The carriage crossed the city streets, carrying Ren farther and farther from the outskirts.
There his parents would be starting another day of hard labor.
Firmly convinced that they were following a meaningless rite to make their son happy.
Ren's fingers groped at the mantis core in his bag without thinking, and the knowledge concerning his own Spore flowed through his mind.
But before he could contract that Beast, he had to turn the core back into an egg and evolve his own Spore to the Bronze grade.
Conditions for Spore Evolution
1. Mana Absorption:
Dye a Bronze-grade crystal with the moss that grows on the corpse of a Bronze-grade Beast, and absorb the essence of death held within it.
2. Processing:
Mix it with the deadly poisonous spores given off by a Bronze-grade fungus.
3. Fixation:
Finally, seal the entire process with the mana mold that blooms when a magic rune holds excess mana.
Until he could use that last piece, he had to absorb expensive refined crystals for a hundred days.
The piece for the step after that was the golden mycelium in his pack.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed gently.
As though responding to his thoughts about the training.
"I'll show them."
Ren whispered, and his mushrooms gave off a light full of resolve.
"That their faith, even if it's a faith they feigned for their son, was not in vain."
***
The carriage stopped in the commercial district to take on more students.
Aware of the mushrooms glowing in his hair, Ren shrank deeper into his seat.
Before, he would have released his fusion with the Spore if only to avoid the mockery, but now the thought of losing this ceaseless stream of knowledge about Beasts and their secrets was unthinkable.
Three children climbed into the carriage.
The Beasts fused with them had already granted them splendid changes: metal claws, tiger stripes, gleaming scales.
When they saw Ren, they stopped in their tracks.
"Oh, look who it is. Isn't that the trash Tamer, the one who's already rotted?" smirked the tallest boy, whose face had taken on a feline cast thanks to his tiger-line Beast.
"That thing on your head...... is it a glowing mushroom?"
The only girl in the group wrinkled her nose.
"Couldn't you at least hide it? Honestly, it's revolting."
"Leave him alone." laughed the third child, whose green scales were shining.
"He probably can't even control his own Beast properly. Isn't that right, you rotten bastard? Your Spore's so weak it has to cling to your head just to move, is that it?"
Laughter filled the carriage.
Ren clenched his fists.
Knowledge swept through his mind.
The first boy's Spirit Tiger would stop growing at Bronze stage 1 because of a flaw in its core training method.
Instead of becoming a Silver stage 3 Greater Spectral Tiger, it was fated to degenerate into an adult Earth Tiger.
The girl's Lesser Fire Eagle had a flaw in its mana absorption pattern, so its flame control would be limited at Bronze stage 2.
It would plainly fail to become a Silver stage 3 Greater Sun Eagle and degenerate into an adult Red Eagle instead.
And the third boy's scaled Beast.......
But that knowledge was of no use to him right now.
It was only painful.
The fact that he could see the flaws and limits of their Beasts and yet could not say a word about it without being treated like a lunatic.
"At least my mushrooms glow. Your Spirit Tiger's fur is all brittle from bad training, isn't it?"
Ren said at last.
His voice came out harder than he had expected.
Silence fell inside the carriage.
The tiger boy glared at him with an expression of surprise and anger mixed together.
"What did you just say?"
"Nothing. Just that you should worry about your own Beast more than about my mushrooms."
Ren turned his head back to the window.
"What do you know about training, you rotten bastard?" he growled.
"That pathetic Spore of yours doesn't even have a proper evolved form, does it? It barely counts as a Beast."
In that instant a certain knowledge welled up in Ren's mind.
He wanted to reveal more, to explain exactly how that tiger's training method would ruin its future evolution.
But he bit his tongue.
"I just said what I saw."
"What you saw? Let me show you what I see. Shall I teach you your place, and what happens when some weakling bastard who grows mushrooms on his head starts acting up?"
The boy seized Ren by the collar of his shirt.
His companions laughed and closed in around them.
"Oh my, look at him shaking. Isn't he cute?" the eagle girl taunted.
Ren was not shaking out of fear.
He was shaking out of frustration.
The flaws in their Beasts were so clearly visible to him.
The irregular mana patterns etched in the eagle's feathers, the instability in the other boy's green scales.
But all of it was useless knowledge in the moment before a beating.
No, perhaps there was something useful in this knowledge after all.
While the tiger boy growled with a fist in his collar, knowledge swept through Ren's mind.
An Iron-grade Spirit Tiger granted 30% strength and 10% to every other stat.
The gap between Beasts widened dramatically with each grade.
But right now, at the Iron grade, that difference was not so overwhelming.
Ren himself had grown thin from a recent growth spurt, but thanks to parents who were cooks he had been well fed and had a healthy body.
His 10% increase in physical ability was by no means a figure to dismiss when it came to moving a light body quickly.
"What do you know about Beasts, you piece of trash?!"
The tiger boy raised his fist.
