"Useless!" I flung my current sci-fi project into the heap in a corner. It had been five years since I had reincarnated into this world and my simple five point plan had been adjusted hundreds of times due to circumstances and crushing failures.
Thus far, the only thing from my world I had managed to successfully bring over from my past life was the concept of a sandwich. But since that was just mystery meat on stone bread, it wasn't tasty at all. At least my tutors liked it.
The problem wasn't a lack of creativity or study on my part, but mana's inability to be contained. From what I had learned over the past five years, dwarven runes engraved on objects could channel ambient magical energy in the air, the more well crafted the rune the better the energy to effect conversion. Sure, you could do amazing things with magic, for instance you could create flaming swords and lightening axes, but I couldn't power something fun like rocket boots or anything useful like a stove. In other words, all my attempts to make anything sci-fi-ish with rune magic was like trying to run a microwave with solar energy. Not to mention the sheer difficulty in crafting magical runes to do anything.
Incidentally, dwarves in this world couldn't use any magic other than runecraft, so I couldn't even cast fireballs. Talk about a bummer.
"Ok, so the hand warmer didn't work. Maybe this book will hold the answer." I instinctively reached to where my mountain of books usually resided. "Hmm? Seriously? That's it?" Instead of a musty old tome weathered by centuries, my hands met with empty air. During my first year of study, I had utilized my workaholic nerd nature carried over from my past life to read through everything that had been assigned to me and the subsequent years to read every other book in the city that I could get my tiny underage hands on.
To sum up what I had learned beyond magic, I had been reborn as the son of a thane. As for what a Thane was in dwarven society, it could range from a king's minister, a mighty warrior, or governor of a territory too small and unimportant to be classified as a hold worthy of a king. Short story, it was a catch all title for nobility. In this context, my father was basically the governor of the city of Dul Vulkhan. An eastern border fortress that defended the deeper dwarven holds from the demons of the Demon Wastes.
Additionally, the world, as the dwarves knew it, was pretty bleak. To the East of the dwarven kingdoms were thousands of miles of demon infested wastelands creatively titled The Demon Wastes. To the west of the mountains was another several thousand miles of goblin and orc infested forests. Southwards was extremely dense jungles occupied by very territorial dragonkin. Finally, to the north you had oceans suitable for trading but the sea lanes were haunted by dark elf and mermaid pirates, also the dwarven High King kept his capital at the sole port and kept trade firmly under his thumb. All of this to say my dreams of getting better food or technology were just that, dreams.
"Well, now that I'm out of books to study, what now?" My hypothetical question was answered by the universe less than a second later.
"Young Mogrim!" My stone door burst off the hinges and shattered into a thousand pieces against the opposite wall. "Enough lazing about behind a desk, the five years of assigned book learning is over, get up and survive the next five years of training to be a warrior!"
The excessively loud perpetrator of my room's destruction was Elder Wevrik Stormbeard. He was the former leader of Warrior's Guild and current head trainer of young dwarves like me. Ever since I had reincarnated in this world, he had occasionally called on me to join the other dwarven children in training, a calling I had declined with my nose in a book.
"But I don't want to be a warrior." My quiet protest went unheeded as his meaty hand grabbed my collar and dragged me from my seat.
"Too bad! We are in an Age of Judgment, every dwarf must be a warrior if our race is to survive until the Third Age. Now move your feet or I will drag you to the training hall!" Even as he bellowed at me, he strode down the halls as if he owned the place. Dragging me all the way.
Eventually, after futilely trying my best to resist with my ten year old underused muscles, I got the picture and ran behind the nearly three hundred year old dwarf. By the time we reached the Training Halls, I was panting for breath and ready to collapse. However, I wasn't so lucky to be given a chance to collapse.
"Move it, Thane's Son! You are a dwarf of the Goldshield Clan and future Thane of Dul Vulkhan. There will be no rest for you until you can swing the heaviest warhammer in the hall! Now run five hundred laps around the hall and if you start walking then you will do a hundred push ups for every step!" At no point in his lecture or instructions had his decibel level dropped below leaf blower. If I had to go through five years of this then there was a good chance of me going deaf.
What followed the five hundred laps was a blur. I survived the next several months on limited sleep, less food, and unrelenting training straight from hell. If I had still been a human, even an adult human, I likely would not have survived. But evidently dwarven biology is too stubborn to die from mere exercise.
At the end of that time, I felt much stronger than I ever had in either this life or my past one. I could run for days straight in full combat gear and swing a fifty pound battle ax hundreds of times. Granted, at the end of those feats I nearly always collapsed until a bucket of ice cold cave water and a booming voice woke me again.
"Students!" Elder Wevrik shouted towards my group of kids one day while we were in the midst of a pushup marathon. That is to say, running twenty six miles while doing a hundred pushups after every mile. "Prepare your weapons and armor for battle tonight. Tomorrow we are going on a training expedition in the Demon Wastes on the surface. Reset the count."
As we started counting pushups from zero, I internally celebrated, or at least as much as I could over the sound of my screaming muscles. Maybe on the surface world I would find the answer to my mana storage problems. Then I could bring all my dreams to life! Or at the very least, perhaps I'd find something better to eat than stone bread. Bleh!