Chapter 666: Chapter 666 - Taming the Fifth Year: 1st Gathering Exam - 4

For a moment, nothing happened.

The vine continued its slow constriction, thorns digging into Kade’s clothes and skin. Kade’s breathing quickened, panic rising.

Then, the vine’s thorns slowly retracted. The leaves loosened. The entire plant structure simply... let go.

As if it had lost all interest. As if the prey it had been strangling suddenly ceased to exist.

It dropped to the ground in loose coils, inert and harmless.

"How...?" Kade rubbed his arms, looking alternately at Ren and the now-inert vine on the ground. Disbelief and confusion in his expression.

"I told you the pattern must be perfect," Ren explained, plucking several glowing spheres and segments from the plant, putting them in his backpack. The quality was exceptional, perfect for cultivating earth element beasts in gold rank. "But you didn’t want to practice anymore... Even if you have an earth element beast, if you don’t know how to communicate with them..."

He trailed off...

The situation had repeated itself multiple times now. Even fan number 2 with her Undine had failed to replicate the technique properly. The spiral pattern was harder to do than it looked, requiring precise form and energy distribution.

If he wanted to achieve two trips, he’d need another way to achieve efficiency on the other 4 members first.

The current approach was too slow. Too dependent on his direct intervention for every harvest.

They needed a better system. A way to scale up collection without him personally handling every vine.

Ren looked at his team, assessing their capabilities with fresh eyes. Trying to figure out how to optimize their strengths while working around their limitations.

There had to be a solution. There always was if you looked at the problem from the right angle.

♢♢♢♢

Ren finished explaining Plan B.

"...So we’ll make them cooperate."

"Cooperate?" Kade laughed, the sound harsh and disbelieving. "With wild beasts? Sure."

"Wolverines are pure elementals," Ren explained patiently, keeping his voice level despite the skepticism he faced. "They respond to mana control. If you demonstrate superior elemental mastery in their same element, they recognize hierarchy."

He raised his hand, letting small sparks of electricity dance between his fingers.

"And I have enough control to impress them. If we want to secure victory, we need to collect faster to achieve two trips."

Zhao, observing from the side, smiled widely. This type of strategy was exactly what he’d hoped to see. Innovation in the face of complications, intelligence applied to practical problems.

"Just don’t stray from Liu or me," Ren added, lowering his hand and shifting into explanatory mode. "Wolverines and vines aren’t the only species here. There are beasts in the earth that have a different relationship than the ants have with the vines. And elemental birds that nest in the canopy of the enormous trees... which are more like giant bushes. Anyway, the ecosystem is a bit more complex than the data I provided you. I don’t remember everything at one hundred percent anymore, so stay alert."

He paused, organizing his thoughts. Planning out the division of labor.

"We need four different elements. I’ll handle the fifth with my own Wolverine."

♢♢♢♢

"We haven’t sensed or encountered any groups from the academies. Should be safe to proceed uninterrupted, right?"

Liu’s voice carried hope. The desire for smooth sailing, for a plan that actually worked without more complications.

"Of course," Zhao turned toward him with one of those rare smiles that only appeared when he was genuinely entertained. "Nobody comes to this zone. First, because being the Gold 1 ring sets the bar high. And second, because the vines are too aggressive and the wolverines too territorial. It’s the perfect place for someone like Ren."

The compliment was a bit backhanded but genuine. Recognition that Ren operated on a different level than most students.

Shortly after...

The encounter with the first wolverine was... different from what the team expected.

"That’s," Kade swallowed hard when they saw the beast, his adam’s apple bobbing visibly, "a true gold rank monster. Are you insane?"

The Fire Wolverine was impressive.

No, impressive was too mild a word. It was magnificent in a terrifying way.

Five meters tall at the shoulder. Muscles rippling under fur that seemed perpetually aflame. Its eyes, brilliant yellow, studied them with the intelligence of a predator that had survived decades in hostile environments.

This wasn’t some young beast. This was a survivor... A predator.

"Stay back," Ren ordered, stepping forward. His voice carried absolute confidence, no hesitation, no doubt.

