Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 557: Chapter 557 - Taming the Fourth Year: Self-Punishment - Fold and Hammer

Ren returned to his room completely crushed, but not physically... psychologically.

No matter how many times he thought about it, the situation seemed impossible to solve.

His clumsy emotional outbursts punishment wasn’t over... It hadn’t generated enough suffering for him.

He didn’t cause as many faults as he had thought. It wasn’t just triggering the mutant attack or losing his most intimate friend and reducing his own strength... It was much more.

Everything went much deeper than he had thought at first.

One simple decision, a single moment of arrogance, and Bam... The consequences extended into political crises, threats to the kingdom, and the suffering of people who mattered to him.

It wasn’t enough punishment. What he had suffered so far wasn’t nearly enough punishment.

He entered the room and threw himself on the bed, ignoring his roommates’ greetings. He covered his face with both hands, trying to block out the outside world.

Min, Taro, and Liu were worried by his unusual behavior.

Min, in an attempt to ”lighten the mood”, couldn’t help but speak.

”Come on, come on,” he joked, ”why so much drama? Mayo told me about your ’date with Luna’ that supposedly would happen today... You’re coming from that, right? She also leaked that Liora had one date with you secretly first, that day you disappeared.”

Ren didn’t react.

”Did it go badly today? Or maybe very well?! Hahaha, relax... It’s not like you have to marry them yet,” Min continued, clearly not realizing he was making things worse.

”It’s not like you rolled around in the ground in a passionate kiss with the always ultra-shy-around-you Luna, right? There’s nothing to fear from sweaty-hand romance... I haven’t shared my new knowledge with you but that’s not how you get a girl pregnant...”

”...Or wait, do you already know? Is what you told us about that time we found you with Luna three years ago a lie and are you really a prodigy in intimate...”

Min smiled maliciously. ”Is this the comeback of Player Patinder?”

BAM! ”Stop making up your stupid fantasies!” Taro immediately hit Min’s head to shut him up when he saw that Ren wasn’t reacting at all.

Something bad had really happened.

”Can we help you?” Liu asked with genuine concern.

Ren finally answered, his voice muffled by his hands: ”No...”

After a small uncomfortable silence, in which Ren seemed to rethink his previous attitudes, he decided to elaborate.

”...but thank you for worrying.”

The boys looked at each other and left him alone while they continued with their own things in silence.

Ren spent a long while lying down, supposedly thinking, but actually mentally attacking himself for every decision he had made in recent weeks.

Instead of waiting until the usual time for training with Lin, he got up abruptly with a frown but perhaps with a bit of resolve.

His roommates just looked at each other again while he left without explanation.

Ren went directly to look for Isaac. The dagger, arrows, and Gold 3 spear should be ready by now.

Isaac had improved Ren’s weapons several times before, but now that he was a dual tamer thanks to the techniques Ren had shared, and with a Silver-rank fire and wind spirit, he could mold materials far above his previous limit. The only reason he hadn’t left to form a shop outside the academy to become richer was his gratitude toward Ren. Besides, the boy gave him enough work so that he never lacked crystals.

”The weapons have been ready for days,” Isaac announced when Ren arrived at his workshop. ”Why hadn’t you come? I even thought about going to look for you...”

”Thank you...”

Ren stored them meticulously in his wolverine’s dimensional space. Isaac noticed he didn’t look as happy as other times.

”Wasn’t my work sufficient?” he asked with concern.

”No, no,” Ren hurried to thank him again and apologized. ”It’s not you who isn’t sufficient... It’s me... I’m not sufficient.”

Isaac studied him for a moment.

”That’s completely false,” he said firmly. ”But if it helps you any, when material doesn’t have the hardness I want, I fold and hammer it as many times as necessary until reaching the quality I desire.”

Ren nodded, his eyes regaining a bit of brightness, seeming to find some meaning in the blacksmith’s words.

”Thank you again,” he murmured, and headed toward the training areas.

But he didn’t go to the usual arenas. Instead, he partially transformed with his Jade Wolverine and used wind to run at full speed toward the most remote areas of the mines.

♢♢♢♢

’If only I were stronger,’ he thought while running. ’Truly... enough to solve all the problems...’

He arrived at an area where there were enough hills and rocky formations to shout and train without bothering anyone. He began to discharge his stress in ways that would have alarmed anyone who had seen him.

First, he hit a rocky formation until his knuckles bled, using fist techniques that Lin had taught him but with a ferocity that went beyond normal training. The rock cracked under repeated impacts.

Then he moved on to martial arts exercises, executing forms that required extreme flexibility and perfect control, but pushing himself until his muscles screamed in protest. High kicks that created wind currents, punch sequences that generated pressure waves.

He continued with brutal resistance exercises: high-intensity sprints using his wind control to increase air resistance, impossible jumps between rocky formations that required perfect timing, and rock lifting using only augmented physical strength.

After two hours of this self-imposed punishment, he was so soaked in sweat that he decided to take off his shirt and shove it into his Wolverine. There was nobody nearby anyway, and wet clothes only interfered with his movement.

He fused more strongly with the Jade Wolverine and used regeneration and water elemental control to heal himself.

He wasn’t finished.

Isaac was right... he had to fold and hammer again... He had to be ready.

He decided to focus on the new technique adapted from Lin. It was difficult to use with all elements simultaneously, but maybe if he started with one instead of being ambitious again...

His elemental power began to respond better now that he was furious. The intense emotion seemed to amplify his control in ways he hadn’t experienced since losing his fungus.

He climbed a rocky formation and jumped high into the air, imbuing his body with wind power to increase the force of his descending strike. The technique began to feel more natural with each repetition.

Ren leaped into the air and struck the side of the mountain with a powerful kick that generated more force than any of the strikes he had used before.

The mana flowed better now in his body. Releasing his emotions this way seemed to help significantly.

’The seed?’