Chapter 667 - Taming the Fifth Year: 1st Gathering Exam - 5

The two girls exploded.

"That was incredible!"

"How did you know it would work?"

"Can you teach us to..."

Their voices overlapped, excitement making them forget proper decorum. Words tumbling over each other in their rush to understand, to learn, to somehow capture a piece of what they’d just witnessed.

♢♢♢♢

After obtaining help from 4 beasts of different elements and having eliminated 2 that were ’difficult to reason with’... the group was ready to collect from the deactivated zones.

The gathering was systematic and efficient.

With the help of the wolverines and their mana traces dancing in spirals through the most abundant vine zones, in large sections the vines became docile. Their defensive mechanisms shut down by the beasts they’d evolved to coexist with.

A massive area. More resources than five students could possibly collect in three days even working non-stop.

But Ren intended to try.

Two trips. Maximum efficiency. The complete domination of the gathering exam.

And judging by the look on Zhao’s face, the professor was already calculating what kind of scores this performance would earn.

Ren showed them how to cut without damaging. Where to make the incision, what angle to use, how much pressure to apply. How to identify the highest quality segments, the ones with the densest mana concentration, the brightest veins, the most potentially useful for cultivation. How to preserve the materials properly so they wouldn’t degrade during transport.

And so, for the next several hours, they worked.

Ren directed, explained, and corrected while working on his own collection. Moving between team members, offering guidance, demonstrating techniques, ensuring everyone maximized their efficiency.

The two fans followed him like enthusiastic puppies, absorbing every word. Their notebooks filled with observations, their minds recording every detail for later study.

The Hater maintained his distance but no longer complained. Too occupied observing how each of Ren’s predictions turned out to be correct. How every strategy worked exactly as described. How reality kept confirming what he’d dismissed as impossible.

His worldview was cracking. Rebuilding itself around all this new information.

Zhao simply watched, occasionally intervening with comments that showed his years of experience. But mostly he wore a smile that showed his enjoyment of watching Ren work.

♢♢♢♢

When it seemed they’d collected everything they could carry, Ren moved forward to review the mountain of materials.

Zhao thought this was going to be interesting.

And very, very lucrative.

Because not only was this an incredible quantity... Ren hadn’t lied about the efficiency of collecting with "help", but he also hadn’t mentioned to the three "lucky" kids his true advantage’s total capacity.

"It’s time to fill my beast’s internal space."

The spatial pocket in his Jade Wolverine’s stomach.

Ren transferred loads of materials into his beast’s spatial pocket. Quantities that would have been impossible to carry physically.

While other teams would have to limit their collection to what they could physically carry in enormous backpacks, struggling under weight and bulk...

Ren could store quantities that would make any other student cry.

The enormous backpacks everyone carried would be filled up too, of course. Physical weight distributed across the team, carried by both students and their beasts.

But the majority of their true haul was hidden where no one could see it.

"This is," the girl murmured while observing the materials accumulating, vanishing into nothing as Ren fed them to his beast, "we’re going to win this exam very easily..."

Her voice carried awe. Disbelief at their fortune in being assigned to this team.

It wasn’t cheating.

It was optimization.

And if others had lower quality Wolverines on their teams...

Or didn’t even have access to similar methods...

Well.

That was their problem.

Ren smiled slightly. This exam was going to be easy.

♢♢♢♢

The first return trip began when the sun started its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in orange and purple tones that made the canopy of the giant bushes, taller than some trees, seem like they were aflame.

The light was beautiful. Worth painting on a canvas, if anyone had time to appreciate aesthetics while hauling massive loads through dangerous territory...

Zhao laughed, a deep sound that resonated between the bushes. Showing his genuine mirth at the absurdity of what he was witnessing.

"The market is going to love you and hate you at the same time," the professor commented, shaking his head with amused disbelief. "Love you for providing the materials. Hate you for controlling the supply."

For flooding the market with quantities no single student should be able to gather. For disrupting price structures. For making other gatherers look incompetent by comparison.

"I don’t control anything," Ren shrugged. "I just know where to look."

