There are a massive number of different types of Mana rich minerals on Nerrus that are useful to anyone who uses Mana whether they are human or Mana Beast. Human cultivators can use them to create new weapons or other tools to help them survive in this cruel world that we live in. On the other hand, Mana Beasts, usually Earth Elemental Mana Beasts can also use these minerals to increase their cultivation speeds or even completely change how they grow in the future. This means that both sides often end up fighting over these valuable resources, and as these fights usually take place in the Beast Lands where the larger deposits of Mana infused minerals are the Mana Beasts usually win. There are some very isolated deposits of these minerals in the Human Lands, but they are very few and far between in comparison to the deposits that can be found in the Mana rich Beast Lands.

-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Mana rich minerals.

The next morning passed fairly peacefully and Telram managed to mine a pretty decent amount of the mithril vein while Jai stood watch. In reality this was a very boring and time-consuming exercise for both of them. Telram had absolutely no experience mining and it actually took him a while to figure out how to actually mine ore properly but when he did things started to progress far more smoothly.

On the other hand, things weren’t getting any more interesting for Jai who was thoroughly bored. The baboons that they had scared away with the illusory Sky Serpent had shown no sign of returning and any other Mana Beasts that had been in the area had also fled when the illusion had appeared. Right now, it appeared as though the illusory Sky Serpent was sleeping after a long journey which wasn’t unusual and the Mana Beasts that had lived nearby knew that it would be very hungry when it woke. Or at least it would be if the Sky Serpent was real.

Taking a break to clear away some of the, Telram took a moment to stretch a little. He had been working for several hours right now and even though he had stopped chipping away at the wall with his small pickaxe he could still here the cracking sound of the tool ringing in his ears.

“How are things going over there, Jai?” he asked as he started putting the mithril ore that he had managed to mine in one of the sacks that they had brought with them. Jai chuffed irritably in response and set him an image of an empty plain with what appeared to be a single tumbleweed being blown across it as well as a sense of extreme boredom making Telram snort in amusement. “That’s a good thing buddy, the last thing that we need is to be attacked by a bunch of Mana Beasts after all. We’re tough but we’re not that tough yet.”

Jai rolled his eyes, at this. As far as he was concerned Telram was underestimating them, but he also knew that taking on a group of Mana Beasts was still going to be a bad idea when they were about an hour’s journey away from Yulis village even if they were moving at full speed.

Telram chuckled as Jai’s grudging agreement wash over him before turning back towards the cliff face and continuing to harvest as much of the mithril that he could. He had been surprised to see that there was more than enough mithril in this vein for his purposes and there was no way that he was going to leave any of it behind if he could possibly help it. Even if he chose not to use it to make his new weapon there were plenty of useful and expensive tools that could be made with mithril so he would have to be a fool to leave any of it behind if he had a choice.

A little after midday Telram took another short break to eat lunch and then decided that he would meditate for a bit while to let his food settle before getting back to mining. Last night he had finally managed to break through to the 8th Layer of the Core Formation Stage and immediately gone to sleep so he hadn’t really had a chance to actually figure out how much more powerful he was now.

As he entered the familiar meditative state that allowed him to form a spiritual body inside the area of his physical body where his Man Core was located, he was surprised to notice how much more Mana was flowing through his body thanks to his body strengthening technique. Once he could clearly see his Mana Core he floated in place for a few seconds as he checked the gem-like Core for any flaws. He knew that he had done a really good job last night, even by his standards. But even looking as hard as he could, he couldn’t see so much as a single flaw which was almost unbelievable, even the areas that he hadn’t been able to get quite right when he had condensed the previous layers looked perfect.

