Beast Cores have a large number of uses; they can be ground down and mixed with metals to create an alloy with an improved ability to conduct Mana and are often used in the creation of high-end weapons and armour for this purpose. An inscribed Soul Core can also be used to power more complicated constructs such as the puppets that cultivators use for training and occasionally combat and function as both control centre and power source. However, it is important to remember that a Beast Core is an object that can contain a large volume of energy and perhaps the most dangerous use of this ability is as a weapon. A Beast Core can easily be inscribed to release the stored energy by anyone with an elementary understanding of inscriptions and yet it is unusual to find people who use these items in this way. This is of course because high quality Beast Cores that can contain enough Mana to actually be viable as weapons are dangerous and expensive to obtain and as such most people consider using them this way to be foolish as there are plenty of cultivators who can use techniques that provide a similar effect.

Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Beast Cores

It had been a week since the evaluation and Telram had been careful to make sure that people thought that he wanted to get into Irian’s good graces despite the interference of Pavel who was still convinced that Telram was planning on betraying them and made sure to appear at random times while Telram was teaching the other scholars the basics how his techniques worked. While it did irritate Telram to have to give his hard-earned work away, especially to people who answered to Lord Irian he was pleasantly surprised to discover that there were a handful of older scholars that actually didn’t actually seem to like Irian. The problem was that they viewed him as someone who had betrayed his family to curry favour with Irian, so as one might expect they didn’t actually like him very much and avoided him whenever possible. In fact, the only way he knew how they felt was because of his enhanced sense of hearing which allowed him to hear whispered conversations from across a room.

However, Telram knew that even if he didn’t teach the scholars the basics of his techniques it wouldn’t take long for them to figure them out on their own now that they had seen the techniques in action so all he could do was teach them the techniques in a way that would limit how they would be able to develop them. Luckily although teaching them the basics was easy enough, many of the techniques that he used required immense control over Mana meaning that most people simply couldn’t use the techniques until they had cultivated to a much higher cultivation rank than Telram was and by the time that they had cultivated to that rank they were able to use techniques that were more powerful anyway so it wasn’t even like him teaching them his techniques was going to make too many people much more powerful any time soon. It was possible that they could use the theory behind the techniques to create new techniques which were more powerful than a lot of the ones that were in Irian’s collection but that would take a long time especially as Telram was teaching them wrong.

“Right, I think we’re done for the day,” Telram said as he finished up yet another lesson on his Resonance Palm technique which while one of his simpler techniques still used concepts that most of the scholars were unfamiliar with which was slowing their progress in learning the technique, not that this was a bad thing as far as Telram was concerned.

“Agreed,” replied Fergus, who was the one of the higher ranked scholars in the group that Telram was teaching making Telram blink in surprise. Fergus was a member of the old guard who had worked under Gerry when he had been in charge and still had a large amount of respect for him. He was also one of the scholars who disliked Irian so him even talking directly to Telram was surprising enough, but this paled in significance to what happened next.

Suddenly Telram heard Fergus’ voice inside his head the same way he would hear Jai’s when the tiger chose to talk to him.

“Now then lad, I’ve been watching you for a while and there’s no way that you betrayed your family, now communicating this way is a bit difficult but-”

“Oh, I know how to communicate this way,” Telram interrupted quickly before the older man could launch into a lecture on using the technique while being careful not to let any surprise cross his face. His quick reply making the old man’s eyebrows raise almost imperceptibly in surprise. “And what makes you think that I didn’t betray my family?”

“That’s simple,” Fergus replied, his mental voice sounding amused at the question as the scholars began packing up the various materials that they had been using. “When I was younger, I tried to create techniques like your own, so I know that the methods you have been teaching these idiots are flawed.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Telram admitted. “You’re right I only acted that way to give my family a chance to get away, the guards that Irian sent to escort them were probably ordered to take them out but with the new techniques that Gerry and my father have come up with and Willa’s strength they should’ve been able to defeat them.”

“And what about yourself?” Fergus asked. “I take it you’re not planning on sticking around here much longer.”

“No, I was hoping that I would be able to make the people Irian has watching me let their guard down if I acted like a good little pawn but that doesn’t seem to be working so we’re moving on to the other plan,” Telram admitted. Telling Fergus this could be a mistake, but he wasn’t planning on letting him know exactly what he had planned or when he was going to act but he was pretty sure that he could trust him with this level of information.

“Do you need any help?” Fergus asked glancing at the young man out of the corner of his eye.

“No,” Telram replied. “The more people involved the more likely it will be that things can go wrong.”

