Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 533: Chapter 533 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 5

Ren remained agitated as he merged with the earth, moving through the soil as if it were water. But instead of heading toward the established routes that led to the safe tunnels, he decided to go directly downward, entering unregulated zones where the risks were greater.

It made sense if he didn’t want to be followed. While his two guards could track him, at least they never got too close unless he called them.

He didn’t want to be near people right now. So he wasn’t going to follow the ”safe” routes he himself had helped establish.

The tunnels covered by living minerals that most students and miners now used were an innovation that had emerged after several tamers developed living tunnels using Ren’s published methods.

The material covering the walls of these tunnels was mobile and resistant and formed effective barriers against Deep Assassins, the most dangerous creatures that inhabited the bronze-rank mana density zones underground.

These creatures had always been the problem for mass crystal prospecting. Before, it was specialized work only for people with a specific profile. It was considered difficult gathering work and wasn’t well-paid enough for most who could do it to practice it regularly.

The work had been dangerous, requiring teams of experienced tamers who could coordinate complex strategies while extracting the not so valuable resources. Accident rates were high since the Assassins are stealthy, and the specialized knowledge needed to survive in the depths was closely guarded by mining ’guilds’.

But with this security improvement, crystal acquisition had been revolutionized.

There was already slight deflation in crystal values due to the enormous increase in quantity, but the consumable nature of crystals and the castle releasing the new ones gradually prevented purchasing power from falling too much.

The new wealth was allowing more people to become higher-level tamers, democratizing power in ways that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Villages that had never produced a Silver-rank tamer were now graduating multiple candidates each year. The rigid class structure that had defined their society for centuries was beginning to crack under the pressure of accessible advancement.

But everything Ren had helped create... today seemed like just another annoyance to him.

Digging alone away from those new yellowish tunnels made more sense. Besides, he planned to go much deeper than where the safe tunnels reached.

At 200 meters depth, he began to sense the presence of larger worms. Their close presence indicated that the artifact he was using made them believe Ren was easy prey, so he decided to deactivate it to drive them away.

The creatures’ behavior was predictable, they were drawn to weakness like catmoths to the moon’s shine. The artifact had been designed to mask his presence, making it easy to hide. But today, he had no patience for such games.

Killing worms now would be boring. He had eliminated enough weaklings for today.

Finally, he reached the small vein he had discovered years ago. Today there were no visitors, so he sat in silence and calmly began analyzing the naturally crystallized mana formations growing on the walls and in the mana ”geyser”.

Platinum Rank. The structures were complex, beautiful in their geometry, but frustrating in their density. He could see the patterns up to this quality although he couldn’t break them, and he also couldn’t completely understand how they related to the Diamond Rank crystallization he had seen in the King.

The relationships should be there, tantalizingly close to comprehension. He could sense the underlying principles that governed how mana condensed into stable crystal forms, but the leap from Platinum to Diamond remained beyond his current understanding.

It was then that his fungus finally spoke.

’The crack in the jade seed seems to be more problematic than I thought,’ it told him directly in his mind. ’It’s not closing on its own as I expected. It keeps opening, and the residual energy it absorbed from that day’s pulse might be affecting you.’

”Leave me alone,” Ren muttered aloud, not bothering to respond mentally. ”It’s not that. I simply opened my eyes to the nonsense I no longer want to be tolerating.”

The admission felt liberating and terrifying in equal measure. For years, he had accepted criticism, guidance, and interference from others as the price of belonging to a community. Now he was questioning whether that community was worth the cost.

’I insist,’ the fungus continued with that irritating patience it always had. ’I really don’t care about your hormonal changes or emotional development. I just want you to become stronger. But getting along badly with those who can help you obtain materials could be counterproductive...’

There was something more in the fungus’s tone, something it wasn’t saying directly. As if its own motivations weren’t as simple as it claimed.

The fungus had always presented itself as purely focused on advancement and power. But increasingly, Ren sensed deeper complexities in his oldest companion’s personality.

