As Violet left her cave she only had two goals for now, to explore more and grow stronger. The first was quite easy to achieve and she figured that the second would happen naturally as she explored and got into fights.
As for exploring Violet discovered that her cave was located at the foot of quite a tall mountain or at least tall for her as she had no frame of reference other than the trees nearby and the mountain was many times the trees height so it had to be big, right?
Anyway in the area around her cave was just a forest, albeit with a smaller clearing between the base of the mountain and the trees, their were birds up in the trees but they never went down so Violet was unsure if they were strong or weak but she did know that she would like to taste them some day.
Her cave was on the North side of the mountain so she decided to head directly north for now and see what she ran into. Sneaking through the undergrowth she focused on remaining as hidden as possible whilst being aware of any potential danger or prey.
It was surprisingly quite as she slipped from shadow to shadow slowly getting further from the cave as the day went on. She did spot some movement occasionally but it ran away before she could investigate. As the sun reached its zenith the trees suddenly stopped and as she reached the edge of the tree line a large expanse of water stretched out before her.
The lake in front of her was truly huge to the point that she could barely make out the far shoreline from where she stood. As she stood there looking at the lake with interest she almost missed a flash of movement to her side. Thankfully her instincts kicked in and she dove to the side narrowly avoiding a ball of water that shot past the spot her head would have been in moments ago.
Quickly getting back to her feet she looked in the direction the water came from only to blink in surprise. Why is that frog standing on 2 feet and holding a stick? What an odd frog indeed. However, this thought came to a screeching halt when in front of her eyes another ball of water formed at the end of the frogs staff before it shot out towards her. Blinking in surprise she failed to react in time and was struck in her chest by the blast.
Violet was sent staggering back and glanced down in pain only to find that some of her scales had been cracked by that blast! 'How did it summon a ball of water? How did water hurt me so much?' Violet was truly confused and snapped her head back up to investigate.
With narrowed eyes she watched as a bluish energy seemed to flow from the frogs chest down its arm and then into the stick before a ball of water begins to form! 'What is that energy?' She wondered 'is it maybe mana? I mean what else could it be it must be magic!'
However she had to cut that line of thought short as the ball of water shot forward once again. Ready for it this time Violet dove to the side narrowly avoiding the blast!
Figuring that since some lowly frog can use magic there is no reason why she should be able to as well! So she focused on her mana, it felt wild, untamed and powerful. But she didn't care about that she just wanted to to do as she commanded it to do! So focusing on it she tried to copy what the frog did. So she pictured her mana flowing from her core up her neck and to gather in a ball in front of her face. Just as she was beginning to think it would work she had to dive to the side again as a blast of water crashed past her!
"Stupid frog! Just stay there and wait for me to finish or I'll eat you!" She shouted, what came out was a mixture or grows and yips but Violet didn't care right then. Annoyed at her interruption she refocused and felt her mana responding to her will. And soon enough a ball of her mana was hovering just to the side of her head. However hers was different to the frogs, whilst the frog called forth water her ball was a light pink with crackling streaks of blue energy racing within. Grinning at this she commanded the ball to fly at the stupid frog.
The ball of mana zoomed out and directly at the very surprised frog.
Ribit? BOOM!
A small explosion went off as the frog in its confusion didn't even try to dodge and was hit directly in the chest and was blasted back to the ground. Violet began to race forward to finish it off but to her mild suprise the frog turned out to be dead!
[You have defeated Frogman Shaman lvl 5 exp rewarded]
[Congratulations you have leveled up]
Lvl 6->7
Intelligence - 6->8
Wisdom - 4->5
[New Skill Unlocked - Arcane Bolt lvl 1]
[Your Skills have leveled up]
Sneak lvl 1->2
Arcane Bolt lvl 1->2
"Wooo! I can use magic! And it's super strong! Or that frog was just super weak? Hmm maybe a bit of both?" Nodding her head at her flawless logic Violet trotted over to the corpse her tail wagging happily behind her. Digging into her new meal Violet was slightly disappointed in it, whilst not exactly bad tasting it really wasn't as good as the Dire Mice.
Now whilst Violet didn't quite realise the importance of this event if any other mage were to see this they would spit blood in envy at this baby dragon barley 2 days old being able to unlock a Arcane skill. For in this world mana was split up into certain tiers.
At the lowest tier you had basic pure mana. Above that you had the elemental mana types, this is earth, fire, water and air. Then you had the combination elements. This is your ice, lightning, magma, and nature. And above that you had your fundamental mana types, being light, shadow, space, time and gravity. But apart from the elemental tiers there is a different category that is even rarer than the fundamentals, this being Arcane mana. This Arcane mana is unique to each individual and as such is perfectly suited to them. Now whilst everyone technically can gain access to arcane mana very few actually manage to achieve it. Which is why the fact that Violet unlocked arcane mana right off the bat would cause envy in the magical world!
Regardless after her snack she decided to walk around the edge of the lake for a while longer to see if she runs into any more of the frog mages so she can practice against them some more!
And so that's how the rest of her afternoon went. Violet would stalk around the edge of the lake trying to stay within the shadows of the trees and would attack any frogmen that she ran into. The day was quite productive!
[You have defeated Frogman Shaman lvl 6 x3 exp rewarded]
[You have defeated Frogman Shaman lvl 5 x4 exp rewarded]
[Congratulations you have leveled up]
Lvl 7->8
Intelligence - 8->9
Wisdom - 5->7
A good days hunting in Violets opinion. But after this long day of excitement Violet was getting tired so decided to make her way back towards her cave.
Deciding to experiment some more with magic as she truly found it fascinating she wondered if she was limited to just using her destructive pink/blue Arcane bolts or if she could do more with it. Seeing as she was stalking her way through the shadows currently she decided to try and see if her mana could affect or mimic the shadows.
It turns out that this was extremally hard to do as Violet really didn't quite know what a shadow was so imagining her mana turning into one was quite the issue.
Deciding to take a different approach she instead focused on controlling existing shadows instead of trying to create shadows out of just mana. Letting her mana slowly reach out around her she focused on 'grabbing' on of the surrounding shadows with her mana and she felt something catch. It was minute and had she not been concentrating on it she most definitely wouldn't have noticed it!
But with that first handhold she managed to secure it with a bit more effort she pulled at the edge of the shadow, willing it to stretch just a little bit further and too her delight it did!
The shadow moved ever so slightly. It really wasn't much but just that tiny movement opened up a lot of possibilities for our baby dragon who despite being so young could still understand that if she got better at controlling the shadows around her she would have access to a amazing tool!
And so Violet practiced manipulating the shadows that she moved through for the rest of the way back to her cave. Only stopping once to shoot down a particularly plump looking bird on one of the nearby trees for a final meal of the day!
Back at her cave she drank some water and then moved over to her spot on the floor and curled into a ball to go to sleep. Whilst her mind initially raced with excitement over her magical accomplishments she soon found her eyes drifting closed as she eventually drifting off to sleep with a draconic grin on her face.