In the near distance from the cave of our intrepid companions war was being waged. The local denizens of this section of the forest were hard at work defending their dens/ caves or other places of residence from the incoming hoard of monsters that trail after the Titan. Now why is it that monsters follow in this behemoths wake? Well it is simple. Mana density.
With a creature of such significant might as the Titan it not only consumes a massive amount of mana but it also produces vast quantities of mana too. Whilst the Titan takes the wild near uncontrollable storm mana from up in the sky of the Endless Storm that no other creature can survive in. It in turn expels its excess purified mana towards the ground around it.
Now as for why they only follow behind the Titan, well that's quite obvious, what self respecting creature with any shred of intelligence will try to walk in front of a monster whose height can be measured in kilometres?
And so you have a situation where a hoard of lesser but still quite powerful monsters will follow in its wake to greedily consume the enriched mana produced by the Titan, they are predominantly creatures that have a speciality adjacent to storms, be this wind, water, lightning etc.
Interestingly enough very few creatures have a similar ability as the Storm Titan to produce more mana than they consume, one such creature is the Dragons. Now dragons will only gain this ability when they enter their adult stage of life so our little Violet is not able to do this just yet but, this is one of the reasons that the kingdom of Eldor began to capture and tame dragons, they wanted a easy source of renewable mana.
But regardless going back to our little dragon and her companion they are currently sat near the mouth of their little cave keeping an eye out for any monster that wants to try investigate their home, whilst listening to the Forrest in front of them descend into utter madness.
"How long will the fighting go on for?" Violet asked Luna, she had to tilt her head back to look up at the girl who as of yet still refused to let her down from her arms.
"Well when the Titan passed my clan by the fighting didn't stop for nearly 2 full days, the storm should continue on for around a week straight though." She didn't look too happy at that but her earlier depressive mood seems to have been replaced with a determination to persevere.
"We need to hunt tomorrow or go hungry." Violet astutely pointed out. After all whilst they had hunted that strange fluffy gerbil creature the day before they had already consumed around half of it for dinner the night before and their lunch today. They had been watching the endless carnage play out for a number of hours at this point.
Lunas face took on a consternated look at that but she nodded none the less, Violet sensed her determination through the bond and sent back a feeling of warm approval to her companion in return causing a small smile to grace her face. "Well your not wrong Violet, but we should hold out for as long as possible. From what I can remember the worst of the fighting is in the hours after the Titan passes, after that the remaining monsters are of the weaker variety and we should be able to at least escape from any tricky situation then.
With Violet agreeing with that the two settled in to pass the time. Luna pulled the furs over to the entrance and wrapped both herself and Violet up in them as they relaxed together looking out at the endless expanse of trees and rain covered in a pervasive gloom, with the only reprieve being the fairly regular lightning strikes that light up the surroundings.
To better pass the time Violet begins to play around with her magic first summoning a ball of Arcane mana and beginning to shape it into different forms. Whilst at first she can only shift it from her bolt to spear and then to lance form she soon is able to create new shapes. She first decides to try mimicking one of her claws seeing as they are excellent weapons from her point of view.
But after her construct explodes for the 4th time in as many minutes she decided that it might be best to try and resolve that issue first. And so she shifts her effort to try and harden her mana to prevent it from just randomly exploding when she doesn't want it to. It takes time given that she soon. Runs out of mana and has to rest and wait for it to recover but, she soon starts to have some success.
She is able to form her first defensive spell, a scale shaped shield roughly a meter tall and 2/3rds as wide is now hovering in the air before her. She is excited at this but also quite annoyed that she won't get this as an ability until she levels up. Stupid silly system not giving me my skills!
But regardless of her annoyance at the omnipotent system she is delighted in her new form of defence and soon turns to Luna to get her praise only to realise that Luna is currently absorbed in her own practice. And so she reigns in her excitement not wanting to disturb her companions practice, and gets back to experimenting herself. And is soon rewarded with a different type of notification.
[Your skill Arcane Manipulation has leveled up lvl 4->5]
Seeing Violet begin to play around with her mana Luna considers that she should probably familiarise herself with her newly gained speciality some more as well. After all it is vary rare that someone will be able to change their speciality so it is likely that it will stick with her for the majority if not her entire life.
And so Luna first uses her ice strike ability to summon some ice for her to use, then with the ice coating her fist she tries to use her mana to manually control the ice on her hand. Nothing seems to happen at first but as she slowly looses herself in the act a connection begins to form, at first it is a faint thing, like spotting a stray spiderweb drifting in the breeze, you know it is there from the occasional glint of the sunlight but it will just as quickly disappear from view.
This thin thread of a connection however soon becomes more defined moving up from a thread to a more defined string they she can finally get her proverbial hands on. With this she can suddenly sense the ice on a greater level that previously though possible. And as she wills the ice on her hand to change it responds, granted it is a slow change but it is just the beginning.
Elated at this Luna dives deeper into this connection with the ice and realises that on top of just being able to alter the shape of the ice, she can enhance the 'coldness'? Of the ice and based on the impressions she gets from both her class and speciality this is the part that will be left behind on any target she hits with an ice skill, like with that monkey she punched where its side froze over. She can enhance this effect by utilising more mana in the initial casting.
And so time quickly passed as the two companions lost themselves in their magical practice until the rumbling of their stomachs rouses them from their magical stupors and they retreat from the cave mouth to head over to the fire pit where they inform each other of what progress they made in their respective magics.
Whilst regaling each other of this Luna sets up the fire pit to begin cooking them both some dinner. She also realises that they are getting quite low on wood so that is something they will have to gather plenty of and preferably soon given that it will need to dry off before it can be used. She promises that that will be the first thing they do once before they go hunting tomorrow.
Dinner is soon eaten and given that they are both equally exhausted after practicing their magics for so long today they decide to just relax back in the furs whilst Luna told Violet some of the stories and legends that she herself learnt whilst growing up in her clan.
She spoke of the ancient hero of the snow leopards who battled and defeated the evil lich who once held dominion over a vast swath of land in the northern part of the forest. And how the hero battled for days on end through a seemingly endless arms of undead until he eventually confronted the lich itself before besting the vile creature and restoring peace to area. He was apparently the direct ancestor of Luna and apparently received a race evolution into a Arctic leopard for this act, but this had happened nearly a millennia ago so Luna was quite unsure if it was true as she hadn't heard of a single other snow leopard getting this evolution option. Luna the chad to explain what a millennia is and given that Violet still didn't quite grasp what a year was just yet Luna gave up on trying to explain it any further and just said that it was a long, long time ago.
But after the retelling of that tale the two decided to settle down for the night, after all tomorrow would be a big day. They would be venturing out into the storm, and would very likely encounter numerous monsters that will be eager for a fight. And arguably more importantly for Violet she could well reach level 10 again and be able to evolve! And so with thought on magic, hero's and evolutions on her mind Violet soon drifted off to sleep in the warm embrace of her companion.