After sleeping off my first fight, I had calmed down considerably. I wasn't really going to go out and attempt to genocide an entire species because of one bad experience that was, in large part, my fault.

I had once asked my mother why dragons allowed the more monstrous races, many of which were far viler than trolls, to continue existing. The answer was that some extinction events actually had occurred under the claws, fangs, and fire of particularly destructive Wyrms, but were extremely rare. Dragons, after all, cared little for matters outside of their obsession.

My mother, in particular, had some sympathy for the more violent creatures of Angnora, since they did not choose their base nature. She took more issue with malevolent members of the intelligent races over monsters. Really though, the biggest factor in her sparing use of interventive action was that most problems caused by monsters were on a scale far too small to warrant her attention. She believed in the importance of the natural order, and that space abhors a vacuum. When trying to tip the scale in one direction it may consequently swing hard in the other, so only enormous threats that disturbed the greater balance or threatened beings already under her protection would evoke a response from her, and a thoroughly thought out one at that.

It sounded like a slightly pretentious excuse to me, but I'd been trying to be less judgmental since I acknowledged the many centuries of experience and wisdom she had over me. Still, I dreaded the thought of ending up just as distant from the world as my elders and took comfort in my desire to keep applying a hands-on approach when I saw those in need, like the Firescale Tribe.

They were reasonably disappointed that I no longer wanted the end all troll life, but were easily mollified when I promised to still help them kill off whichever gangs were giving them the most trouble. Seeing how accepting they were of my whims, I felt that their ever-accommodating nature toward me did have its charm. I knew that the responsible thing to do would be to get more info on the upcoming battles, but I decided to put it off until later. I was preoccupied with my concern over the lack of remorse I had from my recent reaping of humanoid life and didn't want to think deeply about more killing just yet.

"Is this another dragon-induced change in me, or was I always this way?" I asked myself. "While on Earth I did have the occasional fantasy of brutally punishing the worst criminals of society, but that's a far cry from actual vigilantism. Now I've taken the lives of similarly monstrous creatures and feel nothing. No, that's quite right. I feel shame that I didn't have an easier time of it, and even a bit good that I offed them. That isn't normal. Even stranger is that I feel that I'm more upset with myself for letting this bother me than I am with the actual murder. It's like I'm forcing myself to ruminate over these things because of the principles I held because it's what my human self would've done, but those principles are starting to ring hollow to me. Is this a dragonly attitude, or an unhealthy disassociation of self?"

I always had a slightly morose character when spending too much time in my thoughts, but since my rebirth I found myself sighing far more often than I liked. In the end, it was just another rabbit hole I'd put out of mind in favor of finding something more enjoyable with which to distract myself. So while the tribe was waiting for chieftain Sjigg's return, I spent a full week practicing magic alongside Rahga's apprentices.

Rahga was responsible for teaching only the most talented young kobold sorcerers, five of which were in our class. They were Braka, Tak, Dun, Surti, and Yug, who I already met. The rest were out defending the tribe's territory or had already graduated from his lessons.

The five apprentices used the week to demonstrate their firebolt spell, an evocation cantrip among the most basic of their abilities, as my intro to casting. When they needed a break, they'd take turns tutoring Aark on reading and writing. My first minion was grumbling over a scroll that he seemed to be struggling with. I found myself grumbling as well, a result of my lack of progress with magic. I had imagined spellcasting was going to be easier, what with me becoming a creature considered to be magic incarnate and all. And things did seem promising at first.

Normally, an apprentice would spend months familiarizing themselves with their own mana, then the mana around them, and finally learn how to read the mana in others, but I was able to breeze through all three steps in a single day thanks to a hint from Rahga. After he told me that my mana would feel similar to what I felt when channeling my dragonfire, but present in a less concentrated form and spread throughout my entire body, I was almost immediately able to identify the unique energy. Indeed, I was quite literally thrumming with the stuff.

I demonstrated my keen mana sense to them via oratory descriptions of what I could perceive in myself, in the environment, and their casting. They, already being highly proficient, confirmed my findings to be accurate and detailed enough to get an exemplary grade.

