Zmej are renowned for having incredible regenerative abilities, but this is not always strictly the case. A young zmej will recover from injuries only marginally better than a common dragon. It is only through periods of deep, restful meditation that a zmej will be able to hone his physiology and attune himself to his natural elements. Use of this power for the first time will cause the zmej's scales to change color, based on his alignment. After that point, the color will stay with the zmej for the rest of his life. The color of his scales will correspond to his breath weapon and vulnerabilities, much as it would for other drakhen, and as with dragons and their slumbers, this will consume a great deal of gold. Beyond these similarities, however, the zmej's transformation is unique. For one thing, the zmej does not grow in size the way a dragon does, instead improving his natural regenerative abilities. For another, the zmej can only perform this feat five times in its life, and each time will consume considerably more gold. Finally, rather than lower its experience rate, a zmej's elemental vulnerabilities will continue to grow with each successive period of meditation. In accordance with the zmej's tripartite nature they will actually develop a vulnerability to three different elements, becoming weak to the same element a dragon of that color would, as well as to two other elements thematically close to it.