As the carriage pulled away, Ren couldn't help worrying about his parents.
Though they wouldn't tell him, Ren knew... his new knowledge had shown him subtle signs in their bodies and invocations, there were early symptoms 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 the normal life expectancy; while a person could live up to a hundred, most lives ended by around 50-60, old and burn out bodies due to hunger, overwork, or untreated illnesses, often mana-related around these parts.
Only the base Vitality of their Seedlings granted them an additional sixty years, a precious gift, but not enough in Ren's eyes.
"If they complete the ritual," he murmured, "if their plants reach Silver 1 power..."
They wouldn't just gain more strength and better job opportunities; their Vitality would double, granting them twelve extra decades instead of six. It would also slowly cure his father.
Ren would see his parents only once a year, if he managed to gather money for the trip. About 300 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.
Still, 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 due time. He would have two years, 720 days, to achieve his first goal of getting their runes.
The 3rd year vacation would be in 1080 days, 80 days too late.
Then he'd have eight years to amass as much as he could and become stronger to secure a higher standing.
Seven visits total before graduating. Some to verify their progress with the ritual, to ensure they followed each step correctly, and maybe even be able to pay and take them to an elegant graduation where he gets many merits and praise.
'In the best case, by the third visit they'd already…'
♢♢♢♢
The carriage crossed through the city districts…
After the first five hours of travel, the inner-city finally began. The first neighborhoods were home to Bronze 1-2 Rank families, humble but stable.
As the carriage advanced, richer districts appeared, marked by better infrastructure. Successful merchants, lucky Silver Rank citizens and some low nobility.
Finally, at the heart of the city, rose the estates of powerful Silver and Gold Rank individuals, influential people who shaped the city's future.
The carriage was 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 loot and the golden mushroom in his bag.
Before he could contract a second beast, he would need to turn the core 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 size crystal with the moss that grows on discarded bodies of Bronze Rank 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 pieces.
The materials needed for the final day were the golden fungus in his backpack and an Intelligence Rune.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed softly, as if responding to his thoughts about cultivation.
"I'll show them," Ren whispered. "I'll show them that their faith in me, even if pretended, wasn't in vain."
♢♢♢♢
After almost eight hours of travel…
The carriage stopped to pick up more students in the noble district.
Ren sank into his seat, conscious of the strong glowing of the 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.
He decided to hold his ground…
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," said the tallest, a boy with feline features thanks to his Spiritual Tiger beast. "The rotting boy."
"Are you flaunting 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 live."
Laughter filled the carriage.
Ren clenched his fists, knowledge flowing through his mind: the first boy's Spiritual Tiger would reach its limit at Bronze 2 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 mature too at Silver 1.
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 too crazy.
"At least my mushrooms glow," he finally said, his voice firmer than expected. "Your Spiritual 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 awesome 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…
"Fine, it doesn't matter since you wouldn't listen anyway… 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 waste on his head who needs to be taught his place."
His companions laughed, forming a circle around Ren. 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.