When I was younger cultivators who knew healing techniques were few and far between. As such their services were extremely sought after by the noble families. However, despite how sought after they were many of these so-called healers were lucky if they knew even a single technique that was as effective as a mid-tier medicinal pill. The real reason that they were so sought after wasn’t usually because the healing technique was particularly powerful but because unlike medicinal pills which required increasingly rare herbs to make as well as a significant level of skill to produce a healing technique merely required mana and soul energy. Besides most healers ended up learning how to make medicinal pills anyway so that they were as useful as possible to their prospective employers.

-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on cultivators.

As they entered the stadium an older, balding man rushed over to them and started asking if Telram was alright. Apparently, this man was one of the healers that had been hired by the City Lord to heal the tournament participants when they got injured but had been forced to back off by Ryu and the others before he could check up on Telram.

“I’m fine,” Telram replied after glancing sideways at Lelland who was watching the exchanged with an interested look on his face. “I was mostly just tired, and I’ve already started work on repairing the damage to my soul.”

“Damage to your soul!” The healer exclaimed and his eyes flashed as he activated his spiritual vision. As soon as he saw the damage that Telram was talking about he staggered back on horror. “Are you sure that you’re alright young man?”

“Yeah,” Telram nodded. “The damage isn’t that bad. It should only take me a few days to repair it.”

“This is some of the worst damage that I’ve ever seen,” the healer said slowly so that he could be sure that Telram could understand what he was saying while till staring at the young man in horror. “You really shouldn’t be up and moving around and you definitely shouldn’t be using any martial techniques until you’ve fixed most of the damage. I very much doubt that you will be able to repair all this damage in a few days. In fact, I normally wouldn’t expect this level of damage to ever be fully repaired except that I can tell that you have already started repairing it somehow.”

“I know,” Telram nodded. “And maybe saying that I could completely repair the damage in a couple of days was an exaggeration, but using soul energy is actually something that I specialise in.”

“Yes, I did notice that you seemed to use a lot of soul-based techniques when I was healing your, uh, the people that you fought,” the healer replied nervously.

Telram frowned slightly at these words as he realised that the healer had been about to call the people that he’d fought his victims before thinking better of it. After all he couldn’t really blame the man for thinking that way after what he’d done to Hernan. Even though he had then given Hernan’s father instructions and some resources to help repair Hernan’s Core and even improve upon it that didn’t mean that the experience was pleasant. In fact, Telram was very aware that the experience must have been an excruciating one for Hernan and even with Telram’s help he might never recover from the trauma.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to go and watched Ryu’s next fight,” Telram told the healer and was about to move away when the healer asked him to wait a minute.

“Just a minute let me give you some pills to help fix the damage to your soul,” the healer said as he started patting down his robes looking for something. “That’s my job after all.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Telram said as he took the small clay bottle of pills from the nervous looking man.

“And if you have a moment after the fight, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” the healer stammered as Telram started to move away. “It’s not every day that I meet someone who could potentially help me improve my healing techniques.”

“I’ll think about it,” Telram sighed without even turning around. While he didn’t really have anything against the man, he didn’t really want to just give away his time without a good reason either. Then he sighed as he realised that deciding to not help this man was the opposite of what he was trying to do. “Look I might not have time to help you out on this trip, but you can feel free to show up at Yulis village and I’ll happily help you out.”

The healer nearly fell over himself trying to thank Telram until Lelland glared at him and he bowed his head in embarrassment.

“That’s enough now Vellar,” Lelland told the older man. “Telram has things that he has to do today. If you think that he can help you improve your technique I will talk with my father and see if he can spare you for a couple of days. But you’ll have to wait for now. In fact, I guarantee that you will have even more work to do shortly.”

“Of course, young master,” Vellar replied quickly. “I would appreciate it if you would do so. Now I shall be on my way. As you say I have to prepare for my newest patient and see to the ones that I already have.”

Telram rubbed his forehead in exasperation as the healer shuffled away. He hoped that he wasn’t going to regret telling Vellar that he was willing to try and help him out. On the one hand Telram was slightly worried about what might happen if Vellar decided to let people know about the school but then again it wasn’t like Telram had a lot of opportunities to learn about healing techniques so Vellar visiting could also be a good thing as well.

Gerry made his way up to Telram’s side as the group climbed up the stairs that lead to the stands. He knew that Telram would be worried about the consequences of what he’d told Vellar and had decided to let Telram know what he thought about the offer that Telram had made.

“Don’t worry,” he told the young man quietly enough that he could be confident that Lelland wouldn’t be able to understand everything that he was saying. “We can always just take a break if Vellar shows up. Having the opportunity to learn more about healing techniques is important enough to take that risk.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought when I told him that,” Telram agreed and was about to continue when he noticed Lelland watching them out of the corner of his eye.

“Sorry about that,” the young man sighed once he was sure that Telram and Gerry had finished their conversation. He hadn’t really been able to understand anything that they were saying and decided that it would be a better idea to let them have their privacy for now in the hopes of improving their relationship. “Vellar is a recent hire. He’s quite a skilled healer but as you might expect he’s also obsessed with improving his abilities.”

