Draylen sat in the lion cave, in lotus position. Ever since the day that he had discovered the little black lion which seemed to be unable to walk, he had gone out to hunt in the morning, returned in the afternoon and cooked some food for the lions.

He would then cultivate until the next day, where he would once again hunt, train his combat skills and return. Several days had passed and Draylen could feel his strength slowly increasing. Each time his mana capacity increased, he could feel that his heart beats became stronger, almost like an engine. Draylen also found that when he was in a battle, his heart would automatically begin to pump mana across his body, like an adrenaline rush.

He was now able to cast spells like high level mages, by directly drawing spell circles in the air with his mana, thus making his combat power higher. In a fight, he would always cast a spell which hindered the enemy's movement, such as an ice spell. He hadn't actually learnt this from the old man, the basic tier 1 magician spells were relatively simple and he could actually guess on how to draw the spell circles. For a fireball, he would only need to draw a basic spell circle with a Aurelian character for 'fire' followed by a few power increasing symbols.

Draylen had found this out by accident. One day after hunting, he found that he could project mana outside of his body. Why would that be possible if it had no use? Thus he began experimenting and eventually managed to recreate tier 1 water, fire, earth and wind magic. If an Arch Mage were to find out that a 5 year old boy who hadn't been taught magic could blindly guess their technique, he would definitely spurt blood.

Thus, Draylen began getting creative, integrating magic into his immature fighting style and utilising terrain to his advantage. If there was a herd of deer, he would freeze them and then drop a large tree on them. If there was a flock of avian creatures, he would create a vortex or storm to knock them out of the skies. Now, it was easy for Draylen to hunt monsters which were several tiers above him, as long as they were not above tier 5.

The boy would occasionally experiment with new spells, to try and create more unique and powerful ones that would be useful in combat, but unfortunately he hadn't succeeded.

Suddenly, a black glow began to emanate from Draylen's body. The air around him looked hazy, as if he was in a hot desert. The mana around him began to collect, almost visibly flying through his chest and into his heart. Charcoal, who was nearby, stood up as if he were in a trance.

The baby dragon disappeared with a poof of black smoke and a black ball where he had just been standing flew into Draylen's heart, like the mana. The different coloured mana that came from the surrounding environment poured in like a colourful cascade of water in a waterfall.

-Babump babump

Draylen's heart beats sounded like a loud drum, rhythmically beating. The sound woke up all of the snoozing lion cubs and also the lioness. They crouched nearby, confused by the myriad of bright lights which flew about like fireflies.

His mind was blank, as if he were spectating himself. Draylen couldn't do anything other than feel the changes in his body. His mana capacity directly doubled, then it tripled. His heart was threatening to burst his veins and arteries with it's strong beats.

Just as he was sure that his body was going to tear apart from the force coming from within, green mana from the environment dived into his bloodstream, seeping into his flesh. His body, which was turning itself inside out was quickly repaired at visible speeds. Tears in Draylen's skin opened across his body but were quickly clotted and closed up.

"Aaargghh!" He cried out, in immense pain.

Red mana followed behind the green mana, wherever the green mana repaired his body, the red mana would follow it and lay waste to his body. The green mana would return to that place on it's next revolution, repairing the tissue only for it to get ruined by the red mana which followed close behind.

Then, all of the other colours which had been sitting in his heart were pumped out as well. White, black, red, green, blue, yellow, the colours flowed through his body, and either damaged it or repaired it. To put it in another way, it was like forcing someone to drink oil and then setting them on fire, before putting it out and healing them and then setting them on fire again.

Pain tormented Draylen's body as the previous tender flesh became harder and denser. Each time his body was destroyed, it was repaired and became stronger than before. After what felt like an eternity in hell, cuts and wounds stopped randomly appearing on his body. The pain slowly faded and mana ceased to gather in the area.

From the outside, it looked as if the strange cycle had stopped abruptly for no apparent reason, however, inside, the different colours of mana had found balance. White and black rotated slowly in the heart, green flowed in the bloodstream, red and blue stayed in the muscles whilst yellow found it's place in the joints and tendons.

-Aaahh

Draylen exhaled deeply, the excruciating pain from before was replaced with a strange warm yet chilled relaxing feeling. He felt as if he were sitting inn a tub of ice in an active volcano but after a while, feeling disappeared altogether and he could now move and think clearly.

'What happened?'

He had observed the different manas in his body during the 'process' and had managed to understand a little from them. It seemed that the green mana would repair his body wherever it went, but he was unsure for the others. The white and black had been there from the start, only he thought that the white had been replaced by the black mana. Draylen was especially curious about the other colours.

'Could it be?'

'I must have broken through to tier 4!'

