An important part of teaching cultivators, especially young cultivators is working out what sort of skills and techniques best suit them. Only when a cultivator has a set of Martial Skills that work well together, and that they have a good affinity for do they truly start to become powerful. This is part of the reason that techniques that they make themselves are so much more powerful than ones that they have learned. As such I always try to give my students have a decent enough understanding of as many subjects as possible subjects so that they can make their own techniques if they want to. Another important thing to remember about personal skills is that the one who created them is often the only person that truly understands how they work which means that they are much harder to counter than skills that are widely known.

Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Martial Skills.

Sure, enough there were quite a lot of questions for us about what they were planning to teach at the school and why we were risking doing such a thing when it was forbidden by tradition if not law. Telram got tired of answering the same few questions after about the third time for each and decided to ask one of his own.

“Excuse me but can you introduce us to the children that you want us to teach?”

“Ah, yes of course,” Dale chuckled as he realised that the conversation had gotten a bit off track. “This is my son Cameron.”

“Nice to meet you Cameron,” Telram said lowering himself to look the boy in the eye. “I’m Telram and if it’s alright with you I’ll be one of the people teaching you to cultivate.

Cameron looked back at Telram with brown eyes that shone with both intelligence and determination. Now that Telram was closer he could see that while the boy was slightly overweight he also had quite a bit of muscle for a boy his age which led Telram to assume that he was helping his father out in the forge and was probably already starting to learn Dale’s body strengthening technique.

“Can you make me as strong as you are?” Cameron asked.

“As strong as me, huh?” Telram chuckled. “If I have my way by the time you reach my cultivation level, you’ll be stronger. I’ve spent a lot of time experimenting with various ideas instead of training which means that we can likely avoid the problems that I had when I was figuring things out.”

Hearing Telram’s words wide smiles covered the faces of Cameron and the other three kids that were present while expressions of mild surprise crossed their parents’ faces.

“Besides it’s not just me who’s going to be teaching you, so you’ll be able to learn things that I don’t know yet as well!” Telram exclaimed, some of his excitement bleeding through as he got caught up in the moment making his family look at him in surprise. It had been a long time since they had seen him as excited or happy as he looked right now surrounded by the laughing children. They had all been worried for a long time that Telram was only really learning to cultivate because it was one of the only ways that commoners could get ahead in life and so that he could heal his mother. So seeing him acting like this instead of his usual serious self was quite surprising to them.

“Alright then, who wants to introduce themselves next?” Telram asked looking around at the now giggling children with a grin.

“I’m Tim!” One of the other two boys exclaimed quickly before anyone else could even open their mouth. Tim was quite tall for his age which Telram estimated was around six and looked quite athletic as well. he was also all but bouncing up and down in his excitement making Telram smile. A quick check with his spiritual vision told Telram that Tim was had already started learning some sort of movement technique which probably explained his seemingly boundless energy.

The next boy was somewhere in between Tim and Cameron in terms of build and squinted at Telram slightly revealing that he was slightly short sighted which was probably the reason that his parents wanted him to learn to be a cultivator. Small problems like that could be fixed easily enough when one began to cultivate. His name turned out to be Henry and he was very quiet-spoken and had never cultivated before which made Telram nod his head silently. This wasn’t really a problem, in fact in some ways it made things easier because he was planning on one of the first lessons being how to form a Mana Core properly.

The final child was considerably grubbier than the others and hid behind Cameron when he turned to look at her.

“Sorry about Iris,” Dale apologised sadly. “Her parents were killed recently in a Mana Beast attack. Most of the other villagers try to help her out but whenever someone asks if she wants to stay with them, she refuses. She’s living by herself in her families old house at the moment.”

“I see,” Telram replied shaking his head sadly. A child’s parents dying wasn’t unusual in this world and he was sure that the villagers were doing the best that they could to make sure that she stayed healthy but had decided to respect her wishes to keep living on her own.

Iris was very short, thin girl with messy dark hair that hung most of the way down her back. While she wasn’t as clean as the other kids Dale explained that this was because she kept a garden where she grew most of her food herself which Telram thought was quite impressive for her age. Her parents had been the village healers so she also grew medicinal herbs that she sold to the other villagers for the things that she couldn’t get for herself like meat and occasionally clothes. She also had a Mana Core, but unfortunately it wasn’t in very good shape and Telram came to the conclusion that she had learned to make it herself after her parents had died. In villages like this healers were some of the few people that actually knew how to read well so her parents had probably had a few books on various things including cultivation and had taught her to read before they had died.

“Hello Iris,” Telram said quietly as the girl poked her head out from behind Cameron who was looking down at her with a bemused expression on his face. As one might expect from someone whose parents had been killed by Mana Beasts she kept glancing nervously at Willa and Jai. “Are you afraid of those two?”

