Chapter 669: Chapter 669 - Taming the Fifth Year: 1st Gathering Exam - 7

Outside, under the intense sunlight that blinded them slightly, the group stopped for a moment.

"How are we going to...?" Fan 2 began, looking toward the distant forest in the south. The outward journey had taken a few hours. But the return trip, loaded down, even longer.

The weight made the difference significant.

Ren didn’t respond verbally.

Instead, his Wolverine materialized again after Ren had absorbed it to pass through the gate. Not many entrances were designed for massive beasts.

The creature expanded until reaching almost four meters in height, its jade form gleaming in the intense light. Its back was wide enough to easily accommodate five people.

"Get on," Ren ordered, already climbing onto his beast’s back.

Liu didn’t need to be told twice. Experience had taught him to trust first, question later.

Fan 1 and Fan 2 followed with less grace but equal enthusiasm. Scrambling up, finding handholds in the crystalline fur.

Kade hesitated.

"Unless you’d prefer to run alongside," Ren offered, his tone neutral. No judgment, just presenting options.

That was enough to make the boy climb up too. Pride could wait... Feet hurt now.

Zhao observed the scene, still amused, then shook his head when Ren turned to look at him.

"I’ll fly," he announced, his mist owl manifesting completely. The bird was massive, easily capable of carrying a grown man. "Don’t want to add more weight for your beast."

"As you wish..."

The Wolverine launched forward.

It wasn’t a trot. It wasn’t a normal sprint.

It was pure, brutal speed that would have left any horse in the dust. Buildings became white blurs. The wind whipped their faces, stealing breath, making eyes water.

Fan 1 screamed, half terror, half pure excitement. The sound ripped away by velocity.

Liu simply laughed, gripping the Wolverine’s crystalline jade fur. Merging with his hyena had given him enough strength to hold easily but also a weird laugh that seemed to embrace chaos, to find joy in the insane.

"This is incredible!" he shouted over the wind.

And it was.

In less than thirty minutes, they’d covered what had taken them 2 hours the first time.

♢♢♢♢

A while later...

Silver Ring 1 passed like a blur of green and brown. Ren kept the Wolverine on a path that avoided the most ’dangerous’ zones, zigzagging between beast territories that barely had time to register their presence before they’d already passed.

Like ghosts. Like wind. There and gone.

But it was in one of these open zones outside beast territory, near the border between Silver 2 and 3, when it happened.

Two groups emerged from the foliage.

It didn’t seem like an accident.

The positioning too deliberate, like attacking passerbies was their strategy all along.

"There!" someone shouted, pointing toward the Wolverine. "Woah, we’re lucky! It’s the one they’re paying to obstruct from the Central Academy!"

Ren braked the beast almost instinctively, the Wolverine skidding to a stop. The other students on its back almost flew off from inertia, scrambling to hold on.

"What...?" Liu began, confusion evident.

"Swallow them," Ren ordered, his voice cold.

Ren’s beast jumped, losing all its passengers and then spun to "eat" all Ren’s companions.

"Move forward."

The Wolverine launched ahead without hesitation and the 2 teams let it pass, their objective was Ren anyway and the less beasts and students to fight the easier...

Zhao was descending, touching the ground just as the 2 teams approached. His expression was calm, almost bored.

"I’m sorry, but obstruction is allowed to a certain point. Still... I’ll make sure they don’t use excessive force. If so, I’ll beat and disqualify them here."

Professional... Seeming like a neutral observer.

But the warning was clear beneath the words.

"Doesn’t matter," Ren said with a dismissive gesture. "Won’t be needed..."

Ten students total. Uniforms from the other two academies. Beasts materialized, ready to fight.

"So you’re alone," said one of them, a boy with lizard markings on his arms. His smile was unpleasant. "I thought genius lackeys of the Ashenway and Dravenholm families traveled with bodyguard retinues... cheating as always."

"I’m not alone," Ren pointed out, the observation factual.

"Your tutor doesn’t count," spat another, a girl with eagle feathers. "He can’t stop us... Not until you’re minced into the dirt."

"Poor things..." Zhao murmured, almost sympathetically.

Because he’d recognized something in Ren’s posture.

Something the attackers hadn’t noticed yet.

Absolute calm.

"I don’t have time to beat all of you while being careful not to exceed damage limits," Ren said simply... Matter-of-factly. "Better move aside."

"Or what?" the lizard boy took a step forward. Aggressive and confident in their numbers. "You going to cry to your teachers? You going to...?"

The lightning that passed beside him interrupted.

It wasn’t really an attack. It was an electric shock followed by a wind push. A touch of electricity that ran through the air between Ren and the eight students in a fraction of a second.

Then... a push.

