When I wake I notice the aching in my body. The feeling is located in every part of my body, from the tip of tail leading all the way to my muzzle. Rising on unsteady feet I notice that the suns are well on there way to setting. The remainder of the calf is well and truly stinking at this point with a couple of scavenger birds brave enough to feed near my presence.

The heat in my chest has returned and the burning is no longer unwelcome and leaves me with a comfortable warmth similar

Stretching my wings I find they aren't as sore as they should have been but the ache will make flying far harder than it should be.

Taking off Im quickly able to find the trail of the oxen from yesterday's hunt. The trail is already showing signs of regrowth from the burnt patches that they left behind.

Curious

My guess is that the power in this world allows for faster regrowth, though that shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering that there were a few places like that in my old world as well.

Following the path it only takes until nightfall to locate the herd and quickly spot their destination. It's a small stream only a few feet across and possibly only a foot or so deep. Spurred on with new determination I land on its shores and exhale a plume of flame further ahead of me setting almost the entirely of it to boiling for almost a hundred feet.

While not the best solution its the most convenient one at the moment and since the waters appear clear and clean it will do for now.

It's around the third plume that I sate my thirst and notice the heat in my chest as cooled considerably. Ignoring it for now I dip my claws in the stream and use the sand and mud to scrub the dried and congealed blood off myself.

When I'm finished bathing I take off and land on a nearby hill to rest and figure out what the heat within me is and to help understand how it works or if it is having a negative side effects.

Continuing my breathing, I pulls the power in the world and force it down into my lungs. I eventually start taking deeper and deeper breathes making myself slightly lightheaded in the attempt. Mother once said that the oldest and strongest dragons would be able to create a breeze that could be felt from the base of there mountains though breathe alone.

After a while I begin to feel it gather and make its way towards the heat located in between both my hearts and I can fell it rise in temperature. With every breath I take I notice it slowly returning to its previous burning from when I awoke.

When it reaches its max strength I'm positive that it is hotter than what it was before, and as I continue to breathe it continues to grow like a bellow to an open flame. At a certain point I forgot about the outside world and spend an uncountable amount of the day curled up at the top a the hill doing nothing but breathing, forcing this center of heat within me to grow.

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After a certain point I must have fallen asleep because It isn't until midday that I felt a slight rumble of the earth. Uncurling myself I rise to my feet and ready myself to take flight and notice most of the soreness of my body from the previous night is gone. Delighted to be free of pain I take off and continue on my way toward the source of the rumbling.

While in the air I see the herd has reached the stream further down the stream with some resting off the banks cooling themselves. Ignoring them I try to force some of the heat in my chest to my wings and feel a resistance that is odd. Both brittle and solid I push more power there and am rewarded with a shattering feeling and power rushing through my body and into my wings and granting me strength and remnant heat to flow to the lower inner plate on my wings allowing me to go faster, fly higher and use less energy to beat my wings.

Keeping track of the heat I start to get a feel of how much power is used keeping it up and note that it would be cool within the hour. Thinking to solve the issue I draw in a breath and can combat the drain partially to a few hours which will suit my needs.

Soon the plains are only lightly littered with trees and the beginnings of hills start to emerge. Traveling the area is made difficult since the winds start picking up speed and slowing my search but eventually I spot what I've been looking for.

Larger than any of the hills surrounding it lies an enormous hill the size of a small mountain with a hollow top. Rocks and crags and cliffs lay all around it making travel difficult for anything wishing to climb to the caldera.

The caldera itself isn't smoking and is covered by a layer of cooled black rock, easy enough to break if something where to walk atop it or something was thrown over on it.

Landing near the edge of the superheated rock I notice that the power in the local area has increased significantly and breathing allows a torrent of power to wash through me and granting me some new found strength as well and bringing heat that was exhausted on the way back to its burning intensity.

Edging closer to the blackened rock I lightly scrape my claws over them and watch as it crumples and cracks with the liquid underneath bubbling out with a brilliant glow.

Slowly I dip a talon in it and note that it fails to smoke and sizzle like it used to when I tried this at mother den. Eventually I gather my courage and extend my whole claw into the lava and instead of it burning me I find the warmth to be only barely tolerable and begin to push myself deeper into its depths.

When it starts to touch my chest and belly I begin to truly feel the heat of my chest thrum and pulse slowly until it begins to match the beat of my hearts and soon I start to breathe in rhythm along with them and feel a deep content that I hadn't felt since I found myself here fill me.

After a time I start feeling an itching sensation spread along the plates of my body and upon closer examine I notice a foul smelling dark gunk force itself from between the plates and the scales located on the more vulnerable parts of my body.

Exiting the pool I soon feel the plates start to loosen and slowly peel themselves from my hide and falling onto the ground. Uncomfortable with the sensation I speed the process by pulling all the ones within reach and scraping my back along a large boulder a small ways away. After I'm finished I rest along the edge of the pool and can visibly see how fast the new plates are growing in from where they dislodged themselves. Usually this process would take almost two weeks before they grew back in full but by my guess this will only take around two days for it to finish.

Settling In and getting comfortable for the next few days I proceed to close my eyes and dream.