In the forest known to people as the Forest of Lost Souls, after centuries of growth, the unique Lotus Flower bloomed and with it, a thick mist enveloped the entire forest. 

In the middle of a small lake, untouched by any wildlife, was a lotus flower of unprecedented growth and colour. Each of its petals was completely black, and in its centre, instead of a bloom, was a young girl curled up in a ball, with a black panther coiled around her. As the sunlight fell on the girl's body, her eyelids slowly opened and two golden eyes looked for the first time at the world around her. But there was no surprise, no confusion, no panic in her eyes. There was an intelligence and wisdom in them that should have been impossible for a creature that had just been born. 

For the girl was not human, but a creature of a different kind, a member of the race known as Shadowwalkers. A legendary race known for four characteristics: the fact that they are always born with their Shadow Panther after the earth has sucked up enough blood- there is only one pair of these creatures at a time -, their great affinity with the dark element, which allows them to move even in the shadows, and finally their natural intelligence, the sharpness of their senses and the ability to speak any language of their time, from birth. 

There is one more thing, however, that people only argue about, and that is that they have two mana-hearts, one that all intelligent races have, and the other that monsters and monstrosities have. 

The girl's black hair blew gently in the morning breeze, and her white, perfect body reflected the morning light. The girl took a moment to look at her body, and for some reason the reality of being completely naked didn't sit well with her, although she didn't have a similar feeling about the black panther lying at her feet. 

So she reached behind her into her own shadow and pulled. In an instant, her body was wrapped in a black robe with trousers and high boots woven out of the darkness itself. 

After a long moment of contemplation and observation of her surroundings, the girl spoke for the first time.

"What name shall I give myself and what name should I give you?"

She looked at the panther at her boots, who finally opened his eyes, which were the same golden colour as the girl's. 

"I've got it..."

The girl exclaimed after pondering the question for a moment. 

"I'll be Elena... and you'll be Lumin."

Elena said, and the panther named Lumin stood up and rubbed against Elena's hips, raising his head higher into Elena's hands. Elena began to stroke him with a smile. 

"Looks like you like that name."

Lumin didn't answer, just closed his eyes and let himself be stroked contentedly. 

Then Elena looked around again. But where are we? Was her only thought. At the same time she felt something in her heart and after a moment in her whole body. Elena knew immediately that the feeling, the thing that slowly filled her, was mana, and when it reached her head and her eyes, her whole world changed before her very eyes. Suddenly she began to see mana in her surroundings, especially in every living thing she saw. But then she stopped, for all the mana around her was black, and while there was black mana in her, there was also white. She instinctively recognised this as the mana used by all sentient beings. And like a sudden realization, Elena knew that the more mana she had, the stronger she would become. And although she had no idea why she should become stronger, her instincts and intuition told her it was a good thing. 

So Elena sat down in a way that was comfortable for her and began to slowly gather mana around her. It didn't take long for her to realise that the mana she was collecting was not being held in her body without her strength and will, and was leaking out into the world around her. But then she noticed a place where the mana was instead accumulating in her body. There she saw her mana heart, filling her entire body with mana. And around it, a kind of shell that held the mana together. Elena knew that in order to have more mana, she would have to make the shell bigger somehow or do something with it in order to fit more mana into it and thus become stronger. What she didn't know was how to do that. 

That's why she tried pulling on it first. That worked well at first, until she pulled a little harder and a pain like no other shot through her whole body. Elena almost shuddered from the pain. When the pain subsided, Elena opened her eyes and saw that she was lying on her back, her entire body covered in sweat. 

Meanwhile, Lumin was giving her a worried look. As soon as Elena sat up, he walked over to her and squeezed under her arm to snuggle closer to her body. 

That was a bad idea. Elena told herself as she looked at the state her body was in after her blunder. Elena was now afraid to do anything with her Mana's heart, but her head and body were telling her that she had to go on. 

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So she went back to her inner self, but this time she was just observing. Observing what had actually happened and whether she had done anything to her Mana heart. After some time of observation, she sighed inwardly when she found that everything seemed fine. 

So she decided to keep trying to find a way to keep more mana in her body. This time, however, she did it the other way round - instead of trying to enlarge the container the mana was in, she tried to compress that is already accumulated. This caused the mana in her mana heart to shrink slightly, but when she tried to make up the difference in volume with new mana from her surroundings and released the previously squeezed mana, the new mana was immediately pushed out and Elena was back to square one. 