"Your Spore isn't even a proper Beast to begin with!"
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed.
A Spirit Tiger's attack pattern always began the same way.
A straight punch aimed at the face.
Ren could read the shift in the boy's center of gravity right before the strike.
He threw off the hand gripping his collar.
In the instant the other fist cut through the air where his head had been a moment before, Ren could not help smiling.
"Is that all?" he taunted.
His heart was pounding hard.
The green-scaled boy, who had been watching quietly, narrowed his eyes.
"That was just luck, Jin. He's only trying to provoke you."
"You have a 'superior' Beast and you still can't lay a hand on one piece of trash? Maybe my mushrooms aren't as pathetic as you bastards thought?"
A taut silence hung in the carriage.
Jin was no longer the only one who felt insulted.
"Shut up!"
Jin finally roared.
Wounded pride turned into fury.
"I'll show you what a Spirit Tiger can do!"
Ren moved on pure reflex.
Once again he recognized the pattern, and his light body responded with an agility that surprised even him.
"That's enough!"
Then the green-scaled boy, who until that point had only watched, activated his rapid movement ability and hooked Ren's leg.
Ren stumbled and lost his balance.
He read the attack pattern again, but knowledge was only useful when there was time to make use of it.
This time there was no time to react.
The fist landed with devastating force, and Jin's extra 30% strength was converted into pure impact.
"Now who's pathetic?"
Jin growled, but the words sounded less like a real threat than the sulking of a wounded child.
The fist came up again.
This time Jin meant to use the tiger's true ability.
That could leave serious injuries.
"I'll teach you not to run your trap, you mushroom brat......."
The carriage door flew open and dazzling light poured inside.
The carriage had stopped, and the driver had opened the door so they could get out.
"What's going on in there?"
Jin's fist stopped a few centimeters from Ren's face.
The driver warned them that if the teachers saw, they would lose marks for fighting, but he did nothing more.
Still, it was enough to prevent the worst.
The moment the group climbed down and the driver left, they surrounded Ren again before he could slip away.
With nowhere to run, the tiger boy grabbed his shirt and dragged him to a secluded spot behind the building.
"All right then, trash." he smirked, baring his canines.
"Nobody's going to interrupt now, so shall we learn a little about respecting your betters?"
His companions formed a circle and blocked off every route of escape.
The mushrooms in Ren's hair flickered as though tense.
'I'll have to use the knowledge to get out of this. Maybe if I land one good hit I'll get an opening to run.
That Jin has no defensive Beast, so a punch will work on him.'
The problem was the lizard boy.
"Look at that, those little mushrooms are trembling again?" the eagle girl taunted.
"I guess they're as scared as he is?"
Ren still was not trembling out of fear.
He was trembling with excitement.
Could he prove that he was not so far beneath them after all?
The fist came up again.
"I'll teach you why you shouldn't go sticking that rotten nose of yours just anywhere......."
"Three of you against one?"
A voice like a blade of ice cut the air.
Luna Starweaver appeared out of the shadows, and her wolf materialized at her side like a nightmare made real.
Her blue hair rippled with an energy of its own, and those blue eyes.......
The tiger boy let go of Ren as though he had been burned.
"We were just teaching this mushroom bastard a few manners." he muttered as he backed away.
"Manners?"
Luna raised an eyebrow.
"Three who contracted Beasts with Silver-grade potential, against one who contracted the weakest Beast of all? Truly...... pathetic."
"He started it. He ran his mouth about our Beasts!" the eagle girl protested.
"And that made you feel threatened? Owners of Silver-grade Beasts, by someone with the weakest Beast in the world? That sounds to me like you're more pathetic than he is."
Luna's voice was soft, but sharp as a blade.
The tiger boy drew himself up, trying to recover at least some scrap of dignity.
"It isn't...... fair of you to put it that way."
Luna took one step forward.
"What isn't? That I'm using my advantage over you? The way you were doing just now? Would it feel good if I did the same to you?"
The silence that followed made the pecking order clear.
"All of you, get lost. Now."
Luna ordered.
"You damned piece of trash...... don't think this ends here!"
Jin growled.
"We'll see you later."
While the bullies fled from Luna, Ren gently touched the mushrooms in his hair.
The knowledge they provided was worth enduring every taunt and every threat.
Even if that knowledge did not make the situation any easier.
While the other children hurried to obey the order, Luna looked at Ren for a moment.
In her gaze there was no pity, but a calculating curiosity.
"Thanks for the help."
Ren said once the others had gone.
Luna stared at him as though he were a particularly irritating equation she had to solve.
"I didn't do it for you."
Her voice was cold as ice.
"I just find bastards who throw their strength around disgusting. Three Silver-grade Beasts against the weakest one of all....... It's as ugly as it gets, isn't it?"
She shook her head.
Her Shadow Wolf watched its master with glowing eyes and tilted its head as she went on.