Mana Plants are plants with an unnaturally high amount of Mana inside of them much like Mana Beasts are animals that have evolved to contain mana inside their bodies so that they can grow stronger. Many of them have strange effects much more powerful than the medicinal herbs that can be found in the human lands. As a Mana Plant grows these effects grow with it and the plant can even gain a sort of intelligence and take upon a humanoid form much like a Sage or Divine Beast can. Unlike a Beast however this body would still be made of wood. Mana Plants can be used to make medicinal pills that are far more powerful than the ones made using normal herbs and as such are very sought after in the human lands. However, humans are not the only ones who wish to use these plants for their own benefit. There are several types of Mana Beast that have a symbiotic relationship with Mana Plants and one of the main things these Beasts provide the Plants is protection from those who wish to take them for themselves.

Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Mana Plants.

“So, let me get this straight,” Telram sighed once he had found out what was going on. “You want me to take part in this tournament so that I can get you a Mana Beast that you want?”

“Well yeah, but it’s a Forest Pixie,” Iris whined. “She’s the best possible Mana Beast for me and you know it.”

Telram let out a long-suffering sigh. As much as he wished he could, he couldn’t deny that Iris was right. A Forest Pixie was the perfect Mana Beast for her to form a Soul Contract with. A Forest Pixie was a fairly weak Mana Beast that resembled a tiny person with compound eyes and dragonfly-like wings and was basically harmless when it was on its own. The problem was though that Forest Pixies lived in massive swarms with over a thousand members and if they worked together then they could tear Mana Beasts and cultivators that could crush them without even trying if they were alone.

But that wasn’t the reason that a Forest Pixie was such a good match for Iris. No, the thing that Forest Pixies were known for were the symbiotic relationships that they had with a massive variety of Mana Plants. Wherever a swarm of Forest Pixies went a forest with an unusual number of Mana Plants began to grow. Telram believed that this was because Forest Pixies brought the seeds of any Mana Plants that they could find with them when they decided to move to a new area. However, this theory would be extremely hard to prove since Forest Pixies attacked any cultivator who got close.

“What makes you think that I’d even be able to get it?” Telram asked eventually. “While participation in this tournament is limited to those who are around my age you know as well as I do that most of those who will sign up will be in the Ascendant Realm.”

This was true. As far as Telram could tell the Lord who ruled over this town had put together this tournament to show off certain cultivators that he had a relationship with. This meant that there would probably be a handful of favourites to win that were quite a bit stronger than a normal cultivator would be at their age because their families had libraries of powerful techniques and could buy things that could enhance cultivation. The rewards that one could gain from taking part in these tournaments were attractive to other cultivators as well and those who proved themselves were often taken in by the noble families or rich merchants who frequented this sort of event. In fact, the hope of being taken in and being provided for by a rich family was just as great a draw to a lot of these cultivators as the prizes being offered were. Cultivation was expensive after all.

This tournament was set up so that you would win a certain number of points for defeating opponents and progressing to the next round.

In the first round you were broken up into several groups and you fought against several other cultivators in a sort of mini tournament. During the first round there were multiple fights going on at the same time so that they could save enough time so that they could hold round one and two on the same day.

Round two was the first real round of the tournament and the people who won through the first round would each fight another cultivator who had also beaten the other members of their own groups until there were only four remaining. This second round would give twice the number of points per cultivator defeated as the previous round allowing cultivators to exchange them for some fairly significant rewards even if they were defeated in the next round.

The following day would be the day of the semi-finals which meant that there would be only two fights that day between the four remaining cultivators. Finally, the finals would be held the next day so that the cultivators could recover properly from the semi-finals.

As he had already mentioned Telram would have to defeat his opponent in the semi-finals to earn all of the points that he would need to obtain the Forest Pixie. And even if he did earn enough points to exchange them for the Forest Pixie, he would have to hope that his opponent in the finals wasn’t after the Forest Pixie themselves because the winner of the tournament got first choice of the prizes, followed by the person who came second, third and so on. Once the winner had exchanged his points for the prizes they were after the cultivator who had come in second would be able to pick from the remaining prizes and after that the third and then fourth places would get their chance and so on and so forth.

“You’re always telling us that cultivation levels don’t matter as much as skill and other things,” Iris pointed out. “Besides we’ve all seen you fight against people who are supposed to be stronger than you and give them a much harder fight than most people would expect.”

“Fair enough,” Telram chuckled. “Alright let’s head back Iris. We’ll ask the others what they think before we make a decision. I’m not carrying enough money on me right now to pay the entry fee anyway.”

“So, you’ll do it?” Iris asked excitedly as Telram turned to walk away.

“If the others agree,” Telram nodded. “I’m not promising that I can get to the semi-finals, but I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t give it a shot. If you can convince a Forest Pixie to form a Soul Contract with you it should provide you with quite a lot of benefits.”