“Alright, if I was able to talk some of the other scholars that I’m sure are against Irian and his methods into escaping Palamar, how will I know when you’re making your move?” Fergus asked surprising Telram briefly. He hadn’t thought that Fergus was the type to try and rebel against someone as powerful as Irian was, but this surprise didn’t last long.

“Oh, you’ll know when I’m making my move trust me on that, I’d expect it to be sooner rather than later as well” Telram answered as he walked away leaving Fergus looking after him with a bemused expression on his face.

As he made his way back to his apartment Telram smiled to himself, Irian had really made a lot of mistakes when he had removed Gerry from his position as Head Scholar. If Fergus managed to talk any other scholars into leaving Palamar City, it would cripple Irian’s research into new Martial Techniques.

As he entered his apartment, he smirked to himself as the people that Pavel had following quickly made their way to the roof of a building across the street so that they could keep an eye on all the entrances to the apartment. Honestly, he almost felt sorry for them, they had a really boring job following him to the Hall of Heavenly Knowledge and back to his apartment every day. Little did they know was that it was Jai that they should’ve been paying attention to, they had followed him the first two nights that he had left the apartment but unfortunately for them Jai had known that they had been following him and had simply wandered the streets like he didn’t have a care in the world, in other words he acted like the mindless animal that the guards watching him thought he was. After those first couple of nights they had stopped following him and he had been free to retrieve the Soul Core that Gerry had left for him and distribute them to different areas around the city. The Soul Cores had come in two different types, one of which had to be distributed evenly around the city and others that Jai had bee told to distribute as he had seen fit.

“So how did it go last night?” Telram asked Jai who had been waiting for him in the apartment, when he had woken up this morning the tiger had been fast asleep and knowing how hard Jai had been working Telram had let him sleep.

The tiger responded by baring his teeth in a grin and sending a sense of satisfaction and anticipation that made Telram to smile grimly. Jai had finally managed to deliver the last of the Beast Cores to their assigned areas.

“Then we make our move tonight,” he decided. While this decision might seem a bit impetuous, especially considering the fact that Fergus had reached out to him mere minutes ago one had to remember that Telram had several reasons to leave Palamar as soon as possible one was of course that he still didn’t know whether his family had managed to escape safely or not, another was that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could drag out teaching the scholars the basics of his techniques before they started to figure out something was wrong and the final reason was that he was getting really tired of dealing with Pavel and the people that Irian had following his every move on a daily basis. “We should try and get some sleep, we might not get another chance to rest for quite a while.”

Later that night the two woke up and finished their preparations, Telram putting a different set of robes that had a mottled grey pattern, something that Telram had done to them himself in the hopes of making himself even a little bit more difficult to see at night. After he had done this he walked over to the table and picked up the Beast Core that was lying next to the lamp before turning back to Jai who was watching him closely.

“Right this is your show, tell me what ones you want me to activate first,” he said activating the first function Inscribed into the Beast Core with a thought allowing him to access a mental map of Palamar. Jai nodded as he joined Telram staring down at the familiar city scape that was spread out below them.

With a thought the tiger lit up the representations of the Beast Cores that he wanted to activate first, causing several tiny red lights to appear below them.

“Are you sure?” Telram said frowning at this sight. “If we use those now, we can’t use them later when we need to get away.”

Jai nodded and sent his determination and assuredness back down their mental link, he had only lit up a small number of the Beast Cores that he had prepared and activating these ones wasn’t going to decrease their chances of success.

“Alright,” Telram said as he channelled more of his Mana into the Beast Core in his hand activating one of the other two functions inscribed into it and mentally selecting the Beast Cores Jai had pointed out for him.

A rumbling sound filled the air as the Beast Cores that Telram had selected released all the energy they contained at once destroying anything nearby. If Palamar was a city on earth a tactic like this would’ve likely killed and injured dozens of innocent civilians but Irian had enforced a curfew for anyone that didn’t directly work for him years ago. Not only this but the Beast Cores that Jai had pointed out had been placed in places where the average civilian wasn’t allowed to enter anyway such as the small Guard Outposts that existed throughout the city and the stables that contained the mounts owned by these guards. He had been unable to get close enough to the main Barracks to plant any of these explosives due to its proximity to Lord Irian’s manor but there were always at least two guards stationed at the outposts and more that occasionally checked in while out on patrol. Telram did briefly feel a bit guilty for the people and animals that would have been injured or killed in the explosions, but he pushed that guilt to the side and activated the final function Inscribed in the Beast Core in his hand.

All across the city the puppets that Gerry had made as well as many others that had been made by people, he had taught to make them activated as one and those that were in storage at the main barracks began wreaking havoc surprising the guards stationed there. Many of them had been sleeping and had been woken by the explosions mere moments ago so they weren’t prepared for the sudden attack from within.