Watching them cast was particularly enchanting to me, as I could only describe the process as them using their personal mana to "coax" the ambient mana into the shape of the desired spell model. I also identified minor differences in how each kobold cast the same spell, such as the speed of the shaping, the movement of mana, or the order in which details of the spell shape formed. It varied from caster to caster yet achieved nearly identical results, and this lack of a uniform system made it clear why sorcery was considered intuition-based.

As for why I was still watching firebolts fly into target boulders a week later? Despite my best efforts, I had barely been able to make a single spark or puff of smoke appear! It was particularly frustrating since I sped right past what was considered the hard part for sorcerers, mana sensing, only to stumble on the supposed easy part, the casting.

A sorcerer's spells were like a piece of them, the correct models would just appear in their minds the moment they were proficient enough to cast them. Then it was just a matter of practice and polish to get stronger. Casting was an act of will for both sorcerers and dragons alike, but I just couldn't get it to work.

In actuality, our group had already identified the two key issues that were most likely to be holding me back, but I was being stubborn.

"Come on, come on!" I strained, only to be greeted by another fart of smoke emerging from my outstretched claw.

Rahga began his comforting, "There, there, young prince, it's only because-"

"I know!" I snapped, instantly regretting my tone. I softened my voice, "I know, teacher. It's because I'm too young and because I'm a dragon attempting to cast like a kobold. But I'm telling you, something inside of me can tell that it's possible, even if it is extremely difficult. I can feel I'm making progress, it's just too minuscule to have any effect."

Rahga merely sighed in response, not wanting to contradict or dissuade me.

What I was attempting was akin to fusing a bit of wizardry into sorcery, as I was studying the kobolds' methodologies in the hopes of replicating their results. I was trying to make sense of the details rather than waiting for the magic to come to me.

And so, the kobolds consoled me after each failure, repeating that wondrous magic would open themselves to me as I aged regardless of practice, but something in me believed that my problem lay more with trying to cast like them than my bodily youth.

To better describe it, mortal sorcery was like taking a ring, barely an inch in diameter, then trying to pour a full pitcher of water through it while holding the pitcher and ring far apart. If any of the water touched the ring or passed outside of it, the spell would fail. With enough practice (proficiency in mana sensing), any sorcerer could master the act. The roadblock I was facing from being a dragon was that, instead of a pitcher of water, I had to do the same trick with a firehose!

It seemed impossible, but I could tell that through extreme concentration, I could metaphorically narrow the nozzle of my hose, reduce the amount of spray, or even slow the flow. Only, I could barely manage to do one of those things at a time, and to a teeny-tiny degree. I simply had far too much mana to control finely, but I persisted because I felt there were likely to be some unknown benefits to learning how to control my vast mana through the constraints of conventional sorcery. However, my patience was waning.

"Teacher, would you mind showing off your version of the firebolt spell? Since it will be far above average, it might give me an insight on wielding my ridiculous reserves." I requested.

"With pleasure, young prince." Rahga linked his tiny clawed fingers together and gave them a stretch before holding one out to his side.

A fiery arrow, three times as large and wild as the ones from his students, rapidly formed above his claw.

Contrary to my expectation, the amount of mana he used was about the same as his apprentices. Instead, it was his coaxing process that improved the spell. The five young kobolds weaved magic like street musicians played songs, but Rahga's version was an exquisite symphony with a full orchestra.

I was drawn to the beauty of it and found myself unconsciously inching closer.

"May I touch it?" I asked.

Rahga chuckled. "You can, of course, do as you wish, Prince Amartho."

I extended a claw and punctured the center of the hovering firebolt, causing it to erupt. Rahga easily steered the heat and flame away from himself, and as the remnants of the spell's shape unraveled around my claw, I caught the whiff of something peculiar.

I asked Rahga to cast another, only to this time throw it at the practice boulder. A new firebolt soon streaked through the air, bursting against the large rock. Somehow, it was able to ignite the stone target for a short duration despite the lack of anything flammable present as fuel. Rahga looked extremely pleased with himself as I admired his work.