Meanwhile, darkness had descended on the forest, while Elena was trying to find a way to increase her mana capacity, and fatigue had set in on Elena. It was her first day and she had spent most of it just meditating. So she decided to continue on the next day and go to sleep now. 

Lumin, as if he knew what Elena wanted, lay down next to her in a semi-circle and motioned for her to lie down next to him, that way he would protect her while she slept. So she laid her head on his body and without any fear closed her eyes. 

The next day, Elena awoke with the first rays of dawn. But before she could return to her meditation, she felt a slight pain inside of her belly. It wasn't much, certainly nothing like the pain she felt yesterday, but rather a kind of pain from the emptiness in her body. And it was the first time that Elena had ever felt hunger. 

"Ugh... Lumi, I guess we'll have to find something to eat, I guess you're hungry too, right?"

Elena glanced at Lumin, who was still resting next to her, but already wide-eyed. And instead of answering, he just looked at her and opened his mouth wide. 

Elena smiled and got up. She had never hunted before, but her intuition had given her basic information, such as the need to hunt for food. 

Elena first looked around to see if she would by any chance see any game this close. Unfortunately, she was unsuccessful. There wasn't a single living creature apart from Lumin in the whole area. 

Lumin began to sniff, and it wasn't long before he caught something. Elena noticed his strange behaviour and spoke:

"Did you smell something, Lumi? If so, lead the way."

Lumi just looked back at Elena and took a course towards whatever his nose picked up. 

On the way through the forest, Elena heard a bird fly out of the undergrowth and that made her realise that if they were going to hunt something, they should be as quiet as possible so that their prey wouldn't hear them. After all, no one wants to end up as someone else's meal. So Elena stopped Lumin and explained that they should be as quiet as possible so that no one could hear them. 

Lumin listened at first and then nodded his head slightly to indicate that he understood. From then on, they did not just walk, but mainly used their innate ability in the dark element to transport themselves, moving from shadow to shadow, unseen and unheard by anyone. 

Their ability allows them to enter almost any shadow within a few metres, move between them and emerge again. The shadow doesn't have to be nearly as big as they are, and it doesn't even have to be static, but it can't be a shadow cast by a tiny pebble on the ground either. The shadow has to be at least tall enough for Elena to crouch in it. Which technically means that if there was a certain angle of light in a certain place, and someone threw a pebble in the air, and that pebble successfully created a shadow on the ground, she could step into it. 

And this is partly the tactic that Elena wanted to use in her hunt. 

When Lumin found their first prey after an hour of searching and stalking, Elena pulled a spear out of her own shadow that looked like it was made of glass and also woven from the shadows themselves, which technically it was. 

Without thinking, Elena took the spear and aimed it at a young fawn that was grazing less than twelve metres from them. 

Without a sound, Elena threw the spear and in the next instant, Lumino stepped into its shadow. 

Thanks to the mana Elena had put into her muscles to strengthen them, the spear hit the fawn in the belly and went through its stomach to the other side while tearing its organs on the way. But the fawn didn't even have time to yelp before Lumin leapt from the shadow of the spear and bit into its neck. 

Lumin's weight knocked the fawn to the ground in an instant, and as he tried to rip open its neck with his fangs, he held the fawn's head down with his left paw to keep it still. After a moment, the fawn stopped twitching and the light went out of its eyes for ever. 

Elena emerged from Lumin's shadow a moment later and patted him on the head for a job well done. Lumin turned to her and began to rub against her. Ignoring the ever-present blood, Elena knelt down by the dead faun and began to cut off a piece of the faun's flesh with a small knife created by her magic. 

When she had cut a large enough piece, she handed it to Lumina to eat. When he refused, preferring to dig into its stomach, Elena just shrugged and bit into the still warm meat herself, blood still dripping from it. 

Elena wasn't worried about her appearance, but anyone looking at her now would only see a pair of monsters feasting on their prey - Elena completely covered in the fawn's own blood and Lumina in it's stomach, tearing and thrashing around trying to get a bite of the best part. 

Having successfully hunted and eaten to their hearts' content, Elena and Luminous returned together to the Black Lotus. When they reached it, however, Elena paused for a moment, wondering what she looked like, or rather the unpleasant feeling that dried blood had on her skin. Despite the fact that for some reason it felt good to feel the warm blood flowing all over her, now it was just cold and dried, so she couldn't even lick it off. So she decided to wash herself in the pond. 

When she came out of the pond, she sat down in the middle of the lotus and immediately started working on a method to increase her mana capacity.