Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 534: Chapter 534 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 6

This wasn’t the first time Ren had descended to depths greater than Silver Rank.

During the past two years, he had made regular expeditions to the denser mana layers, but always with limitations. His roommates, classmates, and the girls frequently accompanied him, and although he could have protected them, he had never wanted to risk them too much.

Now, as he descended through natural tunnels that became progressively more dangerous, he wondered why he had limited himself for them. They shouldn’t be his responsibility. He hadn’t asked to be their protector.

The thought felt liberating in a way that disturbed him.

’Because you care about them,’ the fungus whispered in his mind.

When had concern for others become a burden rather than a motivation?

When had he started seeing their limitations as chains holding him back rather than challenges to help them overcome?

But Ren ignored the comment.

He was still in high Silver Ranks... he had to advance further to reach where he wanted to go.

The creatures that inhabited these depths could sense his approach long before seeing him. Most instinctively moved away, recognizing a superior threat.

The ecosystem dynamics were fascinating to observe. Each creature had evolved precise survival instincts that let them gauge threat levels through mana signatures alone. The fact that so many were actively avoiding him spoke to how dramatically his power had grown.

But those beasts that weren’t intelligent enough to flee met quick and efficient death.

A Greater Deep Killer tried to ambush him from a lateral crevice. Ren didn’t even bother summoning a beast. A simple pulse of light energy reduced the creature’s torso to ash that dispersed in the mana-charged air.

He was looking for some proboscis, so he stored it, though one of this level wouldn’t serve him personally.

The extraction was casual, almost reflexive. Where once he would have studied the creature’s anatomy with scientific curiosity, now he saw only resources to be harvested.

Some other common beasts got in his way and ended up the same.

Each death filled him with cold satisfaction that he found increasingly natural.

Finally, he reached the Gold 1 Rank zone, where mana density was high enough that the air itself glowed with faint golden luminescence. Here he had several specific objectives.

First, analyze naturally crystallized formations to better understand high-density patterns. Second, hunt a Deep Terror to extract its characteristic proboscis, which would be perfect for improving the spear he had been developing as a hobby. Third, eliminate a Royal Deep Worm to obtain its specialized teeth, necessary for improvements he planned to make to his bow’s arrows.

Both weapons were personal projects that entertained him and that he had been refining with Isaac for years. His current spear, forged with Silver 3 Rank materials, was effective but already limited for his level. A Deep Terror’s spike would allow him to create something that could penetrate Platinum Rank defenses.

The crafting projects represented one of his few remaining sources of pure enjoyment. Working with Isaac to design and create weapons combined technical challenge with artistic expression in ways that pure boring cultivation could never match.

Fourth, prospect crystals and rare materials for sale. Prices in upper rank layers were exorbitant for materials from these depths, mainly because very few tamers had the power necessary to hunt them safely.

The economics were simple and profitable for someone like him. Risk created scarcity, scarcity drove prices, and he was one of the few people capable of operating in these zones without significant danger.

And finally, if he felt confident enough, he wanted to explore whether he could reach the abyssal layer that Julius had told him about alone.

♢♢♢♢

After a while, the heat had become intense, he had finally reached Gold depth...

His first serious encounter was against the most common and abundant creature in the depths: a Royal Deep Worm.

The creature emerged from the side wall like a living torpedo, its segmented body the size of a train tunnel. Its skin was a mass of overlapping plates that glowed with concentrated earth energy, and its mouth was a circular abyss filled with concentric rows of teeth designed to grind stone and metal.

The approach was terrifyingly swift. Where most creatures in these depths relied on stealth or ambush tactics, the Royal Deep Worm’s strategy was pure overwhelming force. Its size alone was enough to devour in one bite or crush most opponents before they could mount an effective defense.

Ren summoned his hydra completely.

The beast that materialized was about 4 meters tall, impressive but very small compared to the enemy. Against a Gold 1, it seemed at a disadvantage since it was only Silver 2, but being dramatically affected by the boosts from Ren’s rings and synergy with his other beasts...

Normally, a Silver 2 Rank beast would have no chance whatsoever against a Gold 1. The power difference was about 5 times greater, too significant to overcome through technique alone. But Ren’s hydra operated under completely different parameters.

It had that boost of almost 700%.

The mathematics of beast combat were predictable. A Silver 1 hydra was approximately ten times more powerful than a Bronze 1. A Silver 2 was twice as powerful as a Silver 1, while a Silver 3 was three times more powerful than a Silver 1.

A Gold 1 rank hydra would normally be ten times more powerful than a Silver 1.

But Ren’s Silver 2 hydra, amplified by his rings and synergistic beasts seven times over, was effectively 14 times more powerful than that standard Silver 1.

This made it 1.4 times more powerful than the rank of the Deep Worm he was facing.

It wasn’t an overwhelming advantage, but it was more than sufficient for a hydra, the rarest but most dominant creature of the depths.

Ren’s beast wasn’t as massive as the worm, but it compensated with superior strength, endurance, speed, agility, and elemental control that the worm couldn’t match.

The hydra’s advantages also went beyond raw statistics. Its combat intelligence was orders of magnitude higher than the worm’s instinctive aggression. Where the worm relied on brute force and overwhelming size, the hydra could adapt tactics mid-battle.

’It should be good entertainment’