Traditional methods of educating young cultivators are almost entirely limited to being taught by family members, which helps limit the number of people who can become cultivators. Another way young cultivators receive their training is by becoming the apprentice of a more powerful cultivator. Up until recently the idea of creating an organisation that trains young people who want to become cultivators was something that was considered too dangerous to attempt because the noble families had a tendency to keep a close eye on cultivators to make sure that they weren’t gathering power to overthrow the nobles.

-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Cultivators

As Telram and Jai ran towards the wooden palisade surrounding the village they heard a loud bark coming from within followed by a large white shape rushing towards them that made Telram start laughing happily as his oldest friend tackled him to the ground and started licking his face excitedly.

“Okay, okay Willa, yes I’m happy to see you too,” Telram laughed pushing the massive wolf off him.

Once she had gotten over seeing Telram again Willa greeted Jai in much the same way and Telram continued laughing happily at the sight of his two friends playing with each other. Having obviously heard what was happening outside of the village people started appearing at the gates and upon seeing what was going on the rest of Telram’s family rushed towards home with tears streaming down their faces.

“You made it,” Aran said wrapping his son in a tight hug. “We were starting to get worried.”

When Aran finally released his son Gerry and Lily who was in the wheelchair that Telram had come up with had arrived and the old man frowned at the sight of Telram’s arm which was still in a sling. He knew better than anyone else there how tough Telram’s body was so unless he had been attacked by someone considerably more powerful than him, he couldn’t understand how he got so badly injured. Seeing Gerry was looking at his arm Telram caught the old man’s eye and shook his head, they would talk about what happened later once they had caught up.

Lily stood up and staggered forwards, almost falling over completely before she was supported by Telram who flinched as he realised that she had lost even more weight since the last time he had seen her. Tears streaming down her face Lily pulled her right hand back and slapped her son across the face as hard as she could.

The dull smacking sound was followed by a sob and Lily began pummelling her son’s chest.

“How dare you do that to me!” Lily said as she struck Telram who flinched every time her fists struck him even though each of the blows was incredibly weak, they hurt him more than his arm had when he broke it. If there was one thing that he regretted about his plan it was that he had chosen not to tell his mother what he was going to do. “I thought you were betraying us!”

“I’m sorry mum,” Telram replied, feeling his voice tremble slightly as he wrapped his arms around the fragile woman once more. “I felt that I had no choice. I’m so sorry.”

He knew full well that these words weren’t enough to make up for the pain that she must’ve felt but even the memories of his previous life he couldn’t find any words that could so he said the only thing that he could over and over again as tears ran down both of their faces.

“Don’t blame him Lily,” Gerry told her gently as both mother and son continued to hold each other. “The three of us all agreed that we would do it that way.”

“I know,” Lily sniffed as she reached up to wipe the tears from her face. “I just had to say it.”

“Well that’s enough of that for now I think,” Aran said gently pulling Lily away from her son. “I see that you and Jai aren’t alone.”

“Indeed,” Gerry said turning towards Fergus and Diane. “It’s good to see you two.”

As the group caught up some of the other villagers decided that they wanted to find out what was going on and approached the group. Noticing this Telram attempted to regain some sense of decorum by drying his face with one of the bandages that Fergus quickly passed him before straightening up to look the new arrivals in the eye.

“Excuse me,” one of the villagers; a powerfully built man with a mane of dark hair who worked as the village’s blacksmith. “Is this your son Aran?”

“Yes, this is Telram, Dale,” Aran replied turning towards the large man.

“Hmm, I wasn’t sure when you told me about him but maybe you’re right, he does look like he would be strong enough to help me out in the smithy,” Dale nodded as he examined the powerfully built young man. “However, I can see that he’s injured right now so we can talk about it at a later date.”

“Um, excuse me but what’s going on?” Telram asked looking at his father in confusion.

“Ah, well I might’ve suggested to Dale here that you could help him out in his smithy,” Aran explained. “There aren’t that many jobs in the village right now, so I’ve been asking around since we got here.”

“Well that’s great and all but I’ve already decided what I want to do,” Telram told his father who frowned at him in consternation.

“In fact, he’s come up with something for all of us to do if the villagers are interested,” Fergus confirmed placing a hand on Telram’s shoulder in a display of solidarity.

“And what would that be?” One of the other villagers, a slightly overweight middle-aged woman asked.

“We want to teach all the children in your village as well as any of the adults who want to learn from more experienced cultivators how to cultivate,” Diane told the woman whose eyes widened.

“Are you serious,” she hissed. “Do you have any idea of what could happen if the nobles learn that we’re doing something like that!?”

“Of course,” Telram replied. “But how likely is it that they would figure it out?”

“What do you mean?” Dale asked glancing sideways at the woman who glared at him angrily.

“This is a border village, the nobles don’t have that much influence here,” Telram explained. “Besides its not like having a larger number of people who can cultivate is that unusual in a border village now is it?”

“That’s true,” Dale admitted. “But even if that was true, what makes you think that we’d let you train our kids?”

