While Divine and Sage Beasts have been known to work together with humans over the years it is incredibly unusual for them to do so. This is mostly because both sides have an understandable reason to look down on and fear each other. Humans look down on the Beasts simply because they are Beasts and also because their actual understanding of mana and martial techniques is much lower than that of human cultivators. Meanwhile the Beasts look down on humans because they are usually physically much weaker than Beasts of a similar cultivation level and have to rely upon their martial techniques to match them which leaves them at a disadvantage when they run out of mana.

Excerpt from Telram’s notes on the relationship between Beasts and Humans.

Once again Telram found himself waking up in his bed at the inn after a fight which he decided was starting to get decidedly old. However, what wasn’t getting old was the blue haired young man who was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

“Oh good,” Ryu said cheerfully as Telram stared at him wide-eyed in shock. “You’re awake.”

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” Telram asked.

“Oh, that old man who calls himself your master let me in,” Ryu replied easily as he stretched like a cat. “The others are having a meeting in the other room and they didn’t want me listening in for some reason so I said that I would keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah that’s not creepy at all,” Telram muttered as he sat up. “And it doesn’t really explain what you’re doing here.”

“Ah, yes I see,” Ryu nodded. “Well I was hoping that you could teach me some martial techniques and maybe after I have learned some things you can help me convince some of the other Beasts in my village to learn as well.”

“Well, I don’t really see why I couldn’t teach you,” Telram admitted cautiously. He was still quite confused with what was going on right now, but he decided to go along with it for now since there was no way that he could kick Ryu out of his room in his current state anyway. “I do owe you for showing me what happened when you transform after all.”

“Excellent!” Ryu exclaimed happily. “Also, I was talking with your friends outside and they told me about why you were taking part in the tournament. Now since I have no need for any of the rewards on offer, I am willing to get that Pixie that you were after as payment for training me. Would that be acceptable for you?”

“Uh, yes,” Telram replied as he blinked in surprise. “That would be nice of you. I’m sure that Iris would appreciate that.”

“Who is Iris?” Ryu asked with a slight frown.

“One of my students,” Telram explained. “She’s probably in the other room right now.”

“Ah, the short girl?” The Divine Beast asked. “She was the one who explained why you had decided to take part in the tournament, but she neglected to tell me that the Pixie was for her.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty shy,” Telram agreed as a fond look crossed his face. “Speaking of which could I ask you to go out and let everyone know that I’m up? I need to get changed.”

“Sure,” Ryu said before getting up out of his chair and leaving a relieved Telram alone in his room.

“Divine Beasts sure are weird,” the young man sighed. “But then again Beasts are usually naked, so I guess it makes sense that they don’t feel any real need for privacy.”

Despite how odd Ryu was Telram was quite interested in training him in the ways of human cultivators. Divine Beasts were already much more powerful than most human cultivators at a similar cultivation level due to their incredibly powerful physical bodies but they did have one large weakness and that was that they had too much of a tendency to rely upon their physical bodies and ignore the possibilities provided by their ability to learn martial techniques like human cultivators did. As such the higher a human cultivators cultivation level the closer they became to a Divine Beast’s level of power and the most powerful human cultivators actually could reach a point where they could go toe to toe with a Divine or Sage Beast and have a good chance of winning due to the sheer number of powerful martial techniques that they had learned over the years. Only people who had reached the later stages of the Immortal Level of cultivation can do something like this as it takes hundreds of years to master enough martial techniques to overpower a Divine or Sage Beast.

Naturally Telram was slightly worried about what Ryu or any other Divine or Sage Beast that was trained in martial techniques would use their training for but as far as Telram could tell Ryu didn’t seem to be that type of person to go around killing people for no real reason. Besides, it wasn’t like there weren’t Divine or Sage Beasts that had developed their own martial techniques before and none of them had been even remotely interested in attacking human settlements for no reason. After all, Nerrus was an extremely large world and humans only occupied a tiny portion of it compared to what was controlled by Beasts.

“At least I won’t have to explain my body strengthening technique all over again,” Telram sighed as he wiped himself down with a cloth that he had soaked in warm water from a basin which had been set up for that exact purpose. The basin had a small Beast Core set in the bottom of it with an inscription on it that kept the water in it warm which Telram appreciated because cleaning himself with cold water would’ve just been the icing on the cake of this uncomfortable morning.

