Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 670: Chapter 670 - Taming the Fifth Year: 1st Gathering Exam - 8

The Mirror Mantis clung to the bark of one of the giants, its body perfectly camouflaged against the rough texture.

Invisible... One with the tree.

Its compound eyes constantly scanned.

Looking for a ”safe” route jumping from tree to tree.

Avoiding the golden 3 sprouts.

Subterranean beasts that hunted by pressure sensation, detecting the weight of prey on the surface and emerging in explosions of vegetal violence to drag them underground.

The Mantis knew this.

Had learned through the information Ren had shared across their bond.

The ground was death. Its perfect camouflage didn’t work there.

Underground, illusions meant nothing. Mirrors were useless when buried in earth and root.

But the trees...

The trees were life.

It jumped.

Its mirror body briefly reflected the foliage and roots before becoming invisible against the next branch. Its legs gripped the ancient wood, silent, creating no vibrations that could alert predators.

Perfect execution thanks to its instincts.

Another jump.

And another.

Moving like a ghost between the giants, each leap incredibly light.

Too far and it would fall. Too close to the trunk and the noise would give it away.

But the Mantis was patient.

Patience was survival. Patience was the difference between life and death in an ecosystem that punished any mistakes.

It had been patient for two complete days, moving slowly toward the northeast from the south. Now that it had arrived close, always toward the east, the forest’s mana became heavier, the amount of energy for its small body felt... wrong.

Oppressive... Like breathing water instead of air.

Its system was nearly overloaded, breaking down from the inside. Internal structures straining under pressure they weren’t designed to handle.

But it only had to endure until it could take a small look.

Just a glimpse. Just enough to see what Ren needed to know.

Only the large bonuses from the other beasts, channeling through the quadruple bond Ren had forged (and the beast’s unique nature), had kept it working until now.

Without that support, it would have already dissolved. Scattered back into formless mana.

It was very close to that entrance where there had been a tree shaped like a claw.

The place Ren had promised not to go.

Ren had promised not to go.

But the Mantis wasn’t Ren.

And what it saw...

What its mirror surfaces reflected...

Ren would see too.

Mirror Mantises were known for projecting illusions to lure their prey. Ren had seen, as his ten years old self, a dysfunctional example of the ability, but it had given him an idea. One that had worked beyond his wildest expectations.

Ren’s Jade Mirror Mantis was much more special, and its illusions more flexible.

Through the small crystal fragment of his mantis summoned in front of his eye, he could see a small illusion that floated constantly before his left eye, almost invisible to everyone except him.

A window through the crystal mirrors of his smallest and ”weakest” beast. But without doubt not the least equipped in support and stealth capabilities.

Ren was fulfilling his promise to the letter... while completely violating its spirit of ”not seeing”.

Still, ”you won’t like what you see” wasn’t enough reason for Ren not to feed his curiosity. His greatest weakness.

The thing that drove him forward. The thing that got him in trouble.

Yet the thing that made him who he was.

But he made a promise, so he wouldn’t go personally.

So he’d send one of ’his eyes’.

And perhaps, in the depths of that giant forest...

He’d understand something everyone else had failed to understand.

Or at least...

He’d find the truth of what had happened to Luna’s father. The truth that gnawed at him. That kept him awake at night and demanded answers no matter the cost.

♢♢♢♢

The mantis continued advancing perfectly hidden.

But it wasn’t just camouflage keeping it alive here.

A normal bronze 1 mantis would love this mana density but would never have survived here. Would never have even passed the silver rings.

The ecosystems were full of beasts specialized in detection: golden noses that could smell for kilometers, eyes that saw mana directly, seismic sensitivities that detected the slightest step.

Hunters with senses that made hiding almost impossible.

Visual camouflage was almost irrelevant against most of those predators.

But Ren’s Mantis wasn’t just a unique variant, practically invisible even to trained eyes and several times stronger than any bronze 1 mantis should be.

It was a beast with a guide and a projected constitution. Not wild, tamed.

Part of something larger than itself.

And still...

It was barely enough.

The environmental mana still pressed against its form. Unlike a normal beast that would absorb this mana to evolve, a mana projection like it depended completely on Ren.

On Ren’s mana that had been projected through the bond.

Keeping it cohesive.

Keeping it real.

Fortunately, Ren was already technically Gold 1. A quadruple tamer whose jade mana had sufficient resistance to withstand Gold 3 mana without too much problem.

But the Mantis’s internal system still strained here.

Each movement was slightly slower than it should be. Each jump required more concentration. The environmental mana interfered with its projected substance like static in a signal.

Degradation creeping in at the edges. Form becoming less stable with every passing moment.

But it could endure without doubt. Just would have small failures.

The only danger... And most importantly: it had to avoid being found.

A single attack from a Gold rank beast and everything would end.

Its projected form would be destroyed. The bond would break. Ren would take hours, maybe a full day to recover it.

Less painful than for other tamers thanks to his special quadruple constitution, but...

That’s why this was a single opportunity.

That’s why Ren had waited until being in Gold 2 to release it.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t send the Mantis from the school. The problem was the path. Beasts from intermediate zones would detect and kill it before it got far.

Gold 1 golden noses were impossible to deceive. They’d smell its projected mana no matter how much it camouflaged itself.

Small vines reacted to any size. Too sensitive, too fast. Every route had some monster that wouldn’t let it pass.

But from Gold 2...

From there, things were so large that small vibrations went unnoticed. Predators hunted massive prey. A mantis, even one the size of a three-horned horse, didn’t register in their hunting instincts.

Scale working in their favor. Being too small to matter.

Only the golden sprouts of Gold 3 in the ground were a real danger here.

But as long as the Mantis didn’t touch the ground and moved between trunks...

It jumped again.

Its landing was almost silent.

Almost.

The environmental mana generated a small failure in the calculation and when its legs touched the bark a bit harder than normal, it generated a sound almost imperceptible to most.

But not to everything.

Something moved in the branches above.

The Mantis froze.

Every instinct screaming danger. Every survival mechanism engaging at once.

A Royal Shadow Cat of Gold 3 emerged from the other side of the trunk with grace that contradicted its massive size.

The beast was the size of a small mountain. Its white and black fur blending perfectly with the dancing shadows of the fruit lights and canopy gaps.

Gold 3.

The Mantis wasn’t a glowing sphere.

Wasn’t obvious.

Shouldn’t be interesting... The beast should ignore the noise and return its attention upward to prey worth hunting.

But as Zhao had experienced with these creatures, they were curious and ”playful”.

Intelligent enough to be interested in anomalies. Bored enough to investigate oddities.

The Bear Cat passed close, its whiskers brushing the air centimeters from where the Mantis clung.

Inches from discovery... Inches from death.

The Mantis didn’t move, didn’t breathe, it became as still as the bark itself.

Hoping. Praying in whatever way a Mantis could pray.

That curiosity would pass.

That death would look elsewhere.

The whiskers twitched, sensing something... Not quite sure what.