Ves’ra slogged through waist high snow. The cold didn't affect her nearly as much as she thought it would. Probably because of the magically heated stones the shaman gave her.

She turned around and could just see the last hut of the village; she should be far enough.

She stopped, ignoring the snow and concentrated on her energy, drawing it out in the open. Ves’ra flattened the snow around her with a little concentration and gerous use of her energy. She was now exposed to the rigid wind blowing through the forest, causing a shiver.

She removed her energy from the snow and formed it into a sphere hovering above her palm. By now she had enough control for her sphere to be visible as a faint blue ball, meaning the concentration was high enough to be visible.

She imagined the snow building up, forming a sphere shielding her from the wind.

Afterwards she imparted that thought into the sphere, knowing it would do her bidding.

The energy vanished and the snow around her flew up, forming a protective dome around her. Before she could enjoy her success the dome collapsed, thoroughly dousing her in cold snow.

It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, the snow was cold yet not nearly as much as the first snow that fell on her. Her furs were getting wet though, the snow was melting. She extracted another sphere of energy and pictured all water and snow clinging to her flowing out of her furs and into the ground.

The energy vanished again and true to her imagination all water left her, drying her in an instant. She smiled, that went better than imagined. She concentrated hard, creating a bigger sphere, imagining a shield of wind, swirling around her and protecting her.

The energy vanished, as did the bite of the wind. She allowed herself another smile, so far her magic practice was a resounding success. The shield collapsed sometime later, exposing her to the cold weather once again.

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She would try and create a shielding with snow again, one that wasn't dependent on her energy to work. Ves’ra pictured a low wall of packed snow surrounding her, slowly growing upwards as she supplied more energy. It took quite some concentration to keep supplying the spell with energy, she had to keep the goal in mind while constantly adding new energy to the mental construct. Interestingly the energy didn't even have time to leave her body, supplying the spell the moment she took control.

After about sixty breaths of continued channeling she was finally satisfied, she would need a break though, already feeling the beginnings of a headache. After the headache subsided she continued her practice, using the heated stones to melt some of the snow, taking control over the resulting water with her energy.

When the small sphere of water finished forming she started to concentrate hard, keeping the water in front of her snout while extracting a sphere of energy out of her palm. She imagined the water forming into a spike of ice, imparting the idea in the energy.

Suddenly she was infused with a little warmth, causing her to lose control over both her energy and the half-formed spike. After levitating the icy water again she she continued with her magic, forming two smaller spikes.

Setting one on the ground she used energy manipulation to shoot the other at a tree nine kobolds from her. It shot off, losing height in the process, shattering against the tough bark a few seconds later. She lost the energy used to levitate the spike in the process though.

She levitated the other spike, extracted another sphere of energy equal to that amount and pictured the energy entering the spike, forcing her raw energy out and levitating the spike in front of her snout again.

Without her will controlling the energy it managed to keep floating for about fifty breaths. far less than what was possible with her controlling the energy though she didn't need to pay attention for it. She’d use manual control whenever possible, no use in wasting energy. Her next experiment involved shooting the spike with the energy used to levitate it, something which worked better like that, the spike neither slowed nor lost height.

After forming another two spikes she gave her best to shoot the spikes as far as possible, both with magic and energy control. The manually accelerated spike didn't stand a chance. It fell on the ground about thirty kobolds from her while the other one shattered at a tree double that distance.

She returned to the village soon after, out of energy. She would have liked to try lightning too but that would have to wait, she didn't want to attract attention to her village with the noise that would created.

When she returned she was greeted by the shaman.

“How did it go?”

“Great.” She grinned. “I can do even more than I thought, though I didn't try lightning.”

“Do tell.”

She did.