Never in Heron’s life did he ever think he would undertake the task of building his own home.

  In his first life, he lived in an apartment that was in the city where he worked. He would stop by his favorite bakery for his melon bread, take the train to the office, and work overtime until his brain ceased to have an ego. Heron had always done what needed to be done, probably more than he ever should considering overtime wasn’t exactly for survival—he just couldn’t say no.

  Now Heron needed to do what had to be done. But it wasn’t for anyone’s sake but his own.

  His muscles tensed as he groaned, lugging the log across the clearing. Magic had given him the ability to make objects temporarily lighter but it didn’t make it any easier to summon and haul the giant beam across the ground. He’d tried to make a transportation tool with wheels, like a wheelbarrow but for logs, except it had failed spectacularly that Heron had opted for the caveman fashion breaking his back over heavy labor work.

  It’d been another week since his fishing excursion, and since then he’d been steadily building up his strength. His diet was much more balanced and if anything, he was healthier than he’d ever been before. While convenience store bentos and meals were convenient, they weren’t exactly the healthiest considering they were simple and instant. On the other hand, even though he wasn’t having a ton of variety in his current diet, the mix of vegetables and fish roasted seemed to strengthen him.

  Overall, things were looking good for Heron.

  After dropping the log down by the others, Heron sighed as he took a seat on one of them. He’d been working on a foundation for a cabin the past week. It took a while for him to figure out how to pull out a log from a tree without overexerting himself, physically and magically. That’s when he had discovered he could alter how the object felt to him and could temporarily affect the weight of the object.

  He’d begun to gather the materials required to build a cabin. From what he was aware of, of course. All he had in his arsenal was imagination which was powerful if he could envision things properly, but he still wasn’t confident if building his home would work out as easy as he wanted it to. He had a schematic in mind, but didn’t have the knowledge of how to go about it. If he had to build it the regular architectural way of building things, he’d be doomed to fail from the start.

  But thanks to magic, he was able to meld things together.

  Heron already had the base of his foundation set-up. A row of logs lined up to create a grid below and had managed to haul more logs on top in order to create the foundation. He had created spacing in the base so that the foundation sat nicely on top of the grid. From there, he had ensured that the foundation wouldn’t move as everything was slotted neatly in place.

  While everything was taking a long time, Heron was satisfied by the progress he had made in one week alone. While it took a lot of magical energy, it seemed that he was getting stronger as time went on. His production had rapidly increased as each day passed. Same with his physical strength which he wasn’t sure if it was due to magic or his new lifestyle.

  Heron glanced around, his eyes centering on the clearing. Even though it was easy to summon vegetables, it was beginning to feel like a waste of resources. Sure, it seemed like his energy could recuperate after resting, but instead of generating the vegetable, he would rather use the energy to obtain seasoning for his food instead of summoning something he could grow himself. It’s not like he could grow salt or pepper.

  Perhaps it was time for Heron to pick up the art of farming.

  Heron wished there was an instruction manual for building his cabin or farm, but when he had tried to generate a tutorial or guide, it always ended up as gibberish. So it concluded that he was able to create something that he had no knowledge or experience with. He knew what a cabin looked like—or rather, what it should look like—so he had faith that his building would work if magic could hold it together.

  As for farming, well, his only knowledge was from his farming games.

  Which meant Heron only knew that he would need to till the land, plant the seeds, water them, and hope they would grow. It wasn’t much but it was going to be honest work. He was going to need the materials and tools if he wanted to farm.

  Heron was going to need a hoe, seeds, and a watering can.

  Standing up from the foundation, Heron paced in the clearing, thinking hard on how he would make the tools. The seeds were easy, they were simple and small and Heron had no doubt that obtaining them would be the easiest. The watering can was fine as well, he was planning on having a replica made from wood.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  But the hoe? He was going to have to be a tad more creative, just like he did with the bamboo fishing pole.

  It shouldn’t be too hard though if magic didn’t disappoint him.

  Summoning sticks from trees was beginning to feel like second nature to Heron. With the shaft of the hoe ready, Heron walked over to the boulder. He wasn’t going to attempt to summon metal or any of the sort, he didn’t have access to an existing resource so he figured he could just use the stone instead. And with magic, if it worked like he hoped it would, the stone would function just fine.

