Soul Refining techniques are among the rarest types of techniques. In fact, they are so rare that most cultivators who aren’t members of powerful noble families don’t even know they exist. This is because the noble families know just how powerful someone who has learned a soul refining technique can become and have no desire to just hand that power over to someone who wasn’t one of them. A Soul Refining technique does more than strengthen a cultivator’s soul they can also give a cultivator’s soul certain characteristics that they might not have otherwise or even increase a cultivator’s Elemental Affinities even further.

Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Soul Refining techniques.

The next morning when Telram woke up he immediately started planning what he was going to do next. If he was going to start a revolution then he needed to increase his personal power, the number of allies that he had as well as increasing the power that his allies already had.

Naturally he was going to start with the students that he was already training. So, while he made breakfast for everyone since his mother was still asleep after the events of the previous night he came to a simple conclusion. He needed to get them their own Soul contracted mana Beasts and teach them the technique that he and Jai had used when making their contract. That way his students would receive benefits similar to the ones that he had when he and Jai had made their contract.

Jai also approved of this idea despite the fact that Mana Beasts of different species often didn’t get along very well. This wasn’t always true of course and it was even possible for Mana Beasts that normally competed for territory and prey to get along in certain situations like he and Willa did. When Telram had questioned his friend about why he felt this way Jai had replied by returning the same vision that Telram had shown him all those years ago when they had first formed their bond. The vision that showed adult versions of them both fighting against enemies that neither of them would be able to defeat on their own.

“Agreed,” Telram nodded as he patted his friend on the head fondly. “Their contracted Mana Beasts will be a boon to us all not just them and if they can master the technique that we used then it will give them another advantage over a normal cultivator.”

“What are you two taking about?” Gerry asked as he walked into the room with a loud yawn.

“A few things,” Telram replied as he passed the old man his breakfast. “Mostly about what we were going to be teaching the kids next.”

“Thanks,” Gerry nodded as he took the plate of food from Telram. “And what did you decide on?”

“We’re going to try and teach them the technique that we used when we formed our Soul Contract and get them all a contracted Mana Beast of their own,” Telram replied making Gerry nearly spray his food across the table.

“Are you sure that they’re ready for something like that?” Gerry asked once he had recovered from his surprise. “Will their parents even let them get a contracted Mana Beast?”

“Both excellent questions,” Telram replied. “In fact, I plan on letting the kids ask their parents for permission themselves. We’ll start training their souls much more thoroughly today while telling them that this training is in preparation for them getting a Soul Contracted Mana Beast of their own which should increase their motivation to strengthen their soul energy.”

“That’s true,” Gerry admitted. “But what will you do if their parents tell them that they can’t have a contracted Mana Beast?”

“Have you ever had to tell a child that they can’t have a pet?” Telram laughed. “Much less one that will allow them to become much stronger than they would be without it?”

“Ah, I see,” Gerry chuckled. “That’ll probably work quite well now that you mention it.”

“I thought so too,” Telram replied giving his master a wide grin.

Soon they were joined by the others and once they were done cleaning up Telram made his way out of town once more. Reaching the tree where he taught most of the classes Telram silently sat in its shade. He had a bit of time before his students started to arrive, so he decided to try out something that he had meaning to for quite a while. A few weeks ago, while he had been meditating, he had noticed that some of his soul energy was different from the rest. It seemed to quite literally devour Mana like it was some sort of beast and was very violent. When he had used it in an attack it had been almost twice as powerful as his own soul energy had been but was harder to control. After several tests he had discovered that it was actually Jai’s soul energy. As far as Telram could tell when they had created their soul contract some of their soul energy had been swapped over. Telram had been putting off experimenting with this soul energy because it was only because of how similar his soul energy was to his mother’s that they had been able to heal her.

However now that they had succeeded in healing his mother, he was free to experiment as much as he liked. After trying several things in quick succession that didn’t seem to have any effect on the strange soul energy Telram attempted to combine the two different types of energy. Despite this soul energy originating from Jai Telram could control it just as easily as his own so he split off a small portion of his soul energy and attempted to fuse them together. For the first time since he had begun experimenting with this second type of soul energy it reacted, and pain flooded his body as the two energies seemed to start devouring each other in an attempt to gain dominance but instead of stopping Telram decided to continue the process to see what would happen. After all he had plenty of soul energy to spare and pain didn’t bother him much anymore.

Sure enough, when the two energies finished fusing what remained was a cloud of a third type of soul energy that seemed to have qualities of both his and Jai’s soul energy but was slightly smaller than the two clouds of energy that had gone into making it had been. This new energy was violent but controlled and when he attempted to combine some more of his normal soul energy with it the soul energy was immediately devoured by the new soul energy making him actually gasp in pain and surprise.

