Leonard was about what you would expect, an older, dignified man with a serious expression, a carefully cultivated grey beard, and of course, a wizard’s hat. It was actually a considerable amount of effort on his part to fit the stereotype, a lot of a court wizard’s job had to do with being a visible ornament to a noble family. Certainly, there were a lot of wizards out there who knew how to use magic properly, but to be the court wizard of a duke, well that took the ability to fit in. No noble wanted shabby or disreputable looking wizards, and Leonard was as fastidious about his appearance as he was careful with his spells.

Despite his seemingly prim and proper nature, he wasn’t actually an arrogant man. He did not mind the task of being Eric’s tutor. He hadn’t even minded spending a couple months out in the countryside working to capture the egg Rex had hatched from. What he did sort of mind was the fact that he couldn’t figure out what in the world had happened to this dragon that had changed it so much from a normal dragon.

Unlike Blake, he wasn’t an expert on dragons specifically, but he knew enough about magic to suspect that a “variant” of a beast, such as a dragon, usually possed abnormal magical aura and a more powerful than usual beast core. After careful examination of Rex however, he realized that the dragon actually had somewhat less magical energy stored inside it’s core than was normal. By rights, this dragon should be subpar, defective due to its smaller than normal beast core. A lack of magic in beasts made them less intelligent as well as weaker physically, but there was no evidence of any lack of intelligence here, Leonard thought to himself, as he stared at the young dragon while the dragon stared back at him.

“Well?” Eric asked, impatient as he waited for the wizard to finish his inspection.

“Rex’s beast core is a bit weak, I might recommend he be taken hunting. As you know,” Leonard said, shifting to his lecture mode, “Beasts grow stronger by killing other beasts and absorbing their beast cores. Well, humans can grow stronger that way too, but it’s not as easy for us as it is for beasts, we don’t have beast cores. But we can gain levels by killing monsters, if we...”

“I know how experience works,” Eric said with a frown, “What I want to know is, why is Rex so smart? Is it magic?”

Leonard shook his head, “No, it’s not magic. But, maybe it has to do with this;” he said, reaching forth and pulling a glass jar from a bookshelf and placing it in the desk so Eric, and the dragon duo could see. It held the black metallic wasp Ashe had found that day they’d stolen the egg from the mother dragon.

“What is that?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know,” Leonard admitted, “But it was near Rex’s egg when we found it. I can’t detect any magic on this wasp thing, but the metal of its wings looks much like the black metallic scales of your dragon,” Leonard observed.

Idea explained, sensing Rex’s own curiosity.

Rex asked, a bit confused, especially since between the two of them, they only understood about half the words Leonard had said. Magic was one of those words Idea had identified but couldn’t properly explain.

Idea admitted,

Rex was thoughtful, he’d been under the impression that Idea was some sort of magic too, but there was a bit of overlap between the two of them, so he knew Idea was being honest when he denied knowing about magic. Rex couldn’t quite read Idea’s thoughts like Idea could read Rex’s thoughts, but Rex could feel Idea’s emotions because Idea used Rex’s brain to process them. Idea was excited to learn about magic, Rex realized, and that made him feel excited about it too.

Idea asked Rex.

Rex tried, tugging on Eric’s sleeve to get his attention, he pantomimed eating the wasp by pointing at it then himself and chewing vigorously. Both humans watched in amusement.

“Did he just ask if he could eat the wasp?” Leonard asked.

Rex nodded in agreement. Leonard frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He opined, putting the jar with the wasp back on the shelf. “But I do have something else you could eat,” he told the dragon seriously, drawing forth a crystal from a drawer in his desk. It was a beast core.

Karla, sensing a moment where she could be of use, concerned that Rex might accidentally bite the wizard if he tried to hand him the small crystal, approached and asked, “If I may, master Leonard, I will feed him.” she offered, bowing her head differentially and sticking out her hand for the crystal. Leonard put the crystal in her palm, and she approached Rex with it, hoping the newborn dragon had enough motor control not to bite her hand while trying to eat the faintly growing rock.

Karla need not have worried, to everyone’s amusement, Rex gingerly grasped the crystal between two long claws, using them a bit like chopsticks, then tossed the gem into his mouth, chewing it noisily.

Rex complained to Idea,

But Idea was fascinated. The sensors around Rex’s beast core lit up as they detected activity. Turning on nanobots and sensors throughout Rex’s body, Idea was able to catch a glimmer of something moving from Rex’s mouth to his beast core. Rex was absorbing something from this snack, Idea realized, and the core between the dragon’s two hearts grew ever so slightly larger, and the mana reserves jumped up.

Idea had believed he might be able to use the quartz and trace elements of the core itself to fashion more solar energy cells, but now the AI was more interested in continuing to study these strange changes. Idea recommended, Already nanobots had migrated into Rex’s stomach to try to claim as much of the quartz before it passed through the dragon’s system.

Rex agreed with the idea of becoming stronger, though he didn’t like what felt like sand in his mouth as he ground up the beast core into finer and finer particles and tried to swallow them. It was a good thing dragon teeth were naturally as good as steel, due to being infused with magic, but Idea began to contemplate the idea of making them actually be steel coated. It could be done if Idea had access to more power and more iron. There were a lot of improvements Idea could do if only they had the resources.

Leonard used magic again, and Idea dutifully recorded the lines and symbols that appeared in midair as the appraisal magic washed over the dragon. Someday, Idea hoped that it would be able to duplicate that spell, it seemed so useful for an exploration automaton.

“Looks like Rex absorbed that mana pretty well. Of course, if he’d hunted the monster himself, he’d have gotten more anima out of it.”

“Anima?” Eric asked.

“It’s sort of like experience,” Leonard explained, “but when a beast grows stronger by consuming the life of another beast, we say that it absorbed the anima of the other beast. As beasts absorb more anima, their beast cores grow bigger and stronger and they eventually evolve into stronger beasts. For dragons, this is a part of their growth. Rex will need to absorb a great deal of anima before he can become a full grown dragon.” Leonard explained.

Idea understood very little of that lecture. But, like pretty much every word spoken within earshot, it simply recorded the speech for later study. Someday it would understand the words, and that knowledge could be recovered when it could be translated.

Rex for his part started examining things in the room. Like the carpet. Tapping the carpet expectantly, he turned his glaze on Karla, who obediently provided the word for it. Then moving on, Rex got words for book, desk, chair and other items in the room. Rex trusted that should the words be spoken again, Idea would provide the translation, as the AI’s memory was perfect, he only needed to hear the words once to learn them.