Chapter 3: First Trial and Tribulations
When I came to I was in blackness but I feel warm and serene, there's an ovular shape around my whole which I presume is an egg. I look at myself and I look like a baby reptile with blue scales on my limbs and back. On my belly are pale white scales and then also my claws are pale white as well.
I know that since there is magic in this world and it's best to get a head start, plus right now I'm in an egg. My body is still underdeveloped I'll have to get straight to work absorbing more mana.
One thing about this world that Draeca told me was that apart from the soul status, stat allocations and evolution everything world is far from video game like. There's no mini map or cheats it's just life other than the divines there's no mechanical interference or world law. It's just another plane of existence like earth.
Back to my body, I start out by doing what the goddess said and use all my senses to start feeling the inside and outside of my body. And when I do I can smell and feel Draeca's aura and scent on me from our fused soul. I feel as if a divinity has graced my soul. Well it quite literally has. I start to retract and fuse that aura on me into my whole being thus marking me.
I gain a tattoo on my chest all the way down to my pelvis. It's a signia of 5-clawed holy frost dragon. After that I start to draw in the mana to my core filtering the mana so that I can use my specific elements.
By doing this a monster or sentient species can cultivate their magical core, every living creature of the animae variety has a core used to draw out and filter the mana. Every creature also has set elements they can utilize by birth usually determined by a combination of genetics or soul.
When I look inwards I notice that although small I can improve my core through continuous and rigorous training and circulation of mana. My has mana core has three elements. Two soul elements and one genetic element.
Soul elements are acquired outside of genetics but on the reverse effect your genetics. Since my soul was already formed and taken from another plane of existence, my element would naturally become void as there are no mana elements in that plane.
My elements are frost, fire, and lightning. My fire element come from my body whilst my others come from the soul.
My process while growing up is going to be quite simple, first, take in the elements from the surrounding and filter them in my core. The second step would be to take the elements acquired and then move them throughout the body. Some people have different ways of using their mana to integrate into their body. I'm going to first start by strengthening my scales and the skin underneath.
Then after running the mana throughout the body for ten cycles I would expel the impurities and retract any pure leftover mana into the core for condensing. This would alter the magic core making it more valuable to others but also more valuable to me as well because the bigger and more condense the core the fewer impurities there are and the more mana I can expel internally and externally.
This process has been my routine for a while and my body has already seen vast improvement, before the mana core during the early phase was the size of a ballpoint and now it's about the size of my reptile fist and it's very condensed.
Soon I will be a fully formed kobold and with that, I have to break out of this shell but before that, I am almost close to a breakthrough into upgrading my core for the first time. This has many implications but the best implication is that more evolutions will present themselves to me on my soul stays, and secondly the evolutions because of my core will be more unique. However, I think that's enough training as I have fully matured and am ready to break out.
I have a sweet tooth protruding out of my mouth as well to break out of the egg. So I start snatching at the interior of the egg to break out of it. I slowly break my way out of the egg and it gets brighter and brighter.
After that I don't mind my siblings and eat the eggshell as apparently it's nutritious for the young. My goddess it tastes like bacon.
As I make my way out of the egg I'm surrounded by others but they all look a monotone green compared to me which is blue and white. I think this might be a problem later on because of the fact that I'm a different color they might think I'm from a different tribe.
Hopefully, they'll still accept me either way because of the problem I had in my previous life I wasn't readily accepted. I always strive to make friends but this is a cut throat world where the strong cull the weak and the weak die out.
After I made my way I out of the egg and done eating it, I look around at the surroundings so I could scope out the area where I'm living. It was a dark cave and the birthing chambers were separated from the regular chambers.
We've waited for the people to come for us children but it takes a while. When people come in I feel my mother's aura and rush up to her. Apparently these women are called trophy wives and tend after the children. Other that they mate with their respective husbands.
Since kobolds only wear clothing for rituals and armor what looks like my mother is naked. There are some other mothers but I don't care about them I only care about family and friends and unless they're friends then I won't talk to them.
One day a burly and tall kobold comes in he's seems to be the leader of the tribe.
"Your baby looks different from everyone else, why is that?"
"I don't know chieftain but so what I laid him and that's that."
"Well let's put him through the trials and see if he's one of our own. If he's not, then I'm kicking him and you out of the tribe. I would've killed you right here and now but your my brother's trophy wife so I'll spare you."
As he says that he tries to take me away because for some reason the trials are vile and harsh therefore my mother claws at him to get him away but the chieftain smacks her and she falls down dropping me.
He takes me and picks me up walking out of the cave. As we make our way out of the cave because of the kobolds light sensitivity it is extremely bright and I can't see where we are walking. He walks for what seems like hours before he stops turns around and says
"If you can make it back to the cave by dark you've passed the trials and officially become part of the clan as you are not our brethren."
<Well that guy was a dick, but don't worry darling I'll just give him a little divine retribution on your way back.>
Wait you could see and hear that?