It would seem that he had stumbled onto something very interesting indeed. If he turned all of his normal soul energy into this new type, then he would end up with slightly less soul energy when he was done. But when he considered how quickly it had devoured his old soul energy, he decided that it would be worth the trade-off. He had never heard of something like this before and knew that soul energy that devoured the soul energy of others was a boon that he couldn’t afford to give up.

When his students finally arrived, they stood staring at their teacher who was sitting in his usual spot underneath the tree with an expression of extreme concentration on his face. This was nothing unusual Telram usually arrived earlier than his students but what was unusual was the he had removed the top half of his robes and was sweating heavily like he was exerting himself.

Seeing this they decided that they too would sit underneath the tree and cultivate alongside him. From what they could tell Telram was in the midst of some sort of breakthrough and even their kind-hearted teacher would be angry at them if they interrupted him now. But as they approached, they started to feel something press down on them that only increased as they got closer. Realising that something was wrong they came to a stop several meters away but to their surprise the pressure continued to increase eventually forcing all of them except Cameron to their knees before fading suddenly as Telram opened his eyes.

All of the students felt a chill run down their back. Instead of the kind eyes that their teacher usually looked at them with the eyes that looked at them right now resembled those of a ferocious beast and they were reminded of a story that they had heard from a travelling merchant about a young cultivator who had single-handedly taken out more than half of the cultivators that were taking an evaluation with him and had destroyed a part of Palamar city while he was escaping a week afterwards.

Once the merchant had left Henry confronted Telram who had admitted that the story had been about him and was fairly accurate. Henry had naturally been furious with Telram, but the young man had just asked the village head what he would’ve done in the same situation. Hearing Telram’s words Henry fell silent, he had already been told that Irian was the person responsible for Lily’s condition and he found that he couldn’t come up with a better plan than Telram had. In fact, when he had the whole story explained to him by Telram and the others, he was amazed that the plan that Telram had come up with had worked. There were just so many variables that could’ve gone wrong but somehow everything had worked out almost exactly as Telram had planned them to. Honestly it was a little bit frightening to the older man despite the fact that he was an Ascendant Realm cultivator and much stronger than Telram was. The students had also been present when Henry had confronted Telram and the look on his face when he talked about Irian had sent the same chill running down their back that they were feeling now.

But the pressure quickly faded when Telram blinked as he realised that he wasn’t alone.

“Whoops, sorry about that,” he chuckled “I guess I got a bit carried away.”

“Teacher may I ask what you were doing?” Cameron asked cautiously as the others scrambled back to their feet.

It was hard to believe that their normally kind teacher held such rage inside of him, but they knew that he would never hurt them. Everything that he did made them better than they had been the previous day and he asked for very little in return. They all understood that Telram would have been given access to resources and techniques that he would never be able to touch in a tiny village on the border of the human and beast lands if he’d decided to work for a noble family but he had chosen to come here and train them instead. In the world of Nerrus the idea of someone as talented as Telram being acting like this would be seen as nothing short of insane by the majority of cultivators.

But to those who knew him the idea that Telram would do anything else was even more insane. Putting his fate in the hands of people who ruled over their subjects as tyrants was something that was completely against his nature. Telram believed that everyone had a right to prove themselves no matter what sort of background they had. Which was a view that completely opposed the beliefs of the noble families who ruled over the human lands.

In the past few months the students had learned more about the world than they had in the entirety of their lives so far and from the way that Telram spoke about what they had learned so far they knew that they were barely scratching the surface of his knowledge. Knowledge that he shouldn’t have at his cultivation level but handed out to anyone who so much as asked. Even to those who had known him his whole life Telram was an enigma; despite his youth he was wise and kind like a sage but deep within him lived a beast that raged against anything that stood in his way and somehow these two seemingly opposing natures lived in near complete harmony within his powerful frame.

“Hmm, well I suppose I made a little discovery. I think I’ll keep it to myself until I understand it better though,” Telram chuckled in amusement as he looked around at the excited faces of his young charges. “Anyway, today we shall be working on strengthening your souls. So come, sit down and we shall begin.”

The students shook their heads and sighed at their teacher’s antics but did as he requested.

“Very good,” Telram nodded. “Now some of you may be wondering why we are focusing on this right now. Well I have good news for you. I have decided to teach you the technique that Jai and I used to create our contract.”

Excited muttering arose from the students at this pronouncement but Telram just raised a hand to silence any questions.

“Now my soul was far more powerful when I met Jai than yours are right now but that’s why we are going to be focusing on this for the next few weeks,” Telram explained quickly. “We will also be taking a closer look at the Mana Beasts that live in the area so that you can pick one that you feel suits the sort of cultivator that you want to become. I also expect you all to explain this to your parents, I will explain things further if you need me to, but I want you to tell them yourselves first.”

Iris shifted uncomfortably at this announcement, not only because she had no parents to ask but because she knew that she couldn’t afford to keep a Mana Beast with her current income.