The little girl turned her massive eyes his way before looking back at Willa whose tongue was lolling out as she watched them.

“They aren’t like the monsters that killed my parents, are they?” she asked so quietly that a normal person would’ve had difficulty hearing her but to Telram her words were as clear as day.

“No, no they aren’t,” Telram replied as he sent a mental request to Jai who padded slowly over towards them making the other children draw back slightly as the massive tiger got closer. “This is my friend Jai; his mother was killed by a Mana beast as well and as you can see, he’s very gentle.”

As he said this Telram reached out and scratched Jai behind the ear as he sat down next to him with a heavy thump making the tiger purr loudly. Jai was obviously milking it for the kids benefit and Telram thanked him for doing so as the children got closer again.

“Can we touch him?” Tim asked excitedly looking at Jai who was stood taller than he did with wide eyes.

“Sure, just don’t poke him too much,” Telram chuckled after checking with Jai who snorted slightly at Telram’s words making the parents step forwards just in case the tiger was more dangerous than Telram was suggesting, but the kids approached before their parents could stop them and started stroking the tiger their little hands sinking right into his thick black and red fur.

“See, he’s fine,” Telram told the parents and Iris who were all watching the tiger warily. “He’s my contracted Mana Beast and we have a special Soul Contract which makes him even smarter than the average contracted Mana Beast so he’s more than smart enough to know that doing anything to hurt these kids would be a bad idea for multiple reasons.”

“Well I’m sure convinced,” an amazed Dale muttered as he watched the purring tiger close his eyes as Telram continued to scratch him behind the ears.

While Jai might be the size of a fully grown tiger back on earth and weighed almost half again as much he was still young and would grow to at least twice the size and almost three times the weight that he was right now even if he never became an Elemental Mana Beast like Willa was so Telram wasn’t surprised that people found him intimidating. When he was a kid back on Earth Telram had been taken to a zoo by his parents and had been lucky enough to have the chance to touch one of the tigers and looking at the looks of awe on the faces of the three children who were stroking Jai brought that now fuzzy memory back to life and he clearly remembered the awe and slight fear that he had felt when he had placed his own small hand on the hindquarters of the magnificent animal while his parents and the zookeepers watched to make sure that the tiger didn’t react poorly to the attention of Telram and the other people who had opted to try touching the tiger.

However, unlike the tiger from his memories Telram would have no problem leaving Jai alone with these children especially because even now he could feel the waves of contentment and happiness emanating from his friend through their link making him smile as the emotions mirrored his own.

Can, can I touch him as well,” Iris asked eventually as she realised that she might be missing out on something.

“Of course,” Telram replied as the little girl approached cautiously. It was obvious that she was still a bit nervous to be so close to Jai, but it was good to see that she was willing to face up to her fears, showing that sort of bravery at her young age bode well for the future.

For his part Jai lay down as she approached, and the other children backed away so that Iris didn’t feel too crowded and Telram gently took her trembling hand and placed it on Jai’s forehead.

“He’s so soft,” Iris whispered as she gently rubbed her hand back and forth across Jai’s head.

“That’s because he’s healthy,” Telram explained seeing a chance to pique her interest. “If he wasn’t the fur would be rougher and his coat wouldn’t be this thick. Here, scratch him behind the ears he likes that.”

“Hmm,” Iris hummed as she did as Telram had suggested and smiled as Jai started purring loudly again.

Seeing her relax slightly as she realised that Jai wasn’t going to do anything to her Telram smiled, if there was one thing that could be used to make the average child happy it was a fluffy animal and Jai was more than willing to volunteer for that position as was Willa who was watching Jai with a jealous expression on her snout.

“Hey Willa, would you like to come over here,” Telram chuckled as he noticed how she was looking at him.

The children backed away in surprise as the wolf, who was even larger than Jai suddenly loped over but before anyone else could react Telram quickly picked Iris up and placed the small girl on Willa’s back eliciting a short gasp of surprise from the girl who stiffened up. Seeing that she was reacting poorly Telram also mounted Willa who was more than powerful enough to support their weight and placed a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulders. This was a bit of a risky move, if Iris panicked now it would probably be a long time until she was willing to trust him again.

“It’s okay Iris,” he told the girl gently. “See, I’m up here with you.”

“Okay,’ the little girl replied nervously as she looked down from the back of the wolf her eyes widening as she realised that she was so high up that she might as well have been riding a horse. “But why are we doing this?”

“Because it’s fun,” Telram laughed. “Let’s go Willa!”

