*Gaia, the Earth Drake

"You said Edward is in the intensive care unit at Concoction Hospital!?" a middle-aged man roared in anger at the servant who appeared before him, his name was Trevor Medici, the current President of the Medici Chamber of commerce and father of Edward Medici. His family was part of the Main Family similar to Leonardo and his parents.

"Yes milord, I have retrieved a recording of the entire incident" The servant walked closer placing a disk enclosed inside a case on the table, just with one glance Trevor knew his son must have done something wrong without asking a question. This way how the servant approached matters like this one where one of the family members were the one's to provoke instead of being provoked.

After watching the video from start to finish Trevor could not help but frown, although Leonardo went overboard almost killing his son. The fact that Edward disrespected the countries top awakened hero in such a vulgar manner would incite an incredible ripple amongst ordinary and awakened heroes that idolized them, even the government would be forced to take the side of the public opinion and decisively abandon the Vollumn Family.

"I can't even take revenge for my son huh? Although I could, it will bring harm to our family which is not something neither the elder council nor I want" Trevor mumbled while looking at the video recording, 'Not to mention Leonardo probably dealt with it in this way to avoid outside influences from getting involved, that would really make things more dangerous and complicated.

However, Trevor could not deny his thirst for revenge for his son, as he kept watching the recording his eyes had a peculiar glint as he smiled "I can anonymously hire some thugs instead, based on the movement of that boy Leonardo, he is on par with E Rank. I bet it's a one-time consumable talisman, there is no way the main family would hand him a Heroic Rank Artefact to a waste. Then his prowess should be common as stated in the report"

"Sebas!" Trevor called out and shortly the door opened revealing an old butler,

"Yes, Master?"

"Use some of the funds and hire the Scorpions, have them kill this brat named Leonardo Medici without the public notice" Trevor ordered,

"Yes master" Sebas bowed before he left, he clearly understood that his master did not want anyone to learn of "who" killed Leonardo hench why he said without the public's notice, news of Leonardo's death once they succeed would naturally get released however they have to make sure none of it would point back to them.

"Even if I can't do it personally, I will have you die for this humiliation Leonardo. And then, I will kill you afterwards Piero" Trevor mumbled before turning his attention back to the reports from the council.

~

It was decided by the Elder council of the Medici Family that the fixed term expulsion of Leonardo Medici will be two months.

A month passed since the incident. During that time Leonardo was drilled by both his parents in practical abilities and theory knowledge, the crammed Leonardo's training schedule in order to help him catch up with the average standard of awakeners from the family.

Perhaps it was thanks to Leonardo who discovered that his "Inventor" special rank ability could pull out blueprints even from runic enchantments allowing his comprehension in the runic language of the ancient civilization to rise up on par with his mother who imparted everything she knew of runes, their uses, combination effects and even the profound meaning behind each rune.

This skill naturally included drawing blueprints of notebooks allowing him to increase his studying efficiency at half the effort for twice the results, it was quite surprising how he could easily catch up with everyone but if they knew the uses of such a skill they might become demented from envy.

There is no profession called Enchanter or related to enchantment since Runic Enchantment was something the humans only discovered five years ago, this is an "optional" non-profession one would have to put an incredible amount of effort to study. Only when their knowledge of runes reached the standards of B Rank would it be recorded onto the system status.

And it was only recently that they started to implement the ideas on weapons and armour, the runes consist of Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Special which are newly derived ancient runes created by awakened researchers. This gave hope for the military that they could improve their weaponry since the world had half given up on military weapons and slowly began to regress to primitive weapons.

Then there are the Ancient Runes in its raw form from which most of the newly developed runes are derived from, even to this day new runes are being discovered by comprehending these ancient runes yet not all of them were applicable to enchanting items or people.

However, the public was not informed that rune knowledge was restricted by nature, and it depended on your affinity rank with rune language determined whether you could learn everything or nothing at all. This was another factor that minimized the number of people who could implement runes, but nothing stopped them from studying it and creating newly derived runes for their own uses.

