Heron blinked intently as he watched the bread rise in his stone oven.

  Would he be successful this time or be left bread-less once more?

  He held his breath as he stared longingly at it from just faraway enough so that the heat wouldn’t blast his face off. It wasn’t easy to make bread from scratch. Completely from scratch. In his first life, he had experience buying the ingredients like all-purpose flour, yeast, baking powder, milk, and eggs, to make homemade bread. But in this life? He didn’t have that kind of luxury.

  The first time Heron had tried to summon flour, it was less than one cup and he’d thrown up.

  So summoning flour was a no-go. Instead, he hurried along the growth of wheat and then beat the crap out of it to make his stupid flour. He was able to summon yeast and baking powder but just barely. Thank goodness he didn’t need very much of it at all. Forget about the eggs and milk, he was going full vegan because he still couldn’t summon any animal products.

  It had taken him months to figure out a recipe that seemed like it would work. The first few attempts were so sorry that he wished to forget the memories of it. He had to grow several batches of wheat just to have enough attempts to making bread. He’d almost given up until it stopped tasting like utter crap and started to seem edible.

  And the stone oven? Heron was more than impressed with himself that he’d been able to figure out how to build one. With the power of imagination magic, he’d been able to assemble a stone oven together from sheer memory and willpower. To this day, he still didn’t understand how it worked. But the proof of it working was his bread.

  Using a wooden peel, Heron quickly took the bread out once it looked ready. It was still steaming and he was pleased with how it looked. It was fluffy and actually looked edible—though looks could be deceiving since he was still trying to figure out the temperature and how hot the fire needed to be without a thermometer. Turns out baking was difficult without modern tools. He had no idea how people baked bread back in the olden days.

  Setting the bread down on a wooden cutting board on the wooden countertop that Heron had built—thanks to magic—he looked at the bread with pride. Once it was cooled down, he would check to see if the insides were well done. Maybe he could finally have some bread to go with his tomato soups.

  Heron had lost track of time, but many months had passed since he had reincarnated in this world.

  The cabin had turned out better than he had expected, given that he had no idea what the hell he was doing and was impressed that he had managed to put something together. The most difficult part had to have been the roof, but with enough patience and trial and error, Heron had managed to figure out the scaffolding and made it work with magic.

  If Heron’s magic couldn’t meld things together, he’d be in big trouble.

  So it was a good thing that his magical powers was a bit… ridiculous. Sure, he still couldn’t really summon melon bread—at this point he was beginning to think it was his kryptonite—but with the months of experience he had, he had figured out the rules of his magic pretty well.

  Simple and single element objects, such as salt and iron, were the least draining to create. After that, it was dependent on the size and weight. The more complicated an object was due to the complexity of said object, amount of steps and time it would require in order to make, would be the most draining. And he was unable to summon anything that was animal product related such as meat, milk, eggs, or anything dairy.

  The rules were rather straightforward and Heron did his best to keep them in mind whenever he cast magic. Besides summoning from thin air which was the most costly, his magic could also be applied to conjuring from existing objects such as taking wood from a tree. He could also expedite growth if the required resources were available. In a way, Heron was able to control time and space as long as the requirements were fulfilled.

  Magic was useful, but it wasn’t all powerful. He still had bouts of sickness from time to time due to overconsumption of magical energy, and depending on his physical condition, it would influence how much magical energy he had available to cast.

  The cabin was likely the most complicated thing he would ever build in this life; after all, Heron was alone and didn’t have any schematics to follow.

  He was proud of the thing, and while concerned about the scaffolding and structure due to not using modern technology and relying on absurd magic, he found it a suitable space to live. He had designed it himself, melded parts together, and when he had climbed onto the rooftop of it via a wooden ladder, he had tested the sturdiness of it. When it didn’t collapse after he did something foolish like jumping up and down, he felt reassured that magic was probably the best glue in this world.

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  Besides the completion of the exterior of his new home, Heron had also spoiled himself with furniture. It didn’t cost him anything except magical energy that would replenish as long as rested so he happily created wooden furniture to his heart’s desire. A wooden table, wooden chairs, wooden counter top, wooden stool, wooden bed frame, all of the basic necessities he needed to be decently comfortable.

  Things were looking good and Heron was easily satisfied. The first week, he hadn’t even been sure he would make it past the week. Now, with several months into his new life, Heron felt confident he could handle anything that was thrown at him. He built his own goddamn house after all.

