Creating my own Cultivation Technique was certainly an interesting experience and I completely understand why so many people failed to do so over the years. However, after creating my own Cultivation Technique I have been able to help some of my students to come up with a Cultivation Technique of their own that have since made them much more powerful than the majority of their peers. As such while I do admit that there are risks to creating Cultivation Techniques there are many advantages to doing so provided that your Soul is strong enough to handle the stress.

-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Cultivation Techniques

The following morning Telram, Ryu, Warren and Lelland met up for their sparring matches. As they had all expected Ryu won every single sparring match, but funnily enough Warren actually gave Lelland a run for his money using the new technique that Telram had helped him develop. Or at least he did until the former captain of the guard managed to land a decisive hit with the spear that was his preferred weapon. Telram struggled with Lelland but eventually beat everyone except Ryu.

Lelland was quite surprised and more than a little bit frustrated with the results of their sparring matches. He was quite known for being one of the stronger members of the younger generation in Urlan and was even capable of defeating cultivators who were a decade older than he was thanks to his mastery of the spear. However, Telram’s Resonance Palm was even more difficult to deal with than he had expected which combined with Telram’s increased strength after recovering from the damage to his soul meant that Lelland just wasn’t able to defeat him. Lelland consoled himself with the thought that his defeat to Telram meant that the other young man had something to teach him which was why he was there in the first place.

After the fight Telram asked each of them what they thought they needed to improve on the most before coming up with a training schedule for all of them. Warren had already started to learn Telram’s basic body strengthening technique and Telram told him to work more on the technique that they had been working on together as well as his physical strength which was still lacking a little. Ryu on the other hand had absolutely no need to work on his strength or speed so Telram decided to teach him a couple of basic martial techniques so that he could work out what sort of martial arts that he wanted to learn. As for Lelland Telram decided to just teach him his basic body strengthening technique for now since the other young man’s skills were already better than most people his age. In fact, if Telram was being honest with himself Lelland would’ve won their sparring match if it wasn’t for Telram’s powerful physical body even if Telram had gotten completely serious.

Telram was a little worried about trying to transform like he had during his fight with Ryu in the tournament again after the damage that it had done to his soul, but he hoped that he would eventually be able to use it without having to worry about things like that on day. He did however decide to try a more limited transformation the first chance he got.

Not long after their sparring matches Telram’s students started to arrive. They were all excited to see how much stronger they had gotten after bonding with their Mana Beasts the previous day but Telram cautioned against overdoing it for today. The kids were a bit disappointed by that, but they knew that Telram was right. Telram lead them through some pretty simple exercises alongside their new partners before calling for a break a little after midday so that they could have some lunch.

After they all finished lunch, they all sat down so that they could cultivate, and they did that for the rest of the day before going home. Once he got home and finished dinner he immediately went to his room and prepared to cultivate for the rest of the night. He wanted to reach the Ascendant realm as soon as he possibly could. If he managed to reach the Ascendant Realm, then his combat prowess should increase by a significant amount. It wouldn’t be enough to prevent an attack from nobles trying to nip their little school in the bud, but it should still be helpful. Especially if they managed to enter the Cradle of the Goddess of the Moon and find some useful artifacts like Telram hoped.

The next month passed pretty quickly. Lelland and Ryu made significant progress learning the techniques that Telram wanted them to, and Warren managed to refine his new technique to the point where he could actually match Lelland in a fight for a while until Lelland’s efforts learning the body strengthening technique started to pay off.

As for the students they also made significant progress in their cultivation. Telram was also quite impressed with the changes that they had undergone after bonding with the Mana Beasts. As one might expect Cameron had grown significantly stronger after bonding with the Four-armed Ape but perhaps even more impressive was how much tougher his body had become. Right now, Cameron was able to take hits that even Telram would dodge, and his speed had increased by quite a bit too making him an extremely dangerous opponent for cultivators of a similar level to fight.

Tim’s speed had increased by a significant margin and Telram was convinced that he was manipulating air currents with his Mana even though he wasn’t in the Ascendant Realm. Now that technically was something that the Blade-winged Hawk that Tim was bonded with could do so it wasn’t that unusual but Telram still took note of it for later.

Henry’s eyesight was now the best of the students by far. In fact, Telram was convinced that his ability to sense soul energy and Mana was now greater than Telram’s own. He was also faster now and seemed to have the ability to blend in with his surroundings slightly. It wasn’t very noticeable in the daytime but at night even Telram and Tim had a hard time seeing him.

