Chapter 529: Chapter 529 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation Min smiled, thinking he had finally found a way to level the battlefield. He positioned himself again, this time with more confidence. When combat began, Min immediately went all-out, creating multiple water currents that attacked from different angles. It seemed like an intelligent strategy... Even if Ren could control wind a bit better, it would still be difficult to handle so many simultaneous attacks with double the power and rhythm of Ren’s element. The assault was genuinely impressive. Water spiraled through the air in complex patterns, each stream following a different trajectory designed to overwhelm any single-point defense. Min had clearly been thinking about this moment, planning how to exploit the limitations of lower level wind control. But Ren still remained completely motionless. Instead of using wind to counterattack directly, he began manipulating subtle air currents that interacted with Min’s water. Each water stream was gently redirected, their trajectories altered just enough so they passed harmlessly on either side of Ren. The technique was almost impossible... It would require insane perception at the level of seeing the world in slow motion. Where Min’s attacks were dramatic displays of elemental power, Ren’s defense consisted of small and fast adjustments to air pressure and flow. Min was expending enormous amounts of energy trying to penetrate defenses that seemed to require minimal mana and effort. Yet each redirection required perfect timing and understanding of mana that went far beyond normal elemental manipulation. Ren was reading the water’s intentions in the mana before Min had fully formed them, anticipating attack patterns and preparing counter-flows that would neutralize them without direct confrontation. "How...?" Min stopped, breathing heavily. The frustration in his voice was palpable. He had thrown everything he had at Ren, every technique he had mastered, every trick he had learned over 3 years of dedicated practice. Yet none of it had even touched his target. "Intelligent usage," Ren explained simply. "You don’t need more power if you understand mana patterns better. If you used the energy from your jokes to practice more..." The explanation was delivered with clinical detachment, as if Min were a problem to be solved rather than a friend to be encouraged. There was no warmth in Ren’s voice, no acknowledgment of the effort Min had put into the fight. It didn’t take much longer for Min to become completely exhausted. The sustained assault had drained his reserves faster than he had anticipated. His water snake’s scales had lost their brilliant luster, and his own breathing had become labored from channeling so much elemental power in such a short time. "Argh," Min complained from the floor, his voice muffled by the carpet. "Those damn unfair magic eyes... Once a traitor, always a traitor..." The victory had been even more decisive than before, and this time Ren hadn’t even used the same amount of mana. Where their previous encounter had at least required Ren to at least actively counter Min’s attacks, this battle had been won through pure "lazy defensive superiority". Min had defeated himself trying to penetrate defenses that barely registered as a mental effort for his opponent. Taro, who had been watching from his bed after being ignored when he entered, finally intervened. "You know, you could have given him this round with a single element for a change..." Ren looked at him with mild irritation. "What for? He won’t learn that way. If he wants to improve, he has to face the reality of where his level is compared to mine." The response was technically correct but delivered with a coldness that made both Min and Taro exchange glances. "Besides, you should be grateful for the great advantages you’ve had with me as your roommate over most students," Ren added, beginning to gather his things. "I’ve rested enough. I’m going to the mines to analyze the new flows and collect for a while." "...It’s just a bit sad to know you can beat us in our specialty with no effort." Taro murmured. "Aren’t you going to wait for the girls to arrive as always?" Min asked from the floor, still trying to catch his breath. "They can catch up later if they want," Ren headed toward the door. "But I don’t want to waste time when I have real work to do." The implication was clear: spending time with his friends was now considered a luxury he could barely afford, secondary to more important pursuits. The casual cruelty of the statement was made worse by how obviously unintentional it was. Liu entered at that moment. His eyes moved between his roommates with that relaxed expression he had never lost, immediately reading the tension that filled the room like smoke. After the door closed behind Ren, the three roommates remained in uncomfortable silence. The sound of Ren’s footsteps fading down the hallway seemed to echo longer than it should have. Min gave a quick summary of what had transpired, his voice lacking most of its usual humor. "Ren’s having an existential crisis again," Min muttered at the end of his explanation, standing and throwing himself onto his own bed with little care for the scrolls scattered on top. His water snake curled around his pillow, its scales dim with exhaustion. The creature seemed to mirror its tamer’s dejection, both