HawkxNinja

Pythons also don't have unique magical properties

The skill is fire magic, not fire breath.

Will he be given another weapon he can actually use?

He also has horns in the cover picture, which he definitely doesn't have at this point in the story.

That's probably not a bad thing

A much more feasible explanation is that he has somebody else protecting him.

poor Yang Cho

It's in the auxiliary chapter

Was his hair colour mentioned previously? The only description of his appearance that I noticed was his black eyes.