Even people who start off life with Souls as similar as humanly possible are still capable of massively different things depending on how well they cultivate their Soul Energy. If they work hard even someone who starts of life with a weak Soul can grow to the point where they can completely surpass someone who started off life with a powerful Soul and a lot of Soul Energy.

Excerpts from Telram’s notes on Soul Energy.

Telram grumbled as he tried to roll over and found that he was pinned under a heavy weight. Then he frowned, had Willa rolled on top of him in her sleep again?

Sleepily he opened his eyes to discover not the soft white fur of Willa but a mound much darker fur.

“Huh? What is this?” Telram grumbled as he reached out to touch it. “So soft.”

As he continued to stroke the soft fur the mound began to emit a low rumbling sound like a very large housecat.

“Oh, it’s you,” Telram said blinking as he realised what was going on. “Morning partner.”

The tiger cub’s sleepy face turned towards the boy and it yawned loudly blasting him with its warm breath before staring at him silently.

“Wait why has one of your eyes changed colour?” Telram asked. Before they had lost consciousness Telram could vividly remember the two emerald eyes of the tiger cub staring directly into his soul and yet now one of those eyes was the same golden colour as Telram’s own.

The tiger cub shrugged, it didn’t really care what colour its eyes were, it was more interested in getting something to eat now that it was up.

It seemed that creating the Soul Bond with Telram had allowed it to learn human body language as something like shrugging wasn’t typical tiger behaviour as far as Telram knew but he decided that they could ignore that for now.

“Oh, well if you don’t care then I guess its fine,” Telram said scratching his head. He could literally feel how uninterested the tiger cub was through their bind which was far stronger than it had been when he was trying to convince the cub to become his partner.

“I understand that you’re hungry but there’s something we have to take care of first,” Telram explained causing the tigers mismatched eyes to zero in on his own with a wounded look on its face. It hadn’t been properly fed in the week since it had been captured by the cultivators and Telram winced as he realised that the tiger wasn’t just hungry it was starving.

“Don’t worry, this won’t take long,” he said consolingly. “Now, do you have a name?”

Telram knew that the tiger cub was male, but he didn’t have any idea what to call it which would make things difficult if they let it go on for any length of time.

Telram’s head was suddenly filled with an image of a lake on a starry night and the rush of the hunt.

“Wait, that’s your name?” he asked in surprise, he didn’t know how to put something that was more like a sensation than anything else into an actual word.

The cub nodded causing Telram to blink, was it just him or was the cub far more intelligent and knowledgeable about human mannerisms than he remembered.

“Hmm, well I can’t think of a name that would work in this language from that, so do you mind if I give you a new one?” he asked causing the cub to hesitate slightly, it had been given it’s name by its mother so it didn’t like the idea of changing it. But its hunger won out over its hesitation and it nodded hoping to get this over with as soon as possible.

“Ok, now what to call you?” Telram mumbled pondering the names of several well-known tigers from his world causing the cub to look at him in exasperation as its stomach rumbled loudly.

After discarding several names for various reasons, such as; being the name of a well-loved character from an old cartoon or trying to kill the main character of The Jungle Book he settled on the name of one of the largest known tigers in India. Neither of these names were quite suitable for the magnificent creature that he knew the cub in front of him would become so he tried to recall the names of something a little more appropriate and eventually decided on the name of a relatively well-known tiger from India.

“I’ll call you Jai,” he decided causing the tiger to roll its eyes, it didn’t really care what Telram called him so long as he was able to eat something soon.

Shaking his head in amusement Telram opened the door to his room allowing Jai to rush outside and follow his nose to the kitchen Telram’s family waited for them.

“Whoa there, big fella,” Aran laughed as Jai tried to get at the food on the table.

“Your food’s over there,” he explained gesturing to a large haunch of meat sitting in a large wooden bowl. Jai glared at the man for a while trying to judge whether he had to listen to him or not before sensing a more powerful Mana Beast behind him.

Turning around Jai came nose to nose with Willa, the large white wolf calmly staring him down and causing the young tiger’s head to drop as he realised that he had no way of standing up to her.

Telram watched with amusement as Jai slinked over to the bowl and started gnawing on the massive hunk of meat causing the cub to glare at him as it sensed his amusement through their bond.

Everyone stared at Telram for a moment taking in the changes that had occurred to his body after the enhanced Soul Contract with Jai. Not only did Telram now have streaks of the same crimson as Jai’s fur running through his otherwise pitch-black hair but the boy had grown by almost half a foot making him just as tall as Aran.