Caterina was quite surprised to find her son was similar to her, having a SS Rank affinity for both Ancient, Special and Generic Runes hench his studies in runes were mostly unhindered and processed incredibly fast making use of the Inventor skill to draw out blueprints. It prompted this proud mother to think of things she could teach since she did not want Piero to snatch all the time she could have with her son for himself.

Piero, however, was a real spartan trainer and never allowed Leonardo to take a rest during training even when Leonardo felt his bones could break at any moment. Even Leonardo felt that the training was completely useless since there is one thing that was common knowledge:

You can only raise your stats through levelling up.

Meaning even if you trained for years in a gym or practised martial arts earnestly, you won't become stronger in a physical sense. This caused all manner of training to include killing monsters to level up and no awakened joined gym clubs anymore, as for Martial arts which is the only "worthwhile" training centre that managed to survive in this world since Awakened can learn fighting techniques and learning how to efficiently control their strength without wastage at these training centres for survival.

However, even that was slowly becoming obsolete from the current trend and only old ancient families continued the tradition of passing down their family techniques to their descendants which aided the descendants to remain at the top of the food chain in the world even after the world had forgotten the benefits of learning combat techniques.

"Haah haah haah" Leonardo found it incredibly hard to stand, even the sabre he was holding in his hand vibrated from his trembling hands. Next to Leonardo was the hatched Earth Drake, it was the drake Leonardo chosen to hatch first after considering that he would need to have a bodyguard first for his safety after the incident he caused.

It is a quadrupedal drake characterized by its head having striking similarity that of a tiger, powerful limbs and striking orange scales along with black lines across its body. The top of its head is tipped with a pair of horn-like ears, and its segmented tail ends with a spiny protrusion. Its forelegs are slightly longer with sharp claws allowing it to catch preys or launch attacks first before its enemy reaches it, and attached to its hindlegs were bracelets Leonardo made for his little girl.

Its element is earth and it requires to use its dragon force to execute skills related to the said element, however, this was where owners of magical beasts and beast tamers with magical beast differences came to play once again.

Similar to awakened, unique or generic skills unrelated to their professions has to be trained and comprehended by a lucky encounter. However, Magical Beasts do not have a profession which meant all of their skills has to be comprehended and that depended heavily on the beast's innate potential and the depth of its intelligence.

"What's wrong?" Piero said with a bone-chilling smile that made both Leonardo and the Earth Drake to reflexively assume their battle stance, seeing this Piero nodded with satisfaction.

The past month he kept driving his son to the edge to heighten his instincts and train it to the point Leonardo became aware of his instincts since physical aspects could only be strengthened through levelling so battle experience, technique, precise control and senses had to be trained manually.

"Gaia, are you okay?" Leonardo whispered to the Earth Drake beside him, it was even a surprise to Leonardo that he named the dragon Gaia after he thought he could give it a cool name like Thanos.

The reason he withheld the name was due to the discovery of gender, this information only popped up in his appraisal after he signed a contract with Gaia which surprised him.

[Name: Gaia

Race: Earth Drake

Gender: Female

Rank: F

Rarity: Common

Level 1

Element: Earth

Nature: Simple.

Note: Evolution Possible]

"Grrr" Gaia's throat rumbled while her body was emitting a faint aura that showed her intense fighting spirit, she slowly stood in front of Leonardo intending to protect him despite being weak. However, this display of loyalty and resolve made Piero nodded with a serious expression while secretly he was happy over the moon, incredibly proud of his son.

"Let's fight together Gaia, I will have your back and you have mine. We are family okay?" Leonardo spoke softly, his eyes naturally caught the ears twitching which was something he had discovered after a month of bonding that Gaia's ears would twitch rapidly when she was happy.

