As the carriage pulled away, Ren couldn’t help worrying about his parents.
Though they wouldn’t tell him, Ren’s new knowledge had shown him subtle details in their bodies and invocations that were beginning to show signs of mana poisoning.
His father particularly, that’s why he had fallen ill.
Living in the outskirts for so many years…
That poor house didn’t have a great location, but its land wasn’t small at all; they had sold it for about 500,000 crystals.
The house they’d sold to pay for his education they would now have to rent, and with their mature Iron rank plants, they would barely earn enough in the kitchens to keep themselves fed.
At sixty years old, they were already close to normal life expectancy. Only the base vitality their plants granted them guaranteed an additional thirty years, a precious gift, but not enough in Ren’s eyes.
“If they complete the ritual,” he murmured, “if their plants reach Bronze 2 power…”
They wouldn’t just gain more strength and better job opportunities. The increased vitality would give them several additional decades of life. It would cure his father.
Ren would see his parents only once a year, if he managed to gather money for the trip. About 100 crystals should be easy to get, or so he thought.
What wouldn’t be easy would be getting the runes and materials necessary for his own evolution.
But it didn’t matter, Ren wanted to excel in school and make them proud, maybe even become wealthy and buy them a house in the city. He knew his parents deserved it more than anyone.
But everything in its time. He would have 2 years to achieve his first goal. 8 years for the second.
Eight visits total before graduating. Eight opportunities to verify their progress with the ritual, to ensure they followed each step correctly.
In the best case, by the third visit already…
The carriage crossed through city streets, taking him further and further from the outskirts where his parents would begin another day of hard work, always believing they were following a meaningless ritual just to make their son happy.
Ren’s fingers unconsciously traced the Mantis core in his bag, knowledge about his own spore flowing through his mind.
But before he could contract it, he would need to turn it into an egg and evolve his fungus to Bronze rank.
To evolve, he would need:
1 – First, absorb the essence of death. Charge a Bronze-rank crystal with the moss that grows on discarded bodies of Bronze beasts.
2 – Then, mix it with venomous spores from Bronze-rank fungi.
3 – Finally, seal the process with the mold that forms on some magical runes when they absorb too much mana.
He had to absorb those expensive processed crystals for 100 days before consuming the final piece.
The piece for the final day was the golden fungus in his backpack.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed softly, as if responding to his thoughts about cultivation.
“I’ll show them,” whispered Ren, his mushrooms glowing with determination. “I’ll show them that their faith in me, even if pretended, wasn’t in vain.”
♢♢♢♢
The carriage stopped to pick up more students in the commercial district.
Ren sank into his seat, conscious of the glowing mushrooms in his hair. Before, he would have expelled his spore to hopefully avoid mockery, but now…
The idea of losing that constant flow of knowledge, of returning to ignorance about beasts and their secrets, was unbearable.
A group of three children boarded, their fused beasts already granting them cool visible changes: metallic claws, tiger markings, gleaming scales. They stopped when they saw him.
“Oh, look who’s here,” smiled the tallest, a boy with feline features thanks to his tiger beast. “The rotting boy.”
“Are those… glowing mushrooms on your head?” The group’s only girl wrinkled her nose. “Can’t you at least hide them? It’s disgusting.”
“Leave him,” laughed the third, his green scales gleaming. “He probably can’t even control his beast properly. Isn’t that right, rotting-boy? Your spore is so weak it has to cling to your head to move.”
Laughter filled the carriage.
Ren clenched his fists, knowledge flowing through his mind: the first boy’s spirit tiger would reach its limit at Bronze 1 rank, unable to evolve further due to a flaw in its core cultivation.
Deriving his Spirit Tiger into a “mature” Earthly Tiger. Instead of reaching Greater Spectral Tiger at Silver 3.
The girl’s beast, a Lesser Fire Eagle, had a defect in its mana absorption pattern that would limit its fire control and growth at Bronze 2.
Deriving her Lesser Fire Eagle into a “mature” Red Eagle. Instead of reaching Greater Sun Eagle at Silver 3.
And the third boy’s scales…
But that knowledge was useless now.
It only made it more painful, seeing the defects and limitations in their beast cultivation methods but being unable to say anything without seeming crazy.
“At least my mushrooms glow,” he finally said, his voice firmer than expected. “Your spirit tiger has a cultivation defect that makes its fur opaque.”
Silence fell in the carriage. The tiger boy looked at him with both surprise and fury.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Ren turned back to the window. “Just that maybe you should worry more about your own beast than my mushrooms.”
“What do you know about cultivation, rotting-boy?” he growled, his feline features intensifying with anger. “Your pathetic spore doesn’t even have true development, doesn’t even qualify as a beast.”
Knowledge burned in Ren’s mind, tempting him to reveal more, to explain exactly how the tiger’s cultivation would affect its future evolution and show him how foolish he was. But he bit his tongue.
“I’m just saying what I see,” he murmured.
“What you see?” The boy grabbed him by the shirt collar. “I’ll show you what I see, a weakling with mushrooms on his head who needs to be taught his place.”
His companions laughed, forming a circle around them. The carriage had suddenly become smaller, more suffocating.
“Look, he’s even trembling,” mocked the eagle girl. “Isn’t he adorable?”
Ren wasn’t trembling from fear. He was trembling from frustration. He could see their beasts’ flaws so clearly: the irregular mana pattern in the eagle’s feathers, the instability in the other boy’s green scales.
Useless knowledge when you’re about to be beaten.