Violet slowly awoke once more to the sunlight shining through her cave entrance stretching herself out she immediately noticed that her scales were a different colour! Her front legs were now covered in deep blue scales with hints of both black and pink depending on the angle she looked at them from.
Excited by this change she craned her neck around to get a better look at the rest of her body. The first thing she noticed was her wings, whilst still small and clearly not able to support flight just yet the membrane between the bone was a light pink colour whilst the scales along the edges was a deep blue. The ridges that went down her spine were all black whilst most of her body was the same blue as her front legs. All the blue scales seemed to shift from a blacker tint or a lighter pink tint depending on how you looked at them.
Violet felt her chest puff out in delight as she admired her new appearance. After a moment she rushed over to the pond to see how her face looked now. She was even happier with that as her face was mostly blue except for the start of her new horns that jutted out from just above and behind her eyes. The horns only extended maybe an inch and were a lovely pink and seemed to crackle slightly with magic!
Before she could get fully engrossed in admiring how she looked a system screen popped into her vision.
[Congratulations you have successfully evolved into a Infant Arcane Shadow Dragon]
[You are now able to select a class, please choose from the following options:]
Apprentice Shadow Mage
Apprentice Arcane Mage
Apprentice Assassin
Beastly Fighter
Apprentice Gourmand
Apprentice Mage
Novice Arcane Shadow Manipulator
Hmm this feels somewhat similar to my evolution choices although I have no idea what a gourmand is? Actually how does a class even work I wondered. Surprisingly the system answered me.
[Notice, a class will provide a boost in stats relevant to your chosen class, and you will gain bonus stats each level in these areas. Additionally any skills related to the chosen class will level faster]
'Oh thank you for that system! Hmm ok then I think I can rule out a couple straight away, I can get rid of all the apprentice mage choices as they just seem like inferior versions of the Novice Arcane shadow Manipulator. I will get rid of gourmand as I still don't know what that is but it sounds weak. Between being an assassin and a beastly fighter I think I prefer the assassin as I'm still small and stealth is my preferred choice of attack. Hmm but even still it feels like the Novice Arcane shadow Manipulator class was made specifically for my evolution so it would be stupid not to choose that one right?'
After giving it more thought than normal she made her decision, she spend a whole 6 seconds on her deliberations after all!
[Congratulations you have gained the class Novice Arcane shadow Manipulator]
[Status]
Name - Violet
Species - Infant Arcane Shadow Dragon
Speciality - Arcane Shadows
Class - Novice Arcane shadow Manipulator
Level - 1/10
HP - 100
Mana - 150
Agility - 9->10
Strength - 11
Constitution - 10
Intelligence - 10->15
Wisdom - 8->12
Skills / abilities
Stealth lvl 2
Pounce lvl 2
Tail Whip lvl1
Arcane Bolt lvl 3
Arcane Manipulation lvl 1->2
Shadow Manipulation lvl 1->2
Arcane Spear lvl 1
New skill - Shadow Bolt lvl 1
As the class settled into Violets being a rush of mental clarity and strength rose from within her. Looking over her new status she couldn't help but grin at the changes. It finally felt like she was making some significant progress! She was also pleasantly surprised at the new skill and that she had levelled up both her manipulation skills, although it did make sense seeing as her class was centered around that fact.
Giddy with excitement she hurriedly had a drink and rushed over the the boar corpse and ate her fill before running out of the cave and made a dash towards the lake eager to try out her new magics!
Whilst she did rush she was also not being stupid and stayed within the shadows to the best of her abilities making sure to play around with Shadow manipulation as she went. She found that her control over the shadows was considerably better than her first attempts and she was able to expand any surrounding shadows with ease and even cost herself in shadows fully even if only part of her was within it.
This allowed for her swift movement through the tall trees in fact she was apparently so good at stealth that it leveled up to lvl 3!
After not too long she found herself once more at the shores of the gargantuan lake. However something was different this time as she could no longer spot any lone frog shamans. Instead it would appear that after loosing several to me before, each shaman was now being protected by a couple of what Violet could only assume to be frog warriors if their sharp pointy sticks were anything to judge by.
Figuring that she was now considerably stronger than before it should be too hard to take out a group of 3. Upon this decision she cloaked herself in shadows and slowly moved around the tree line waiting till she spotted one of the groups came closer to her.
Eventually the group she posted up near to separated from the lake and headed into the Forrest, due to her improved stealth and shadow manipulation that managed to pass right by her location. As they walked by Violet began to charge her pounce and ready a shadow Bolt at the same time once she was satisfied she launched the bolt at the shaman in the middle and pounced on the nearest warrior.
BOOM, CRUNCH
The result was devastating to say the least, the bolt was aimed at the head and it struck true instantly separating head from body and killing the shaman before it could even react. Her pounce was equally successful allowing her to land on the warriors back digging her claws into its side and clamping her jaw around the back of its neck. Before it could utter most that a pained grunt her razor sharp teeth ripped through the spine with a satisfying crunch sending the new dead warrior to the floor.
The second warrior whipped its head around and Violet enjoyed seeing its eyes widen in fear as it registered its two dead companions, however this fear was quickly replaced by blind fury.
GWAHHHHH!
It roared and immediately charged at Violet with its pointy stick extended in her direction, not wanting to let it get closer she jumped backwards whilst sending a Arcane Bolt out at it, however now aware of her the warrior managed to duck out of the way with surprising agility and lunged at her once more. Unable to dodge this time she only managed to angle her body slightly to avoid the taking the attack head on, instead it ripped along her side shredding several scales and leaving a line of blood on her side.
Grunting in pain she refused to give up and dove into its reach raking her claws up towards the warrior it managed to get its stick up in the way blacking her strike. What followed was a series of quick strikes and blocks.
CLANG, CLASH, THUD. GWAHH
The frog man was able to block all her slaw strikes until she though of using her head. Quite literally in this case and she infused her budding horns with her Arcane mana causing them to glow pink and head butted the creature right after sending a claw strike its way. It blocked the claw but was less successful in blocking her headbutt. Striking it in the chest it howled in pain as her horns punched two shallow holes there, it staggered back only to revive a arcane bolt right to its chest.
BOOM, THUD
A new even larger hold was blasted through its chest shortly followed by its body topping over as it too died.
[You have defeated Frogman Shaman lvl 6 exp rewarded]
[You have defeated Frogman Warrior lvl 8x2 exp rewarded]
[Congratulations you have leveled up]
Lvl 1->2
Agility - 10->11
Strength - 11->12
Constitution - 10->11
Intelligence - 15->17
Wisdom - 12->13
Grinning over her victory she noticed that she still seemed to get 3 stats as a base whilst her class grated her a addition 3 stats split evenly between Agility, Intelligence and Wisdom for a total of 6 stat point per level! This delighted Violet even more as she would now get twice as strong each level compared to pre evolution.
Humming happily to herself she began to dig in to her fresh snacks surprised as the warriors tasted much better than the shamans did, maybe strength did have something to do with taste after all?
Well either way Violet decided she could just figure that out as time went on. For now though she had a lake to explore and more fights to be fought! With that decision made she reactivated her shadow manipulation and melded with the shadows to go about hunting down her next prey.