Soul Energy is perhaps even more mysterious than the Mana it is used to control. If a cultivator has a powerful Soul, then they can absorb more Mana faster and control it better than someone with a weaker soul could. It can also be used for a wide variety of other skills which can provide a variety of effects from being able to see how much Mana someone has all the way through to attacks that affect the Soul of an opponent directly.

-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Soul Energy.

Three months had passed since Telram’s training session with his father and he had come a long way since then. In these past few months he had been growing at a rate that would have been unprecedented on Earth and was now only a little over a head shorter than he had been when he had died. His long legs swallowed the road with every step as he ran back up the street to his home, today he was going to see Gerry so that he could return the cultivation manual that he had been given and hopefully learn some things as he did so.

Heading to his room he grabbed the bag with the manual and his notes he had prepared before heading out for his morning run. Lily shook her head at her son’s enthusiasm as he ran back into the living area of their home where she had been waiting for him.

“You got everything you need Telram?” she asked.

Telram nodded. “Well then let’s get going, Gerry’s waiting.”

They headed back out down the street towards the large building where the scholars who worked for the city lord worked. Telram paused briefly to take in the impressive sight. The building towered over most of the other buildings in town it’s walls covered in intricate wooden carvings of men and women fighting against monstrous beasts and practicing various martial arts. The building was named the Halls of Heavenly Knowledge and was where all the research of Martial Skills and cultivation techniques took place in the city.

The two cultivators standing guard at the entrance looked at Lily briefly, sneers crossing their faces briefly as they recognised her. But they made no moves to stop her or Telram from entering and soon the pair were surrounded by the bustle of the scholars going about their day to day work.

Lily calmly led her son through the main hall ignoring the disparaging glances of her former colleagues. Reaching a wooden door at the end she knocked on it and a voice replied form within.

“Come in.”

Lily frowned this wasn’t Gerry’s voice and usually he was the only person that entered his office, she opened the door to look inside and was surprised to find a young man sitting at her former boss’ desk, the man looked up.

“Oh, it’s you,” the man sneered causing Telram to bristle. He’d had enough of people disrespecting his mother and was about to speak up when his mother glanced back at him and shook her head, she knew what he was thinking but she couldn’t let him anger this man.

“Hello Pavel,” she said through gritted teeth. “May I ask where Master Gerald is?”

“That old fossil lost his job months ago,” Pavel replied offhandedly before returning his attention to the papers in front of him.

Lily stood staring at the greasy looking man in shock. She had been sure that Gerry would have worked here until the day he died, there was nothing that old man loved more than researching Mana and things related to cultivation. But most importantly he hadn’t told her he had lost his job.

Lily bit her lip, there was only one reason that Gerry wouldn’t have told her; he had lost his job because of her.

“I see, good day Pavel, come Telram,” said Lily pulling her son back through the hall, only to be stopped as Telram froze.

His eyes were fixed on a large slab of carved rock, he felt something brushing at the edges of his memory, but it slipped away as his mother roughly pulled on his arm once again. Lily wanted to leave; she no-longer had any friends left within these walls.

Once he had recovered from whatever it was that had stopped him Telram asked what they were going to do now.

“I’m going to take you to Gerry’s house. I’m not ready to face him myself but you should still go and ask him what you need to,” Lily replied, as she walked down the street towards the part of town where the rich and influential citizens lived.

Coming to a stop outside the gate of Gerry’s mansion she sighed gesturing to her son to go inside though she truly wanted to go inside as well, and see the man that had seen her as a child and decided to train her to become a scholar just like himself after seeing the same hunger for knowledge in her eyes that shone within his own. But knowing that he had given that up because of what had happened to her she couldn’t yet bring herself to do so. So, she left another child on his doorstep his eyes burning brighter than hers ever had and turned and walked away.

“Uncle Gerry! Are you home!?” Telram shouted as he walked through the gate and up the stone path towards the main building. But there was no answer from the house. Usually a mansion this big would have a few servants but Gerry hated that sort of thing so that wasn’t surprising to Telram.

He started to call out once again as he got closer to the house but stopped as he heard a strange sound coming from the back of the large building, shaking his head he walked around the back to where a grey-haired man was fighting with strange wooden puppets that moved by themselves using martial arts that Telram was familiar with. This grey-haired man was Gerry. Although Gerry was a scholar, he mostly researched Martial Arts and cultivation techniques and had made dozens of his own as well as variations of existing ones over the years he had worked for the city lord and was quite a powerful cultivator in his own right.

Gerry was surprisingly spry for a man of over seventy years of age. His movements were like those of a man at least forty years his junior. The Mana that he had absorbed over the years had extended his lifespan and strengthened his body and decreased the effects age would have usually had on him. This allowed him to continue to work and practice Martial Arts longer than a man on Earth would have been able to normally, which meant that he was even more knowledgeable than he looked.

Gerry noticed Telram watching him as he leaned back dodging a blow from one of the magic puppets. A smile crossing his face as he decided to show off a bit for the boy’s benefit.

Mana coalesced around his right hand as he activated one of his Martial Skills. This skill was known as Invisible Wind Blade and as its name suggested it created an invisible blade of wind that could be used to slice through most things. Gerry proceeded to demonstrate this ability as he started to slice through the puppets he was fighting and soon he was surrounded by a pile of kindling.

