Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 530: Chapter 530 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 2

The cultivation methods Ren had made public had completely revolutionized the landscape.

Techniques that were once reserved for the wealthiest elite were now improved and available to anyone. Processes that traditionally took nearly double the time now completed in less time and with fewer resources.

Most importantly, the methods eliminated much of the risk and uncertainty that had made advanced cultivation a privilege of the politically connected.

For common people, this had been a blessing. Families who had never dreamed of having members reach Silver 1 now watched their children progress toward those ranks with relative ease.

The social transformation was profound. Where once magical power had been primarily inherited through bloodlines and wealth, now it could be achieved through dedication and study. The rigid caste system that had defined their society for centuries was beginning to crack under the pressure of ’democratized advancement’.

But for Leopold and others like him, it had been a disaster.

His status as a ”prodigy” had evaporated overnight when dozens of students began reaching the same ranks he had considered achievements, but in much shorter timeframes.

Worse still, these new methods made his family’s ”secret” techniques seem obsolete and inefficient by comparison. Cultivation knowledge that had been passed down through generations of Montclaire ancestors was suddenly inferior to freely available manuals written by a fourteen-year-old.

And the most terrible thing: Ren had told him years ago that his cultivation method was wrong...

How dare he?!

The memory still burned. Leopold could recall every detail of that conversation... Ren’s casual tone, the way he had dismissed centuries of noble breeding knowledge as if it were amateur fumbling. The audacity of a boy with the weakest possible beast lecturing someone from one of the kingdom’s distinguished bloodlines.

In his desperation to maintain his advantage, Leopold had committed the mistake that had ruined everything.

He had attempted to ”improve” one of the public methods from the academy library.

It wasn’t an uncommon practice. For generations, advances in cultivation had come from ambitious tamers who took known techniques and modified them slightly, hoping to discover more effective cultivation routes. Selphira and Dragarion were legendary examples of experimenters who had been lucky and achieved spectacular success with their wild modifications.

The stories of their breakthroughs were academy legend. Selphira’s development of intricate advanced water mana crystallization techniques had made her one of the kingdom’s most formidable tamers. Dragarion’s innovations in amounts of pure vein energy channeling had elevated him to near-mythical status.

But for every success story like theirs, there were thousands of cases where modifications led to disaster.

Leopold had added what he thought was a minor improvement to the cultivation method for surpassing its Gold 1 cap, but instead had gotten stuck at Silver 3... a small alteration in the crystal absorption sequence that, according to him, should theoretically have accelerated the process.

Instead, it had permanently ruined his Cockatrice’s development.

The irony was that Ren hadn’t warned him about the school method needing changes, but about his own tendency to not follow even that ”mediocre method” at least correctly.

Leopold vividly remembered being annoyed by that ”ridiculous” warning at the time, considering it excessively rude and having been about to hit the foolish boy if not for Lin’s intervention.

Now he remembered it with biting bitterness and regretted not having hit the boy quickly to extract information from him.

Little did he know that it wouldn’t have gone as he thought, even at that point in Ren’s development...

But there was something more consuming him: the conviction that Ren knew more than he was sharing publicly.

The numbers simply didn’t add up.

According to public information, the spore developed with Ren’s new method provided modest but growing increases to more and more characteristics: 10%, 20%, and 30% up to Bronze 2, then 50%, 65%, and 80% at Silver 3. Ren had indicated he expected to achieve a 100% omniboost when he reached Gold 1.

Compared to what his Cockatrice would have provided at the same rank (350% in its main attribute and 210% omniboost), Ren’s spore seemed decidedly inferior.

But the math became a bit complex when Leopold tried to account for all of Ren’s beasts working together.

Ren’s wolverine should give him approximately 120% Strength increase (30% base omniboost multiplied by 4 for Silver 1), and his hydra should provide around 200% (40% base multiplied by 5 for Silver 2). Combined with his spore’s 80%, Ren should have approximately 400% total Strength increase.