“Jeez, I knew that I’d gotten a lot better at using my soul energy but I didn’t think that I was this good,” Telram muttered to himself before taking a look inside the Core to see how much its Mana capacity had increased by and was once again struck speechless. His Mana capacity had almost doubled which was almost half again the normal increase that most people got when they created a new layer for their Mana Core. Telram had been increasing his Mana capacity more than normal every time that he increased his cultivation level, but the increase had never been quite this large before. Since he had used up all of the Mana that he had cultivated to create his Mana Core’s eighth layer, he only had the tiniest trickle of Mana in the bottom of his Core but even with him doing nothing more Mana was flowing in faster than was normal when he wasn’t cultivating. This was also because of his soul’s recent increase in strength, even people who didn’t cultivate would slowly absorb Mana and for the most part their body would be able to handle it but if someone with a powerful soul didn’t learn to cultivate then there was a pretty good chance that they would become very sick and eventually die because their soul would draw more Mana into their body than they could handle without forming a Mana Core to protect themselves from the negative effects of having a large amount of Mana in their bodies could cause.

That was actually another part of the reason that Telram had decided to create a school. Most people didn’t realise that even if they only created a Mana Core for themselves and didn’t progress any further, they wouldn’t suffer from these negative effects and they would also be stronger for it. This was something that the noble families had been keeping from their citizens because they were afraid that if they started teaching the lower classes to cultivate then they would risk one of them becoming too powerful to control or at least Irian’s family had. There might be a few noble families who understood how much more useful teaching most of your population to cultivate was, but if they did then they weren’t telling any of the others.

Telram sighed and started cultivating, by his estimation even if he spent the majority of his time cultivating, which he couldn’t anymore it would still take him several months for him to fill up his Mana Core so that he could increase his cultivation level once again. However now that he was teaching the kids it was probably going to take him around a year to fill up his Core, providing of course that his soul didn’t become much more powerful in the meantime. Compared to anyone else at the same cultivation level he had more than double the Mana capacity that they did and could even rival some first level Ascendant Realm cultivators.

Jai watched with interest as individual particles of Mana started to swirl over his friend’s head similar to the way that they had done so the previous night eventually forming into what appeared to be a glowing tornado above Telram’s head. This strange phenomenon had started to appear when Telram was cultivating about a month before the evaluation which had surprised Gerry when he had seen it. Gerry had of course seen a similar phenomenon before, most Ascendant Realm cultivators could do something similar. But he had never seen someone who was still in the Human Realm who was capable of doing such a thing before. Jai had seen this phenomenon many times since, but this was the first time it had been such an impressive sight.

About half an hour later Telram opened his eyes with a sigh, he had absorbed a significant amount of Mana even in that short amount of time, but even that was barely even been a drop in the ocean that his Mana Core had become now. As he so often did after he had increased his cultivation level his thoughts turned to Mana Cores and how odd they were. He had long thought that a Mana Core was actually something like a pocket dimension which was why the Mana that was contained within it didn’t affect a cultivator’s body. In a way this would also explain why the space inside of it got larger when another layer was added. The theory that Telram had been working on suggested that the layers of Mana actually bent the space inside of the Mana Core further making the pocket dimension even larger on the inside.

With an explosive sigh he once again turned his attention back towards the cliff in front of him. By his estimation if he didn’t spend too much time chipping the mithril out of the rock and instead focussed on just getting as much of it out as possible, even if that meant taking a bunch of rock that he didn’t need with it. He estimated that he had managed to get enough ore to make his weapon out earlier, so he didn’t really care about the state of the remaining ore. Besides, they had only brought enough food for one night and the illusion wouldn’t last another day, so it wasn’t like he had a lot of choice if he wanted to mine as much of the ore as possible.

Just as the sun was beginning to set behind him Telram finally managed to prise the last of the ore from the cliff and quickly placed the small pile of mithril and rock that had slowly formed behind him in the sacks before calling Jai over and slinging most of them over his friend’s back.

“Right, that’s the last of it let’s get going,” Telram told his friend who nodded his agreement. Jai had become thoroughly tired of the sight of the empty plains that he had been surveying. He knew that what they had been doing was important but that didn’t mean that he had enjoyed in any way.

The two then made their way out from the illusion and started to make their way carefully back towards the village only to freeze in place as an enraged hooting came from behind them. Turning around their eyes widened as they saw the large figure of the Metal Scaled Baboon that they had seen last night hurtling towards them.