"Fascinating. Not only does your version have an additional burning effect, but its blast was much larger than the one I interrupted." I paused before offering my conjectures. "Was the first one incomplete because it hadn't yet been released or is my draconic spell resistance emerging at a relatively early age, and that diminished the spell? My natural fire immunity could have factored in too. Maybe a bit of each? There are so many possibilities! Magic really is amazing."

"All reasonable theories." Rahga praised. "I hope I've successfully provided some inspiration. However, I still believe it may be best to try whatever methods your mother taught you if you wish to get results more quickly. I worry that a dragon trying to conjure as we do might be as unnatural as a snake trying to learn how to juggle. Of course, if anyone could pull it off, it would be you, young prince."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cast the dragon way. Flattery. Got it." I excitedly and rudely waved off his ingratiating remarks, as that something peculiar about his spell had really caught my interest. "But first, would you mind hitting me with one of your fancy firebolts?"

"Why certain- what?! Young prince! It's one thing to let you interrupt my spell, and another thing entirely to attack you with it!" Rahga said loudly, flustered by my outlandish request.

I groaned as the other kobolds nodded nervously, clearly sharing our teacher's sentiments.

"Teacher," I whined, "You know fire can't harm me. And I know, I know, 'that isn't the point, young prince. It's a matter of respecting you, young prince. Something something, young prince!' But this is going to help me! Please don't make me order you to do it."

"Help you?" Repeated Rahga uncertainly, a bit stunned at my admittedly immature outburst. "Are you certain that pelting you with firebolts will help you, Prince Amartho?"

"Yes, I haven't gone crazy." I sighed. "Well, maybe a little, but not regarding this. When I interrupted your spell, I could feel its collapse. Maybe I can gain more insight from experiencing the full force of it, maybe I can't. What's more important is that I think there is something special about your magic that I can't quite put my claw on. If I got another few close-up looks I bet I'd get a better hint."

"Well, if you're going to flatter this humble one and insist it's for your benefit, how could I refuse?" He meekly replied.

Contrary to his words, his face paled. Still, he followed my wishes and hit me with firebolt after firebolt while I shouted, "Again!" like a mad dragon between each blast.

After around twenty bolts, Rahga looked like a stressed-out wreck.

"Perhaps we should take a little break?" He pleaded. "I don't mean to complain, Great, Mighty and Wise Prince Amartho, but attacking you is extremely inappropriate!"

"Fine." I agreed, rolling my eyes. "Actually, I think I've figured it out anyway. I don't know what it means, but I realize now that what captivated me definitely wasn't the beauty of your casting, but a vague sense of familiarity hidden within. Now that I've taken some firebolts to the face, I'm sure of it! When your firebolts discharge, it's extremely faint, but the scent of spirits is present. I once met-"

My words were interrupted by Rahga nearly tripping forward, coughing and sputtering as he choked on saliva going down the wrong pipe.

"H-how amazingly astute of you!" He started to explain a little too quickly. "No need to waste your breath, young prince. You see, students, when elemental magic reaches a certain level, it can- it can disturb some of the hidden elemental spirits in the ambient mana! Ar, ar, ar! That's right! It's... a very advanced but otherwise useless phenomenon, which is why I never taught about it. What a surprise that a dragon's keen senses could pick up on such a minuscule detail! I'm truly impressed, young prince!"

He composed himself and continued to laugh, but it was too late. My fey blessing that helped me detect lies had finally triggered. I thought it would be something like a dinging noise in my head, but instead, it was like a very strong gut feeling. If I didn't know I had the blessing I'd have believed it was just my sharp intuition.

"I see. So, that's all it was?" I asked, squinting my eyes.

Seeing in my expression that the jig was up, he cleverly answered, "Yes, of course! It's not worthy of classroom discussion, but if it interests you we could discuss such magical quirks as entertainment for one of your morning flights."

"More lies followed by a partial-truth. He's willing to reveal the truth to me, but only away from the others?" I thought, piecing together what my blessing revealed.

