A pleasant breeze brushed through the now barren trees, the temperature was nice, not too warm, not too cold. She idly stared at the sky, daydreaming of what the next season might have in store. This was one of the last days of fall, in one weeks time winter would be in full swing. This was not something she knew due to previous experience but simply knowledge she had been born with, like how to walk, or how to bark. The specifics of what winter actually entailed were not fully known to her.

It had been two weeks since their grueling battle with the hobgoblins. They only rested for three days before resuming their daily trips. All seven cubs were now competent hunters, and had learned magic. A couple had even been named. She still did not have one, but as she was not aware of how or why things recieved names in the first place, it was not anything she really cared about.

Her sister, to whom she hunted with alongside Kuro, had been granted the name “Sasha”. Her strength stat had grown even more, to a point where she was closing in on mother, though there was still quite some progress to be made. Another sibling had also been granted a name, one of her brother’s in the other hunting party, was now called “Kon”.

She was alone at the den today, mother decided to entrust her with guard duty, and went hunting with the other party. To fill in for her absence Kon was grouped with Kuro and Sasha, though the cubs had become rather strong it was still unsafe to hunt in groups smaller than 3. Now was an especially dangerous time, as bears and other hibernating creatures would be out gathering food in preparation for their season long naps.

Her mind wandered some more, thinking about all of the things she had seen, magic, playing, and then… She had an epiphany, she had been appraising things since birth, any time she made visual contact with another living being. But she had never actually appraised herself, after all she could not see herself; however, she COULD sense her own mana. Clearing her mind, she focussed all of her attention upon her magical signature, she could clearly identify her own outline and the energy that flowed inside of it.

Appraisal.

Name

-

Species

Chamrosh (female)

Age

1 month

Rank

Wolf (627)

STR

70

INT

77

AGI

112

END

65

DEF

53

MAG

84

ADT

94

LCK

72

Feats

Persistence

+10 ADT

Wind Mastery

2.1%

Fire Mastery

0.1%

Water Mastery

0%

Earth Mastery

0%

Light Mastery

0%

Dark Mastery

0%

Holy Mastery

0%

Space Mastery

0%

Life Mastery

0%

Death Mastery

0%

Decay Mastery

0%

Poison Mastery

0%

Pure Mastery

0%

This was a lot of information to take in. She had expected the basic info that popped up whenever she conducted a normal appraisal. This did however answer the question of what that notification was when she defeated the hobgoblin, it apparently offered a stat boost so she was not complaining. The Mastery section had something to do with magic, that much was obvious, but what the numbers actually signified was less clear. It definitely had something to do with how well she could use them, but how that was actually determined eluded her understanding.

Some of the listed masteries were familiar to her, such as Wind, Dark, Fire, Life, Water, Earth, and Decay. She had seen her siblings and various monsters use them, but the others she was not too sure about. Pure magic for example. The general meaning of the words on her status were translated into her mind, but what they actually entailed was not. She could guess what poison, and Light would do, but Holy, Space, Death, and Pure were less obvious.

The actual numbers on her status also surprised her; although she could already tell whether her stats were higher or lower than any given target, she did not actually know the exact value of any given stat. Her stats were all around rather impressive, her Strength, Defense, and Endurance could use a bit of work; but, in Magic she was inferior to only Kuro and her Mother. Moreover, she had the highest Agility, Intelligence, and Adaptation out of all her siblings, and tied for first with Kuro in Luck. She felt a sense of pride, but also one of shame. She was not satisfied with how her physical ability compared to her other siblings, she wasn’t the weakest, but she was far from the strongest.

While she sat, pondering this new information the first hunting party arrived back at the den. It was the one led by mother. She skated over to meet them excited to have some company again, this was the longest she had ever spent completely alone since she was born. Her siblings were excited to show off their loot, her two unnamed brothers had managed to take down a small raptor, a bird-lizard hybrid that walks on two legs. They dragged its body between them, one leg in each of their mouths. Their sister had killed a young Lapin, a rabbit with the body of a miniature bear. Her mother did not bring back anything, though she strongly suspected this was because she had played some part in subduing her children’s prey.

Not long after the other party came back as well, side by side they made a sort of gradient, Sasha with her light fur, Kon a dark brownish red, and the pitch black Kuro. the three of them collectively caught one boar, the same kind that they had encountered by the river so long ago.

With everyone back home it was time to eat, they always started with the oldest food first as to not let it go bad, and thus they ate the last of what had once been a tribe of knaves. Her siblings finished, one after another laying down on the forest floor, tired from the day’s activities.

With nothing to do she took this time to start getting stronger. Faced with her own weakness, she made a declaration to herself, ‘I will catch up to mother by the end of winter’. She knew it might not be possible, but that did not matter. What she needed was a goal, and that was a fine one.

She was not sure how to actually start, strength was her first pick due to its straight forward nature, but what should she actually do? The answer she arrived at was hitting things really really hard. That’s what strength is used for, so why wouldn’t that work. She picked a tree at random and started slashing at it with her talons. It slowly whittled away, first the bark, then the sapwood. Her legs began to feel numb from the repeated impacts. Thoughts of tiring during battle and losing her life entered her mind. She kept going, the heartwood, the pith, until finally the tree gave a deep groan and began to fall. she bled lightly, several splinters had been embedded into her paws, she could no longer feel either of her legs, but in that moment it did not matter, the tree had hit the ground, and she had won.

She did not walk back to the den but instead glided on a sheet of wind to avoid further injury to her feet. She returned, greeting her still dozing siblings with a whispered bark. Pain began slowly creeping back into her legs, the numbness was fading and a dull throbbing sensation began to set in. Nothing felt broken but it certainly did not feel good.

As she prepared herself to land ready to lay down, mother appeared in front of her. She looked at her daughter with an appraising eye. She could sense an injury, her maternal instinct would not allow this to go unnoticed. A scornful expression appeared on her face, as if to say ‘you need to take better care of yourself’, but she relented. Life magic flowed from her mother and into herself, the pain slowly lifted. Mother nuzzled her lovingly.

Perhaps she should rethink the strength training…