Since Ryu was a Divine Beast his body was already far stronger than any normal person’s and since Telram’s body strengthening technique was based off how a Beast’s body was strengthened simply by it absorbing mana from the atmosphere there was quite literally no point in teaching it to him. Which was actually quite nice as it would mean that Telram could essentially just continue his lessons mostly as usual instead of having to devote time teaching Ryu his body strengthening technique. He might have to spend some extra time working with Ryu on some things like cultivation techniques, but he wasn’t too worried about that either. Not only was Ryu already in the Divine Beast equivalent of the Ascendant Realm his methods of growing more powerful were a lot simpler than those for a human cultivator.

While Divine Beasts could cultivate like humans could it wasn’t anywhere near as effective for them since they could only really use the most basic of cultivation techniques. In other words, the same exact cultivation technique that Telram and his students used. However Divine Beasts could massively increase how quickly their cultivation level grows by ingesting the flesh of other Mana Beasts. Humans could technically do the same thing, but it wasn’t anywhere near as effective for them as it was for a Beast.

However, there were a couple of little problems with the idea of Ryu becoming one of Telram’s students both of which had to do with the fact that a lot of people were uncomfortable around Divine and Sage Beasts. It was going to be a pain to convince everyone in the village to let Ryu stay while Telram taught him and Telram was also worried that it would be an even bigger pain convincing his students that Ryu wasn’t going to go crazy and hurt them or something.

With a sigh he slowly opened the door and stepped out into the main room of the apartment that they had rented at the inn and immediately realised that he was mistaken about something when he saw the rather strange sight of several children swinging off what looked like a bright blue serpent that was floating in mid-air and seemed to have an amused expression on its face.

“What the hell!?” Telram exclaimed in shock once he had finished processing what was in front of him and the serpent turned to look at him while his students all let go of its body and turned to face him with embarrassed looks on their faces. Then the serpent started laughing.

“I’m sorry but you should see the look on your face!” The serpent exclaimed in Ryu’s voice and Telram groaned as he finally figured out what was going on.

“So that’s your Beast Form is it Ryu?” Telram asked as he held his hand over his face in exasperation. Maybe he had been mistaken in thinking that it would be difficult to convince his students that Ryu was safe to be around.

“Well I’m usually a bit bigger than this but yes,” Ryu replied as his eyes sparkled in amusement. “However, I thought that this would be a good way for your other students to get used to having a Divine Beast around.”

Telram blinked in surprise as he realised that he had underestimated Ryu’s intelligence. Of course, the Divine Beast would be aware that most humans weren’t comfortable around beings like him. What surprised him though was that Ryu was using a similar technique to the one that Telram himself had used when he had arrived in the village and Iris had been afraid of him.

“Well that’s fine then,” he replied and gave his students a smile. “Don’t play with Ryu for too long though. He has a fight later today.”

“Yes teacher!” The students all chorused causing Telram to chuckle again as he made his way over to the small kitchen area and started preparing some food for himself. Kids had to grow up fast in the world of Nerrus so it was good to see his students just playing like they would be back on Earth. It was however quite amusing to see Cameron who was so tall and powerfully built that he could’ve passed for a young adult back on Earth acting like a kid.

All of the adults were out right now which again was a mild surprise considering who and what Ryu was but seeing him playing with the kids Telram completely understood seeing them right now. Obviously, Ryu had quite a bit of experience dealing with kids.

“Where are the others?” Telram asked once he had finished eating his breakfast.

“Oh, they went out as soon as I told them you were up,” Ryu replied. “Apparently they had a few things to do around town.”

“Well that makes sense,’ Telram nodded. They had been given a list of things to get while they were in town since there were quite a few things that the other villagers had asked them to get. “When does your match start?”

“We still have a bit of time,” Ryu replied. “So, if you want to cultivate for a bit and solidify your gains from our fight, I’ll let you know when it’s time to leave.”

“That would be great,’ Telram nodded as he took a seat on the floor across from Ryu and started meditating. He knew that both his body and cultivation base needed work done after what he had done yesterday but what he wasn’t expecting was how much of an effect his transformation had on his body even now. His muscles and bones had undergone yet another change in strength bringing him almost up to a Level where he could overpower quite a few different types of Mana Beast that were at a similar cultivation level to him so long as they didn’t specialise in physical strength but he could see a lot of damage as well.