"That’s exactly controlling," Zhao murmured, but he sounded more proud than critical.

The backpacks were packed full. And it wasn’t just the students carrying their maximum capacity... their beasts bore huge loads too, utilizing their enhanced strength and stamina.

Only Ren’s mantis was exempt, perhaps because being the smallest of all the beasts, there was no point forcing it to carry loads it couldn’t handle efficiently?

The packs being full made them very heavy.

No... not just full. They overflowed with materials that would make any other group cry with envy. Gold rank 1 elemental vines of all types and first-rate quality. Broken elemental crystal incrustations from the hair, skin, and claws that the wolverines had allowed them to take from their nests in their territories. Even some rare mosses that grew at the base of certain trees and were worth their weight in silver-gleam crystals.

Liu advanced with a smile he couldn’t wipe from his face.

"This is luck," he murmured for the tenth time, the words becoming a mantra. "Pure and extreme luck to be on Ren’s team."

"It’s not luck," Fan 2 corrected, adjusting her backpack straps. "It’s marvelous skill."

"It’s both," Fan 1 said, her tone diplomatic. "Luck for us, skill for him."

An accurate assessment. They’d won the lottery in team assignments. Pure chance had put them with the one student who could turn this exam from a challenge into a windfall.

♢♢♢♢

They walked in silence for a while. The only sound was crunching under their feet and the occasional call of some beast in the distance. The forest was settling into evening, diurnal creatures bedding down while nocturnal ones began stirring.

It was the Hater who finally broke the silence.

"How did you know about the vines and wolverines?" he asked, his tone stripped of its previous hostility. Now there was only curiosity, maybe mixed with a bit of frustration at not understanding it himself. "All that surely isn’t in any textbook."

Ren considered his response carefully while jumping over an exposed root.

Then he entered his explanatory mode...

"I intend for it to be in books someday. When I finish the cultivation ones..." He paused, choosing his words with care. "Current books teach you how to kill monsters. A lot about how to survive. But they don’t teach you to understand them. To see ecosystems, patterns, relationships between species... A small, important friend taught me all of this. And I want to teach others too. To understand them so that someday we don’t just go out to survive in them, but... to live in them."

The vision was ambitious. Revolutionary, even. Not just coexistence but true integration with the beast-dominated world outside the only human settlement.

"That sounds interesting," Zhao murmured, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Interest sparking in his eyes.

But it was also very progressive, a hard to convey view in a world "infested" by mana... Like an oxygen breathing creature trying to live in the sea.

Yet exactly this was the kind of thinking that changed fields, that reshaped how entire generations approached their world.

"You’re crazy," Kade commented, but there was affection in his voice now. Warmth that had been completely absent hours earlier. "Completely crazy. But you’re also brilliant. Sorry for believing you were a charlatan... I’m going to read all your books after this."

The apology was awkward. Sincere but uncomfortable, delivered by someone not used to admitting he was wrong.

"Umm... okay," Ren scratched his head, equally uncomfortable with praise and apologies. Social dynamics were still harder than beast behavior sometimes.

The silence that followed was awkward.

Neither quite knowing how to move past the moment of vulnerability, of admission and acceptance.

"So..." Fan 1 searched for a topic change, her voice a little too bright, "Are you sure we can keep all these materials? Giving us everything we can carry is very generous. We’ll make a small fortune... I mean, it’s obvious you’re going to win the competition even without us on the team..."

"Don’t be so sure, and it’s fine," Ren made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "I’m taking a large portion that you helped me collect, and I can always come back for more on other expeditions."

The casualness of the statement was almost insulting to the effort most students put into gathering. As if he could just... fill his reserves at will.

"Besides," he continued, a small smile playing at his lips, "you all worked hard. You deserve compensation. And..." he paused, considering how much to reveal, "having worker... team members who trust my methods makes future expeditions easier. Consider it an investment."

Zhao caught the calculation beneath the kindness and his smile widened. This boy understood more than just beasts...

The kingdom’s future was in very interesting hands indeed.