But perhaps most interesting of all was Iris. Her physical changes were perhaps the most obvious of all of the students other than Cameron, but it was the other changes that were the most interesting to Telram. According to Iris she could now communicate to a certain degree with plants. Now Telram wasn’t entirely convinced that was actually the case, he thought that it was more likely that she could sense something using Mana that he couldn’t, but it was nonetheless a powerful ability. Thanks to it her ability to make medicines and other alchemical concoctions had increased many times over. Even Lily was impressed with her ability to tell when medicinal herbs were ready to be used and even more impressed with how the Forest Pixie that she had bonded with could increase the speed that they recovered from being harvested. The Forest Pixie’s natural ability to heal plants allowed it to heal even the plants that would normally die after being harvested allowing them to be used again and again. This had allowed them to make many more doses of medicines and even some medicinal pills that Telram had been rationing out to his students and some of the other members of the village. Medicinal Pills required far more and far rarer ingredients than normal medicines so there weren’t many to go around but Telram had reason believe that too many medicinal pills actually stunted a cultivator’s growth since their body and soul weren’t actually powerful enough to control large amounts of Mana. He had seen a lot of people who had used large quantities of medicinal pills to boost their cultivation over the years and he had found them all to be weaker than he had expected.

And tonight, was the night that Telram was finally going to enter the Ascendant Realm. Well, either that or fail completely and damage his cultivation base. Telram was confident that even if something did go wrong, he wasn’t going to cripple himself completely though.

“Are you sure that you want to do this Telram?” Gerry asked for what had to be the fifteenth time that night causing Telram to roll his eyes again.

“I thought that we had all agreed that this was the best course of action,” Telram sighed. “Since I’m an enlightened soul I can’t use normal cultivation techniques.

“But there are medicinal pills that can increase your elemental affinities,” Gerry pointed out. “And I’m sure that Lelland could talk to his father and get you some. Right Lelland?”

“Maybe but I wouldn’t count on it,” Lelland replied. “Those sorts of medicinal pills are extremely expensive. Not to mention rare. Besides, you know that I don’t like using too many medicinal pills.”

“So, this is still our best option,” Telram said. “If I get this right then my cultivation technique will still be better than anything that I could use even if I did get my hands on a couple of months supply of those pills anyway.”

“We’re just worried son,” Aran said.

“Well, I think that you need to have more faith in me,” Telram replied. “Besides if something goes wrong then Jai should be able to help me out.”

“This is true,” the tiger rumbled in agreement. “We’ve been working on a technique for just that purpose.”

“An untested technique,” Gerry pointed out.

“Gerry, I’m going to do this no matter what you say,” Telram snapped finally. “This is our best chance. You know this.”

“The kid is right Gerry,” Fergus told his oldest friend. “We’ve all been over the technique with him a dozen ties. It’s better made than most of the cultivation techniques that people actually use.”

Diane nodded in agreement causing Gerry to sigh in irritation. He of course knew everything that the others were telling him but all he could think about was what had happened to Lily when Lord Irian had forced her to use the untested cultivation technique that had crippled her cultivation. Lily reached across the table and gently took his hand.

“Telram’s right,” she told her old mentor. “He’s been working on this for a long time now and you even gave him the go ahead when you found out about his Enlightened Soul. You can’t just change your mind now.”

“Look, if you really want you can keep an eye on me while I Ascend,” Telram sighed finally. “It probably won’t be very pleasant though.”

When a cultivator entered the Ascendant Realm, their body underwent significant refinement which also involved clearing the body of any impurities. These impurities exited the body in the form of a foul-smelling black sludge. This was actually the reason that most people preferred to enter the Ascendant Realm in private but Telram was willing to allow Gerry to be in the room with him if it moved things along.

“Alright, if Jai can do it then so can I,” Gerry agreed. “His nose is much more sensitive e than mine is after all.”

Telram and Jai nodded in agreement before getting to their feet and heading to their room where a metal basin had been set up to catch the black sludge.

“Well, no point wasting time than,” Telram said before entering his room. With a sigh Gerry also got to his feet and followed them. When the door closed behind them everyone else breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s finally over,” Aran sighed as he stroked Willa’s soft head. “Really they should’ve both said what they actually wanted the other to do. They both wanted the same thing after all.”

