The path home had never felt so long.
The cobblestone streets of the city center gradually gave way to dirt roads.
Elegant buildings transformed into increasingly humble houses until he reached the outskirts, where his small cabin stood, tilted and worn by time.
Correction, it wasn't even theirs anymore…
His poor parents now had to rent what had once been their property.
He stopped at the door.
The aroma escaping through the door's cracks made Ren's stomach growl traitorously. His parents were talented cooks; it was what had kept them afloat all these years.
Despite their low rank.
With their mature Iron-rank plants, the lowest possible, they'd been incredibly lucky to work in the city's most modest kitchens... Sure, the owner was a great person for not discriminating against them, but their skill was undeniable.
That was the real reason they were accepted there.
The smell of sweet root stew, Ren's favorite, mingled with freshly baked bread.
He stood there, hand on the doorknob, the spore floating pathetically beside him.
Through the window, he could see his mother moving through the kitchen with the grace of years of experience, while his father decorated the table with the only three candles they had left.
They had prepared a celebration feast with the little they had.
When he finally pushed the door open, the lump in his throat was so big he could barely breathe.
"Ren!" His mother turned slightly before his father.
They both looked at the small gray spore, and Ren could see the exact moment hope abandoned their eyes.
Still, his mother wiped her hands on her apron and opened her arms. "My little tamer..."
The tears Ren had held back for hours finally began to fall.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as he entered, his voice breaking. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"Oh, my child," his mother wrapped him in her arms. "It's not your fault. It will never be your fault."
"You spent everything... sold everything... and I..."
His father approached, his steps heavy from a long day's exhaustion in the kitchens. He knelt before Ren, placing his large hands on the boy's small shoulders.
Ren looked up, his vision blurry with tears.
"Remember when I burned an entire batch of bread last year?"
Ren nodded, confused.
"And remember what we did?"
"We... we cut it into cubes and turned it into croutons."
"Exactly," his father smiled. "Sometimes life doesn't give you what you expect. But that doesn't mean you can't make something good with what you have."
"But I... the spore..."
"It's part of you now," his mother added. "And we love every part of you."
"Hey," his father joined the embrace, his voice hoarse. "You're our son. It doesn't matter if you have a spore or a dragon..."
But it did matter. Of course it mattered.
The dining room was small but filled with love and the aroma of the outskirts' finest cooking...
But try as he might, he couldn't enjoy it.
His parents had prepared everything they could in their new situation: sweet root stew, freshly baked bread, they'd even managed to get some wild berries for dessert.
The three candles illuminated the table with a warm glow, so different from the spore's gray radiance.
"Eat a little, darling," his mother served a generous plate. "You've had a long day."
"I'm... I'm not hungry."
"Just one bite," his father insisted. "Your mother spent hours cooking."
But not even the aroma of his favorite dish could overcome the bitter taste of disappointment. Ren rose from the table, tears returning to his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered before running to his room, the spore following him like a gray shadow of guilt.
"Ren!" his mother called. "At least take some bread!"
But the only response was the sound of a door closing.
In the dining room, the three candles continued burning, illuminating a table full of food prepared with love and hope. His parents exchanged glances, the weight of worry visible on their tired faces...
The afternoon's attempts bore no fruit either.
"I'm not hungry," he shouted when his mother knocked on the door with a tray of food.
In the darkness of his room, the boy observed the weak flickers of his pathetic companion.
In one week, he would have to face school, the mockery, the contempt.
One week to accept that his life would be exactly what everyone expected from someone with the worst possible beast.
In the small dining room, the candles illuminated the exhausted faces of two people who had just watched their last hopes turn into gray spores, and the school contract lay on the table.
It was mandatory... Once signed, he had to attend the School of Cultivation and Evolution for 8 years.
There he would learn to strengthen his creature, develop its abilities, become a true tamer. In one of the best schools, if not the best.
Or that was the idea, but...
"Sixty years," the father murmured, both of them already 60 years old.
Their mature Iron-rank plants barely glowed at their wrists and gave them hair composed of leaves and vines, the result of a life of limited cultivation.
Their hands, weathered by decades working in kitchens, trembled. "We sold everything for this. Everything."
His fingers moved over the document they had signed this morning.
The one that had cost them over 1 million crystals. The one they'd worked their entire lives for.
In their youth, they hadn't had the resources to buy the secret techniques needed to evolve their beasts beyond the basic state.
A simple 40% increase in vitality and 20% to all attributes was all they got from them, but being mature plants allowed them to pretend they were Bronze 1, barely enough "status" to keep their jobs in the third-rate kitchens on the city's outer line.
Luckily, the vitality bonus made them look and feel younger, like a couple in their 40s.
Today, however, nothing in their life felt like "luck".
"We sold everything for this," whispered the mother, tears falling on her worn apron. "Everything so he could have a real chance at a good school. So his plant could grow to Bronze, evolve, give him a better life than ours."
The school was expensive for a reason.
Eight years of intensive training, access to cultivation techniques, resources for evolution, connections, everything necessary to transform a common beast into something more.
They had dreamed of something better for Ren. A rank that would let him walk the main streets without lowering his head.
With a normal plant, Ren would have had the chance to reach Bronze rank 2, improve his vitality to 80% upon maturation and all his base increases to 40%, maybe even get a job in the city's good kitchens learning from his parents.
"He can't back out now," the mother clutched the contract in her trembling hands, silent tears running down her cheeks. "The payment is made, and the laws are clear, every contract must be fulfilled and every child with a beast must complete their basic education since they passed that law last year."
"If only I hadn't gotten sick, we could have had enough... I was so close to buying the brown egg... But that cursed expensive medicine, I should have di…"
"Don't say that! It's not your fault. Ren wouldn't have wanted that," the mother admonished. "Besides, maybe choosing the best and most expensive school was too greedy on our part."
"What have we done..."