Rue felt the changes to her body, for one she felt ravenous. The level ups had taken her body's resources to make changes and she was currently starving. Actually losing XP she was so hungry. This was obvious as after the surge of energy to her body, it had grown to almost double her previous size, and although she had gained muscle mass she was insanely hungry. In order to consolidate her new power, food was in immediate demand, yet she was still within a few miles of the tragedy that transpired. Hopefully, they were busy with her siblings and tending to the dead or feasting, or anything as long as it was not chasing her.

Guilt flashed through her mind as she realised she would rather all her brothers and sister be hunted down than they find her. Dragons were not particularly social creatures, the parental bond being the strongest. She felt a grave loss when thinking of her mother and involuntarily let out a soft keening sound while lowering her head.

But for now, she would have to focus, hunt for her next meal. The instincts that told her to quietly stalk her prey and then pounce to deliver a devastating attack of claw and flame were present. The instinct to pull something from inside herself and expel it was there, yet she had not seen her mother use it. Experimenting she followed through with the instinct and opened her mouth, next she felt for something inside her, letting the instinct guide her she pulled and pushed the lump. Her small body convulsed, and a clear spray of misty liquid sprayed out of her mouth, as it passed her teeth she followed the instincts direction and flexed a previously unknown muscle, there was a spark and the clear fluid burst into brilliant orange flame expanding into a burst of fire that forced itself forward and out of the young dragon's mouth. The burst of fire shot for nearly 5 feet before exhausting its fuel. The fire slowly burned faster than the dragon could expel it and began to climb back towards her mouth, with a sudden flash the fire went into the dragon's mouth and a puff of smoke and bang resounded from Rue's mouth.

She recoiled from the burning and sharp pain in her mouth, now realising that she should have stopped before the flashback happened. She looked around in embarrassment, thankfully no other dragons were around to see her embarrassment. A brief moment of sadness was brushed aside by a warmly welcomed sound. Her smoking nostrils pain was forgotten in her excitement.

Ding! You Have Unlocked A Racial Ability From [Red Dragon] +[Fire Breath]

That was exciting, and by the sounds of it, breathing fire was an ability unique to the red species of dragon. While she looks at that ability she could also assign her stat points, it might make her first hunt more successful.

Race

Level

XP/Growth

Stat Points

Dragon [Red Dragon]

6

31/58 [-5 /pd]

0

Strength

Vitality

Dexterity

Intelligence

29 [+3]

30 [+2]

21 [+10]

23 [+10]

Rue quickly decided to add ten points to intelligence, being smarter couldn't be bad as she should not let that stat fall behind, next she noticed dexterity was very low. Perhaps if she had been faster she could have run away from the shiny creatures quicker. Her body still had a scabbed over gash from that mighty kick. Next, she added the leftover points to keep improving her physical strength. Looking at her abilities description after increasing her stats she noticed something strange, the descriptions had become longer, and her new ability contained words and concepts strange to her, she could understand the general description but now there was more understanding available for her to decipher.

‘More intelligence is showing its benefits already’

The now medium dog-sized dragon snapped her jaws happily and let out an approving hiss. This was followed by a rumble as she was reminded that hunger was a pressing concern.

Ability

Effects

Roar

You have learned to let out a mighty roar from your throat, you will find it easier to intimidate opponents and prey. Increased effectiveness against opponents below your level.

Identify

Tells you the basic [Species] and [Level] of targets. Can appraise targets up to [30] Levels higher than you.

Fire Breath

Racial ability allows expulsions of biologically created [Ethanol] from glands near the stomach. This can be ignited via [Magic].

Many of the terms she only had a basic understanding of, but what she gathered from this that she could breathe fire, that was awesome. If she had had that earlier then… Well, the past is past, and it did have its limitations in how long a single blast could last for, how far she could fire it and how much of the special burney liquid she had.

With her newfound power and weapon of mass destruction, she stomped out the small fires on the floor and sniffed the air. Past the burning foliage, she could smell warm, smelly furred animals. She silently entered the undergrowth in pursuit.

A few minutes of stalking later and she came across her first target. A small orangy brown creature was collecting things on the forest floor. Rue peered out from her hiding place inside a lush large-leafed bush five or six meters away. Rue used identify.

[Squirrel Lv3]

It smelled tasty, and Rue wanted nothing more than to leap forward bounding across the distance to swallow it whole, but she knew this would only lead to it running away. Her strength and dexterity combined to give her formidable speed but the creature was close to a tree and would flee at even the slightest indication of danger.

As the little creature foraged in the leaves and grass it would look up at frequent intervals looking around it for signs of danger.