With a loud bark Willa leapt over the crowd eliciting a strangled squeak of surprise from Iris. But Telram just kept laughing as he supported the small girl before she could fall off. Willa landed on the other side of the small crowd with her typical grace before shooting off in a lap around the arena with the same smooth gait that her kind was known for. Telram smiled as the smoothness of the gait and the wind in his face reminded him of riding a bike down the road before looking down at Iris who looked like she was trying to decide whether she was enjoying this or not as she gripped handfuls of Willa’s fur.

As they rounded the final corner the small girl finally made up her mind sending a peal of delighted laughter echoing around the courtyard as Willa came to a screeching halt in front of the others.

As Telram helped the wide-eyed girl down he was bombarded with requests for a ride from the other children much to his family’s amusement and the distress of their parents who were still uncertain whether this was safe or not. The parents were uncomfortable with this idea because

Despite their parents discomfort soon all the children had been on a short ride on Willa’s back with the wolf enjoying every minute of the attention as did Jai who was still being petted by the children who weren’t currently riding on Willa’s back. Some of the parents were even dragged over by their kids to pet the tiger much to the amusement of everyone else.

Once all the children had the opportunity to ride Willa, they decided to call it a day so that Telram and the others could organise what they were going to teach the children the following morning and after bidding everyone farewell and letting them know to when to meet them tomorrow morning Telram and his family headed back to the house that they were all staying in.

“Well that certainly went well didn’t it?” Gerry chuckled once they were out of earshot.

“Yeah,” Aran agreed. “I was a little nervous when you just threw Iris up onto Willa’s back, but it all seemed to work out fine.”

“That only worked because we didn’t give her a chance to think about how scary it was,” Telram explained as he pushed his mother’s wheelchair down the street. “In fact, I still wouldn’t have risked doing it if she hadn’t been brave enough to pet Jai. Good job there by the way buddy, the kids loved you.”

The tiger glanced up at his friend and snorted, he had been living among humans for years now and he had learned how to seem less threatening to children and had actually grown to like the attention that he got when he and Telram passed through the market. He also understood that Telram was going to be using both him and Willa to teach the kids about Mana Beasts which he hoped was going to be just as interesting to him as it was to the kids.

“So, what did you think of the new students?” Fergus asked.

“Well, Cameron is already working on a Body Strengthening Technique, and he’s not doing a bad job of it either, I do have some ideas to improve the technique itself though,” Telram replied. “As for Tim, he’s practicing some sort of movement technique, he only started a little while ago though, so I’m not really sure what type it is but if you look at him with Spiritual Vision it’s pretty obvious that his leg muscles are stronger than normal. Henry hasn’t ever cultivated before but has a stronger soul than all of the kids except for Iris, so we’ll have to start from scratch for him.”

At this point Telram hesitated slightly as he tried to decide how to explain the situation that Iris had found herself in.

“And Iris has a poorly formed Mana Core,” Diane sighed before Telram could continue, and the young man nodded sadly.

“It’s going to be quite a lot of work to fix that,” he sighed. “She’ll have to start over completely from scratch which is dangerous. Thankfully she hasn’t managed to form a second layer yet so it’s not going to be too dangerous with us there to help her out and once we’ve destroyed the Core she has now I should be able to guide her through making a new one fairly easily which should allow whoever will be helping her concentrate on keeping the Mana from flooding her body.”

Recreating a Mana Core wasn’t a common occurrence both because of the difficulties of doing so and the fact that it was still possible to cultivate up to the peak of the Human Realm with a poorly formed Core. Entering the Ascendant Realm required access to resources (like an Ascendant Realm Cultivation Technique) which were difficult for most people to obtain so it was nothing unusual for a cultivator to simply reach the peak of the Human Realm and stop there unable to break through even if they had formed their Core perfectly. The only known method of recreating a Mana Core could also only be used when one was in the early stages of the Human Realm and required the aid of someone who had already entered the Ascendant Realm themselves to contain the Mana that was stored in the Core while the cultivator created a new one. Obviously, most people couldn’t afford to hire an Ascendant Realm cultivator to help them out with something like this, so the technique was almost completely limited to the richer noble families.

“Well at least it’s good practice,” Gerry said causing the others to glance his way in surprise. “I suspect that in the end we’ll be forced to use a similar technique to heal Lily.”

“Haven’t we gone over the idea of that before?” asked Telram as he looked at the old man in confusion.

“Yes, and we decided that it would be very dangerous,” Gerry agreed. “But you know as well as I do that we’re running out of options.”

“That’s true,” Telram said sadly looking down at his mother who smiled back up at him.

“I’m sure that you two will work something out,” she told her son with the same calm voice she always used when Telram was reminded of her physical state and his inability to do anything to help her.

“Thanks mum,” he replied.

Gerry was right they had to take a step back and look at the things that they already knew, maybe they had missed something obvious. But Telram was certain of only two things; that he would find some way of healing his mother and he would make the man who had caused her to end up in the state that she was in pay.