So.... I'm a dragon now. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I mean, I could have ended up a human again. Again...? where did that come from....? Hmm, I can't seem to remember. It must have been too shocking to have no mind except for instincts. maybe it'll come back to me, maybe it won't. What I need to do now is figure out what to do next.

Congratulations! You are now an Earth Dragon. A powerful, legendary race of wanderers your people seek knowledge and wisdom as well as power on their endless quest to evolve. As the second most magical true draconid race, your strengths are your massive constitution, resistance, strength, and Intelligence. However, you do have a major weakness in your lack of wings, moderate agility, and weak dexterity. You have a minor evolution every 100 levels. Your next major evolution will occur after 5 minor evolutions.

Well that is interesting. So the small changes I had must have been minor evolutions and this final choice was a major evolution. I suppose the number of levels and minor evolutions change with each race. But wait, if I just had my first evolution, does that mean I'm at the bottom of the food chain? Hmm that's troubling... Anyways if I remember correctly, I Had gained some new skills and passives...

"Stats?"

Stats table: Terrus

Strength: 25(+6)Agility: 15(+3)Constitution: 30(+7)Resistance: 30 (+7)Dexterity: 10(+1)Intelligence: 20(+6)Stats info: Strength boosts your physical power. The more you have the stronger you are. Agility affects your movement speed and dodge skiils.  Constitution makes you tougher against physical attacks, poisons, and gives you a purely larger health. Resistance increases your defence against elemental attacks, mental attacks, and soul attacks. Dexterity affects your fine control and the complexity of spells you can cast. Finally, Intelligence gives you more spirit power, boosts the speed your spells level up at, and improves your reaction time (Sentients only).

Skills

(Racial passive) Observe: Earth dragons can gleam hidden facts  about objects and creatures around them.(Racial passive) Dragon's Blood (Earth): Like all Dragons, Earth dragons' blood boosts there strength giving them a higher than normal growth rate for strength and intelligence. However, as a variant race, their blood also boosts their defenses and their rate of regeneration. All effects of dragon's blood grow stronger with each evolution.Earth manipulation (Basic) : This being can manipulate the Earth by using its spirit power. Can not be used against a higher level of earth manipulation.

Well that's a lot of information. Hmm I'm strong and nearly indestructible against beings of my one level. well I hope so at least. I'll need to hunt again to be sure of that. My magic should be very powerful, but I'll have to keep it simple and brutish or else my low dexterity will really hurt me. After musing my new body over for some time, I stand up pushing the bigger shelled it off me. I can't very well keep calling it that can I? I study it, not quite sure how observe will work.

Greater spirit Turtle lvl.5 (dead) core intact.

Absorb Core? Yes/No

Well that's convenient I think to myself as I say yes. The core turns into energy and flows straight into me. Interestingly enough, it only got me a quarter of a level. Observe also gave me a slight amount of progress. Hmm this will take a while. hmm, I wonder how much experience a war turtle will give me? Well I suppose there's only one real way to find out isn't there...?

I quickly make my way down the lakeside, observing everything I can until I finally see the War Turtle. It's turned away from me crushing some minor spirit turtles with its power. What a bully! Those can't possibly give it experience. I quickly observe it.

War Turtle lvl 10 core intact

Hmm, I'm only level one, and while it is level ten, I don't really feel any danger in attacking it. Worst comes to worst, I can just run away, It's not like it can catch me. Anyways lets start this off with a bang. I reach out to the Earth with my mind. Connecting to the Earth was awe-inspiring. It was massive. Powerful and eternal. I could not get enough of it.

I did have to focus on the task at hand though, so I narrowed my connection, and formed spikes of earth under the turtle. I took me about 5 seconds to harden them , but it wasn't like the turtle was going anywhere. As soon as they were ready, I stabbed them upward, into the War turtle's belly. I didn't wait for the turtle to react, and instead immediately charged forward.

