Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 887 – Taming the Fifth Year – Attrition – Explosive Pirouette

Min was ready…

If his beast’s skin alone couldn’t generate sufficient moisture to overcome the plants’ absorption, then it was time for more dramatic measures.

The Amphibian adopted a posture that was absolutely ridiculous considering the creature’s mass and form. Min had claimed during previous training sessions that he’d created this “skill” when experimenting with water forms and elaborate jokes about aquatic dances with his beasts, performances that supposedly were beautiful and a way to “show off” to girls.

Then he’d fail in making the “show” appealing to the girls and joke about it. It was a game…

But Ren knew that wasn’t completely true. Min presented it as a game because it was more fun that way, but the underlying techniques were genuine even if the visual execution was intentionally comic.

It was characteristic of Min’s approach, finding ways to make even serious practice entertaining because that made it more likely he’d continue refining his capabilities instead of getting bored and abandoning them.

The Amphibian inflated and shot a powerful jet of water from its huge mouth directly downward, hydraulic propulsion lifting its massive body several centimeters off the ground.

The mechanics were impressive. To lift 50 tons, even a few centimeters, required enormous force.

And then it began rotating, a spin that resembled something like a grotesquely expanded version of breakdance moves executed by something whose form was now almost perfectly spherical. It was visually absurd but functionally brilliant, with momentum distributing a large quantity of water uniformly across the surface as the creature completely drenched itself in seconds.

The audience erupted in laughter and applause at the spectacle of a 50-ton amphibian executing something vaguely resembling dance moves while spraying itself with slightly muddy water it was generating internally at a prodigious rate.

It was exactly the type of moment that made Min’s battles memorable beyond simple power demonstrations. People would remember this, would talk about it and would argue about whether it was tactical genius or theatrical nonsense.

The answer, as with most things involving Min, was probably both.

But the tactical effect was serious despite the comic presentation. With its surface completely saturated with fresh water again, the Amphibian detonated another full-body explosion that ripped away the plants that had begun establishing themselves, destroying organic structures before they could penetrate deeply enough to compromise its thick skin integrity.

Second full-body explosion…

The wood invasion was cleared again. The moisture the plants had been absorbing was vaporized. The tactical reset was complete for the second time, wasting that big chunk of Ren’s mantis mana .

But Ren noticed something important. The second explosion had been weaker than the first. Not dramatically so, maybe 5-10% less powerful, but measurably diminished. The Amphibian’s reserves were depleting. Each full-body detonation consumed resources that couldn’t be instantly replenished.

And the plants around the arena further from the explosion were growing…

That was the opening. That was the weakness to exploit.

Force the Amphibian to keep detonating. Keep applying wood pressure that required explosive responses. Drain the reserves until the defensive technique became unusable.

And then, when the explosions were no longer available, drain the mana to let the mantis hit once or twice Min’s second gold rank beast.

It was a plan requiring patience. Requiring sustained mana expenditure over multiple exchanges. Requiring acceptance that the Mantis could accumulate minor damage from each explosion’s periphery that could end up being too much.

But it was viable. The numbers suggested it could work if the execution was precise.

Ren smiled slightly and prepared to launch the third wave of seeds.

This was going to take a while.

But wars of attrition were won by whoever could sustain pressure the longest.

And Ren was not very patient, but knew what to do when necessary… Even if it was a long process.

The Mantis’s core spun faster. More seeds formed. The wood assault continued.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Ren was already calculating how many more exchanges would be needed before the Amphibian’s explosive reserves depleted to critical levels.

The opportunities for the Amphibian to counterattack while the Mantis was committed to its ranged assault.

Risky number of hits needed. Expensive in mana. But necessary…

The alternative was losing calm, and that meant losing because Luna was still waiting with her Gold 1 wolf that hadn’t been deployed yet.

No. That wasn’t acceptable here. The Amphibian had to be defeated decisively enough that the Mantis retained sufficient reserves to hit the next beast.

Difficult… Very difficult.

But not impossible.

And “not impossible” was all Ren needed to commit completely to the strategy.

The third wave of seeds launched into the air, hundreds of tiny projectiles arcing toward the Amphibian’s position while Min watched with an expression mixing frustration and grudging respect.

♢♢♢♢

Min’s best had managed to escape again from the wood invasion that had threatened to overwhelm it completely by rolling and exploding.

Except that Ren had anticipated exactly that response and had prepared the same answer that converted Min’s explosive yet temporary clearing into a long-term disadvantage.

The Mantis had extracted sufficient energy during the period where its plants were active, with stolen mana flowing through connections that had been established from the ground up through the Mantis’s legs. And that stored energy was now releasing itself in a fourth wave of seeds that was even more massive than the first.

The Mantis’s core rotated even faster, with the speed reaching the limits of what its physical structure could sustain without fracturing under the stress. Ren calculated a precipitous drop, with the Mantis falling from a relatively comfortable position to approximately 60 percent of capacity.

From 70% to 60% in maybe 8-10 seconds. Adding the mana stolen from Min’s beast equivalent to another 10%… A burn rate that would alarm most tamers. Consuming the equivalent to 20% of your total reserves for a single technique was not only the maximum output but also aggressive to the point of recklessness under normal circumstances.

But the real mathematics were more complex than what that simple percentage suggested. The Mantis hadn’t really used only 40 percent of its base mana because it had been absorbing energy from the Amphibian throughout the entire exchange.

It was more accurate to say that it had used the equivalent of 80 percent of its capacity thanks to recovering almost 50 percent of what the Amphibian had spent, a net balance favoring Ren as long as he could maintain the parasitic cycle operating..

It had already saved almost half of what it would have needed to spend if fighting without the energy recovery mechanism.

And better yet, the arena transformed into a chaotic garden as the waves of seeds germinated aggressively, with plants growing at rates defying any normal biology thanks to the elemental boost feeding them.

Ren’s mantis would need less and less mana with each attack to overwhelm the amphibian in the end.