Turning towards his audience he grinned at the look of awe upon Telram’s face it was good to know that some people still appreciated his skills. Invisible Wind Blade was a Mid-Ascendant Ranked Martial Skill that could be used to increase the cutting effects of any bladed weapon. Only those who had mastered its use could use this Skill unarmed like he had. Which showed that Gerry was far more powerful than his previous position of Head Scholar might have suggested.

Gerry wasn’t worried about the puppets he had destroyed. They were made using a Beast Core that had been programmed with basic instructions using a Soul Energy Skill and wood from a type of tree that had absorbed Mana known as a Mystic Ironbark. This tree was known for both its toughness and its ability to regenerate. The puppets still had both of these attributes and so long as the core that powered them had Mana they would eventually reconstitute themselves. These puppets were made to Gerry’s specifications and the core within them was from a fourth Rank Elemental Mana Beast meaning that they were the equivalent power of a fourth Rank Ascended Human. That was a little lower than Gerry’s own rank but when fighting in a group they could still give him a challenge. Especially since they had been programmed with different Martial Arts and Skills which they could use to fight him until they were either destroyed or the core that sustained them ran out of Mana. To top off their usefulness the Beast Cores can both be charged with Mana manually and can slowly restore their stores of Mana when left unused for long enough meaning that he could repair them with ease.

“So, what brings you here Telram?”

Telram held out the cultivation manual that he had been given.

“I’m here to return this,” he explained. Gerry reached out and gently took the book from Telram’s outstretched hands.

“I see. You didn’t have to return this you know,” he said a sad look passing over his face as he turned it over in his hands.

“I don’t need it anymore I took my own notes and made my own version,” Telram said.

This naturally caught Gerry’s attention he had never heard of someone going to the trouble of making their own version of a cultivation manual for the basic technique before and he asked if Telram had brought it with him.

Reaching into his bag again he pulled out his note and silently handed them over to Gerry. Who snatched them from Telram’s hand and started reading through it humming and grunted as he did so.

Telram shook his head and sat down to wait patiently as Gerry read his notes. After a few minutes of reading Gerry looked up from the small book with an impressed look on his face.

“This is impressive! You’ve managed to sieve through all the useless parts and take only the information you needed. I’ve seen this before in more advanced cultivation manuals that we found in some ruins over the years. I’m impressed that you took the time to make these notes for such a basic technique and it seems like it worked out well enough for you as well,” Gerry said looking at Telram’s tall frame.

“Yeah, my body’s about at its limit though,” Telram replied.

It was true. He had been having both growing pains from his sudden growth spurt as well as feverish moments recently. This was a sure sign that his body contained far too much Mana without a Mana Core.

“But before I started to form my Mana Core I had a few questions to ask the number one cultivation expert in the city,” Telram continued.

An embarrassed look passed over Gerry’s face before a determined one replaced it, he would do whatever he could to help Telram. It was the least he could do after failing to help his mother.

“Ask away.”

Telram’s golden eyes locked onto Gerry’s, “What happened to my mother’s Mana Core?”

Gerry flinched at Telram’s words, but he was unable to look away from the boy’s eyes. The look within them was something that he had never seen before in such a young child. If he didn’t know that the person before him was only eight years old, he wouldn’t have believed it. What was even more worrying was that Telram had found out about Lily’s condition and Gerry knew that there was no way that Aran and Lily would’ve told him or even talked about it while Telram was around.

Which meant…

“How did you manage to learn Spiritual Vision in such a short length of time?” Gerry gasped.

Spiritual Vision was a Soul Energy technique that allowed the user to ‘see’ certain things about another cultivator. The first part of the skill allowed one to sense how powerful someone else was. It was only accurate up to a certain point after the user’s own level of power, but it was still an incredibly useful technique to know. The next part of the Skill allowed the User to see the Mana Core within someone else or the Beast Core within Beasts. There was another part of the technique that would allow the user to see what Elemental Affinities someone was able to use but that technique hadn’t been included in the manual that Telram had been given.

“I learned all the Soul Energy techniques in the manual,” Telram stated angrily. “Now, tell me what happened to my mother!”

Gerry’s eyes widened further. Not at Telram’s statement, which was surprising enough, but because of something else. Telram was unconsciously broadcasting his anger with his Soul Energy. The force of this rage was quite painful for Gerry because he obviously hadn’t been expecting something like this to happen. The wave of force that Telram was producing wasn’t technically a martial technique but that didn’t make it any less effective.

Sweat poured down his face as he created a protective barrier with his own Soul Energy. Thankfully Telram’s soul energy wasn’t actually powerful enough to actually harm Gerry once he had erected his defences. It was still surprising though since Gerry had never heard of someone who hadn’t even formed their Mana Core yet being able to do something like this.

“Cal- Calm down Telram, if you keep releasing that much bloodlust, you’re going to hurt someone,” Gerry stammered as he felt Telram’s Soul Energy beginning to press down on his hastily erected defences.

Telram’s face twitched as he realised something was wrong and he tried to control his emotions.

Gerry started to relax as the pressure on his defences started to fade.

He was worried about the consequences of telling Telram about the what had happened to his mother. But he knew that not telling him would be a betrayal of the young girl that he had trained to be his replacement and was forced to betray on the orders of the man whom he served.

His expression firmed as he made his decision.

“You see Telram…’”