The turtle reacted, floating off the ground on a cushion of wind and turning to face me. I could see that my spike had done some damage, but it wasn't nearly enough to kill it. The turtle quickly launched streams of fire at me which I easily passed through. I was a dragon, how could such simple flames harm me? Seeing this it raised a field of earth spikes in front of me. This did make me take pause. However, it was not for long as I simply stomped my front leg. The power I infused in the stomp completely destroyed the field, but my momentum was broken.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The turtle quickly capitalized on this and, drawing water from the lake, launched streams of ice at me. I raised a wall of earth to block them and continued to close in on the turtle. Fearfully watching me continue to approach, the turtle quickly raised another spike wall to hold me back. This time however, instead of shattering it, I jumped, using the Earth to launch me over the spikes and close in on the turtle.

On the way here I had planned out different ways of killing the turtle. Since it was now floating, I couldn't really use spikes to repeatedly impale it and let it bleed to death. I also was most definitely not a fan of bashing my skull against it to see which would crack first. Instead, I came up with a third plan. Quickly calling to the Earth, I enlarge my club tail massively with hardened rock and stone. Then right before slamming headfirst into the turtle, I sidestep and turn, smashing it straight into the turtles head. Leaving only mush. Well... that's what I hoped would happen.

Instead the turtle turned at the last second causing my blow to smash into its hard shell. Fortunately, it hit heavily and spread a framework of cracks along the turtle's shell. bellowing in agony, the turtle unleashed a magical torrent. Streams of each element flew at me. It even somehow opened its beak and launched a beam of pure spiritual power. I really should learn how to do that...

I blocked the heaviest attacks with walls of Earth and weathered the milder ones, waiting for the turtle to exhaust itself. The beam of was surprisingly effective, shattering the wall I built to stop it and piercing my scales leaving burns on the flesh underneath. Thanks to my dragon', blood I was starting to heal, but it still hurt.

Eventually, the turtle began to run out of energy. Anger and disbelief, turn to shock and acceptance, as I once more bash my tail against its shell, shattering it completely and killing the War Turtle.

To my shock, once I absorbed its core, I grew immediately to level 6, causing my stats to skyrocket. but even better than that I got two notifications.

Congratulations! You have observed the skill 'Spirit Blast' and devoured a core from a beast that could use that skill. You have gained the ability to condense your spirit power and blast it out in a beam. Higher levels of the skill increase efficiency, power, and give you the power to change the shape of the beam.

Congratulations! You have hunted and slain the strongest beast in the area "Spawning beach". Your dragon's blood rages with the power of your foe! You have permanently gained 5 points of constitution, 5 points of resistance, and 8 points of intelligence. You have also permanently gained + 1 point per level of constitution and strength. Continue fighting and awaken your true power as a dragon!

Holy s***! That dragon's Blood is crazy! So basically if I keep fighting strong foes, I will get stronger permanently? Well then where's the next one? My eyes finally fall on the forest, and I mentally grin. Well, lets see if there's any stronger foes in there...

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Hello There! thank you for reading my little tale! I just planned to pass on some info about the future of the series and etc here.

So release times, are not really set. Whenever, I can write I will write, but I also have another book I'm working on. Whichever one has the most interest will obviously have priority.

The book has some litrpg elements, but there won't be any specific skills. For Example, Instead of yelling out " dragon claw" and then swiping with power, Terrus (as I creatively dubbed our protagonist) will manipulate his spirit force, pool it in his claws, and then strike to basically the same effect. (He may yell out one liners, but that's his personal choice)

The first arc will be about 20-50 chapters long. (These first two chapters are about 1/3 to 1/4 of the size I want an actual chapter to be btw) It will mainly be a p v e sort of thing. Fighting stronger and stronger foes as he grows more powerful and discovers dark secrets of the world.

The second arc will be contact with humans. Probably some sort of academy arc. I've attached a poll to this chapter on how you all want the protagonist to be: A solitary guardian, steeped in mystery while occasionally deigning to converse with others or a pack member protecting his friends against all who dare attack them. This decision will majorly affect both the first and second arcs of the story so do think about it. I'll get preliminary results here and do a final poll in chap 5.

Any comments are welcome and in fact appreciated.

Your faithful monkey slave with a typewriter.... ehem Author

The Eldest Potato