“What?” Telram asked uncomfortable with the way everyone was looking at him.

“You were right Gerry, he has grown again,” Lily sighed sadly, Telram’s growth spurts were really starting to cause problems for their finances especially since he always ate more than Willa and Aran combined when he went through one driving his mother to distraction.

“I told you he felt heavier,” Gerry grumbled.

Gerry had spent most of the night being scolded by Lily, so he was not only in a bad mood but quite tired giving the usually dignified looking old man a haggard look.

“Eh!” Telram exclaimed in surprise before looking down at his body with wide eyes, he hadn’t even noticed the change in height, it just felt natural to him. He would have to get new clothes once again as there was no way he was going anywhere with his pants legs only going three quarters of the way down his actual legs.

“Seriously?” he groaned, he had already been ridiculously tall for his age earning him some odd looks when he went outside the house but now he was taller than most fully grown men leaving him wondering just how tall he was going to be once he stopped growing.

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“That’s not all son,” Aran chuckled pointing at his head.

“Hmm?” Telram tugged on a lock of hair and stared in shock at the crimson streaks than ran through before falling to his knees in horror.

“I’m a freak,” he said despairingly, not only was he ridiculously tall but now he had hair that would make an anime character jealous. The others laughed at Telram’s overreaction, they knew that there were cultivators more powerful than them who looked even weirder than Telram did now, so they weren’t too worried about him being treated poorly in the future.

“Never mind that son,” Aran said interrupting Telram’s depression. “Are you still coming hunting with me today?”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten all about that!” Telram exclaimed leaping to his feet. “Can I take Jai with me?”

“Is that what you called him?” Lily asked happy to have something to call the tiger cub. She still wasn’t completely happy with what had happened when Telram and Jai had completed their Soul Contract but even she had to admit that having a Blood Tiger as a Contracted Beast was impressive.

“Yeah, it suits him don’t you think,” Telram said with a smile glancing own at Jai who continued to devour his food like the starved beast that he was.

“Hmm, I’m not sure how you came up with the name but yes it does suit him,” Lily admitted unable to deny her son, despite her confusion.

“It’s just a name Lily, he could have called Jai something far worse!” Aran laughed. “Yes of course Jai can come with us, it’ll be a valuable experience for the both of you!”

Suddenly Telram’s face dropped as he recalled his failure to obtain the items he had gone to the market for.

“What is it son?” Aran asked worriedly.

“I went to the market to get some things to build traps with to help support us, but I completely failed to do so,” Telram lamented.

Aran shook his head, “Don’t worry about that, you managed to get something far more useful than parts for a few traps,” he said happily.

It would be a while before Jai grew powerful enough to truly be a threat to powerful Mana Beasts but even as a cub he could easily kill weaker ones allowing him to make up for food he would eat. Or at least that was what Aran hoped as he looked at how quickly Jai was demolishing the haunch of Crimson Deer meat that could feed Aran’s entire family other than Willa for up to three days.

“Don’t worry too much dad,” Telram said as he saw the worry beginning to appear on his father’s face. “He just wasn’t getting fed properly by the cultivators that captured him.”

“He shouldn’t eat that much normally,” Telram continued as eyed the tiger who was now using his powerful jaws to crush the tough bones of the Crimson Deer so that he could get at the marrow.

Hearing the crunching sound everyone turned to look at the young Mana Beast in surprise, Crimson Deer were known for their powerful bones and this one had been of higher rank than Jai proving that the difference between the two was more than one of rank. A Blood Tiger was simply a far more powerful Mana Beast.

Even Willa was surprised by this, Mist Wolves were known for their speed and agility far more than their power so even though she was more powerful than either Jai or the Crimson Deer she couldn’t do what the cub was doing with the same ease as a human eating a carrot.

“By the way Telram,” Gerry said suddenly drawing everyone’s attention away from Jai. “Why did you change the Soul Contract the way you did?”

Telram cocked his head to one side, he didn’t know why he had done so himself, so was unsure of how to answer Gerry’s question. After thinking about it for a while as Lily put some food on her son’s plate he finally just decided to go with the first thing that had popped into his head.

“I guess it’s because the technique felt incomplete,” he said digging into his food.

Gerry blinked in surprise at his student’s statement. The technique for creating a Soul Contract, a technique that was one of the first discovered and had been used by most cultivators felt incomplete? He looked over the changes that had occurred to Telram and had to admit that the changes Telram and Jai had made had certainly done something that the normal technique simply couldn’t, but he couldn’t understand why he felt that Telram was right.