This was true while their physical strength left a lot to be desired Forest Pixies were incredibly fast and could recover from injuries that could kill most other Mana Beasts. They could also produce a strange powder that makes plants grow faster and were immune to most poisons. They also became much more powerful when they became Elemental Mana Beasts. The most common transformation that a Forest Pixie underwent was they became an Elemental Mana Beast known as a Woodmother or Woodfather depending on whether the Pixie was male or female. Either way these Mana Beasts were very intelligent had had a lot of powerful magical abilities that used Earth and Water Mana and were very dangerous as each one also controlled a swarm of Forest Pixies as their King or Queen.

Once they returned to the stall where Gerry had been selling the puppets that he had made they immediately explained the situation to Gerry. Gerry immediately agreed that it sounded like a good idea since the Forest Pixie wasn’t the only thing that you could receive by exchanging the points that you earned for defeating opponents. These tournaments also attracted their fair share of gamblers as well and there were always plenty of bookies around to take their bets so Gerry wasn’t worried too much about the money that they would lose paying for Telram’s entry fee.

Soon enough the others started arriving back and reported that they had managed far better than Iris had. All of them except for one had managed to find the Mana Beasts that they had been looking for. This didn’t surprise Telram much; he had made sure to teach his students about the monsters that were both common and well-sought after for both contracted Beasts and for use in medicines or even food in the case of the Emerald Hare that Iris had been looking for. Actually, Iris had pointed out a stall that was selling an Emerald Hare on the way back just in case Telram ended up not entering the tournament.

“So did Iris find an Emerald Hare to form a Soul Contract with?” Henry asked once everyone was present.

“Well yes, she did indeed find an Emerald Hare that doesn’t look like it’s been treated too badly by the hunters who caught it,” Telram admitted. He had convinced her to take him to the stall where she had found the hare and express interest in buying it so that she had another option in case he failed to obtain the Forest Pixie.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’,” Fergus sighed.

“But she found an extremely rare Mana Beast that’s an even better fit for her,” Telram explained. “A Forest Pixie.”

“Forest Pixies aren’t technically very rare since they live in swarms that can have hundreds of members,” Gerry explained seeing the frowns that covered the faces of the other students. “But they are very hard to capture and Telram is right; a Forest Pixie is a better match for Iris.”

“Okay did you get it, or is there something else you haven’t told us?” Fergus asked.

“This particular Pixie is one of the prizes for a tournament that is starting in about an hour,” Telram replied. “So, Iris wanted to find out if you guys would be comfortable with me taking part in the tournament so that I could get it for her.”

“If the Mana Beast is that good a match and you think that you can get it then go for it,” Dale rumbled. The blacksmith was quite fond of Iris and was confident that Telram would perform well in the tournament, so he didn’t see anything wrong with this idea.

“I’ll have to get through to the semi-finals to earn enough points for the Forest Pixie,” Telram told him quickly but the large man just shrugged.

“You’d know better than me if you can make it that far, but I still think it’s worth the risk,” Cameron replied.

“Agreed, this is too good a chance to pass up,” Fergus nodded. “Besides you could use some more practice fighting against different opponents Telram. You’ve started to get used to our fighting styles now. Now don’t get me wrong here; that’s great. I just don’t want you to pick up any bad habits.”

“Just do it Telram,” Diane agreed. “You know that you’ll regret it if you don’t. You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen at your cultivation level and I’m willing to bet that you can beat any spoilt brat that you’re likely to end up fighting in a tiny tournament like this.”

“Okay fine,” Telram nodded. “It’ll give me a good chance to show the kids that what I’ve been saying about cultivation level only being one way to measure strength anyway.”

“Yes!” Iris exclaimed happily before clasping both hands over her mouth as she turned crimson in embarrassment as the others all turned to look at her.

Telram chuckled happily as he patted the small girl on the shoulder before taking some coins from Gerry and heading off to sign up for the tournament.

“Do you really think that he can get to the semi-finals?” Tim asked curiously. “I know that teacher is strong but isn’t his cultivation level only a little above average for his age? What if he ends up having to fight someone at the Ascendant Realm?”

“He’ll be fine,” Gerry snorted in amusement. “He’s tough enough to fight the three of us on a nearly daily basis. Yes, we were holding back but even so we have been fighting him at the level of an Ascendant Realm cultivator since we got here, and he’s only gotten stronger since. I’d like to meet someone at his age who can beat him because they would truly be worthy of the title of ‘genius.’”

“I thought you hated that word?” Fergus chuckled. “Are you finally admitting that Telram is indeed a genius himself.”

“Oh, he’s a genius alright,” Gerry sighed. “A genius of hard work and diligence. He’s been cultivating and training since he was a kid and I’ve never seen him take so much as a single day off since he started. Have any of you ever wondered why his cultivation level is so low despite his obvious talent for cultivating?”

“Well, yeah,” Cameron admitted. “Now that you mention it.”