As one might expect the damage was mostly centred around Telram’s joints due to the massive strain forced upon them by both his transformation and the stress caused by the increase in strength that said transformation caused. However other than the damage to his body which was serious enough there was also quite a bit of damage to his soul as well which was actually more worrying.

Telram’s soul resembled a cloud that surrounded his entire body like a shroud. But now certain parts of his body were completely bare and the shroud of energy that usually covered his body was in tatters. Luckily, Gerry had taught him how to repair damage like this to his soul since in its current state it would take a long time for his soul energy to regenerate properly.

Taking a small amount of mana from his Core Telram formed it into a ball and started to smooth over the tattered parts of his soul. As he did this, torn bits of soul energy were also picked up by the orb of mana and once they built up enough, he reabsorbed the mana and soul energy.

This continued for some time but eventually Ryu did let Telram know that it was time to leave. Telram was quite pleased with the amount of work that he had been able to get done in such a short time. Thankfully since Telram had both an incredibly powerful soul and excellent control over it fixing the damage was fairly easy overall.

“How are you feeling?” Ryu asked as they all made their way towards the stadium.

“Better than I did when I woke up,” Telram admitted. While he had been in a little bit of pain due to the damage to his joints, he hadn’t really even noticed the effects of the damage to his soul until he actually started fixing it. This was because the effects of having a damaged soul were mostly limited to a general lack of energy depending of course how bad the damage was.

People suffering from severe damage to their souls could be stuck in a coma until they either died or their soul healed completely. Luckily, the damage to Telram’s soul wasn’t anywhere near that bad. However, since Telram was a cultivator the damage to his soul also meant that his ability to use his mana was also detrimentally affected so hopefully he wouldn’t have any cause to use his mana much today.

Once again as they approached the stadium, they heard angry shouting and Telram made his way to the front of the group before realising that he wouldn’t really be able to do much if something went wrong. Luckily or perhaps unluckily since Telram was pretty sure that Ryu was the reason that people were protesting it turned out Ryu had the same idea and had also made his way to the front of the group and was currently glaring at the group of people that were shouting at a much smaller group of people.

“Well shit,” Telram muttered as he recognised the people that the crowd was screeching at. “That’s not good.”

“Why are they so angry and Gerry and the others?” Iris asked as she tugged on his sleeve.

“That would be my fault,” Telram sighed as he glanced sideways at Ryu who was still glaring at the protestors. “What’s wrong?”

“I fought one of those people in the tournament,” he growled in reply. “I don’t think that they’re just here for you.”

“Well that doesn’t surprise me,” Telram sighed as one of the protestors glanced over towards them.

“That’s them!” The protestor shouted angrily. “The Beasts that tried to kill the other participants!”

Telram blinked in surprise at these words as the other protestors all turned to look at them. While he was of course aware that there were quite a lot of similarities between him and Ryu because of his body strengthening technique, he hadn’t expected to be called a Beast. However now that he thought about it his transformation had probably been the final nail in that particular coffin.

“Look!” Another one of the protestors shouted. “That demonic one’s hair is red and black now! He was hiding his true nature!”

Telram’s eyes widened as his hand rise up towards his head and he pulled on a tuft of hair. As the protestor had said his hair was now its normal colour once more instead of the plain black that he had dyed it before leaving home.

“Sorry,” Iris whispered as Telram muttered a curse under his breath. “We probably should’ve told you about that.”

“Well it’s too late for that now,” Telram sighed before ducking as something sailed over his head and landed with a clatter behind them. A glance backwards told him that the object in question had been a piece of stone slightly larger than his fist and rage filled his veins as he glared at the crowd.

“What the hell do you all think you are doing?” He snarled loudly as he stepped towards the crowd of people. “You could’ve hit one of the kids!”

Several members of the crowd were also looking around with horrified expressions on their faces and Telram could see a couple of other people hefting things to throw but they all stopped as multiple waves of mana and soul energy crashed into them.

The various waves of mana from Gerry, Diane, Fergus, Dale and even Ryu buffeted the protestors causing many of them to stumble and fall to the ground as the paving stones beneath him heated to the point that they started to burn them even as the ground started shaking and the humidity suddenly increased around them. Smaller waves of mana also washed over them from the students but they were quickly drowned out by the auras of the five Ascendant Realm cultivators that left most of the protestors shaking in their boots even as a large contingent of guards rushed over to try and calm everything down before they got even more out of hand.