’You know,’

it added after a pause, ’perhaps... the people I’ve met through you... aren’t completely irrelevant to our development objectives.’
It was a strange admission coming from the fungus. It was showing unusual consideration for the welfare of other humans. It was as if, after some years of experiencing the world through Ren, it had developed something like affection for the people in their circle.

The observation was a bit unsettling. If even his most analytical, emotionally detached companion was developing sentimental attachments, what did that say about the nature of the relationships he was now rejecting?

But Ren still interrupted those thoughts with irritation.

”I can get everything alone anyway. I don’t need their help, or their advice, or their fake concerns.” His voice was harsher than he intended. ”Now shut up and let me concentrate.”

The fungus fell silent, but Ren could feel its presence as a constant unease in the back of his mind.

He looked back at the crystallized formations, trying to decipher their secrets. They were Platinum Rank, but he couldn’t discover much about Diamond Rank from them. The structures in which mana settled didn’t have linear increments or logical forms of progression in each rank.

At least it was not discernible for his current mind.

Each crystal formation seemed to follow its own internal logic, defying the systematic patterns he had learned to expect from lower-rank mana logic.

The new complexity was beautiful but impenetrable.

Frustration accumulated until he couldn’t bear it anymore.

”Damn it,” he muttered, hitting the wall with his fist. The crystals suffered no damage but resonated with a musical sound, as if mocking his incomprehension.

He stood abruptly and began walking deeper, exiting the vein cave, seeking access to the Silver Rank levels. Maybe there he could better understand the basic patterns or at least check the mana increments again.

After 300 meters, he knew that Deep Killers and living tunnels maintained constant survival battles. The greater Killers could already destroy tunnel walls with more sophisticated techniques, while the tunnels had to constantly strengthen their structures and repair damage caused by those stronger predators.

The ecosystem was always brutal. Predator and prey locked in an endless dance of adaptation and counter-adaptation, each side evolving new strategies to overcome the other’s defenses.

It was exactly the kind of dangerous zone where none of the weak new tunnel builders would dare to venture.

’Are you going to see how deep you can go again?’ the fungus asked with a tone suggesting it already knew the answer. ’It’s dangerous to go so deep again without support.’

Ren ’ignored’ it, but formulated an excuse anyway.

”I’m going to look at the differences in mana accumulation. At higher levels, you can better see how crystallized structures form and the increase toward the surface.”

The explanation was technically true but incomplete. He was interested in the mana patterns, but that wasn’t his primary motivation for venturing into dangerous depths.

The fungus sighed mentally. It was a fake and strange sound coming from a creature that technically didn’t breathe.

’You can’t fool me when we share the same body,’ it told him gently. ’I can feel your real emotions. This isn’t about research. It’s about escape.’

The observation cut deeper than Ren wanted to admit. His fungus knew him better than anyone... better than he knew himself sometimes.

”It’s not about escape,” Ren replied, but his voice sounded less convincing even to himself. ”It’s about doing things my way, without constantly being told what I should do or how I should act.”

’And if we find something dangerous down there and you end up exhausted without being able to climb up?’

”Then we face it,” Ren responded with more confidence than he felt. ”There’s nothing more dangerous than me where I’m going...”

♢♢♢♢

”Do you think Julius will know what to do?” Luna asked, glancing toward where the guards were securing the attackers.

”Julius has been dealing with a lot of stress as well,” Liora replied thoughtfully. ”With everything that happened with his father the king, running the kingdom, trying to manage all the political factions... Perhaps he understands better than anyone what Ren is going through.”

One of the female guards approached them carefully.

”Are you all right, ladies?” Umi asked, her professional demeanor not quite hiding her concern. ”Did young sir Ren hurt you?”

”Physically, everything is fine,” Liora answered. ”But...”

She didn’t need to finish. The guards had seen enough of the confrontation to understand what had occurred.

”We will report everything to His Highness Julius,” Mako said from where she was binding Leopold more securely. ”He will know how to handle this.”