  Heron stood in front of the large boulder that had been the landmark of his campsite since the past few weeks. Inhaling slowly, he placed his palm on the surface of the stone, then pressed the end of the stick into it. Closing his eyes, he envisioned the construction of how he wanted the stone hoe segment to look like. If the stone could shape into the hoe and latch around the stick, it would be ideal since he didn’t have the normal tools available to make the stone stay on the stick.

  He felt the pressure of the boulder give way as his stick sank like the stone was made of mud. He didn’t push it very far, just allowed the rock to take shape in what he wanted. Soon, the stick weighed more than it originally did and Heron pulled it out, letting the heavy front fall to the ground. Opening his eyes, he looked down at the creation he had just made.

  [ +1 Stone Hoe ]

  Heron let out the breath he had been holding as he grinned. He was getting used to the magic in this world and beginning to see the unlimited potentials of it. As long as he could understand it and envision it, he could make it happen.

  With his new stone hoe, Heron set it down on the side as he went to summon a wooden watering can from a nearby tree. From the lake, Heron retrieved water in his new can and set it to the side. With both tools obtained and ready to go, Heron pondered as to what kind of vegetable he should grow. If it were based on his farming game, turnips would make the most sense. But he didn’t actually enjoy eating turnips.

  Heron settled on tomatoes, they were staple in several dishes that he was planning to make in the future.

  The invisible sun beat down into Heron as Heron beat down into the land with his stone hoe as he tilled the land. Maybe it was because he was bored so he decided to do farm work while it was the hottest part of the day, but it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. That was the majority of his week, productivity after productivity. But it was fun for Heron to work. Or maybe that’s what he told himself.

  Once he had a full field—small but complete—Heron summoned tomato seeds. At least, he hoped they were tomato seeds. He didn’t know what tomato seeds looked like but he knew what tomatoes were. He just figured they would look like the seeds inside the tomato, and that’s exactly how it appeared to be.

  Dropping the seeds into the soil, Heron covered each portion carefully, patting the dirt down. Once the seeds were covered, he watered each crop. His farming was now complete! The only thing left was waiting for them to grow. But Heron didn’t have that sort of patience. He wanted the vegetables now—

  Plip.

  Heron blinked. There was a dim, green glow at where he had just planted his seeds. No freaking way—that’s not how growing plants worked! He stared in disbelief as he watched the tiniest sprout spring from the dirt like popcorn. He rubbed his eyes, checking to see if he was seeing correctly. Surely enough, the freshly bloomed plant looked real enough to touch.

  What just happened? How is there a sprout growing? Did he somehow accelerate time?

  Heron didn’t have the answers to his questions, but one thing was certain—a sprout just grew from the seed he planted just because he wanted to see it sooner. How… frightening? Fascinating? He didn’t know which F-word he felt, all he knew was that he was in awe of the capabilities of magic in this world.

  Even though he had presumably sped up time, Heron felt surprisingly not tired. He had expected that it would at least cost the same amount of energy as it did to summon a fully grown vegetable. But it did not. Perhaps it’s because there were other contributing factors as to why he was able to speed along the growth. But no matter, he had other things to do then dwell on the unknown.

  This was going to be a long week.

  The week wasn’t as long as Heron had thought it would feel.

  While he had been working on his cabin one segment at a time, he’d tilled the land nearby, planting multiple fields of vegetables. He now had a field of tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. He was hopeful that the season was right for growing the vegetables; there was no way to tell after all since he hadn’t been here for long enough.

  Besides the cabin building and farm starting, Heron had survived off of his usual meals and slept under the temporary shelter he had built. Clothes were next on his agenda list but he had no idea how to get any. He could try summoning it but he didn’t have the guts for that. At this rate, he was going to have to learn how to knit or crochet like his grandmother used to.

  Heron was beginning to assimilate to the life he’d been given since he’d isekai’d.

  Sure, it wasn’t what he would’ve hoped for but he didn’t have many complaints. He was alive, had magical powers, and there were no predators on this tiny planet. While he would’ve preferred to live with other humans in this world, he was still grateful for a second chance at life that didn’t require him to work overtime at a soul-sucking office job.

  He never expected to be forced to play a farming simulator game in real life, but Heron didn’t hate it. So far, he’d been able to overcome the adversity the past few weeks and he was beginning to feel confident that he could overcome any challenges that met him in this new life.

  Not that he expected anything more exciting than another slime visit.

  And perhaps Heron would build the rabbit a home, right next to his little cabin.