“What’s going on here?” One of the guards shouted as they approached.

“These idiots started throwing things at us,” Telram replied in a surprisingly calm tone of voice that belied the rage that he actually felt. He knew that showing anger would only serve to make the situation worse for them even though the protestors had caused the situation in the first place. It would also serve to make the protestors look even worse when they overreacted to his statement like he fully expected them to. “As you might imagine my friends over there didn’t take kindly to the threat to the children with me.”

The protestors immediately started shouting about how Telram and Ryu were trying to make them look bad but quietened down as the guard who had spoken unleashed his own mana upon them causing them to fall on the still hot paving stones once again.

“Be silent you fools!” He shouted angrily. “I told you yesterday that this sort of behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated. Neither of these young men have done anything wrong. The tournament was open to anyone who wanted to apply so long as they met the cultivation level requirements.”

Some of the protestors hesitated at the guard’s words. Telram was guessing that they hadn’t been present the other day and almost started to feel sorry for them when one young man stepped forwards.

“Maybe we should take this up with Lord Fallar then,” the young man said in an arrogant tone of voice. Lord Fallar was the lord of Urlan town and the sponsor of the tournament that they were taking part in.

“My father has given his blessing to these two young men to take part,” the guard growled angrily. “As you well know Rex.”

“Well my father might have something to say about that,” Rex sniffed arrogantly.

“Your father has no sway in Urlan town, and you know it,” the guard snarled as he closed in on Rex who hesitated slightly but stood his ground. “Now take your lackeys and get out of here before I arrest you all. Loser.”

Rex turned bright red as the guard smirked at him. The guard obviously didn’t like Re at all and was hoping that antagonising him like this would give him an excuse to arrest him, but Rex managed to control himself.

“Very well,” Rex grated. “If that’s the way you want it.”

He then turned around and gestured to several people within the crowd. Telram noted that they were all people who had been hefting various objects to throw at him and the others but didn’t say anything as they all began to walk away leaving a hesitant crowd f protestors behind who were told to leave by a suddenly much more pleasant guard who then turned towards Telram with a smirk on his face.

“Sorry we had to meet like this,” he said. “My name is Lelland and as you heard earlier my father is Lord Fallar.”

“I’m sorry we had to meet like this as well,” Telram replied respectfully. “We didn’t mean to cause such a hubbub.”

“That’s no problem,” Lelland chuckled. “That idiot’s father has been trying to get control over Urlan town for years. This is just the latest in a long line of idiocy that I’ve had to deal with. Hell, I’ve been clearing out a bunch of assholes who think that abusing the Mana Beasts that they’ve captured is a good idea for the past couple of days thanks to this tournament.”

“I’m surprised that you stood up for us,” Ryu piped up as Telram eyed the young man thoughtfully. When he had first arrived in Urlan he had indeed noticed a number of vendors who had abused the Mana Beasts that they were selling but from what Lelland had just said they usually weren’t allowed into the city. Telram had originally thought that this was what Urlan was usually like but perhaps he had just shown up at a bad time.

“I’m afraid that I don’t understand what you mean,” Lelland replied politely.

“Most humans barely even put up with Divine Beasts like me let alone stand up for us,” Ryu explained.

“Ah, yes well my father has worked with your people before,’ Lelland replied with a smile as he glanced at Telram like he was surprised that he hadn’t been included in what Ryu had just said.

“Oh, I’m not actually a Divine Beast,” Telram chuckled seeing the look that he had just gotten. “I just practice a special combination of techniques that give me similar abilities. If I was a Divine Beast, then I wouldn’t have had so much trouble against Joavin.”

“That’s true,” Lelland agreed. “But if that’s the case what’s up with your hair if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ah, I have a Soul Bond with a Blood Tiger,” Telram started to explain. “But the particular technique that I used was a bit different and ended up changing both of us.”

“Including the ability to transform?” Lelland asked.

“As it turns out yes,” Telram nodded. “But I didn’t know that until yesterday.”

“Well that’s quite interesting and I would appreciate the chance to talk with you further, but Ryu has a match starting in a few minutes,” Lelland said. “We will escort you the rest of the way please follow us.”