Chapter 502: Chapter 502 - Taming Opportunities - 3 Ren had disabled the corrupt beasts under his fungus’s supervision, in what seemed like almost permanent damage to their general summoning ability. For him it had felt cruel, imagining himself being unable to summon was perhaps worse than what his original situation with the spore could have been. Watching those soldiers desperately trying to connect with beasts they could no longer reach... Their faces had been the worst part. The confusion, then the growing panic as they reached for power that was no longer there. Some had fallen to their knees, hands pressed against their chests where their beast cores used to pulse with energy. Others had simply stared at their empty palms, as if willing their companions to materialize through sheer desperation. "At least we didn’t have to vaporize them directly," he murmured to his fungus, which pulsed with something resembling shared guilt. "Shooting from afar is very different than killing with your own hands, but it still gives me the chills... I need to mature more." Distance didn’t erase responsibility. But the boy had been adapting to a brutal reality that demanded a relatively disconnected mentality. War, he was learning, required a different kind of thinking. A compartmentalization that let you make necessary choices without being paralyzed by their weight. But the cost of that adaptation was something he could feel changing inside him, a gradual hardening that both protected and worried him. Then he’d had to teach several people the thousand-day techniques. His rescue attempt for teacher Lin had been especially frustrating. He’d barely been able to save her 50 days of cultivation due to the enormous mana loss in her matured core’s accumulation. The damage had been extensive. Carefully built mana patterns collapsed like a house of cards. Months of work undone in moments. He’d had to explain that a matured core was actually a core that covered the "immature" core and made it more stable, like protective armor that formed with time and patience. "Only fifty days?" Lin had grumbled when he explained it, her eyes sparkling with some gratitude and much more frustration. "Well, I suppose I can distract myself by training my panther and with your physical training while I wait again." "Mercy," Ren had replied, knowing full well that his training regimen showed no such quality. Lin’s smiled at that. "Oh, you’ll need it." Her voice still had carried the resigned determination of someone who’d faced worse setbacks. But Ren could see the disappointment beneath her acceptance. Fifty days saved meant nine hundred and fifty days still ahead. Zhao had finally begun his own thousand-day method too, along with teachers Yang and Wei. All had received support from the newly abundant treasury to finance their cultivation. Yang had accepted with his characteristic stoicism: "If it works, it works. If not, at least we’ll have learned discipline." Wei, of course, had bombarded Ren with technical questions for hours: "Must the absorption be at exactly the same hours each day? What happens with the internal accumulation of that extra mana? Do seasonal variations affect absorption efficacy?" Zhao had been more reflective: "A thousand days and four million crystals... it’s a serious commitment. But worth attempting." Ignatius had been different. He’d seen the gold-level method as too costly to be financed by the city’s wealth and was more interested in thinking about his second beast, for which Ren also had to give a large number of suggestions to him and many varied new doubles. "It’s not that I don’t appreciate your method, Mr. Patinder," Ignatius had explained with that formal-polite manner that characterized him, "but at my level, the required resources would be astronomical. I prefer to focus on expanding my arsenal." It had been a truly busy period. That’s why this situation with his parents and their fears felt like a minor problem, a small benign inconvenience. Very different from the forces they’d seen represented in the mural... Because they couldn’t mean anything else. Even his fungus had agreed that it was a description of an ancient altercation between two divine dragons that would repeat when the cycle ended, and the worst part was that each was connected to a part of the tower. The images carved into the ancient stone had been unmistakable. Two massive forms locked in eternal combat, their power radiating outward in waves that seemed to shake the very foundations of the world. One wreathed in golden light, the other consumed by purple shadow. But not just that. When Ren had touched the golden crystal and let his fungus connect to analyze the patterns, it seemed the mural’s situation was more real and could be more imminent than they expected. His fungus had whispered disturbing information: "The energy patterns aren’t historical. They’re predictive, a countdown... And the enemy is indeed, already connected." Ren sighed deeply and looked toward where he knew Yino was, though again he couldn’t really see anything. Where the bridge used to be now there was an enormous wall. The connection between both territories was completely closed. "But the underground connections are still there," his fungus reminded him. "And it won’t stop..." Yino’s access to the first chamber meant they were feeding on the same source that powered both kingdoms. Every day they delayed was another day for the corruption to grow stronger, to extend its influence deeper into the network that connected everything. He sat up in bed, processing everything he still had pending. The King expected him in a few days to begin the final phase of the ongoing operation, where he only needed Ren to transfer what he’d mentioned about some power from the seven dragons in the center of the second chamber into him. The process would be dangerous. Channeling that much concentrated dragon essence through his system could cause permanent damage if done incorrectly. But it was the only way to give Dragarion the power boost necessary to destroy the corruption’s core. There was also the public announcement that Larissa had invented about support for the war response. She couldn’t stop herself from suggesting that an attack should encompass several fronts, taking advantage of the situation. Typical of her, she’d found a way to convert a military attack movement into a complex political situation that sounded noble and necessary. "Support builds confidence," she’d said with that smile she used when particularly proud of a strategy. "And confidence builds loyalty." And the thousand things he had to investigate with Wei and now also Han and Ignatius: the prisoners, the fungi, the threads that Klein mentioned and that Han himself had also seen. Han had described the threads as "purple spider webs" emerging from Kassian’s fingers. "They weren’t normal webs," Han had explained, his usual confident demeanor shaken by the memory. "You could feel... like something was pulling the mana and vital energy in the room." And those weren’t all of Ren’s new problems... As if that weren’t enough, there was an absurd amount of things he had to decide and learn along with Zhao about managing a territory for which he wasn’t prepared beyond a superficial opinion. "Managing a territory when I’m older?" he’d asked when the King first mentioned it. The question had sounded absurd even as he’d spoken it. Him, the former "rotting boy," responsible for land and people and decisions that would affect generations? "Not just any territory," Dragarion had responded with that casual joke smile. "Lands that need reconstruction, young leadership, and someone who understands both the population and innovation." The King’s confidence in him was both flattering and terrifying. Ren massaged his temples, feeling the weight of all those responsibilities. His mushroom-enhanced hair pulsed with what he interpreted as silent support. At least I don’t have to do it alone, he thought of his friends and allies, and that realization brought him some peace. In a few days he’d have to return to the castle for the final operation with the King. But for now, at least for tonight, he could rest in a safe house, with parents who could finally stop ’dreaming’ about opening their own restaurant, surrounded by ’guardian neighbors’ who were actually Gold Rank doubles courtesy of Selphira’s insistence. "This time I won’t listen to any objections," the matriarch had declared with that authority that made even the King nod without arguing. Even Liora had nodded numerous times when they’d talked about Ren’s importance. Luna had added with a sharp murmur that she agreed Ren was important, but in the silence everyone had heard her and she’d sunk into the shadows right after. The memory made Ren’s chest warm. He smiled slightly remembering it. He settled into bed, finally letting his mind rest. Tomorrow there would be more decisions, more responsibilities, more complications. But tonight, for the first time in a long while, he felt at home. His fungus pulsed once more, a gentle reminder that he was never truly alone, and Ren fell asleep thinking about restaurants and territories, about ancient dragons and the strange way his life had gone from being the simplest to the most complicated he could imagine. Strangely... he wouldn’t change any of it.