"Let's do so tomorrow," I replied. "Anyway, I think It's about time I relented. I'm sure everyone here is keen to see me give dragon sorcery a shot."

Whatever Rahga was hiding, a kobold's personal secrets really weren't that important to me; I was merely curious. So I did the best thing I could think of to help my teacher cover up whatever he was fussing about: I glossed over the matter and provided a more interesting distraction.

Rahga breathed a sigh of relief, as his apprentices didn't seem to suspect anything from his odd behavior. After all, it really did come from being startled by my perceptiveness, just not in the way he portrayed it.

As I prepared to make my next attempt, I noticed that Aark had long since used the group's diverted attention as a chance to doze off on his scrolls. My pride made me particularly dislike failing in front of my first minion, and I wasn't feeling too optimistic, so I only chuckled at the sight.

"Alright, here we go." I took a deep breath and the still conscious kobolds held theirs.

I knew the shape I needed, as I had a week of examples to go off of, but this time no finesse was required. I recalled my mom's theoretical lessons.

She had taught me that the major difference between mortal sorcery and "true sorcery" was that instead of performing a delicate balancing act, dragons would just dominate the ambient mana into shape, or fuel the entirety of a spell with their enormous personal supply.

Both approaches had their pros and cons. Using just our own mana was more efficient and slightly quicker for internal casting, such as self-buffing, dispelling, and healing, but was much more taxing for casting anything externally. Likewise, the method of dominating ambient mana was slightly faster and far more efficient for anything external like buffing others, slinging fireballs, etc.

As I finished refreshing my memory, I focused, imagining the image of a firebolt forming. I began channeling my mana from my heart, through my arm, and out from my palm, assaulting the empty space above it.

"Form," I commanded through gritted fang.

Sparks of fire appeared out of nothingness and swirled above my claws.

From the sparks, I slowly manifested a small flame, no larger than that of a candle,

I mentally pressed for the flame to grow and elongate, but instead of an arrow I only managed to reach the shape of a splinter.

As it flickered erratically I could only concede that it was truly difficult to translate an image from one's mind to reality, just as a novice artisan would struggle to paint a scene with photo-realism. I had to constantly adjust every incorrect detail, and push back every time a section of the shape wavered out of control.

With a final push, my splinter was the right size, but was still unevenly shaped and was sporadically letting off small tongues of flame.

I knew it was now or never and swung my claw forward in a throwing motion. The firesplinter shot forward, reaching about fifteen feet before fizzling out, an eighth of the proper range.

"Damn. Still failed." I thought, only to be greeted by a loud round of applause and shouting.

I looked back to the sight of the kobold apprentices bouncing up and down, and Rahga looking proud enough to cry. The commotion was enough to wake Aark up, who, despite having no clue what was going on, joined in celebrating me.

"Congratulations Mas- I mean, Lord Amartho! Aark knew you succeed!" He shouted while trying to out-clap the other kobolds.

"Alright, hold on a second," I commanded, motioning with my claws for them to calm down. "My spell was terrible! Does a misshapen firebolt that took a whole minute to conjure and still petered out before hitting anything even count as a success?!"

The apprentices looked at each other with uncertainty. It seemed they were confused by my lack of exuberance. Rahga was about to comment when the youngest apprentice, Braka, suddenly spoke up.

"But of course it counts, Great One!" She exclaimed, surprising everyone, including me.

Realizing that she may have overstepped, she became embarrassed, but Rahga motioned supportively for her to continue.

"Er, what I mean to say, Great One, is that casting is casting! If the target was much closer, you would have hit it! That counts! And it's incredible!"

All the kobolds were nodding vigorously as if they shared a giant, dragon-kiss-assing hivemind. I was not pleased.

"Braka, I'll be blunt, that wasn't a great attempt at comforting me and it only reaffirmed my concern that you guys will celebrate even the smallest thing I do, just because I'm a dragon," I said seriously.