“Well, his pushiness aside that’s quite an admirable thing,” Telram replied easily as they stepped out into the area of the stands that had been set aside for them. “After all, it’s pretty rare for someone to have a talent for healing because you have to have a dual affinity for water and earth and a pretty high affinity for those elements as well.”

“Oh, I agree,” Lelland replied. “His abilities have been extremely helpful to my family. “He’s just a bit irritating sometimes. Anyway, I’ll leave you for now. Enjoy the match.”

“Thanks,” Telram replied as Lelland and the guards with him turned to leave. “We’ll see you later.”

“Indeed, you will,” Lelland chuckled as he walked back inside.

“Well, he’s certainly an interesting young man,” Diane said as Telram sat down next to her. “He seems to be a decent sort for a member of a noble family but be careful. The guards have been cracking down on some of the less pleasant people who obviously came here to take advantage of the fact that things are busier in town due to the tournament, but I’m still not entirely convinced that the Lord isn’t as corrupt as most of his breed.”

“Agreed,” Fergus nodded. “If the Lord does happen to turn out to be a decent person then we might be able to form some sort of relationship. Having the support of a noble family would be helpful to us but telling them too much before we are ready to defend ourselves will just end badly.”

Telram and Gerry both nodded in agreement as Dale and the students watched the conversation with slightly confused looks on their faces. However, before any of them could ask what was going on the crowd suddenly roared excitedly.

Telram watched with amusement as Ryu casually wandered out onto the arena like he was just an ordinary man out for a walk instead of a powerful warrior who could defeat human cultivators with cultivation levels higher than his own with ease. In comparison his opponent looked every bit the scion of nobles that he apparently was. The tall, muscular, and handsome young man who was apparently called Garren sneered at Ryu who merely yawned in response.

Telram snorted as he looked at Garren with his spiritual vision. While Garren was significantly more powerful than any of the other human cultivators that had been taking part in this tournament but even with that Telram could see that he still suffered from similar flaws that they did which he was confident would lead to his downfall.

As one would expect from a member of a noble family which Garren certainly was he had been given a massive number of herbs and pills that artificially increased his cultivation rate. However, despite Telram’s misgivings about using so many cultivation aids he had to admit that in this case it seemed to have worked out quite well for Garren. For now, at least, using that many cultivation aids typically caused a build-up of impurities within a cultivator’s body which could damage their ability to cultivate later.

However, Telram could also see that Garren had also spent more time on his martial techniques than the average cultivator that had taken part in the tournament from his physique and various other signs that Telram could see with both his normal and spiritual sight. As far as Telram could tell Ryu was still more powerful though which was supported by the Divine Beast’s apparent nonchalance.

However as soon as the referee declared the start of the fight this quickly changed as blue scales grew over Ryu’s forearms and his hands turned into the claws of a dragon before the Divine Beast launched himself forwards. Garren quickly raised his own arms and a shimmering barrier appeared around him just in time to protect him from the worst of the attack.

Telram, Gerry and the other adult cultivators leaned forwards when they saw this.

“Mana Skin,’ Telram muttered as he watched Garren deflect two more follow-up attacks from Ryu who had a mildly impressed look on his face. Mana Skin was one of the simplest abilities that a cultivator could use. It was so simple in fact that it wasn’t even considered a ‘technique’ more something that other defensive techniques like Telram’s own was based on. On the other hand, the level of mastery that they were witnessing right now was much greater than normal.

“Impressive that he can defend himself from Ryu’s attacks with such a simple thing,” Gerry said, and the others all nodded in agreement.

“He must have a powerful soul and an excellent teacher to compress his mana enough for it to be this strong,” Diane agreed.

“I do wonder why he’s just using Mana Skin instead of a more powerful technique though,” Telram mentioned.

“Most defensive techniques that are more powerful than Garren’s Mana Skin use elemental mana which means that they aren’t as effective against the opposite element,” Gerry explained. “As such there are people who choose to master the use of Mana Skin instead.”

“While I agree with your point about defensive techniques that use elemental mana there are still better defensive techniques that don’t use elemental mana which are better than just using Mana Skin,” Telram pointed out. “Though I will admit that there are other advantages to using Mana Skin over other defensive techniques.

The others nodded in agreement once more. As cultivators who could use Mana Skin quite well themselves, they were very aware of the advantages of using Mana Skin. Most notable of these advantages was the fact that the mana that you were using for your Mana Skin could be transformed into other mana-based attacks much faster than using mana from your Core. There were other advantages as well which was why Telram had based his own defensive technique off a combination of his Dissonance technique and Mana Skin.