<Well duh, I am a goddess.>
Well why didn't you give divine retribution or whatever earlier?
<Because I still need you to go through the trial if you want to get stronger>
Alright alright, fine.
<Thanks Honey!>
After my talk with the one and only G O Double D E S S, I start to survey my surroundings and I'm in a plain of grass I see mountain in the distance. Probably where I'm supposed to go to.
I start walking towards where I thought he took me from. The reason I know where he went is that whenever I get lost from a certain point I always make sure to remember where we turn and what it felt like to be taken somewhere in a car. That way if I get lost, I can always find my way back. Even if I can't rely on a compass or my own sense of direction.
With that settled, I continue walking retracing his steps and where he turned, I'm halfway through the plains when I get a sudden premonition to dodge to the side. Not caring to debate whether my instincts are right I make a sidestep to the left and what do you know, a massive mountain lion was stalking me only this mountain lion had, well, gotten away from the mountain.
The problem is that the mountain lion had a mane and also childlike proportions. If this is supposed to be a child than what the hell is an adult despite my internal bickering I readied myself for the fight of my life.
Knowing the tendency of large cats to pounce on their prey I readied myself to dash straight at the cat. As soon as the hind legs of the cat hinged I launched myself at it while the cat prepared to jump.
The cat was ill-prepared for what was seemingly their prey to sprint straight towards it. Because of the inexperience of the young cat it was mid jump and about to go over me. Knowing this was what I planned for I stuck my claws up to its throat with ease sliding it down her body.
The most disgusting part was not the blood I was bathing in but the guts that spilled out over me when I was halfway through done cutting the belly and throat of the cat's underside. Knowing most of the meat was going to be spoiled I outwardly sighed as all that would go to waste. But hey at least it's partially skinned correctly, plus at least I get to cover up In a nice fur coat after I'm done skinning the leather and using the fur to make makeshift pants. But first I have to deal with the partially alive cat as it's practically growling up blood.
I move my way over to the now dead mountain lion and disembowel it and then take the only unspoiled meat being the back and flank which weren't touched by the torn intestines and other bodily fluids.
I clawed an area of grass out of the way previously but forgot where I put the excess grass so I just cut some more and drew out fire mana into claws and then set them on fire with a quick swipe I physically held the ribs and hindquarters over the fire since there weren't any branches in the plains.
I twirl the ribs over the fire evenly to get all the juices flowing onto the surface of the meat coating it in grease. It's going to hopefully be delectable so I keep roasting it over the fire.
Once the surface is sufficiently crisp while the insides are toasty warm and soft I dig in. Let's just say cooking for yourself is a delight. it's always good when you learn for yourself how to take care of food, it's truly refreshing even if your in a medieval world. One without grills at that, I can also tell that my partner Is in just as much delight.
She's commenting on the food like this is some sort of slice of life novel or one of those silly cooking shows, she's just so cute.
Anyway, after I'm done eating I start to go towards the mountain lion and using my claws I cut thin strips off of the legs and tail to use for sewing and then the thicker parts for tanning and clothes.
I start with the tanning material as cut out a hole for the head. I then scrub the furs off and then start the process of altering the protein to make a nice chest piece and leggings to go over my fur pants and shirt
After tanning the hide it's a little stiff but it will work. I put my pants and shirt together and voila a new set of clothes just for me. It's nice and cozy plus my john won't be showing if I see a human. As a former human I still have some reservations when it comes to privacy, so yeah.
I claw some grass at the edge of my little area spreading it out even further but then I just realized I could just use fire magic so I gather a pyreball in my hand disperse the fire bellow my then I ran to the other side and make sure a certain portion of the grass is already burnt so that it doesn't spread more than it needs to.
With that I ran to the other side and make sure to grab some grass while I'm at it and then set some grass bedding down on the hard soil so that I don't have to sleep in a terrible position or have back pains in the morning when I wake up.
Once I'm done setting up my area to sleep I take out the mana core which is right beside the heart of every living animal and absorb the mana into the core. Then I sit down on the grass bedding and start to feel around inside my body's senses.
I take the mana I've absorbed from the core and filter it. I move the filtered mana throughout the body circulating the mana into key areas used for combat and magic. I then put the mana back in and expel the impurities.
This furthers the core into my late stage and I'm at the bottleneck of breaking through to the next stage of an evolution. Once I have enough condensed mana the core will go through a qualitative change and in turn upgrade the body furthering it along in development.
When I'm done peruving I settle down for the night and get ready for bed scraping off any grime and plaque on my teeth so I look nice and clean come morning. At least on my teeth that is because I'm still covered in blood from the battle and I need to take a bath before other creatures show up with eating me in mind. I don't mind getting kicked out of the tribe with my mom I'll just take care of her by myself.
But that's just my luck as what I presume is mama 'bear' pardon the pun really a mountain lion twice the size as the other comes trotting over growling over spilt milk or in this case lots and lots of blood.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Umbris_Kruqalius
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