373 14.2

I hadn't gone fishing much, but I thought it would be fun to learn how to fish a bit better. I dove into the water slowly. I could hold my breath for a really long time so I could swim for a really long time underwater. I dove deep. Trying to limit the way I disturbed the water.

I didn't want to spook the fish away, but my large size made it even more difficult to move through the water without giving myself away. It wasn't like sneaking around on land where I just had to be careful how, and where I placed my feet. Down here it felt as if my whole body was a giant stomping foot scaring the fish away. I shook my head before dashing for the surface. My head broke the surface.

Spraying water up into the air. My tail flicked beneath the water. The fish around here were too small anyway. I needed to find something bigger. I cut my own tongue with my teeth.

Letting the blood build in my mouth before spitting it into the water. Sharks liked blood. Maybe they'd come to me if I bled enough. I dove back down into the water. My mouth just open enough to allow a thin trail of blood to follow me through the water.

I relied on my wings heavily whenever I was swimming. It was easier to treat it like flying then trying to swim like I used to. I hadn't been a good swimmer back when I was human, but I wouldn't drown quickly. Now I could literally fly through the water. A large shark came my way after a few hours, and another trip to the surface.

It tried to flee when it realized how big I was. It was too late. I already had my teeth in it by then. I drug it to the surface with me. I wasn't hungry enough to eat the whole thing so I ended up leaving behind what I couldn't stomach for the other sharks that had come to my baiting.

I dove back down into the water. I went deep before resurfacing at my top speed so I could launch myself out of the water. I caught the air. Switching from swimming to flying just like that. My wings felt good.

My muscles burned a bit. Just the muscles of my wings. Swimming was a different kind of workout then flying. Swimming was a lot of flexing, and pushing while flight was more like locking my muscles in place against the wind. I tried to slow myself down for a gentle landing.

Usually I just landed a bit roughly, but I couldn't shake the image Ethan had of Regala's smooth transition from flight to walking. She just glided into a walk so smoothly that it was hard to tell she'd been flying in the first place. Ethan couldn't even tell when she started walking, and stopped flying. I wanted to be able to do that too. I wasn't worried about being graceful the rest of the time.

I just thought that that smooth transition was cool. I still made noise when I landed, and it definitely not as smooth as Regala's landing. Being able to land smoothly, and silently had to be useful. I was a black dragon after all. I was nearly invisible at night when I flew because of the dull shine of my scales.

I'd gotten used to ignoring the notifications I got whenever I got XP. Part of me wanted to silence the notifications entirely, but part of me still wanted to know every increment of XP I got whenever I was closer to leveling up. I went up the hill to the tower. Looking down over the island. They had set up a bunch of fields for growing crops.

They'd had to cut down quite a few trees to make the fields big enough to support the village. My wings twitched as I stared out over the island. It was hard to pretend I didn't care. I didn't like getting left out, but I couldn't exactly fit in a house without using a bunch of mana now. I sighed heavily.

My tail flicked as I relaxed. The slight glow of the egg in the egg pouch was nice. This one was alive. I would find others that were. Two dead eggs didn't mean it was the end of the world.

My mana regeneration had gone up enough that I shouldn't have a problem with the egg. Aurora was nearly big enough to handle the egg when I was busy. I hoped that I wouldn't have to do anything important for a few weeks at least. I had regenerated most of the mana I'd used to portal us here. I would need to make another portal tomorrow so Aurora, and I could go hunting together.

I started doing those exercises Regala had shown me again. It was working to advance the level of my affinities. The more I did it the more control I had over my elements. It wasn't just leveling my affinities anymore. The control I had over my mana was steadily improving.

It cost me less, and less mana to do the exercise each day. The same was happening to my spells. My spells had become more concentrated. I could use much less mana to cause the original effect of my spells. Adding more just turned a small storm of power into a small tsunami of power.

That made me think of just how powerful Regala must have been when she was alive. It was a bit terrifying to think of how powerful she was back when she was alive. She must not have been joking when she said it wouldn't have been difficult for her to level a few cities. She'd flat out said she'd achieved dominance in all the natural elements as well as light, and dark. She managed to achieve fusion in gravity, and space.