With an oath Telram dove to the side and rolled back to his feet just as the baboon landed right where he and Jai had been standing. Slinging the sacks of mithril that he had been carrying away from him so that they wouldn’t get in his way Telram was once again forced to dodge as one of the baboon’s massive arms swung towards him, the metallic claws on the end of its long fingers glinting menacingly as they passed over his head.

As he came back to his feet once again Telram shouted angrily sending a blast of Mana and soul energy in the Mana Beast’s direction as Jai leapt on it from behind and attempted to rip into its back with his claws before leaping away again when the baboon leapt backward, trying to crush him beneath its enormous weight. Much to the tiger’s disappointment his claws had been unable to penetrate the baboon’s hide but at least he had given Telram enough time to recover before he had been thrown off.

Telram glared angrily at the baboon as it snarled at Jai, he had been hoping he would be able to avoid fighting the Metal Scaled Baboon but apparently it had been smart enough to figure out that the timing of the illusory Sky Serpent’s appearance had been a bit odd once it had recovered from the surprise of its sudden appearance. Even without the other baboons backing the Metal Scaled Baboon up, Telram knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy fight, even with him and Jai working together.

Mana condensed around Telram’s hands in a shape reminiscent of Jai’s claws as he activated his Mana Claws technique which was the technique that he had developed from the Ferocious Beast Claws technique that Gerry had given him. The original martial art did have a similar technique in it towards the end of the manual where the most powerful techniques for the fighting style were kept but most of the techniques simply relied on the powerful fingers that someone who trained in the martial art had. This was because most people in the Human Realm had difficulty concentrating enough Mana to create the claws and keep them formed for a useful length of time while fighting. On the other hand, Telram not only had enough Mana and control over it to form these claws but could also vibrate them at a high frequency to increase their cutting ability which was made apparent when an unpleasant keening sound filled the air.

Raising a scaled forearm to block a vicious attack the baboon screeched in pain as the glowing claws that had appeared on the end of Telram’s finger ripped through its tough hide. This was the first time that it had been injured since it had become an Elemental Mana Beast and it knew Telram was weaker than it was so it hadn’t expected that he would be able to injure it.

Once it had recovered from its shock it once again lashed out at Telram in rage. Telram reacted instantly slamming one foot into the ground and unleashed a small shockwave that made him fly sideways outside of the baboon’s reach before slamming his other foot into the ground to reverse direction and swung his fist up into the baboon’s face which had dropped down to his level during its wild swing. This was a new movement technique that he had been working on recently that allowed for sudden acceleration and changes in direction. It was still very rough, but it allowed him to put even more power behind his blows than his father’s Graceful Mist Steps did which was why the baboon actually staggered backwards from the impact of his sudden punch. The attack actually didn’t do that much damage to the tough Mana Beast, but it did prove to it that it couldn’t continue to underestimate its smaller opponent if it wanted to survive this fight.

Telram glanced down at his fist briefly before dodging another attack from the baboon, his Mana Claws was definitely much more effective than simply using his physical strength against an enemy as tough as this one, he might be able to knock it off balance but the baboon’s scales were hard enough that he actually injured himself more than he injured the baboon. This was obviously an issue but Telram already had some ideas to fix it, he probably wouldn’t be able to put this specific idea into practice in this fight but he did have something that could help and started channelling Mana through his body to strengthen it even more than his body strengthening technique normally would.

The baboon’s eyes widened as Telram’s veins started glowing slightly. It may only be a beast, but it still knew Mana when it saw it and the baboon also knew that humans normally didn’t use enough Mana inside of their body to cause an effect like this and was once again forced to re-evaluate its opponent.

Not to be outdone Jai roared loudly and started circulating his own Mana throughout his body as well causing the red parts of his fur to glow as well before charging headlong into the fray. Even strengthened like this Jai knew that he would have a lot of difficulty injuring the more powerful Mana Beast but that didn’t meant that he couldn’t help out.

