Enter, Sern Knollwood

The sound of people talking around me filled the room. My body ached all over, and I felt like I could barely move. I could open my eyes ever so slightly, but everything was blurry, and I quickly got worn out. This continued on for what felt like weeks, until I was able to adjust. However, I quickly realized something was wrong.
This is karma for not visiting my brother; now I'm in the hospital, and it sounds like none of my family has shown up. Actually, I don't know what anyone is saying; I must have a horrible concussion.

When my vision finally cleared up, that's when I could clearly see for the first time my surroundings. A young woman with long black hair was looking down at me with a weak smile. She was exhausted by the looks of it but looked strong in spite of her exhaustion.

A man walked over from the other side of the room and began speaking to the woman, but it sounded all garbled to me. The man looked about the same age; however, he had silver-white hair, which I thought was strange. As the man looked down at me, I could see a pained look on his face. I wanted to say:
What's wrong with me? Where are the doctors?

But all that came out was the sound of wailing cries.
Oh God, what's happened to me?

Several months later, I've started to understand the new situation I am in. It seems like I really did die that day and am now reborn into this new world. All my memories from my previous life are still intact, up until I fell off that building, which is strange to me. However, I see it as a great boon for me, as hopefully, I won't waste time this go-around. I sometimes think back to my previous life and wonder how my family reacted to everything, but I don't dwell on it too long because I don't think it would be a heartfelt, teary-eyed reaction. What I do know is that I've been given another opportunity. One that won't be wasted thinking about what could have been, and instead one where I go out and take what the world has to offer me. This will be my chance to redeem myself... Or I hope so at least.

Four years have gone by.
Now I can really move about on my own and have started to understand my family situation. Our house could be called ... rustic? It was clear to me that my family was not the well-off type, as seen by the dingy appearance of the furniture and how everything seemed to be second-hand. The house was on the outskirts of a large city, past the city walls, close to a wooded area. The most crucial thing I learned during this period was this.
The existence of magic

Let the mana converge and flow through the conduit to become—Fire!
I would hear these words on a daily basis when my mother lit the fire for cooking and whatnot with what looked to be a short stick. I've also learned my name and the names of my parents. My mother's name is Mira Knollwood, and my father's name is Vash Knollwood. My name is Sern Knollwood. Truly, one of the biggest differences between my old life and my new one is this: I was born a girl, not a boy.

Currently, the fact that I am now a girl doesn't really change anything about my situation. However, I am a little disappointed about the fact that there are some things that I will never experience as a man anymore because I didn't do them when I was in my previous life. But other than that, it seems that I'll be needing to get used to this now.

Three months later, Vash brought home some old-looking books. He works as a guard for the city but is stationed on the very outskirts of the city. "Look what the man on the last shift gave to me, Sern!" I've learned a decent bit of the language, which is called the common tongue, but I am practically illiterate because there are no books in this house. I squinted at the covers of the books to try to make out letters and words, but it was all in vain. He could clearly see that I was struggling and walked over to pick me up. He then walked over to where Mira was sitting and placed me in her lap.

"This book says, 'To Understand the Appliances and Intricacies of Magic,'" Vash said in a soft tone. "And this other one says The Histories of Orta."

I could see his face slightly twitch as he said that.

"Let's read the book about magic first, shall we?" Smiling as he said that. I was far more excited for the book on magic, so there were no complaints from me. I followed along as he read the book aloud and started to piece things together in my head. What I gathered from the book was that first, all creatures have some amount of mana, and that some individuals have more mana than others. Mana is used like fuel to create and change the form of the magic.

Second, I learned that magic needs a conduit to be expressed. Apparently, it can be almost anything. However, the quality, shape, and material of the conduit can greatly affect the output of the magic. Say you had a choice between a wand and a rock; you'd be better off with the wand.

Third, to use magic, you need to speak a certain incantation. Something that goes like this: Let the mana converge and flow through the conduit to become ... something. I think there are very slight variations of the incantation, but it's mainly just this. I always see and hear Mira using this for everyday household things, which leads me to believe that I can probably do something like that too. 

All of this new information was floating around in my mind, but I was excited. Ideas were swirling in my head, but Vash decided to call it for the night. "Looks like we got through a good chunk of the book, let's get to the other book some other time." 
I could tell that he was avoiding reading that book to me, so from this point, I began to practice reading on my own to learn everything they were concealing from me.