You know, I think I haven't stated yet how awesome life is.
This is weird coming from a dragon who wanted nothing but to die, but living is FUCKING GREAT.
Like... how can I explain?
You ever ride a bike, in autumn, just feeling the wind flowing over you and the power it gives in feeling everything flowing? The breath in your lungs, the wind in your face, the burn in your legs as you pedal faster and faster!
Anytime I run, that's what it is.
I use air fusion and I go FAST. Light fusion and I never get tired, letting the burn in my muscles be constant growth, my muscles healing and growing stronger much faster!
I actually am noticing some weird effects from exercising too much as an infant. From what I remember from my time in martial arts before I was hospitalized, there are two types of muscle you can build on yourself that I can apply to a draconic lifeform.
First: heavy muscle. Massive muscles, like a body builder, insane strength and power. The kind of dragon that's crushes boulders in its claws.
Big, heavyset tank and destroyer of mountains.
Or... the other option.
Lean, fast muscle.
This seems more like how a wolf is built, lean muscle and stamina, fast and constant with less power, more based in quick precision strikes that go one after another as hit and runs.
So lean and fast with lots of quick movement.
Or big and slow.
...also I guess stamina training is different from muscle building.
Building muscle is making you stronger, stamina usually involves more speed and constant movement.
So I think I'll go more lean and fast with lots of stamina.
Which would explain my current circumstance...
I looked up and noticed a raccoon looking in from a hole in the roof of the cave.
'What? Why do you look so confused?'
The raccoon had a strangely human expression of "wtf" on its face.
I mean how many raccoons see a dragon doing... pushups? How to describe this...
I held a log with my tail on my back and used my legs to go up and down as fast as I could, pushing lots of speed as long as I could before collapsing and using light fusion to restore my state before doing it again.
[What the actual heck are you doing?]
I naturally responded to the sudden masculine voice without a care, 'Oh I'm just exercising-'
"..."
Wait.
Wait that voice came from where just now?
[I'm the raccoon currently wondering what the actual fuck you are doing. Are you unable to communicate with spirit magic yet? Any creature of magic ought to be able to transmit thoughts... I guess you are young looking though.]
'...excuse me what the fuck?'
I tilted my head at him.
Spirit magic?
That would be magic of the spirit.
The spirit is me. My soul.
'If magic comes from my Star, I know how to channel it... so if I want to learn spirit magic where would the spirit of a Star be?'
Wait why am I focusing on that.
'Is that a MAGIC RACCOON?!'
There. That's the main point here.
I focused my inner sight on my Star, looking around the many colored blazing surface, with icy whites and blues mixing with orange and yellows mixing with indigo purple.
Ignoring the intense and scouring winds ripping apart the surface of flames into mountains of fire that then were flattened back into seas by the next wind, I searched around.
Ignoring as well the pillars of light forming and shattering like holograms all over with strange images and colors in them that I could never make out...
Sorry, yes, ignoring THAT, I looked about for anything not familiar... or more familiar?
Listen I just want to figure out where the heckity smeck my "spirit magic" is so I can COMMUNICATE.
This raccoon staring at me when I can't speak is unbelievably frustrating.
[You look confused... no. Frustrated? You can understand but not-oh I see. Look to the center that holds the magic together.]
Huh? I looked at the star and it's stormy atmosphere.
'Can I... look at its center?'
I tried, and somehow I sort of zoomed in, my inner sight going inside the massive raging flames colliding with one another, and I realized a few things as I moved through the seas of magic making up the surface of the Star.
Firstly, the pillars of light and images extended under the surface, as did the lightning strangely enough.
Second, everything was getting condensed the deeper I went, like actual gravity existed, fusing lightning down to a liquid-like state, and condensing flames to appear like magma.
Third, the deeper I went the heavier I felt.
My Star... was developing actual gravity. Well... spiritually speaking anyways. This exists to some extent somehow, I've already determined based on how it changes me. It's either a representation of me, or it actually exists on some plane.
Finally I reached the center, and it was this... point.
Calling it a pinprick would be inadequate, as it was even smaller than that.
Just a single point, the absolute center, not with any diameter cause it was that point, not a sphere in the position.
That single point where everything, all my magic and self collapsed together into one.
It was black.
A black speck.
'The center of a star, the point of gravity of absolute condensed mass and energy.'
Black, because light couldn't escape it.
And that was my spirit.
My attention turned outwards, and my mind stretched.
I'd turned it to look inwards, but now I looked OUTWARDS, and I reached to the raccoon.
[Can -ou he— me?]
The raccoons ears perked up as he gazed down.
[Almost! Focus a bit more young one.]
[Can... you. Hear. Me?]
I had to carefully sound out each word one at a time, but it worked! I could feel the difference between thoughts that reached and those that didn't now that I'd experienced it.
The raccoon then gave a strange expression.
His mouth didn't move, but I'd call it a smile? His ears and tail were the parts that showed emotion.
Wait since when can I tell what animals are expressing? Is this a part of dragon instincts, as dragons would also emote the same way?
[So what kind of animal were you before you awakened? A wolf? You awakened to air and... what other magic? Darkness?]
'...yeah I have no clue wtf you're saying bud.'
[No you don't quite look like a wolf other than the body shape and fur, you're neck is too long and the claws are different... you are just a magical creature right?]
[Can. You. Explain?] I had to be careful to sound it out!
[Explain what?]
[Awakening?]
[Huh? Ah yes! Uh... animals don't have magic, they're just... animals. You know that right?]
I gave him my best sarcastic dragon stare.
[Alright, sheesh. Well, Same with humans and everyone else. Awakening is learning to gather elements within yourself, gaining magic. This allows one to become a magic creature, with 2 elements and some mutations to their form to evolve.]
Two elements? So... the alicorn who's Horn I absorbed is just a magic creature?
Also what does that make dragons? I and my mother only had one element!
[Then when a magic creature becomes capable of wielding the elements outside themself, they become a magic beast.]
[Can you. Explain the. Difference. Between. Inside and out?]
[As I thought! You're a magic creature, not a magic beast!]