Meanwhile the puppets that were spread around the rest of the city at the houses of various cultivators started making their way towards the apartment where Telram and jai were. This was all made possible due to the second type of Beast Cores that Jai had spread throughout the city, these Beast Cores acted like antennae broadcasting new instructions to the puppets. Ever since Lord Irian took over from his father Gerry had known that he would have to do something about him some day and had hidden the ability to remotely rewrite the instructions of the puppets that he had made and had even taught other puppet makers to do the same, not that they had known it at the time.

Of course the guards that had been watching them across the street had reacted as soon as they had recovered from their surprise with one of them leaping clear across the street and through the closed window only to discover a hole in the floor and a softly glowing Beast Core which exploded in his face turning him to paste and destroying the apartment in an instant.

“Shit!” One of the other guards shouted upon seeing this as his remaining partner turned pale in shock staring at the smoking ruin of the apartment.

“I knew it was this little shit! Where’s he gone!?” the guard shouted angrily only to freeze as he heard a soft thump behind him.

“We’re right here,” Telram said slamming his palm into the back of the unprepared man’s head channelling a massive spike of Mana directly into his brain that overpowered the man’s defences causing his head to burst spraying his partner with warm blood. However, the horrified man didn’t have a chance to even scream before one of Jai’s massive paws ripped his own head from his shoulders.

“Two down, about a hundred more to go,” Telram said wiping his sticky hand on the robes of his dead victim. Looking around he saw that there were people peeking out of their windows with their eyes wide with horror.

“Right we need to move,” Telram said. “You’ve got the control Core, right?”

Jai nodded, the Core in question was currently in his mouth and now that he had been shown how to use the Inscriptions that activated the explosive Beast Cores, he was able to detonate them himself without Telram’s help. The two started running towards the city walls, clambering over buildings to avoid the fights that were breaking out between the guards and the puppets that had been reprogrammed. The puppets were holding up impressively well despite being outnumbered. This was of course because unlike the guards they were fighting they didn’t fell pain and could keep fighting even if they lost a limb and could only be stopped by destroying most of the Inscriptions on their torsos or by destroying the Cores that powered them. These facts combined with some of the guards trying to put out the fires that had sprung up thanks to the explosions caused by Telram and Jai meant that the puppets were at least able to keep the remaining guards that had been on patrol busy.

Of course, despite how well things were going, Telram and Jai knew escaping from Palamar was never going to be simple and sure enough waiting for them on the walls was a large group of cultivators, including some that would give Gerry or Aran a run for their money in terms of combat power. With a roar the Beast Cores that Jai had placed at the bottom of the wall activated sending shrapnel and lumps of masonry flying in all directions.

Unfortunately, when the dust cleared, they discovered that all of one of the cultivators looked even a little bit injured having protected themselves with their defensive techniques.

“Well then you two, how about making this easy on yourselves and giving up?” one of the cultivators asked as they spread out surrounding Telram and Jai.

“How long did you have to practice that line before you could keep a straight face when you said it?” Telram sneered.

The cultivators face twisted in rage at Telram’s remark. He was one of the most powerful cultivators in Palamar and this kid thought that he could make fun of him!?

With a snarl he launched himself at the smirking boy only to be intercepted by a wooden fist that smashed into his face with enough force to send him flying into the remains of the city wall.

“Besides,” continued Telram as a large number of puppets formed up behind him causing the cultivators to slowly back away after seeing what had happened to their fellow. “You’re outnumbered.”

Deciding that more chaos could only benefit them in this situation Jai activated all of the remaining Beast Cores scattered around the city the explosions emphasising Telram’s words and lighting them from behind with a red glow.

However, this moment of surprise didn’t last long, and the cultivators started to charge towards them only to be met by the puppets. These puppets were more powerful than the average ones that were fighting guards throughout the city but even they were no match for these cultivators, who knew their fighting styles like the backs of their hands as these puppets were the ones that they themselves had trained against for years. But like Telram said the; cultivators were outnumbered and while some of the puppets engaged them in hand-to hand combat others attacked them from a distance, pummelling the cultivators with blasts of fire and wind or shards of earth and ice at every opportunity while Telram and Jai attacked anyone who let their guard down. Using these tactics, they started to wear down the cultivators who slowly started falling one by one.

“This is taking too long,” muttered Telram worriedly as he glanced towards Irian’s mansion, it was already looking like things were under control over there and he could hear more guards headed their way. If Irian showed up now, they would completely loose their chance to escape and so Telram gritted his teeth and began charging up Mana for a powerful attack that even he wasn’t sure how powerful it would be, the Mana coalescing around his hand and beginning to vibrate at a very peculiar frequency.