“Don’t worry Iris. If you need help supporting your contracted Mana Beast then my family and I are more than happy to help,” Telram told the small girl when he saw how nervous she looked. “I wouldn’t let you fall behind everyone else because of something like that.”

The small girl nodded and gave her teacher a small smile. Telram wasn’t too worried about the Mana Beast that she chose being too expensive to keep as he expected her to pick a Mana Beast that specialised in finding and raising the special plants that could be used to make medicines and herbal baths which meant that it should mostly be able to support itself by eating these plants. There were actually a couple of Mana Beasts that he had an eye on for her already, but he would let her make the final decision.

“Alright then, shall we begin?” Telram asked and his students all nodded silently and closed their eyes to begin meditating.

As soon as they did this Telram unleashed what to him was a tiny amount of soul energy and began exerting pressure on them, similar to what he had unintentionally done when they had arrived. Despite how small this amount of soul energy was the students immediately started to sweat as they felt a weight settle on their shoulders. Now that he was using his soul energy properly instead of it simply leaking out of him like it had earlier, he was able to exert an amount of pressure that was perfectly scaled to each of the students so that none of them were completely overwhelmed. It was a fine line to walk that had tested his control over his soul energy when he’d first attempted it a few months ago but now that he’d had a while to practice it was a much simpler feat. Checking on each of his students every now and again to make sure that he was putting them under the right amount of pressure Telram was pleased to note that he could slightly increase the pressure on all of them thanks to the hard work that they had been putting in recently.

Telram was careful to only use his normal soul energy while he was doing this because while he was confident that he would eventually be able to control the new type of soul energy well enough to use it for something like this he knew that he couldn’t just yet. In fact, it was possible that once he mastered its use it might actually be better than his normal soul energy for things like this.

A few hours later Telram released the pressure on his students who instantly opened their eyes and looked to their teacher who was looking at them proudly. Every single one of them was panting and sweating heavily but no one had raised a single word of complaint.

“Alright let’s take a short break for lunch and then we can start talking about the different Mana Beasts that live nearby,” Telram told his students who raised a small cheer at his words.

While they were having their lunch, the students were free to ask Telram any questions that they had but they all only had one thing that they wanted to ask him.

“So is your mother alright?” Henry asked quietly.

“Yes, she’s fine,” Telram replied as he smiled at Henry. “It even looks like that there will be no lasting negative effects from the procedure and there’s even some hope that she will even be able to cultivate normally again.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Cameron said, and the other students nodded their agreement. They were all very fond of the fragile looking woman who always made sure to ask how they were doing whenever she saw them. It was obvious from the way that she acted around them that she was very proud of what her son was trying to do and cared deeply for him.

As soon as they finished their lunch Telram started talking about the various types of Mana Beasts that lived in the area around Yulis village. Since they had started late today, he just went over the basic information on some of the Mana Beasts that he considered the best candidates to be his students contacted Mana Beasts. He decided that he would go over the rest tomorrow so that they knew all of their options after which they would go into detail on the ones that they were most interested in.

“Okay I think that’s enough for the day,” Telram said as he looked up to see that the sun was almost setting. “Let’s head back.”

When they got back to town Telram decided to drop into Dale to ask the man to make him some weights so that he could increase the effects of his training even further.

“Sure, I suppose I can do that,” Dale nodded. “What sort of weights do you want and how heavy do you want them?”

“Weights that I can wear on my wrists, ankles and around my waist. I want you to make several sizes, all out of Star iron,” Telram explained and Dale frowned at his words but nodded.

“Alright can you give me an idea what you want the sizes to be?” Dale asked handing Telram some parchment and a quill.

Telram quickly sketched a couple of basic designs down for what he had in mind. The first set of weights were fairly small but since they were being made out of Star Iron that didn’t matter too much and the largest weights would be heavier than most weightlifters back on Earth were able to lift for only a few seconds.

“Okay,” Dale nodded taking the parchment from Telram. “I can work with this. I have a couple of other jobs to do first, but I can have the smallest set done in a couple of days.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” Telram nodded. “Have a good night.”

“You too, give my best to your parents,” Dale said as Telram turned to leave the smithy. Without turning around Telram raised a hand in acknowledgement as he walked out.

When he got back to his house, he was surprised to find Iris waiting for him outside. While she had come around for dinner a few times after the night that they had recreated her Mana Core she had stopped coming a few weeks ago as Lily’s condition had continued to deteriorate. Telram hadn’t pushed her on this as Iris had already lost her parents and knew that she had grown close with his mother over the past few months. It was hard enough for him to watch what was happening to his mother and he couldn’t imagine what it was like for someone who couldn’t do anything to help her.

“Hey Iris,” he greeted the girl who jolted in surprise before turning to look at him. “Are you here to see mum?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replied fidgeting nervously under his gaze.

“Well then come in,” he chuckled as he walked past her. “If you’re staying for dinner, you’ll have to put up with my cooking though.”