Next morning, or what I believe is morning, I gather my equipment, put on my empty backpack and strap 4 grenades on to my vest then double check everything. I pick up my pistol and check the functionality of all of its parts. Its firing mechanism is simple as a crossbows so it should work and I am sure it will be lethal judging from the pressure tests I have done in the past but it is a whole other question whether the accuracy will be any good. I inform the dragon that I am ready to leave the cave.

He gets up and I vaguely see massive amounts of mana swirling around him, his body starts to shift, he decreases in size, starts forming a humanoid shape and before I know it my mind goes blank.

"What?... I thought you were past the whole fear and panic situation..."

I stare at the humanoid form of the dragon for a couple of seconds before braking out of my stupor.

"WHAT?? WHY ARE YOU FEMALE? NO!! NEVERMIND! WHY DID YOU HIDE YOUR HUMANOID FORM ALL THIS TIME? DID YOU ENJOY SCARING ME TO DEATH?"

The obviously female dragon gains a tint of redness on her cheeks and avoids my eyes.

The female dragon responds feebly: "I did not think about it." You forgot or you did not care?

I suppress my extreme desire to insult her, and continue to stare at her with obvious anger. After a minute or so I take a deep breath and say "Lead the way Miss Dragon."

"My name is Kathorrunth, Seeker of Knowledge" She says with a straight back and a puffed up chest, radiating pride. As she introduces herself I take closer look at her, she has a slender build with barely noticeable breasts. Although her head is up to my chin, she looks taller thanks to the 2 horns sticking out from between her jet black hair. The horns themselves curl backwards covering a quarter of her head. She has the same blue eyes as in her dragon form, color of her hair seems to be same as the color of her scales which is pitch black, I notice a tail behind her swinging, the is looks like a scaled down copy of her dragon form tail. Focusing back on her face, she definitely is a beauty.

I look at her for a few seconds and decide that I will not be calling her Kathirunthu, Seeker of Knowledge.

"I will call you Kate for short, all right?" I say and promptly turn away from her.

"Hmm, sure, Anton, lets go." She nods and turns toward the wall. Talking to her in this form is much easier on my psyche.

"You can call me Tony, as do my friends." Mana is gathering around us. Before I even notice it we are already a meter off the ground, we go up for tens of meters before going into a tunnel. I would guess the tunnel is a few hundred meters or so in length. Finally after nearly 2 months in a cave I shall be blessed sunlight. As we exit the tunnel I am blinded by the sunlight, Kate gives me time to adjust.

As my eyes adjust to the light I realise I forgot an important detail... Mass! Where did all of her body disappear to? Can she use mana to create matter from energy and turn matter into energy? That would be incredible… but that would require much more energy than is available in her mana. Did I calculate the energy density of mana incorrectly? I am jumping to conclusions... I can only take note to study this topic in the future.