“Well its not like I’m the only one who’s going to be teaching them,” Telram said, gesturing at Fergus and Diane who both nodded their agreement which made Gerry raise an eyebrow in surprise. “But if I had to explain my part then I’d like to point out that I created my own body strengthening technique.”

“Are you serious?!” Dale shouted activating his spiritual vision so that he could confirm that Telram was telling the truth and fell silent as he noticed how powerful Telram’s soul was before shaking his head in consternation.

“Well you definitely have a body strengthening technique that I don’t recognise,” the massive man admitted. “But that doesn’t mean that you created it.”

“That’s fair,” Telram nodded. “Fergus can you pass me my bag please.”

The old man frowned slightly but passed him the bag which Telram placed on the ground and started rummaging around in it for his spare notebook which he passed to the large man.

“That contains the next set of notes detailing how I’m going to improve my body strengthening technique from here, if you have any questions please feel free to ask,” Telram told the man as he held out the notebook.

“What are you doing?” Diane hissed angrily grabbing at the notebook but stopped when Telram glared at her.

“Diane, we’re going to be teaching people in this village martial techniques remember?” he told the older woman who turned away and bit her lip before nodding.

“Are you sure kid?” Dale asked before cautiously taking the notebook from the young man’s outstretched hand when Telram nodded. “I’m not sure what this is going to prove but I’ll take a look anyway.

Opening the book under the eyes of the plump woman he started reading. As he read Dale’s brow started furrowing as he started to encounter concepts and words that he couldn’t understand and after flipping through a few more pages looked at Telram with a bewildered expression much to the amusement of Gerry who had learned over the years just how confusing Telram’s notes were. Even he had difficulty keeping up with what Telram was working on sometimes especially when the young man started getting into how the martial techniques that he created worked. He wasn’t certain how Telram knew the things that he did but he couldn’t deny the results.

“I think I understood about a tenth of this,” the blacksmith sighed as he shook his head in consternation. “But if what I did understand is right then its certainly possible that you created a body strengthening technique.”

Like many blacksmiths who created weapons for cultivators Dale had a body strengthening technique of his own that allowed him to work for longer and hit harder which allowed him to work materials that would be impossible to even mark for a normal person so he actually understood much more than the average person would if they read Telram’s notes but his technique was based on knowledge that most people on Nerrus didn’t have access to like how cells worked and even then he understood how they worked better than all but the best doctors who often protected what they knew till their dying breath.

“You can’t be serious!” snapped the woman who glared at the blacksmith angrily. “He’s just a boy, it was obviously one of the other two with him who wrote that, if any of them even did!”

“Polly, you’re not a cultivator so maybe you should trust me when I say that the boy was the one that wrote these notes,” Dale sighed. Like most cultivators Telram infused the ink that he used with his own Soul Energy so that he could locate the book if he ever lost it and there was no way that the blacksmith would mistake the boy’s ridiculous Soul Energy for anyone else’s.

“Well that doesn’t matter because there’s no way that anyone would let him or any of this lot train their kids anyway!” Polly exclaimed stamping her foot on the ground angrily.

“Speak for yourself,” Dale rumbled glaring at the woman irritably before turning to Telram and the others. “When can you start teaching my kid?”

A grin covered Telram’s face as he nodded at the powerfully built man, he git the feeling that he and Dale were going to get along well which was something that he wouldn’t be saying about Polly.

“Well I’d like to spend today resting and catching up with my family so how does tomorrow sound?” he asked and at his words a massive grin split the blacksmith’s face.

“That sounds good, I’ll ask around and see if anyone else wants their kids to be trained, hell if you really made this body strengthening technique like you claim then I might ask for some pointers as well!” Dale laughed as he passed the notebook back to Telram who returned the grin on Dale’s face with one of his own. “I take it that those two are going to help as well, no offense kid but if that’s not the case I don’t think I’ll be able to convince anyone to take the chance otherwise.”

“That’s right,” Fergus confirmed. “Diane and I have both agreed to give Telram a chance to make this work.”

“Make that me as well,” Gerry interrupted making Telram’s grin widen even further as he nodded at the old man who was the closest thing he had to a grandparent in this world. “I trust my students’ judgement, if he thinks that he can make this work then I have absolutely no reason to doubt that it will.”

As they talked Polly glared at each of them in turn before turning and walking away in a huff. She might not be a cultivator but her husband, who also happened to be the village head was. In fact, he was the most powerful cultivator in the village. Or at least that was what Polly thought, in reality Gerry could easily beat her husband if he used the combat puppets that he had made just like he had killed the guards that had been ‘escorting’ them on Irian’s orders.

As the rotund woman bustled down the street towards the largest house in town the other villagers who had smiled at her as she passed glared at her back. Although her husband was a respected member of the community Polly was seen as a busy body who went around causing trouble for others. Part of the reason that Dale thought that he could convince some of the other villagers to let Telram and the others train their kids was to give them a way of getting back at her while increasing their children’s chances of having a bright future which is something that most parents would give anything to achieve.