of them struggling to understand how completely they had been outclassed. "Could this be the famous loneliness of the strongest? From what I heard in the hallways..." Liu said, meticulously organizing his own materials, "Lin has been consulting with professors about forming a battle duo to face Ren. It’s not just us... She’s also falling behind." "All of that must be accumulating more stress, especially..." Taro added grimly. "Julius came yesterday with more bad news about Larissa. Another letter returned unopened." The mention of Larissa’s name changed the atmosphere in the room. "Ah." Min’s irritation immediately transformed into concern. "Do you think we should...?" "Leave him alone for now," Liu suggested. "When he’s ready to talk, he’ll talk. Pushing him will only make things worse." ♢♢♢♢ Ren walked along the path leading to the mines, his mind already occupied with other thoughts that had been bothering him for months. These weren’t about the past but about the present and future. He could see it clearly in the new mining network that had developed around the academy. The mining tunnels had grown exponentially since his early years at the academy, transforming into an enormous network that extended for kilometers beneath the surface. Several new tamers had decided to follow his digger beetle manual to obtain living tunnels. The success of Taro’s cultivation until Silver 3 had inspired widespread adoption of Ren’s cultivation methods. The first 250 meters of depth had become a safe place to obtain crystals thanks to this expansion and the general increase in ranks among new tamers. Where once students had struggled to find decent deposits within the academy’s protected zones, now there were multiple levels of productive mining areas. But with this expansion, a disturbing phenomenon had become clearer to him. Underground mana patterns showed a strange tendency: dense mana from the depths was slowly rising toward the surface. It was a gradual process, almost imperceptible from year to year, but Ren had been monitoring it meticulously. His observations, shared with Wei during the many hours they spent reviewing cultivation methods, had generated some concern. The data was subtle but consistent. Mana density readings at various depths showed a gradual but measurable increase over time. More concerning were the behavioral changes in deep-dwelling creatures... Wei insisted that the advancement he showed was very slow and could be due to unstudied fluctuations that might recede in a few years. Even if that weren’t the case, according to his projections it would take decades, perhaps centuries, before it represented a real problem. "For now," Wei had said, "it’s more an interesting academic phenomenon than an imminent crisis, don’t you think? Now, about that technique for the rock lizard at Silver 1..." But Ren couldn’t shake the feeling that the rate of increase was accelerating. His mushrooms detected subtleties in mana patterns that conventional instruments couldn’t capture, and those subtleties told him that something strange was also happening with subterranean creatures. There was another reason for his interest in the deep tunnels. In one of the small veins he had discovered during his early years, he had studied the naturally crystallized formations very closely lately... Since they shared certain characteristics with the crystallization he had seen in King Dragarion. Analyzing these formations gave him hope that he might eventually understand the principles behind the Diamond-density crystallization. Each sample he collected revealed new aspects of the crystallization process, bringing him incrementally closer to comprehending the forces that had transformed the King. It was slow and frustrating work, but each analysis session taught him something new about how mana behaved when condensed into stable crystalline forms. If he could fully understand the process... His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed that the path he was walking was becoming unusually quiet. ♢♢♢♢ In the trees bordering the path, Leopold Montclaire checked his team’s positions for the third time. Everything had been meticulously planned for months, and he finally had the opportunity he had been waiting for. Leopold had once been the pride of his noble family. His Cockatrice had reached Silver 3 when he was barely sixteen, an achievement that had established him as one of the most promising prodigies of his generation. The memory of that achievement still burned bright in his mind. The ceremony where his family had celebrated his record fast breakthrough, the congratulations from other noble houses, the professors who had spoken of his potential in hushed, reverent tones. It had been the culmination of years of careful selective breeding, expensive resources, and dedicated training. Just three years ago, masters spoke of him as a future candidate for Gold 1 before twenty, and his family had begun making plans based on the prestige and opportunities his talent would bring. Marriage proposals from other noble houses had arrived regularly, each one acknowledging his status as one of the kingdom’s rising stars. Business partnerships had been offered based on his future prospects. His younger siblings had looked up to him with the kind of reverence usually reserved for heroes from ancient legends. That was before Ren Patinder ruined everything.