Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons - Chapter 896 - Taming the Fifth Year - Attrition - Chaos - 2

Chapter 896 – Taming the Fifth Year – Attrition – Chaos – 2

Min was also practically the only one among Ren’s close companions whom Ren helped most directly in being so… creative with his cultivation approach.

Most called it reckless, an accusation that was born when Min didn’t follow Ren’s novel methods to the letter but experimented with small variations that could have unpredictable consequences.

Already following Ren’s method was a novelty in principle. Why be crazy enough to change even that?

But Ren knew that the characterization of “reckless” wasn’t completely fair. Min wasn’t as foolish as he appeared superficially. Behind the apparent chaos was a mind processing information carefully before making those decisions that others dismissed as impulsive.

Min always consulted multiple sources before implementing changes to his beasts’ cultivation. He read ancient texts that most considered too esoteric to be worth the effort. He spoke with instructors like Wei about minute details of elemental mechanics. And most importantly, he came to Ren himself frequently to discuss potential results that one change or another could entail in a species based on its mana patterns and development.

They were conversations Ren genuinely valued because they forced logical articulation of principles that would otherwise remain implicit in his mind. Having to explain why a certain method was risky required breaking down reasoning in ways that clarified his own understanding as much as it educated Min.

Ren had explained repeatedly during those discussions that the path to maximum potential was narrow. Narrower than most appreciated. And that he himself didn’t know everything because his knowledge didn’t extend far enough yet to map the complete territory that beasts could eventually reach.

Platinum for now. He didn’t even know the best routes in Diamond rank.

“You could get stuck while watching others ascend to Diamond in the future,” Ren had warned during one of the more serious conversations they’d had. “Small changes might have an even greater effect in subsequent phases that I myself don’t know about. I can assure you that certain variations won’t affect your potential until Platinum, which is the maximum rank known to me for now. But I can’t guarantee that those same changes won’t create limitations in phases beyond that.”

It was honesty about his own knowledge’s limits. An admission to a friend that even having had access to enormous information, there were territories remaining unmapped because that same information hadn’t explored every possibility.

Ren gave examples frequently to illustrate the concept in ways Min could fully understand the implications. The Wolverine was a perfect case for demonstration. A creature that could be cultivated with specialization in a specific element, a choice that would change development style but wouldn’t affect the fundamental capacity to reach superior ranks as long as the beast’s base was respected.

“As long as the species’ foundations are maintained correctly,” Ren had explained, “the Wolverine will reach Platinum regardless of which element you choose as primary. That’s true according to what I know so far. But if I later learn that only certain elements can reach Diamond or greater potential, then perhaps only the multi-elemental line was correct all along, for example. And we would have constrained growth by choosing something else without knowing it.”

It was the uncertainty making experimentation risky even when it seemed safe based on present knowledge. Because you didn’t know what you didn’t know until it was too late to reverse decisions made years earlier.

But worse than possible elemental limitations was the possibility of species divergence.

Ren was the cure to the situation the city had lived with for so long. The permanent species trap that had constrained generations of tamers.

If you took one of the multiple permanent species routes, then it was the end.

That was the nightmare scenario Ren had emphasized multiple times as the reason why following the base to the letter was generally safer than experimentation.

“If your serpent became a White Salamander at Gold rank, for example,” Ren had explained with seriousness communicating the warning’s importance, “then its growth limit would be Gold 3, and nothing more. You’d receive a strong immediate power increase because you’ve reached the peak of development in a permanent species and salamanders are powerful creatures. But the potential would end there forever. You could only mature your beast going forward, refining what it already has, but never improving its rank beyond Gold 3.”

It was a trade-off that some wild beasts in certain niches made deliberately. A sacrifice of long-term potential in favor of immediate power allowing them to compete in their situation’s present.

But in tamers’ case, Ren thought it was a decision that should be made with complete understanding of what was being abandoned, not accidentally through experimentation that went wrong as it had always been.

Min was still very daring in that aspect, a characteristic Ren admired even while warning about risks because he had the adventurous spirit that Ren also admired.

Min had genuine aspirations to discover small optimizations staying on the best path but that weren’t “perfectly generic” for that path. He wanted personalization expressing his individuality without compromising maximum potential.

“If a beast has maximum potential in Diamond with three elements,” Min had argued during one of their discussions, “then I want to be able to choose those three specific elements if that choice doesn’t affect the final rank. Not simply accept the first three that appear but select the combination adapting to my style.”

It was a reasonable philosophy Ren couldn’t completely dismiss. If there really was space for at least elemental personalization within the limits that maximum potential imposed, then it was worth exploring.

The problem was determining exactly where those limits were without accidentally crossing them in the exploration process.

And now, observing the serpent with anomalous lilac coloration entering the arena, Ren suspected Min had been experimenting in ways that perhaps had pushed beyond what Ren would have recommended if he’d been consulted about the last specific changes.

The serpent that should preserve characteristic light blue coloration even at Gold 1 had clearly diverged from that standard. Its scales gleamed with a tone suggesting additional elemental influence mixing with the aquatic base, an alteration that could be beneficial specialization or could be the first sign of divergence that would eventually limit growth.