Seeing that his current tactics weren’t particularly effective Ryu leapt backwards and thrust his hands forwards. The scales covering his forearms grew several sizes and started glowing before being shot at Garren like bullets from a good. It was pretty clear from the pained look on Ryu’s face that doing this was causing him pain. Several of the scales cut right through Garren’s Mana Skin and dug into his flesh eliciting a grunt of pain from the young man who quickly dodged the remainder of the barrage of scales.

“Okay that’s interesting,” Gerry said as they watched Garren move. “That technique that he’s using isn’t all that rare, but he’s trained it to a high level. Just like he had with his Mana Skin. Maybe we should try and find out who has been training him. They might be useful to us.”

“Yeah, I really underestimated the amount of training that he’s done,” Telram admitted. “I thought he was just another spoiled noble kid.”

“He probably knows a technique that can hide that sort of thing,” Fergus pointed out. “In fact, if we’d had time, we might’ve taught you one ourselves.”

“There wouldn’t have been a lot of point,” Diane chuckled. “After all most people don’t even think that it’s possible for someone at the Human Realm to be able to defeat someone at the Ascendant Realm.”

Ryu was starting to get impressed with Garren’s skills, but he had been able to smell the impurities from the medicinal pills that Garren had taken from the moment that he had stepped out into the arena so he knew that Garren wouldn’t be able to break through to the middle-tier of the Ascendant Realm. There were a few methods to clear these impurities from a cultivator’s body but most of them are very expensive and often required rare resources which was probably why Garren was taking part in the tournament in the first place now that Ryu thought of it.

Ryu sighed heavily as he blocked a flurry of relatively powerful punches from Garren. If Telram had been anywhere near Garren’s cultivation level, then he would have been able to defeat Garren with ease. Still Ryu had to admit that Garren was more skilled than any human cultivator that Ryu had fought other than Telram. But even the Divine Beast had to admit that Telram was an anomaly.

It was at this point that Ryu decided that it was time for him to get serious. His scales grew back over his arms but this time they started glowing with an eerie blue light and hurtled forwards. Ryu lashed out with a brutal punch that smashed through Garren’s Mana Skin and sent him skidding backwards a good metre. The follow up punch smashed through Garren’s hastily raised guard and nearly took his head off sending him sailing out of the arena to land on the packed earth at the base of the stadium wall.

Without even acknowledging the excitement of the crowd Ryu turned and walked out of the arena. He was still a bit disappointed about not finding anyone who could give him a good fight in this tournament but at least he had found someone who could teach him some true martial techniques.

Telram and the others watched with amusement as Ryu walked back indoors despite the efforts of the referee who was trying to stop him from leaving. It was pretty clear that Ryu didn’t care about any of the fanfare that was supposed to greet the winner of the tournament which was probably because he was a Divine Beast.

As they also got up to leave a panting young man in simple robes burst out onto the balcony.

“Excuse me please!” He gasped. “The City Lord would like to see Telram now. He also extends his invitation to your entourage.”

“Very well,” Telram said quickly realising that the City Lord was trying to prevent Ryu from leaving before the City Lord could reward the tournament participants and possibly get in before the people who were protesting outside the stadium got really worked up. “Lead the way.”

They all followed the servant down a corridor which Telram was assuming led to the large box that he had noticed above their own.

“I kind of thought that there would eb one last fight between me and the last guy that Ryu fought,” Telram mentioned while they walked along. “What happened with that?”

“Well, unfortunately neither of you are really in any state to fight,” the messenger replied nervously. “And master Feralt is in an even worse state then you are so the City Lord decided that he would give you the reward for coming third in the tournament.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Telram admitted as he recalled the state that Feralt had been in after the extremely short fight between him and Ryu.

Not long after this they reached a large door that was flanked by two guards. As they approached one of the guards wordlessly turned and opened the door so that they could enter.

On the other side of the door was a large and surprisingly tasteful room with a large chair that could almost be called a throne at the far end. Sitting in the throne was a large, powerfully built man that vaguely resembled Lelland who was standing just behind the man.

Most of the other tournaments were also present including Ryu who immediately joined them as they walked up to the throne and bowed as one.

“Greetings young man,’ the City Lord boomed. “Thank you for taking part in my tournament. Your fights were some of the most impressive that I have seen in a long time. Especially the fight between you and Ryu. I am sure that many of my advisors wish to speak with you about some of the techniques that you have used, and I wouldn’t mind a word with you myself if you have time.”

“I’m afraid that we have to return to Yulis as quickly as possible,” Telram replied politely. “I am sure that the parents of the children that are accompanying me would appreciate it greatly if you would allow this. I did however bring some manuals detailing the basics of some of the techniques that I have used, and I would be happy to provide you with a couple of copies Lord Fallar.”

“That would be acceptable for now,” Lord Fallar agreed graciously. “But I would also like for you to return at some point if my people have any questions. I will of course reward you for this help if you are willing.”

“Of course, my lord,” Telram replied respectfully. As he had hoped when he’d met his son Lord Fallar seemed to be a good man, so he had no problems agreeing to the man’s request.

“Excellent,” Lord Fallar nodded. “Then let us begin the reward ceremony.”