In my opinion all cultivators should learn basic medicine and healing techniques. The ability to repair damage to both their body and those of others is an extremely useful skill that can save lives even if it isn’t something that they specialise in. There are also many healing techniques that can help improve your control over Soul Energy making it even more useful even to the average cultivator. Learning more about the human body can also aid those trying to cultivate a body strengthening technique as they can notice the signs of anything going wrong far earlier if they understand how their body works and take steps to prevent further damage and improve the technique that they are using.

Excerpt from Telram’s note on Medicinal Techniques

Using the part of his Inner Vision technique that allowed him to view the inside of his body Telram placed his consciousness into his injured arm and looked around at the damage that he had done to it. As expected, the damage was severe, and he knew that he was going to have a lot of work to do if he was going to save the limb. His bones had shattered like glass, tearing through the surrounding flesh, luckily his strengthened body meant that the fragments of bone hadn’t moved too far from their original position, so while it would take a lot of work Telram was sure that he could return them to where they were supposed to be and allow the bones to heal before moving on to the soft tissues. He knew that it would likely take him days if not weeks before his arm would be in any shape to be used and even longer than that before he would be able to use it in combat, but he was sure that he would eventually be able to.

Fergus glanced sideways at Telram as he and Jai ran along, it had been a few hours now since they had exited the forest and he had yet to see any signs of them being pursued. But after all this time Telram had yet to open his eyes though he had noticed the boy’s face twitch occasionally as though he was in pain. Activating his Spiritual Vision Fergus took a closer look at Telram’s arm and as he did so his eyes widened in surprise as he saw that several bone fragments had been moved back into place and bound together with Spiritual Energy.

While Fergus had seen people using techniques like this before they were people who specialised in this sort of thing and they were known for keeping these sorts of techniques to themselves unless they were paid a lot of money to teach someone and as far as he knew Telram’s family couldn’t have afforded those sorts of lessons. However, for now all Fergus could do was put another item on his list of things that were strange about Telram.

Several hours later Telram’s eyes fluttered open and he looked around before fixing his gaze on Fergus.

“Is anyone following us? He asked in his normal, calm tone of voice like he hadn’t been performing magical surgery for almost a day. He had managed to get most of the larger pieces of bone back to where they were supposed to be and was now providing the damaged cells in his arm with enough Mana for them not to become necrotic.

“Not that I’ve seen,” Fergus replied as he ran along beside Jai. “We’re still within Irian’s territory though, so we should stay on guard for a few more hours.”

“Right,” Telram replied hopping off of Jai who chuffed happily at his friend. “Any signs of my family either?”

“None that I have seen,” Fergus replied shaking his head. “But that’s a good sign.”

“I know,” Telram sighed. “But it would be good to know that they’re safe.”

“I’m sure they are,” Fergus said firmly. “I’ve known Gerry for a long time, and I know what he is cable of. There’s no way that any of those idiots in Irian’s guards can even touch him or your family if he gets serious. They always forget that cultivation level isn’t everything and forget that he’s someone that has been studying and creating martial techniques for longer than some of them have been alive.”

Telram nodded, Gerry had actually shown Telram a little bit of what he was personally capable of on a hunt about a year ago and Gerry had proceeded to destroy several Mana Beasts more powerful than the bear that Aran had defeated the first time he had taken Telram hunting. The Mana Beasts hadn’t even been able to touch the frail looking old man who had danced around their attacks at speeds that Telram had barely been able to follow before finishing each one off with a single blow much faster than Telram had been able to see.

And that was without access to the other things that he actually specialised in which as far as Telram was concerned was even more impressive, after all it would’ve been much more difficult to escape Palamar if Gerry hadn’t been able to Inscribe the Beast Cores to make them explode or control the puppets that they had used to cause chaos in the city.

If Gerry had been directly controlling the puppets instead of simply reprogramming them to move to a specific place and follow basic orders from anyone holding the command Core, then Telram was certain that his arm wouldn’t be in the shape that it was right now and his own personal combat puppets were far more dangerous than the ones that they had used in Palamar.

Telram felt a chill run down his back as he thought about the puppets that Gerry had shown him a couple of years ago. The old man had been making them in secret since his old ones had been confiscated and dismantled by Irian’s father years before Telram had even been born and unlike the puppets that Telram was used to which were almost human in appearance these puppets were unmistakably weapons. While the puppets traditionally used for sparring by rich cultivators could wield weapons, they were designed so that a cultivator could disarm them like they could an enemy cultivator, but the weapons of Gerry’s puppets were built into their limbs.