Soon Telram and Jai had managed to get into the rhythm that they usually used when fighting a Mana Beast that was more powerful than they were individually with one of them performing a single attack while the other dodged a follow up attack from the baboon. Occasionally either Telram would use his Kiai technique or Jai would use one of his soul energy infused roars that the Kiai technique was based off of to keep the baboon from having enough time to regroup.

They both knew that even a glancing blow from the powerful Mana Beast would be enough to injure them fairly badly, this wasn’t the first time that they had fought a more powerful Mana Beast but it was the first time that they had dared to try and fight an Elemental Mana Beast.

This almost proved to be their downfall when the Metal Scaled Baboon gave up on trying to attack its smaller and more agile opponents and instead slammed its fists into the ground creating a small, extremely localised earthquake that caused Jai to stumble. Seeing this the baboon immediately backhanded the tiger with so much force that he went flying several feet backwards.

Telram screamed in rage when he saw his friend’s body bounce off a rock before coming to a stop, he could see that several of Jai’s ribs had been broken from that single attack. Once again one of his feet slammed into the ground and unleashed a shockwave which created a small crater where he had been standing as he shot forwards. Channelling even more Mana into his other leg he kicked the baboon in the head with as much power as he could muster. This time the baboon actually lifted off the ground slightly from the force of the impact as a loud report echoed through the air. But Telram wasn’t done with the baboon just yet and started ripping into the unfortunate Mana Beast’s face with his Mana Claws, intent on doing as much damage as possible.

The baboon thrashed as the vibrating claws of mana ripped into its eyes, screaming in pain until it finally managed to strike a glancing blow that knocked Telram loose. As the baboon staggered to its feet it screeched in rage once again as it realised that Telram had managed to blind it. Even if it managed to survive this fight somehow there was no way that it would survive for very long afterwards.

Telram managed to roll as he landed which significantly reduced the damage that he had taken from the attack. He was still bruised from both the attack and the fall, but he knew that he had definitely come out on top in that last exchange.

Glancing over at Jai, Telram made sure his friend was still breathing before making his next move. Now that he had blinded the baboon he knew that the beast was actually going to be more dangerous in some ways like most wounded animals were so he decided to use his father’s Graceful Mist Steps from here on out as that movement technique was much quieter than the technique that he was working on.

Moving smoothly around the baboon as it started swinging its arms about randomly in the hopes of landing a lucky blow, he waited until the perfect time before slashing at its Achilles tendons with his Mana Claws before dodging backwards once more.

Telram continued to wear the baboon down over the next couple of minutes, slashing at various joints to make it even harder for the baboon to move before moving onto things like the veins in the back of its knees and bleeding it slowly dry.

The whole time he was doing this Telram kept a close eye on Jai to make sure his condition wasn’t getting worse. So, it came as a great relief to him when the baboon finally slumped to the blood-soaked ground and he felt that it would be fairly safe for him to head on over to his friend to check on him.

“Jai, are you okay buddy?” Telram asked he knelt down next to his friend and began checking him over for injuries. He had already noticed that Jai had regained consciousness so he wasn’t too surprise when Jai let him know through a series of images that his several of his ribs had been broken by the blow that had sent him flying and he also had a number of bad bruises from when he had bounced along the ground. The tiger didn’t seem to think that the broken ribs had shifted enough to cause any internal damage but Telram used his spiritual vision to make sure, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that Jai was correct. “Alright buddy do you think that you can get back to town or do we need to find somewhere safe for the night?”

Jai hesitated before asking Telram whether he would have to carry some of the sacks making Telram snort in amusement.

“Jai, there is no way in hell I’m going to let you carry anything, even if we have to leave some of the mithril behind and come back and get it later,” Telram replied and the tiger hesitated briefly before nodding when Telram raised an eyebrow at him.

“Alright then, let’s get you up,” Telram said slowly lipping his hands under Jai’s massive side and starting to slowly lift him up.

Once Jai was on his feet Telram quickly collected all of the sacks of mithril ore and they started moving in the direction of Yulis. They weren’t moving very fast, both due to Jai’s injuries and the fact that Telram was carrying a heavy load but they were still making fast enough progress that they should be able to make it back to town a little after nightfall.