Rue spotted an opportunity, she crept out of the bush when the creature's back was turned and made it over a meter before it began to turn and look behind it. Both creatures froze, locking gazes. The squirrels breathing stopped, its eyes dilated and its flight instinct activated at max power, they moved.

Rue surged forward, her stride eating distance like a starving wildcat, the squirrel fled, almost as fast towards the tree and began to scale it. Had it seen the threat less than a second sooner perhaps it would have made it. It still nearly did. A few meters of the ground the squirrel began to relax until a powerful bite ripped into its body. Rue over 2 meters below the squirrel had flapped her wings and propelled herself off the ground with her powerful legs. She had shot towards the squirrel and snapped it into her jaws. Without her newfound power perhaps the hunt would have failed but the squirrel was simply too inferior to her.

Despite her magnificent and perfectly calculated climb, she had not given any thought to what would happen now, and what did happen. Gravity pulled at her and she felt a dropping sensation as she tumbled down to the floor. She would have felt disheartened at this obvious blunder but the taste of sweet victory in her jaws wiped away all negative thoughts as she ripped it apart and ate. Many of the smaller bones were devoured in her hunger and after a few minutes, all that was left were leg bones and a skull. The smaller bones having been crunched and devoured. Even the leg bones had been snapped and their marrow devoured.

This had taken the edge off her hunger, she was no longer starving but she needed more. Now that she was relaxing and preparing for another hunt.

Ding! For Slaying [Squirrel Lv3] In Combat +18xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe [3] Levels Below You Own [-3%] xp -1xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 2x Under Your Level [-20%] xp -4xp

Total Xp Earned From Combat Encounter +13

Race

Level

XP/Growth

Stat Points

Dragon [Red Dragon]

6

43/58 [0 /pd]

0

That was a tiny amount of experience compared to the human she had killed but it was far easier and filled her belly. It looked like a lot more squirrels would be on the menu tonight.

Raising her head to the sky she licked the blood from her snout and sniffed. Looking in the direction of more promising smells she set off, on the hunt.

…………………

Many more small critters fell that evening and as the sun was setting lower in the forest one red dragon could be seen, belly stretched as she continued to devour a rabbit. She had waited patiently for over an hour outside the tunnel but had had a sudden burst of inspiration. Fire! She had walked casually up to the entrance with great excitement and began spraying her special liquid into the tunnel until she only had half of it left. Then she had sprayed one final gout of liquid and ignited it. The breath of flame left into the tunnel where it found the unlit gasses and liquid. Perhaps filling an enclosed space was not the best idea the young dragon had ever had, the resulting blast of flame and dirt had blown her away from the entrance and sprayed dirt and flame in a small radius. For as big as the reaction, and singeing of scales was on the outside, inside the burrow flame had gushed around some of the tunnels, heats and fire driving the rabbits out into the open, singed but ferocious jaws of a waiting dragon.

Rue had only managed to catch one of the burned rabbits, the others were far too fast for her. The slightly cooked flesh had been delicious and there was more than she could eat all in one sitting. She lay curled up on a warm patch of burned soil. She drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the hunt and burning the foul humans with her fire. She was more than satisfied with her gains.

Ding! For Slaying [Squirrel Lv3] In Combat +13xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe [3] Levels Below Your Own [-3%] xp -0xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 2x Under Your Level [-20%] xp -3xp

Ding! For Slaying [Squirrel Lv1] In Combat +7xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe [6] Levels Below You Own [-6%] xp -1xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 2x Under Your Level [-20%] xp -1xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 3x Under Your Level [-30%] xp -2xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 4x Under Your Level [-40%] xp -3xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 5x Under Your Level [-50%] xp -4xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 6x Under Your Level [-60%] xp -4xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe 7x Under Your Level [-70%] xp -5xp

Ding! For Slaying [Rabbit Lv5] In Combat +24xp

Ding! For Slaying a Foe [2] Levels Below You Own [-2%] xp -1xp

Total Xp Earned From Combat Encounters +33

Ding! Level Up … [Stat Points] +5

Ding! Stat Points Allocated For Species [Dragon - Hatchling] +5

Ding! Stat Points Allocated For Species [Red Dragon - Hatchling] +5

Race

Level

XP/Growth

Stat Points

Dragon [Red Dragon]

7

21/73 [+5 /pd]

5

Strength

Vitality

Dexterity

Intelligence

33 [+4]

34 [+4]

22 [+1]

24 [+1]

Ability

Effects

Roar

You have learned to let out a mighty roar from your throat, you will find it easier to intimidate opponents and prey. Increased effectiveness against opponents below your level.

Identify

Tells you the basic [Species] and [Level] of targets. Can appraise targets up to [30] Levels higher than you.

Fire Breath

Racial ability, allows expulsions of biologically created [Ethanol] from glands near the stomach. This can be ignited via [Magic].