It was a respectable amount for someone with beasts none of which specialized exclusively in Strength, roughly equivalent to a Gold 2 cultivator.

The problem was that nobody could believe 400% was Ren’s real limit.

The reports of his battles were simply too extraordinary. He had defeated opponents with specialized strength increases that should have been superior to his own. His speed surpassed tamers whose beasts specialized specifically in that attribute. His endurance rivaled those who wore complete armor manifested by defensive beasts.

Most puzzling of all was his elemental control. Ren demonstrated mastery in all seven different elements at the level of any high Silver with specialization in each one. This was theoretically impossible unless he had seven beasts specialized in each element, which clearly wasn’t the case.

The math enthusiasts at the academy had begun speculating that Ren’s fungus, which glowed with a unique golden color different from all other spores studied since then, had special properties. Some theorized that his omniboost wasn’t really 80% or 100% like others following his new public technique would have, but something closer to 400%, which would explain the discrepancies.

Even more extravagant theories circulated in private circles about him wanting to have the strongest spore while lying to other people with spores, but all reached the same conclusion: Ren was hiding critical information about his true capabilities.

Leopold had spent months studying all available reports about Ren, analyzing every documented battle, every public demonstration. He had learned that Ren possessed special techniques for improving beasts even after cultivation errors... methods that could potentially save Leopold’s ruined career.

But obtaining that information would require extreme measures, since those techniques remained unpublished for some reason that surely had to do with the boy’s ’disgusting’ accumulation of wealth.

Previous attempts by other nobles to pressure Ren had been amateur efforts: one or two Gold cultivators sent to the mines to intimidate him. These had failed spectacularly due to Ren’s power and his Gold Rank hidden guards, resulting in public humiliations for the nobles involved.

Leopold had learned from those failures. But his operation was, according to him, much more ’sophisticated’.

He had formed an alliance with a substantial faction of opportunist nobles, those who had lost the most power and influence after the post-war political changes. These nobles had considerable resources and shared motivation to obtain advantages that could help restore their positions.

The consortium represented nearly a quarter of the kingdom’s remaining noble houses, united by desperation and wounded pride. They had pooled resources that would have been impossible for any individual family to provide, creating a war chest specifically dedicated to neutralizing the ”Patinder problem”.

Together they had assembled a team of five Gold 1 and 2 cultivators, each a combat veteran with experience in covert operations. These weren’t academy-trained nobles playing at warfare, they were professionals who had served in border conflicts, suppressed rebellions, and handled ”delicate” situations for their employers.

Leopold had additionally organized multiple simultaneous distractions: dozens of students from allied noble families were creating various incidents at the academy and mines, dispersing security attention.

Reports were already coming in through his communication network. Several ”training accidents” in the practice yards required medical attention and investigation. Even a few ”beast escapes” from the menagerie were keeping security forces occupied.

The plan was elegantly simple to reduce execution errors. When Ren entered the narrowest section of the path, a stretch where dense trees provided complete overhead cover, he would be ambushed and captured. Speed was the key.

From there, he would be taken to a secure location where he could be ”persuaded” to share his secret methods.

Leopold had spent considerable time planning the interrogation phase.

He checked his timer crystal. Reports from his allies’ scouting birds confirmed that Ren had left his dormitory three minutes ago, following his usual route to the mines. The distractions were underway, keeping professors and security occupied and distant.

Everything was proceeding according to plan.

He activated his discrete communicator, sending the final signal to his team. In the trees around the path, five figures adjusted into position.

The combined might would be overwhelming for even someone of Ren’s rumored capabilities.

Leopold felt anticipation and nervousness as he watched the empty path. After months of planning, he would finally obtain the answers he needed. The secret techniques Ren had been hoarding would be his, and with them, perhaps he could repair the damage he had done to his own cultivation.

In the distance, he could see a solitary figure approaching along the path.