passive magic in order to produce one.

 

Of course, with my limited magical sense at my age, I wasn’t able to sense the finer details of magical signature, but the fact that I could sense it at all was strange. At first, I had skimmed through some books, curious to see if there were any documentations on magical signatures, but my research was inconclusive. Of course, without free permission to just walk out to the various libraries within the tower, as a five-year-old, I was rather limited in my options. 

 

Fortunately for me, my father was a smart man, even despite his excessive ramblings about arguably useless topics at times. He had apparently invented the equivalent of the telephone about a year before I was born, which was rather impressive even despite its limited functionalities for such a low-level magitech society. Even after a few years, it was still in its early phases, sure, but the implications of magic-based technology were not to be understated.

 

Since this mana around people seemed to be possible for even an authority-less child to see, surely it would be common sense for someone like him to know and teach me about it. Walking into his office to ask him about it, I immediately noticed him knee-deep in various types of paperwork as usual. Only about a fraction of it was paperwork he needed to fill out, the rest seemed to be a mixture of various requests, ideas, orders, and even several drawings of vague concepts which seemed too incomplete to be truly worthwhile.

 

In short, it was a mess. But it was a mess that I would have to wade through to get the answers I wanted. 

 

He had several boards all over the room, smattered with pins that he used to hold up various drawings, blueprints, and concept designs that he was working on. On one board there were dozens of miscellaneous ideas, none of which had yet to be fully realized but had vague ideas down nonetheless, since they could be revisited at any time should a more defined idea pop into his mind. On another were various concept drawings and detailed descriptions of concepts, potential upgrades and features, and general plans for all sorts of possible add-ons to the ‘Aerial’ which served as the basis for all of it.

 

Both of those boards were relatively standard. The Aerial was his magnum opus after all, and eventually, it could even rival the smartphones of my first life. Although the board with ideas for the Aerial occasionally changed, it still was all about the Aerial in some shape or form. The board with the miscellaneous ideas was frequently changed, but similarly remained a general brainstorming board where random (usually nonsense) ideas were drawn up and put up for later theorization.

 

The last board, however, was something that frequently changed far more than the others. When he wasn’t working on the Aerial, he would have some other project on the third board which would have in-depth ideas and plans. This particular day, it seemed to show various contraptions, vehicles almost, although each design was as crazy as the last. There were crude designs for poorly designed aircraft, a carriage-like contraption with wings and wind magic to move it forward, and at least a dozen other ideas of equal impracticality.

 

Was he trying to make a plane? On one hand, that seemed to be some of the concepts, but just as many, if not more, seemed to be entirely ground-based. It was pretty clear he was trying to design something, no doubt requested by someone with a high payout attached to it, if he was prioritizing it over the Aerial.

 

Not long after I entered the room, he took notice of my presence, glancing up from his latest drawing which seemed just as impractical as the others. “Oh! Tanya! Sorry dear, I’m a bit caught up with work today. What did you need?”

 

“I have a question,” I responded.

 

“Go ahead and ask then, my projects can wait a bit,” he declared with a smile.

 

“What’s the magic that I can sense around myself and others? I can’t sense it well, but I can pick up traces of magic coming off of people. In theory, I may be able to pick out people just by the feeling of their mana,” I explained, hoping that he would have an answer for me.

 

His eyes opened a bit as he seemed a bit surprised. He had gotten used to my vast vocabulary for a five-year-old fairly quickly, the man didn’t seem to interact with children much, however this time he seemed surprised at something entirely different. “I believe you’re describing Aura… Although it's rare for anyone to sense it before they start awakening their Authorities, it’s not impossible.”

 

“And what is an aura?” I asked in turn. I had a vague idea from the name alone, but an elaboration would no doubt serve well.

 

“Aura is the magic that just about all living beings capable of using magic give out. Each one is personal to an individual, and there are those who are able to do various things with their aura, though those are often unique and hard-to-master techniques that people tend to keep to themselves. There are a few people who will teach you about how to use aura like that, but due to the uniqueness of each aura and how one interacts with magic, it’s honestly better to just find your own way to use your aura, although without any Authorities you have a while before you could even hope to do something like that.”

 

Once again, I was grateful for having a father who liked to ramble on and on and on. Sometimes that rambling went off the edge into useless information that even the most specialized researchers couldn’t use, but more often than not he would give me all I needed to know and more with only a single question. I’ll give it to Michael, he’s certainly set me up well in terms of educational content. If I wanted to recreate my last life’s mage gear, it would be my father who would help me the best.

 

Though, now that my main question had been answered, another question had filled the realm of my curiosity, “Thank you. What are you working on now?”

 

He smiled and waved his hand dismissively, “Oh it's nothing too interesting for a girl your age, I’m sure. You see, the military wants some means to better handle logistics, to decrease the time spent on supply and manpower movement. Unfortunately, that’s a lot easier said than done. Sure, teleportation exists, but that needs to be charged up, must be pre-set, and is unable to rapidly relocate in the case of an attack. Of course, most military bases have them anyway, but that’s not what they want. They want to be able to easily move men and cargo to specific locations at a near moment’s notice, but with teleportation magic being far from being that quick, let alone moving to wherever they want, it leaves me with limited options. As such, I’ve tried to design a railless vehicle that can be driven anywhere, but there are a lot of factors that go into that and I’m still debating certain design features and-”

 

I suddenly cut him off, putting on my best attempt at puppy eyes and reaching with my young-child hands, “Could I draw up a design?”

 

Best that I do so now than to let him go off into another ramble that fell into the realm of useless information, given that he could go on for hours upon hours depending on the project. What it sounds like the military wants is a car of some kind, but a truck specifically would serve them best. Rails seemed to exist, which is worth noting, but without trucks, it seemed someone would have to be the one to invent them for the soldiers to use. With a vague knowledge of how magic interacts with technology and my photographic memory of two lives, I may very well be able to design a basis for a truck model.

 

My father was reasonably confused, but handed me a large piece of paper anyway, intrigued, “If that’s what you’d like to do dear, then be my guest. I’m glad you’ve taken an interest in my work.”

As I left with pen and paper in my hand, my father cheerfully waved me out, seemingly overjoyed that I had taken an interest in his line of work. Nevertheless, it seemed he didn’t expect much more than the kind of work one would put on a fridge. But I would provide him with so much more.