It was no secret that both Telram and Gerry wanted Gerry to be present while Telram was ascending. In fact, it was all that the two had talked about when the other hadn’t been present.

“That’s just the way that those two are,” Lily chuckled. “They’re honestly more alike than either of them would like to admit.”

“That’s true,” Diane chuckled.

Meanwhile Telram was currently stripping down so that none of his clothes would be damaged by the impurities that his body was going to exude before sitting down in the metal basin.

“Right, I’m going to get started now,” Telram said. “So, unless something goes horribly wrong don’t interrupt me. I should be able to deal with minor issues by myself.”

“Alright,” Gerry nodded as he sat down opposite Telram. “Good luck.”

Telram nodded and closed his eyes. His spiritual body quickly manifested inside his Mana Core and with a thought the massive cloud of Mana inside his Core started to swirl at an increasingly greater speed as Telram started concentrating it down. Telram wasn’t sure how long it took him to concentrate his Mana down to a point where he was happy but when he finally managed it what remained was an orb about the size of a human head floating in the middle of his Mana Core which currently appeared to be large enough to contain a medium sized lake. Right now, Telram could feel his physical body shaking from the strain of what he was doing and knew that he would be unable to concentrate his Mana down even further. This part of Ascending was something that every cultivator did, but most had neither the sheer amount of Mana that Telram had nor was able to concentrate it down anywhere as much as he had now.

“Right then,” Telram said as sweat began to run down his brow in the real world. “Time to start the next step.”

Concentrating Telram reached into the small orb of Mana and attempted to draw out two streamers of Mana. The first streamer burned with the crimson light of Fire Mana and the second glowed with the silvery light of Air Mana. The further a cultivator could concentrate their Mana down the easier it was to actually draw out specific types of Mana which was why Telram had pushed himself to the absolute limit. His Enlightened Soul meant that it was far easier for him to draw out the wrong type of Mana which would weaken the stability of his cultivation technique. These two streamers of Mana started to fuse together and Telram continued to pull out more and more Mana until a small fireball sat next to the larger orb of Mana at the center of his Mana Core. Once he was happy with the fireball, he started to imbue it with the concepts behind his Soul Refining Technique. This fireball was in fact meant to be a sun which was why he had also used Air Mana to create it and as he continued to imbue the small sun with the concepts behind his Soul refining Technique it started to grow once more until it was many times larger than his spiritual body.

Meanwhile in the real world Telram’s body was beginning to give of an immense amount of heat as black sludge started oozing from his pores. Gerry and Jai were both watching him closely in case something started to go wrong but when they saw the ooze beginning to appear, they both breathed a sigh of relief before instantly regretting it when they inhaled as the stench of the foul liquid filled their nostrils. If Telram’s body was starting to refine itself then that meant that Telram had passed the first stage of Ascending and had completed one of the base concepts that would form his Cultivation Technique.

Now that the sun was done Telram pulled two more streamers of Mana from the small orb of refined Mana which was now completely dwarfed by the sun that he had created. The first of these streamers was Fire Mana once again but the second glowed with the brown light of Earth Mana. Telram took a deep breath before beginning what was perhaps the most difficult part of making his cultivation technique. The streamers of Fire and Earth Mana wove together forming a small blob of lava which was quickly covered by a larger streamer of Earth Mana and a smaller streamer of Water Mana. Finally, Telram added a tiny streamer of Air Mana which covered the small planetoid that he had created from Mana.

Now that the planetoid was completed Telram started imbuing the planetoid with the concepts behind his body strengthening technique. The core of Fire and Earth Mana represented his strengthened organs, but especially his heart and lungs. Telram hoped that the combination of these two types of Mana would allow his organs to function even better. Hopefully, this would also allow him to survive for longer without food or water as well. The next layer of Earth Mana primarily strengthened his bones which should allow him to take even more damage and use his physical strength without having to worry whether his body could handle the strain. The third layer of Water Mana would hopefully improve his blood flow allowing more oxygen and Mana to be sent to his muscles. Telram had to admit that the final layer of Air Mana was a bit of an odd choice but Air Mana the sort of Mana to use for sensory techniques so hopefully using this would improve his senses. After a few moments of thought Telram reached inside the slowly expanding sphere and pulled some of the Fire and Earth Mana from the first layer up through the crust which should in theory represent his muscles making him even stronger than before.