Everyone’s hair stood on end instantly as they were shot backward. Static crackled in the air. Their beasts whimpering from discomfort at the sudden electrical charge.

And Ren was no longer there.

He’d moved.

Didn’t run, didn’t walk.

Simply... was somewhere else, as if the space between two points had stopped mattering. As if distance was a suggestion he chose to ignore.

"What...?" the eagle girl looked around, confused.

"Behind you," Zhao said softly, pointing with a small smile.

Ren was back on the Wolverine, which had never stopped and continued trotting now with its mouth open. Ren’s legs had been covered at some point in scales and diamond armor that was already fading.

Speed form released and dismissed in seconds.

"Wait!" the lizard boy shouted, but his voice was lost in the distance as the Wolverine accelerated, leaving them behind with their hair still standing from static and their egos bruised.

Humiliated without even being properly fought. Dismissed like pointless time waste.

"That was..." Fan 1 searched for words from inside the Wolverine’s mouth, the dimensional space comfortable if a bit disorienting.

"Efficient," Liu completed, satisfaction in his voice.

Zhao, who’d been observing from above, sighed and smiled. His owl descended to fly beside the Wolverine. "It was a good lesson for them. Besides," his smile became conspiratorial, looking at Ren who smiled back, "they’re going to talk about this."

"Good," Ren said. "Let them talk."

Stories spreading... Reputation cementing.

The rest of the journey to the vine forest was without incidents.

♢♢♢♢

The second collection was almost anticlimactic in its efficiency...

The wolverines recognized them immediately. The wind one even approached Ren like greeting, its tail waving with what could only be described as enthusiasm.

The vines they’d left marked were exactly where they’d left them, protected by the wolverines that seemed to have understood their "new leader" would return.

"This is surreal," Kade murmured, cutting vines while a fire wolverine simply watched, lying a few meters away like a giant pet.

"This is understanding ecosystems," Zhao corrected, clearly pleased. "Something we should teach more at the academy."

They filled the backpacks.

Filled the Wolverine’s space.

And when they finished, they still had time.

Ren ventured alone... a bit deeper into Gold Ring 1 and reached Ring 2 at the end, claiming that for the small remaining space he wanted slightly higher quality materials.

Zhao would have been worried if Ren hadn’t done the same on the previous trip and returned quickly.

Though Zhao worried a bit after half an hour and decided to fly to look for him...

Ren returned.

They still had almost half a complete day before the deadline ended.

"If we’d been this fast the first time and you hadn’t wasted time going deeper... Maybe we could have made a third trip," Liu commented, though his tone was doubtful.

"Maybe," Ren agreed. "But I had to teach you all first... Anyway, we should return now that we have plenty of time. Waiting too long would be risky. If something goes wrong on the return trip, if we’re delayed..."

"Better not tempt fate," Zhao completed. "You already have enough to win by a lot. No need for more greed."

So they returned.

The return trip was again much slower than the outward journey. The Wolverine loaded with weight in its dimensional stomach and on its back could no longer carry them.

Physics had limits even for magical beasts.

It was during this journey, while the sun began its descent toward the horizon of the second day, that Liu noticed something.

"Ren," he called, his voice curious. "Why didn’t you load a bit more with the Mantis?"

Ren didn’t respond immediately, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. Distant... Distracted.

"I know it’s the smallest of the beasts we have," Liu continued, oblivious to the tension in Ren’s shoulders, "but it’s already bronze 1, with its first evolution... It’s not that small, right? Could carry a hundred kilos easily. Not counting its strength bonuses."

"There’s no point," Ren finally responded, emerging from his trance. His tone attempting casualness but landing on uncomfortable. "When we’re carrying dozens of tons already, what difference do a hundred more kilos make?"

Liu nodded, satisfied with the answer, and the conversation drifted to other topics. Fan 1 and Fan 2 talked animatedly about how many points they’d earn. Kade admitted, with reluctance, that he’d learned more in two days with Ren than in a complete semester of theoretical classes.

Zhao flew above, occasionally scanning the terrain.

And in the middle of all that normalcy, so low it was almost lost in the sound of wind and conversations...

Ren whispered.

"You finally... Arrived."

♢♢♢♢

The giant tree forest of Gold Ring 3 was a place of silent nightmares.

Incredibly large trunks rose like columns toward a sky barely visible between the canopy and the enormous "mana fruits". Fifteen trunks together forming circumferences so wide they’d need a hundred people to surround them. Their twisted roots creating canyons and caves in the forest floor.

An ecosystem operating on scales that made humans feel insignificant.

And beneath that canopy...

Something moved.

A crystalline mantis the size of an Iron Rank Three-Horned Horse, which would normally seem enormous, but was no more than a speck of dust in this ecosystem.

Here it was too small. Struggling to survive in a world built for giants.

But it was still fighting... Still moving.