Raising his sabre along with his right arm aligned with his shoulder height, his left side facing his father. Without closing his eyes to concentrate he manipulate the mana within his body to relieve his fatigue for a short duration while enhancing his physical aspects a few notches. "Quicksilver steps ~ Illusory squirrel"

With light steps enhanced with mana, Leonardo rapidly moved zigzag from left to right. Gaia did not slack off, she accelerated almost instantly bypassing Leonardo due to their differences in ranks.

"Hoho, it appears you have become proficient in using the basic footwork technique," Piero said as he raised his greatsword repelling Gaia's claw attack, using that small opening Leonardo used the last bit of mana he had left to explosively increase his speed allowing him to close the distance comparable to an F Rank hunter.

"You became quite strong, but as your father, I can't lose to you just yet," Piero said with a smile on his face as he turns his body slightly to dodge Leonardo's thrust attack before responding with a right elbow slamming straight into Leonardo's forehead sending the latter rolling on the ground.

"Gaia!" Leonardo cried out,

"Groouuh!" a low rumbling shook within Gaia's throat, her hind legs twitched for a moment before the bracelets attached to it began to transform as if two cylinders were growing out of it. As magical energy began to fluctuate around the bracelets, the cylinders suddenly unleash a fierce gush of winds propelling Gaia at breakneck speed towards Piero.

With a single swipe of her claws a few drops of blood flew up in the air before crashing down into the ground followed by a soft thud as Gaia landed on the ground, her forelegs already in a position to leap and her hindlegs were shaking as an aftereffect of using Leonardo's Propelling magical artefact.

"Hoho? Hahahahahaha Amazing, you two really won this round" Piero roared with laughter after wiping the slight cut on his cheek which already healed under his abnormal regeneration, his eyes were sparkling as he watched his son gently stroking Gaia's head while removing the bracelets.

"Is that a new artefact you have created?" Piero asked Leonardo who finished removing the two bracelets.

"Yes, it's a propelling device I created for Gaia according to her body characteristics. It is equipped with a wind element F rank magical beast core, I have already used "Fusion", "Alteration" runes to attached the cylinders allowing this artefact to have a transformation ability between its stationary mode and battle mode so it will not hinder her movements and only activate its battle mode when she needs it.

"It's a trump card of shorts I have created for her, it is different from the pistols I created," Leonardo said with a wry smile.

"Heh, for once I will acknowledge that Production Profession Awakened heroes are definitely someone to look out for. It's just that no one uses it as you do, you know?" Piero said with a wry smile, "Not to mention, I can't even tell those stuck militaries that my son had already ushered the path in recreating handguns and sniper rifles way ahead of them."

"Haha, it's best we do keep quiet about that. This is also why I am training my sabre arts, that way I can use the guns for emergencies only" Leonardo said

'Perhaps its because I am influenced by the Saga of Leonardo Da Vinci that my view on production had broadened' Leonardo thought before gently patting Gaia's head, "You have done well, although it was only a prototype I will perfect it more so your legs won't be strained so much"

"Grr rrr" Gaia rubbed her head against Leonardo's hand, ever since she was born she was doted upon by Leonardo and loved him more than anything in the world. It was a short time the two of them lived together, however, due to her simple personality, she was easily attached to Leonardo and willingly worked together with him in creating artefacts.

"Why not make her an armour?" Piero asked since that was the norm most production awakened heroes took with their magical pets,

"No, she is a drake and has dragon blood in her veins. Adding armour and weapons around her body and claws will only weaken her, her scales and claws need to be tempered through constant combat so her body will grow stronger and not rely on artefacts too much. I only intend to create supporting artefacts as trump cards for magical pets, I will naturally help them learn trump cards of their own as well" Leonardo said with a big smile.

'Guess I have no need to worry about my son, such a strange complicated feeling' Piero thought while smiling warmly at his son, he was quite shocked at Leo's explosive growth in his production studies. Although his combat skills are still lacking, his artefacts made up for that.