In fact, by the time Dale had explained the situation to the large group of people that assembled upon seeing that they had new visitors he had already had requests from several of the parents for Telram and the others to teach their kids. However, he was unable to convince any more by the time the village head exited his home almost 15 minutes later due to the perceived dangers associated with the concept of teaching a large group of people how to cultivate.

Meanwhile Telram and his family and friends had decided to move on to the house that they were staying at and let Dale take care of the recruitment after checking that was alright with blacksmith who waved them away and continued talking to the other villagers so they assumed that he was giving them permission to leave so had left him to it.

Naturally the first thing that Telram’s family had asked him was how he had managed to injure his arm, so he had explained how he had used an experimental technique in the escape from Palamar which had backfired and nearly destroyed his arm. Upon hearing this Gerry placed a hand over his face and sighed heavily.

“You know Telram I just told Dale that I trusted your judgement, can you please not make me doubt my own words,” the old man grumbled.

“Hey!” Telram snapped. “It’s not like I had much of a choice you know, I’m just lucky that Diane and Fergus were there to buy me enough time to use the technique in the first place because the plan was going to fail without them.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Gerry admitted ignoring the glare that Lily was sending his way. “How long will it take for your arm to heal?”

“A couple of weeks, a month at the most,” Telram sighed. “But my Core is another story I’m afraid.”

“The technique was that powerful?” Aran asked looking at his son in surprise.

“Well that’s certainly part of it,” Telram confirmed. “But its also because I hadn’t used even a weaker version of it before so that I could figure out the consequences of using it. Actually, if I’m honest I basically came up with it on the fly. I mean, I kind of knew how it would work but I honestly didn’t expect the technique to be quite so destructive.”

“Sounds like you’ve been through a lot,” Lily said quietly, she was back in her wheelchair and looked even more exhausted than she had earlier.

“Yeah I really don’t know what I would’ve done if it wasn’t for Fergus and Diane,” Telram agreed.

“Indeed, we must thank you two,” Gerry said clapping both of them on their shoulders. “I know how difficult it must’ve been for you to make the decision that you did.”

“Honestly I’m sorry we didn’t make it sooner,” Fergus admitted. It had been bothering him for a long time that he hadn’t supported Gerry when his friend had lost his job, but he had been afraid of the consequences of going against Irian.

“Nonsense,” Lily said looking at them both angrily. “We know the situation you were in, the only thing that matters is that you chose to help us in the end.”

“Thank you, Lily,” Diane said as tears began to fill her eyes. Back when Lily had been Gerry’s apprentice the two had often worked together on projects and she had considered Lily to be her friend and hearing her words Lily turned to smile at her understandingly.

“Like I said; it’s fine, there was nothing that you could do, I’m not even sure Irian was wrong about trying to cure me being a waste of time,” the sickly woman told her consolingly.

“Actually, I might have a new idea,” Telram said suddenly. Making all of them turn and look at him with hope and surprise on their faces. “But I won’t be able to test it until I fix my Mana Core which will take me at least a couple of months.”

“Seriously?” Aran asked excitedly.

“Like I said it’ll have to wait until after I fix my Mana Core before even trying it out but what I can tell you is that I worked that I might be able to share some of my own Soul Energy with mum and maybe even directly help her start to fix her Mana Core,” Telram said.

“That’s crazy,” Gerry said angrily. “Different people can’t share Soul Energy you know that!”

“Except that we sort of can,” Telram disagreed. “That’s how Soul Contracts work after all. The difference is that we use the differences between our souls and those of the Mana Beast that we’re creating the contract with to create link. But yes, most humans can’t share their Soul Energy with another person, but this is my mother we are talking about, she gave birth to me so I must have been in contact with her Soul Energy the whole time I was in her womb.”

Telram had actually been working on this theory for a while but Gerry had put him off of the idea when Telram had brought it up one time and after Gerry had explained the problems with the idea he had eventually decided to put the idea aside until they had tried everything else that they could think of but Telram knew that his mother was running out of time which was why he was bringing this idea up again.

“Hmm, you do have a point,” Gerry admitted eventually. “I’ve never really thought about it that way.”

“It’s certainly an interesting idea that should be looked into,” Fergus agreed. “I’ve never actually thought about how the children of female cultivators handle being in contact with their Soul Energy before.”

“Typical man,” Diane snorted. “But then again I’ve never thought about how that might affect a child either so I suppose I can’t talk.”

“That’s because its something that’s so natural that you’ve never thought of it as being important,” Telram chuckled.

“I suppose,” Aran agreed. “Well here we are. This is the house that we’re living in now, it’s pretty small though so we’ll have to share rooms I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine,” Fergus said. “I’m just happy that we’ve got somewhere to stay.”

“Excuse me!” a voice said behind them and they turned around to find Polly, the village head and a young man glaring at them. “Would you like to explain why you lot are trying to bring down the nobles on our village?”