Smuggling the puppets out of the city had been difficult but they had managed to hide the last of the ten that Gerry had been able to complete outside of Palamar a fortnight before the evaluation. With those puppets Telram suspected that Gerry would be able to stand against even Irian himself long enough that Telram’s parents could escape let alone against a group of guards.

They continued to chat for a while as they ran along Fergus carefully asking about how Telram had come up with the technique that had destroyed his arm and how the young man knew how to fix his arm.

“Well the technique was basically just a combination of my Resonance Palm and Dissonance techniques, I’m not entirely sure why it worked the way it did I just had a feeling that it would work,” Telram explained as vaguely as he could. While he might like Fergus and even trust him to an extent, he still wasn’t about to tell the old man anything that he hadn’t told his family.

“As for what I’ve done with my arm,” Telram continued after a few seconds. “I’ve already spent a lot of time researching how my body works so that I could make my Body Strengthening technique so putting bones back together is fairly easy and using Soul Energy to bind them together was a pretty easy thing to figure out. I’m actually more worried about what will happen when I have to fix the rest of my arm. That stuff’s a lot more complicated and easier to mess up.”

Fergus nodded slowly he knew that Telram’s Body Strengthening technique was a bit different from the ones that he was familiar with, but he hadn’t thought that much about it so at least this explanation made sense to him. But he did share Telram’s worry about working on the damaged soft tissues in his arm, he had been badly injured a few times in his past and he knew how difficult it was to work on that sort of damage.

Just then Jai snorted loudly and came to a screeching halt causing Fergus and Telram to follow suit and turn to look at the tiger in surprise.

“What is it Jai?” Telram asked watching his friend as the tiger started sniffing around the ground. Strangely the tiger didn’t seem worried, so he was pretty sure that they weren’t in any danger from whatever he had noticed so Telram wasn’t too surprised when the ground between them started moving and a familiar figure slowly rose up from it making him and Fergus relax.

“Hello Diane,” Telram greeted the older woman. “Good to see that you got away safely.”

“Thank you,” Diane replied shortly as she locked her eyes on Telram’s wounded arm with a complicated expression on her face. “How’s your arm?”

“I’ll be fine,” Telram said. “But we can talk as we move; I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you being able to use that technique that you were using to transport all of us?”

Telram knew that a technique like the one that Diane had been using to travel through the ground must have a considerable Mana cost, but he was also sure that if they didn’t get outside of Irian’s territory as fast as possible then they would be in trouble. Even if they hadn’t been followed from Palamar Irian still had guards patrolling the borders of his territory to make sure that neither the forces of another lord nor powerful Mana Beasts could enter. Telram had also long assumed that their presence was also to prevent people from crossing the border to escape from Irian’s lands, which was something that wasn’t even that unusual back on Earth.

“I could,” Diane replied. “But only a short distance, so we should wait until we actually need it. My Earth Dive technique is really only for transporting the person who is using it, but I can use it on multiple people at once.”

Telram nodded, he had sort of expected that that might be the case and it was good to know that if they needed to, they had an ace up their sleeves that would allow them to slip past any patrols that they encountered. Obviously, it would be best if they didn’t get in a situation that they actually didn’t have a choice but to use Diane’s technique because using it in a way that it wasn’t meant for would massively increase the strain it would put on her body.

“Alright,” Telram replied as they started running again. By his calculations they would reach the border of Irian’s territory around midday tomorrow if they kept the same pace all night. He might have to take another break to work on his arm but that shouldn’t slow them down that much.

Sure enough, by noon the next day the group had managed to reach the border of Irian’s territory and as Telram had predicted there was a large number of guards who were patrolling the area having obviously received orders to try and stop Telram and company before they could escape. In fact, the number of guards patrolling the border was easily three times what Telram had been led to expect leading him to the conclusion that Irian had contacted guards from nearby villages to try and make sure that they couldn’t get past. The guards had even made earthen towers that had men stationed on top as lookouts every few hundred meters.

Crouching down out of sight the group started going over their options.

“Diane how far past the border can you get us if we don’t have another way to get past? Telram asked.

“Hmm, not very far if it’s all of us maybe 500 meters,” Diane replied. “There is another option however.”

“You take us one at a time or just those of us who are less likely to be able to sneak past, if you do that then you should be able to increase the distance that you can travel with a passenger” Fergus finished for her. The old man rubbed his chin as he said this looking at Telram, or more specifically Telram’s damaged arm. Glancing at Diane the two nodded Fergus knew that he should be able to get past the guards unnoticed simply because it was unlikely that any of the guards would be able to even see him if he was moving at full speed if he chose the right moment. He was also certain that Jai would be able to get past if they waited until nightfall, but he wasn’t willing to risk Telram getting caught with his arm in the condition that it was in, especially after he had spent so much time working on his arm, it was obvious just looking at him that Telram was exhausted.