  Picking up the simple knife that he had summoned and combined together between the blade and wooden handle, Heron sliced the bread over the cutting board. The scent of bread hit hit him as the steam rose from the freshly baked loaf. It smelled like success. Picking up a slice, he did a testing nibble on it, and was relieved to find it edible and didn’t have him writhing on the ground and foaming from the mouth.

  Plating his bread, Heron carried his wooden plate and exited his cabin. The smell of tomato soup simmered in the air as he walked over to the pot that was gently bubbling over the fire pit. Taking a seat on a wooden stool nearby, he placed his plate of bread on his lap as he took the soup off the heat. With a wooden ladle, he scooped some soup into a wooden bowl with a spoon and with his meal served, he raised it up.

  Heron whispered a thanks to the isekai god that had sent him to this little block of the world.

  While it wouldn’t have been his first choice, it still beat having to work overtime. At least he didn’t have to go to wars or defeat demon lords or resolve some great international conflict. Life was going to be boring and boring was how Heron liked it. Boring meant Heron could live a life of his own, with no responsibilities towards others, and finally get to do what he’d always wanted.

  Just kick it back easy and live as Heron needed.

  There was still much to be done such as figuring out how to make clothes, how he was going to get animal produce, and how to make that melon bread. The unlimited possibilities thrilled him and he was excited to put his magic to use.

  Glancing around as he ate, Heron noted that the white rabbit was nowhere to be seen. It’d been a few days since he last saw it and at the time, he thought it would reappear like it always did/had. But there was no signs of it even though he had built it a little rabbit house. It seemed that he had grown attached to it and he hoped that nothing had gotten it.

  Once he finished his meal and cleaned up after himself, Heron sighed in content. Now that breakfast was done and bread was a success, he needed to get to work. He had to maintain his crops daily and water them with his wooden watering can. He didn’t have sprinklers, but he was definitely going to try to figure out if he could somehow come up with a system that would work.

  As Heron watered his crops, the invisible sun beat down his back as the warm breeze blew past him. He definitely needed to figure out how to make clothes soon given that he couldn’t keep wearing the same outfit forever. Besides, if there was a winter in this place, he’d be frozen solid with his current clothes. With the current season, he’d resorted to spending half his time in his outfit when it was cooler, the other half just in his underpants when it was warmer. There was no one to see him so he didn’t care.

  Today was one of those underpants days.

  Heron hummed to himself as he finished watering his crops, and began to harvest some tomatoes. The downside of living in a non-modern world where refrigerators weren’t something he could buy from an appliance store, he had to stagger growing his crops so that he could eat the ones that grew first while waiting for the others to grow. While he could speed up the growth of plants if they had the resources to grow, he could not slow down the decay since it wasn’t that he could control time.

  After gathering up the ripened tomatoes, Heron got to work on the other fields. While the tomatoes were obedient and grew like he wanted them to, some of the other vegetables he had planted were not always met with success. He wasn’t a farmer, and it took him trial and error before he got it right. The nice part was that he didn’t have to wait for a whole season to pass before he could see if he was growing the crop properly.

  The first time Heron had tried to grow a potato, he had tried to expedite it but it refused to grow. It was only after switching fields and figuring out the right conditions of growth was it able to finally grow. It wasn’t tedious to continue summoning potatoes in the meantime but he realized he was enjoying the process of figuring out how to farm instead of just summoning the vegetable at a whims notice.

  Heron enjoyed the journey rather than the destination after all. Although starving would be a bad destination.

  Not starving = good.

  Starving = bad.

  As the day passed, Heron had finally completed his last harvest for the day as the sky was ablaze and the horizon streaked with an orange haze. Staring up into the sky, he blinked as a bird flew in circles. But was it flying in circles or was it descending?

  Heron watched as the bird flew lower. Then his eyes widened. That’s a pretty large bird. That’s a really large bird. That’s not a bird at all.

  The great white wingspan stretched across multiple of Heron’s fields. It’s large body seemed to gleam from the setting invisible sun as the scales shone from the lighting.

  Heron dropped his basket of potatoes.

  Blood rushing through his veins, heart pounding like a siren, Heron stared up at the great white beast of folklores and tales and great mythology.

  There was a goddamn dragon in his potato field.

  And it was looking right at him.