“If he really wanted to then he would’ve broken through to the Ascendant Realm more than two or possibly even three years ago,” Gerry stated causing Dale’s eyebrows to raise slightly in surprise. Dale knew that Telram had a very powerful soul, but he hadn’t expected that the young man was so talented at cultivating that he could’ve entered the Ascendant Realm at such a young age without access to a significant number of medicinal pills. “But the thing is that he really specialises in creating martial techniques. However, as you may have noticed he’s been in a bit of a slump in that area recently. He needs something to force him to grow stronger.”

“Will his skill with martial techniques be enough for him to do well in the tournament against cultivators at the Ascendant Realm?” Henry asked curiously.

“Almost certainly,” Diane replied immediately. “He has a few techniques he hasn’t really been able to use properly with you guys watching and we are all far stronger than anyone he’s likely to fight in this tournament. “He’ll be fine.”

Meanwhile Telram was talking with a young woman who was registering cultivators for the tournament. The line in front of the small desk that she was sitting at hadn’t been very long which didn’t surprise Telram too much. Even in a city like Urlan that prided itself on its comparatively high number of cultivators there weren’t too many in the young generation who were of a sufficient level to take part in the tournament. In fact, according to the rules of the tournament he was barely qualified to take part himself. After all this tournament was being held so that the talented members of Telram’s generation could show their skills. So, anyone below the 7th layer of the Core Formation Stage was immediately turned away.

“Alright you’ve been registered for the tournament sir,” the young woman said in a bored tone of voice. She had been sitting here all morning and had registered many cultivators for a tournament that she couldn’t even take part in herself, so she was really starting to get irritated. As far as she was concerned the worst part of this job was having to deal with the poorer cultivators who had lower cultivation levels but still qualified to participate in the tournament. She was a member of a branch of a noble family and she had to sit here and listen to a bunch of boorish louts who thought they were special. Sure, she wasn’t a very important member of her family which was why she was sitting here behind a desk registering cultivators for a tournament. But she still considered herself to be more important than the people she had been dealing with today.

However, the young man in front of her right now carried himself with a strange sort of confidence that reminded her of the more important embers of the noble family that she was only technically a part of. He was also much more polite when she compared him with the other cultivators that had registered earlier but sadly his cultivation level was even lower than most of the other cultivators who had already registered so it was pretty unlikely that he would do well in the tournament.

Thanking her Telram turned to leave and the young woman released a long-suffering sigh. The tournament was going to start soon so she probably wouldn’t have to deal with too many more itinerant cultivators. That last young man had been an odd one indeed with his odd clothes and massive physique. In fact, she almost suspected that he was actually a Divine Beast in human form but she wasn’t quite sure that was true since the only traits that seemed to be out of place for a human were his eyes and maybe his size which actually wasn’t that unusual among the few cultivators who knew body strengthening techniques. Divine Beasts typically had more inhuman traits than that.

“It would be weird if he was anyway,” she sighed. “Divine Beasts are way too rare in the human lands for us to have two taking part in a tournament as small as this one anyway.”

About an hour before Telram had shown up she had registered another young man who had long blue hair and a small dusting of scales that covered his arms. He also had a small pair of horns that peeked out from the top of his head that told her that he was descended from some sort of dragon which were some of the most powerful and dangerous types of Mana Beast. His cultivation level was also considerably higher than Telram’s was which meant that the blue-haired man was definitely far stronger than Telram was. Even if Telram was a Divine Beast like she suspected.

Once he got back to where the others were waiting for him Telram was surprised when Gerry produced a small jar which he passed to his student. It was a rather simple looking thing that had been sealed with wax but Telram instantly realised that this jar was filled with medicinal pills thanks to the extremely faint herbal smell that wafted up to his nostrils.

“What sort of pills are these?”

“They’re just cloud gathering pills,” Gerry replied with a shrug. “They’re the only form of mana absorption pill that you can use at your cultivation level. They should help you recover between rounds and maybe even increase your cultivation speed slightly.”

Telram nodded at this. Mana Absorption pills were the most common types of medicinal pill and as their name suggested they increased the rate that you could absorb Mana. As such they had two purposes; recovering Mana that a cultivator had used and increasing cultivation speed. However, despite the fact that cloud gathering pills were among the weakest types of these pills they were still pretty expensive. So expensive in fact that Telram had never even seen them before himself and he quickly cracked the wax seal and tipped a couple of the valuable pills onto his open palm.

They were rather unremarkable things to look at; a pair of small greenish orbs. But when he had cracked the seal a wave of herbal fragrance had washed over everyone. It was an incredibly pleasant smell that made them all feel invigorated but other than that it didn’t really do much since the pills had to be ingested for their true effects to become apparent.

“Well then,” Telram said once he had finished examining the pills. “The tournament’s starting soon. So, I guess we should head on over to the stadium where it’s being held so that you guys can get good seats.”