When he was finally done Telram was exhausted, but he knew that he couldn’t stop now, or everything would fall to pieces around his metaphysical ears and the backlash would put his cultivation back several months. He could feel his physical body burning up but since neither Jai nor Gerry had decided to stop him from continuing, he threw himself into the next part of his cultivation technique.

Working quickly, he formed another simpler planetoid and started imbuing it with the concepts behind his Resonance Palm technique. Telram had tried to think of something else that might be able to contain the concepts for this technique but in the end, he had decided that it would just be easier if he just used something that he had already used. While Telram’s Resonance Palm technique was one of his strongest trump cards even without using Elemental Mana that didn’t mean that Telram hadn’t thought about how he could improve upon it. By making it so that the technique could be used with all four of the basic types of Elemental Mana Telram could use the opposite type or types of Mana to cause more internal damage to other cultivators. Since his Elemental Affinities were lower than average compared to other cultivators, he had to use every advantage that he possibly could.

Once the planetoid had finished taking on the concepts of his Resonance Palm technique Telram formed a ring of rocks and gas around it and started adding the concepts of his Footsteps of the Thunder God technique. This technique was an odd one even when compared to the other techniques that he’d created since it could be used as both a movement and combat technique. However, adapting it to his Ascendant Realm cultivation technique was easier than most of his other techniques since he had decided to only use Air and Earth Mana to create the rings surrounding the smaller planetoid.

Now that was done Telram returned to the first planetoid and created a smallish moon from Earth Mana and nervously reached out and connected it to the sea on the larger planetoid using neutral Mana. This moon was going to be his internal representation for his Crashing Waves Fist Technique. Using neutral Mana in this manner was something that he wasn’t sure was going to work properly but it seemed to be working just fine for now.

Meanwhile in the real-world Gerry and Jai were beginning to panic a little. Not because they thought anything was going wrong but because the black sludge oozing from Telram’s pores had nearly filled the metal basin that Telram was sitting in. This was very unusual especially for someone like Telram, who had incredibly pure Mana but both of them were prepared to put it down to how weird Telram as in general. Even more surprising was the fact that Telram seemed to be shrinking before their very eyes leading Gerry to postulate that this was happening because Telram’s body strengthening technique was using Telram’s Ascendance to refine his body even further getting rid of anything that it didn’t need.

“I’ll go get a bucket and another basin,” Gerry said quickly. “You keep an eye on Telram.”

Jai nodded in agreement as Gerry left the room leaving him alone with his partner.

“Well, this certainly isn’t going as expected,” the tiger muttered to himself before chuckling in amusement. “Then again. Nothing has gone as expected since I met you. Has it, brother.”

Telram continued to form the various other parts of his cultivation technique. The only major thing remaining now was his Dissonance technique which took on the form of a small nebula. He also formed a small field of asteroids between the two planetoids which contained the parts of several more basic techniques that he had modified slightly.

Once he was done Telram checked a few more things to make sure that everything was stable and would work as he hoped. As far as he could tell everything looked like it would work perfectly so he prepared for the final part of his Ascendance.

The remains of the orb of Mana that he had created at the very start unraveled into hundreds of small streamers and fused with the walls of his Mana Core. This Mana was even more refined than the Mana that he had been using to make the previous layers and proved to be the final touch that set everything in motion. Quite literally in this case as when the final streamer fused with the wall of his Mana Core all of the various pieces of his cultivation technique started moving. The sun at the center of the miniature solar system that he had created started slowly spinning and drawing Mana towards it from the outside while everything else started orbiting it.

“Alright everything looks good,” Telram muttered. “I guess that’s everything.

And with that Telram blacked out. He hadn’t even realized it, but he had been working all night and most of the following morning. It had been about halfway through the night when Gerry had realized that the basin wasn’t going to be large enough to contain all the impurities that were oozing out of Telram’s pores and had spent the rest of the night bailing it out into the second basin that he had hurriedly retrieved. Thankfully, the flow had ceased in the early morning as Telram had finished most of the ‘heavy lifting’ and had moved onto double-checking that everything was working as intended. When Telram finally collapsed from exhaustion Gerry had caught him, not caring about the putrid liquid that still covered his body and gently carried him through to the bathroom where a tub filled with hot water awaited him.

Once Telram had been cleaned Gerry returned him to his bed before looking at his student one more time with pride in his eyes.

“Well, you did it again kid,” he whispered tiredly as the rest of Telram’s family watched on. “You did what everyone else told you was impossible.”