When Kai finished playing with the newly named Ember, he decided to do a quick scan of the immediate surrounding area, mainly for firewood and something to light it with.

"Wait here Ember, all right?" he asked.

She nodded obediently, at least outwardly. After he left, Ember did her best to sneak out after him, just to make sure he wasn't mauled by a troll or something. Now, dragons aren't usually known for their stealthiness, but love can do some amazing things. 

Kai spent about 20 minutes looking for good trees to use as fuel, and when he finally found a decent clump of nice trees, he realized that he didn't have anything to cut them down with. 

"Damn it" he exclaimed in frustration. "I really need to learn how to prepare for the things that I want to do more efficiently."

After a while of contemplating, he recalled the Training weapon mk.4 he received from completing an earlier quest. 

'Maybe this will be able to cut down trees' 

Hoping that his thoughts would come to be true, he opened his menu and selected the weapon in his inventory. He noticed that there were some interesting qualities regarding his inventory function, but he decided to put figuring it all out off until later. When he had finished selecting the weapon, another piece of text appeared in front of him. 

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Training weapon mk.4

Deploy?

Y/N

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He pressed "Y" with anticipation in his heart. A glowing light shone brightly from his right hand, and when it dimmed enough for him to see, a long, black stick was grasped tightly within it. It only took him a second to realize what a scam this training weapon was.

"Fuckin trash quest rewards" He mumbled under his breath. "If only this were an ax or something..."

With that, A bright light shone once again, and when it faded, at the end of the stick was an ax head. 

"Woooooah. That's really cool!" Kai exclaimed in apparent wonder. "Can I do that with a different weapon?" 

His earlier rage at the reward system forgotten, he proceeded to experiment for the next couple of minutes, thinking of all of the weapons he knew, and lo and behold, they all worked without a hitch. 

"No doubt it has low attack power or something similar" Kai thought out loud, knowing full well that a weapon with the word "training" in its name couldn't possibly be this overpowered. He then tried his luck with the tree chopping and changed the stick into an ax once again. His theory was proven quickly thereafter when it took him 15 whole minutes to chop down a single tree. The ax obviously wasn't very proficient, but at least it got the job done, even if it was slow as hell. After about 10 more minutes, he had 3 trees in total and decided to call it a day.

When he returned to the cave, he found Ember peacefully laying on the floor, seemingly asleep. He smiled to himself and started breaking up the branches to get a firepit started, failing to notice the heavy breathing coming from the aforementioned "asleep" dragon, almost as if she had been running...

When he finally had the firewood arranged in a way he figured would work, he sat on the ground for a little while and pondered over the dilemma he was facing: How to actually light the wood. 

"Ember," He finally asked after thinking for 5 minutes without any luck, "would you happen to know of a way to light the firewood? I assume you know of some plant that can catch sparks or something, as you seem to have lived here your whole life."

Ember slowly walked over, giving him a look that said, "Your struggling face is quite endearing, but I'll help you because it's you" (of course, he doesn't know this fact, but whatever). 

In one swift motion, she blew a small flame onto the firewood and they burst into a warm fire, crackling with a pleasant glow.

Before Kai could even think 'Oh my god, how could I have forgotten that Dragons can fucking breathe fire', A loud noise, akin to a firework went off in front of him. Ember immediately stanced up and took a menacing pose, warily looking around the cave, running toward her Kai as fast as possible.

However, Kai was not in danger like she very clearly feared. As a matter of fact, his brain was whirring at speeds it had never had to go to before. In front of him, a message had appeared. 

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[Insight gained!]

[Companions Menu unlocked!] 

Open menu?

Y/N

--------------------------------------------------------------- 

He selected "Y" with anticipation clearly written all over his face. A screen appeared, with the words Companions menu written at the top with big, easy-to-see letters. The only option on the screen was "Ember" written in red color. He pressed on her name. What appeared was beyond what he could have possibly imagined.

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EXP to lvl up: 0/200

Name (Ember)

Age (20) [Dragon years]

Species: (Adolescent Montolian Dragon)       

Species Info: [Bestiary required]

Affection percent: 105%  (Overprotective)

(AN: standard love meter basically. Over 100 means yandere territory, and the further you go, the crazier they get.)

Bond level:  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥ 

Skill 1) Fire breathing: Due to your ever-growing bond with your first companion, you have gained the ability to breathe fire as the dragons do. Your skill levels up as your companion's skill levels up, as a result of your unique class.

Skill 2) Locked, further Bond-level required

Skill 3) Locked, further Bond-level required

Skill 4) Locked, further Bond-level required

Skill 5) Locked, further Bond-level required

Bonus perk: (Slow aging): You age 1/4 slower than the normal rate at which humans age. {Levels up with Bond-level increase}

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As soon as Kai read skill 1, he closed the menu and started trying to breathe fire. He is a man, and men are simple creates. Fire breathing fucking rocks, and therefore he decided to focus on that and leave the rest for later. To his great delight and Ember's incredible surprise, when he thought about wanting to breathe fire and blew air out of his mouth, fire indeed came. He felt like such a badass. I mean, who wouldn't love to have a portable flamethrower that seemingly never ran out of fuel?

As if he thought the day couldn't get any better, another message popped up in front of him and he clicked on it faster than he had clicked on anything before.

---------------------------------------------------------

[Insight gained: Mana bar unlocked!]

Equip?

Y/N

---------------------------------------------------------

He obviously picked "Y" and after a few seconds, a translucent bar appeared in the corner of his vision. If he looked directly at it, he could see it in higher detail. It read:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mana: ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ‎ΞΞ       (AN: currently at 20 max, now you don't have to count it yourself, you're welcome)         

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seemed like using fire breath once cost four mana, which seemed like a decent price to him, as fire breath is insanely cool. Kai had absolutely no idea what fully depleting the mana bar would do, but he really didn't think it could be all that bad, and he really, really wanted to burn some shit. He proceeded to use his newfound fire breath 4 more times and proceeded to faint on the spot, not even having a chance to contemplate how shortsighted his desire was.