'But how could that be? I'm certain that I was barely at tier 1 just a moment ago...'

Draylen was certain that he had entered tier 4 of the Neophyte stage, as when that happened, something called the 'Elemental Body Reform' would occur. It was something which he had read about in a book. Essentially, it was something which mages would go through, their white mana would change into the colour of a different element and would lose the ability to cast spells from any other element other than that of their own colour.

'But that's only supposed to happen for mages, I'm not a mage! I'm a Dragon Summoner!'

Another thing was that he had mana from each element in his body. He hadn't heard of this before and was sure that this occurrence was an anomaly.

'Let's see... White is light, Black is dark, red is fire, green is earth, blue is water and yellow is air.'

'Well, at least I've gotten stronger. This is another thing to ask that old man about.'

Slowly, Draylen stood up. The cubs that surrounded him jumped back at his sudden movement.

"Haha, don't worry, I don't bite!" He joked, feeling refreshed.

The cubs had only jumped back in shock, not that they were actually afraid and they looked at him in indignation.

'It's only because you moved so suddenly, we weren't actually scared!'

Draylen understood that they weren't actually afraid, but had decided to tease them anyway.

'These cubs are pretty smart though, I guess the children of tier 5 monsters are also sentient.'

After playing with the lion cubs, he realised that Charcoal was nowhere to be found.

"Let me try summoning him again."

He quickly forced the black and white mana out of his heart and into the spell circle on his chest, a black and white light shone and lit up the dark cave. Charcoal slowly climbed out from the light, looking slightly dazed. Draylen looked down and noticed that Charcoal, who had originally been small enough to fit around his neck had doubled in size and now had larger wings, a pair of horns and more pointy features.

"Er. Hello Charcoal, you've grown quite a bit."

-Groowwrr

The baby dragon's voice had turned a pitch deeper, somewhere between masculine and childish which sounded extremely comical. Hearing his growl, Draylen couldn't help but chortle slightly. The dragon frowned at him as if saying 'what are you laughing at.'

"Alright, sorry for laughing." He apologised.

Nodding contently, the Charcoal leapt up and the sat on his head. He looked as if he were a king that had finally sat on his golden throne.

"Whatever."

Draylen decided to go and test his new strength, as well as see what effects the different elements of mana which were now in his body had on his spells. Just as he was about to leave the cave, the lioness which had previously been spectating his transformation clawed at his top. He turned curiously, wondering what she wanted.

"What is it?" He asked kindly.

The lioness walked back into the cave before turning back and gesturing for him to follow.

"Okay then."

He quickly hurried behind her.

'Isn't this where the black cub is?'

Sure enough, they reached the small straw crib where the black three headed cub lay, sleeping. The lioness gently picked it up by the scruff of it's neck and carried it over to Draylen. Then, she began drawing something on the ground with her claw.

-Scrape

The sound of bone grinding against the stone floor was like chalk on a blackboard, causing Draylen to grimace. He then looked at what the lioness had written.

'Heal. That's all she wrote.'

He then looked at the cub which the lioness had lifted up.

'Maybe the cub is ill and can be cured with my earth mana!' He thought.

"Alright, I'll give it a go." He said, gently taking the cub into his arms.

He then focused on feeling the earth mana which flowed through his bloodstream, he slowly took control of it and drew it out of his hands and into the black cub. It seeped into it's body, causing it to squirm slightly. Soon, a constant supply of mana was being exchanged between the two.

'This mana heals everything it touches, so maybe I just need to have it circulate the bloodstream?'

Draylen could sense the mana's path, it was like a pioneer mapping out unexplored regions and soon, the mana had completed a single revolution.

'What's this?'

He sensed a strange foreign black substance which had gathered in the cub's heart. It seemed as if it was stopping mana from flowing out and was probably the source of the cub's weakness. Draylen manipulated the green mana and urged it to flow toward the heart, or more precisely, the black stuff which had clogged it up.

Sure enough, as soon as the green earthen mana made contact with the black substance, it shrivelled and withered into nothingness. He made sure to get rid of all of the black gooey substance before retracting his mana.

"I'm fairly certain your cub should be fine now." He said, carefully handing the cub back to the lioness.

She nodded and purred gratefully before returning the cub to it's crib and laying down next to it.

'I wonder what that was... Yet another thing to ask about.'

'Right, now I'll leave the valley and do some more training.'

He hurried out of the cave, eager to find out how much more powerful he had become when suddenly, a gust of wind knocked him over.

"What?!"

Draylen quickly activated his familiar armament and weapon, getting into a fighting stance.

"Crap."

He stared blankly as a giant green, majestic dragon looked down at him, an overbearing pressure descended, threatening to make him fall over for a second time.