"I apologize for not properly articulating myself!" She quickly knelt and quivered due to my dissatisfaction. She gathered her thoughts for a moment then looked me in the eyes and tried again. "But, we're not! Great One, Master Rahga has told us that you are not even a single year of age! This makes what you've done unprecedented in all of recorded dragon history! I-I am an enthusiast of the subject and study it in my spare time. I read that even the fifth Great Wyrm, Cénësarin'yesanya, Magicae Primus, Knower of Truths, took seven years to cast her first spell. And while her first spell was immaculate and of the fourth tier, what you've done today is equally, if not more amazing! We are sincerely honored to be your witnesses!"

"Cénësarin'yesanya, mom told me about that mouthful of a Wyrm. She's the only dragon to have gained the title of Great Wyrm before reaching three thousand years of age. She did so with her insane prowess with magic, which is her obsession and is thus the youngest of The Five by a large margin. Mom said that she is both incredibly dangerous as well as a huge headache to deal with. She forbade me from even considering approaching her until I'm centuries older. I suppose beating her record, despite using a totally shitty spell, would be crazy impressive to these guys. Though, they don't know that my soul is 30 years older than my body and likely has something to do with it. Ah, fuck it, I just shot fire out of thin air! I should be ecstatic! I'm being petty, thinking that I should immediately surpass these diligent kobolds just because I'm a dragon." I internally criticized before realizing my kobold group was still waiting for me to respond.

"Whoops, spaced out there for a second. Was thinking about that comparison you made, to the Fifth." I turned toward the young lass. "Braka, was it?"

"Yes, Great One." She replied nervously.

"I like your forthrightness. I know it takes bravery for a kobold to correct a dragon."

"I dare not correct you! I was merely providing additional information-"

"Ah-ah-ah!" I wagged a reproachful claw. "It's all the same to me, and I said I approve! You should be proud, not backpedaling. That earnest desire to have the truth known might bring you some troubles, but know that you have a dragon's heart. Don't shy away from that part of you."

She meekly nodded, holding a hand to her chest and wearing a bashful expression, unable to find an appropriate response. The others, including Aark and Rahga, looked on with envy.

"Welp," I continued, "I guess this means I'm pretty awesome, huh? Does anyone else feel like celebrating?"

The group cheered in approval and Rahga instructed some nearby lower-ranked kobold to prepare for another feast. I don't think the non-casters even understood the significance of my first protospell, yet they seemed earnestly excited for me. And so, a toned-down version of my welcome party was soon underway, and it seemed that life among the kobolds was a little too good.

The horde of goofballs once again enjoyed themselves, this time arguing over their meal as to what my potential future accomplishments would be. If one said I'd conquer a kingdom in fifty years, another would say it would take no more than forty. If one argued I could defeat a dragon twice my age, another would insult them and insist that even one three times older wouldn't be too much. It was a very ridiculous discussion, but it did tickle my ego.

I was laying back in a pile of jewels while three kobolds hand-fed me starstones, feeling like a Caesar of Rome being gently fed grapes. They had also been filing my claws, brushing my teeth, bathing me with pails of boiling water, and giving me massages every morning and night since I arrived. Their trapmakers even invented a tool just to scrape the dirt out from between my toes. Aside from my magic lessons, every day was pretty much a spa day.

"Ahhh, I could get used to this." I crooned.

"We're ever so happy you're satisfied, Great One." Replied one of the kobolds attending me.

Aark, being my first minion, was getting somewhat similar treatment: his shoulders were being rubbed while he answered countless questions from an earnestly interested crowd, about what it was like traveling with and serving me.

"If I'm not careful, this sort of lifestyle is going to go to my head. Though, is there even such a thing as having it too good when you're a dragon?" I thought to myself, pretending that I had even the slightest inclination to tone it down. If I wasn't worried about using up their supplies, I would have considered making such revelry a weekly activity.

I was just about to enter a decadence coma when the only unpleasant detail of the previous feast came to mind.

I craned my long neck toward my attendants and asked, "Hey, there's no superstition for mating on the day of a dragon's great accomplishment is there?"

They each froze, obviously hesitating to deliver an answer I didn't want to hear. The memory of echoes from hundreds of kobolds f*cking filled my mind.

"I'll... I'll just sleep outside again."