Seeing the silent conversation between his two older companions Telram sighed, he already knew what they were thinking before they even spoke.

“You’re right,” he said as Fergus and Diane turned to look at him. “If Diane’s going to transport one of us across the border it should be me, after all with this arm I can’t fight if we get caught.”

“Good, at least you understand your limitations,” Diane said. “Well we should try and get some rest right now; we’ll make our move after dark.”

After conversing for a few more minutes Telram, Jai and Diane lay down so that they could get some sleep while Fergus took the first watch. A few hours later he gently shook Diane awake for her watch telling her that none of the patrols had come anywhere near them.

“You make sure to get plenty of sleep,” Diane said as she stretched. “I’ll wake you guys when it’s time for us to make our move.”

Despite the fact that they had told Telram and Jai that they would all take a watch while they were waiting for nightfall the older members of the group had silently decided that they would let the other two rest while they split the watches in two as they knew that jai and Telram were far more exhausted than they had let on. After all they must have been working hard to get prepared for their escape the whole week since the Evaluation and had probably been extra hard in preparation leading up to it which combined with being on the run for almost two days meant that they must have been about to collapse.

Fergus looked over to where Telram and Jai were sleeping with a smile on his face, Telram looked more relaxed than Fergus had ever seen him, his chest was rising gently with every breath as he leaned up against the soft fur of Jai’s side. It was easy to forget when he was talking to him that Telram was still just a boy due to how mature he acted and his intimidating appearance, but those things seemed somehow less obvious right now.

“They’re quite impressive, aren’t they?” the old man whispered to his friend with a gentle smile on his face.

“Well they’re definitely a lot more interesting than any of their peers,’ Diane replied. “In reality I can’t remember the last time that I saw a pair as talented as these two.”

“That’s not exactly what I was talking about but you’re not wrong” Fergus snorted in reply. “Their talents are certainly impressive in and of themselves but I’m actually more impressed with how they’re handling the situation that they have found themselves in.”

Diane nodded slowly in response to Fergus’ statement unable to formulate any other reply, if she was being honest with herself she was a little afraid of Telram after witnessing what he was truly capable of during their escape but she couldn’t deny that other than that he seemed to be quite a nice young man but remembering the ruined bodies of the cultivators that he had attacked sent chills down her spine. From what he had told her she was guessing that he hadn’t expected the technique that he had used to be as powerful as it had been but in some ways that just made it worse and she dreaded what he could become capable of when he reached the higher levels of cultivation.

“Don’t worry,” Fergus told her calmly. “I don’t believe that he’ll become a monster. At least not while he’s still got things that are important to him.”

“But what happens if Lily can’t be cured?”

“If you’re worried about that then we need to find more things for him to care about,” Fergus said as he laid down.

“You’re right but what?”

“I’m sure that Gerry can think of something, he’s known Telram much longer than us and he understands what it’s like to lose something.”

Diane nodded at Fergus’ cryptic words and let the older man go to sleep leaving her alone with her thoughts, she didn’t regret joining them in their escape from Palamar, but she was still worried about the sort of man Telram could become.

Some time later Telram himself woke up and upon seeing how low the sun was in the sky glared angrily at Diane and the still sleeping Fergus for a few seconds before shaking his head in exasperation and starting to meditate to stabilise his cultivation after the events of the past couple of days. He had been more focussed on the more obvious damage to his arm, so he was surprised to see that his Mana Core was in worse shape than he had anticipated. Cracks ran all through every layer of his Mana Core and after examining it further Telram realised that if the had let this be any longer then there was a good chance that he could’ve ended up in almost as bad a state as his mother and quickly went to work repairing the damage which thanks to his recent experience using Soul Energy and Mana to repair the bones in his arm things went smoother than he had originally anticipated. It would still be a while before he could properly cultivate again safely which was disappointing considering that his cultivation had been stalled for about six months while he helped his father and Gerry in the final preparations for leaving Palamar and trained for the Evaluation. His cultivation had already been slowed down because of him creating his Martial Techniques so this extra set back was very irritating especially because of the work that he had been doing creating the foundation for his new cultivation technique for when he entered the Ascendant Realm.

Any further thoughts on the subject were put on halt when someone reached out and gently shook him. Blinking as he opened his eyes and saw Fergus hovering over him, he looked around and saw that the others were ready to move out. It was finally time for them to cross the border and escape Irian’s clutches for good.