"Are you sure...?" the first girl began, her voice trembling slightly. Fear warring with trust in her expression.

"Back," Ren repeated, his voice carrying authority that made everyone obey instinctively. Something in his tone, his posture, his presence demanded compliance.

The wolverine growled, low and threatening. A sound that vibrated through the chest and promised violence... death. Fire licked around its paws, scorching the ground.

Ren could eliminate the beast easily just by summoning his own. Despite being "only Silver 3", it would be stronger overall thanks to the shared bonuses from the other beasts in his body. The amplification effect made the single rank up meaningless.

But instead of that...

He extended his hand.

Created a fireball, which then began spinning in a whirlwind. Wind feeding flame, making it grow, making it dance. Then, with elemental combination, he let lightning form and dance.

Not much energy. Not the kind of display he’d use to kill enemies. Just enough to demonstrate control, precision, potential power.

Sparks jumped between his fingers in complex patterns, then tracing perfect spirals in the air. The kind of elemental manifestation that required absolute control.

The kind most tamers couldn’t dream of achieving.

The wolverine stopped.

Its eyes narrowed, reevaluating.

Ren took another step forward, maintaining eye contact. Not aggressive, but not submissive either. Confidence radiating from every line of his body.

Recognize my superiority, the gesture said. Clear as spoken words to a creature that understood power dynamics instinctively.

The wolverine growled again, but different this time... Considering.

Then, slowly, it inclined its head.

Recognition.

Acknowledgment of hierarchy.

Ren moved closer, extending his hand slowly.

The wolverine watched, then, surprisingly, pushed its massive snout against Ren’s palm.

Hot. Like touching physical fire. Heat that should have burned flesh, that would have left lesser tamers with black palms.

But it didn’t burn Ren.

The wolverine was... accepting him.

"Liu," Ren called, not taking his eyes off the beast. "I need your hyena to produce a specific sound. Low frequency. The one I taught you to induce relaxation, then the long one that means ’follow me’ that we were going to use with the Giant Bear Cats that time."

Liu nodded, trusting without question. His bond with Ren had been forged over years of watching his roommate do the impossible and make it look routine.

His hyena approached carefully, maintaining a non-threatening posture. Body low, movements slow, "not a threat" in the universal language of beasts.

When it was closer, it opened its mouth.

The sound that emerged was barely audible to human ears. A subsonic rumble that resonated in bones rather than eardrums. But the wolverine reacted immediately, its muscles relaxing, its breathing becoming deeper and slower.

Entering a trance-like state, defenses lowering fully...

"Now you’re my subordinate like those around me," Ren murmured, and using carefully controlled mana, extinguished the beast’s flames. The fire that had been perpetually burning around its body simply... went out. Like candles snuffed by a breeze.

He fed it a good amount of mana as payment for the ’work’ it would do. Energy flowing from his reserves into the wolverine’s system, a transaction it understood instinctively.

The wolverine didn’t even seem to notice its flames had been extinguished, lost in the trance induced by the hyena’s sound and the abundant ’food’ it was receiving. Pure jade mana, concentrated and refined, better than anything it could hunt naturally.

"I don’t believe it," Liu whispered from behind, his voice carrying awe that bordered on worship. "It really worked."

"Exactly," Ren nodded. "Now I’ll have it deactivate the fire element vines in the zone. So you can obtain those fruits... We don’t have to dominate by force. We just need to understand the system and work within it."

Cooperation instead of conflict. Intelligence instead of brute strength.

Liu practically glowed with admiration. "This is even better than what Min described."

And Min had described some impressive things. But seeing it in person, watching Ren casually dominate a gold-rank beast with nothing but mana control and understanding of behavior...

It was something else entirely.

"Impossible," the Hater whispered. His worldview was cracking, certainties he’d held for years shattering under the weight of evidence he couldn’t deny.

Ren wasn’t a fraud. Wasn’t Selphira’s puppet. Wasn’t benefiting from political manipulation.

He was... exactly what people said he was.

An insane genius.

"Nothing is impossible if you understand how things work," Zhao murmured, crossing his arms with a satisfied smile. Pride in his voice, genuine pleasure at watching a student exceed all expectations.