Activating his Spiritual Vision to try and make sense of this sensation he stared in shock. Instead of the thin thread that usually connected a cultivator and their contracted Mana Beast there was a rope connecting the two as thick as Gerry’s arm.

Not only that but flowing through Telram’s body was a significant amount of Mana, more than enough to kill someone within a few days if left unchecked causing Gerry to swallow audibly as he saw that despite his worry’s the Mana didn’t seem to be doing any harm to Telram’s body, it did seem to be slowly breaking down the cells in Telram’s body but it was rebuilding them far stronger than they were before.

Without Telram even realising his Body Strengthening technique had been improved to the point where there would be little difference to his and Jai’s physical power in a few months.

Unable to even speak Gerry turned his eyes once more to the tiger cub, realising what had happened, Telram was gaining the physique of a Mana Beast. This was something that had only been hinted at even in the ancient scrolls that he had found over the years and he never thought that it could be caused by someone creating a Soul Contract, even one as different to the normal one as the one that Telram and Jai had made.

The reason that Gerry had refrained from making a Soul Contract of his own was mostly because he had quite high affinities with the elements and techniques that he wanted so he had decided to spend most of his time and money researching new techniques and buying the various resources required to make new puppets.

However, this new technique was different, it could massively change a cultivator’s capabilities and even give them the physique of a Mana Beast!

“Telram,” he said excitedly as the boy watched him with a confused look in his face. “Do you think that we could recreate the changes you made to the Soul Contract?”

Telram frowned slightly as he considered the idea.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said causing the excited look on Gerry’s face to fade. “Not exactly anyway. I get the feeling that each Soul Contract is supposed to be unique.”

“Unique huh?” Gerry muttered suddenly feeling like slapping himself, this should have been obvious to him, if everyone was different why would a technique that binds souls together be the same every time?

Seeing that Gerry was interested in what had happened to Telram Aran also decided to use his Spiritual Vision to see what was so impressive about these so-called changes and was once again sent into a state of shock by what his son had managed to achieve.

Seeing that both men were acting oddly Lily sighed, it seemed that her son had done something odd again.

Once he had recovered Aran looked at Willa with an odd look on his face.

“Telram, do you think that we could find a way to enhance an existing Soul Contract?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Telram said it seemed that everyone wanted to as him questions that he didn’t really know the answer to today, not that he could blame them, but he did have quite a few things to get used to himself right now.

“Alright boys let Telram eat. If he’s going to go hunting with Aran he needs to actually have breakfast,” Lily said rolling her eyes. I reality she was just as excited by Telram getting a Soul Contract with a Mana Beast with as much growth potential as a Blood Tiger.

Aran and Gerry quieted down, they were both planning to use this hunting trip as a proper test of how much Telram had improved by sending him to fight a weak Mana Beast. Secretly they both hoped that Aran or Willa would have to intervene to save him as they felt that Telram was taking the world of cultivation too lightly. If he truly learned how dangerous fighting Mana Beasts or other cultivators was he might focus more on his Martial Arts rather than all the research that he had been doing lately. Research was all very well and good when one reached a bottleneck in their cultivation but Telram wasn’t at the sort of stage where a bottleneck was likely especially considering how much Soul Energy he had.

Telram threw a grateful look at his mother as Jai sensing the chance to get more food, nudged up against his knee.

“Oi, watch it greedy guts,” Telram laughed earning him a glare from Jai.

Still in the end Jai did indeed end up getting more food much to the disgust of Willa who refused to look at Lily who had been the one to cave and give him what was left of her breakfast causing the others to laugh.

“Well Telram, are you ready?” Lily asked as Jai rubbed his massive head up against her almost knocking Lily over.

“Alright Jai that’s enough,” said Telram causing the tiger to look at him in confusion, surely Telram wasn’t suggesting that it was his fault that Lily wasn’t able to hold up to the small amount of force he had just used.

“My mother’s sick,” Telram explained gently causing the tiger’s eyes to widen in surprise and turn to look once again Lily this time using the Mana Beast version of Spiritual Vision.

Seeing the sad look in his eyes as he saw what had happened to her core Lily bent down and stroked his soft head.

“It’s alright Jai,” Lily said with a sad smile on her face. “You weren’t to know.

Jai now understood why Telram was so angry about something to do with his mother and looked at the boy in a new light, even happier about his decision to join Telram than he had been before.

Seeing the new fire in his new friend’s eyes Telram smiled. When the time came they would make Irian pay, even if it meant never being able to return to Palamar.