* The Borderlands are an area of the world that as the name might suggest lies on the edge of the human kingdom and the rest of the world. As one might expect this is an area with different rules, the Noble families do technically still have control of these areas but those who live there are a tougher breed than those who confine themselves to the safety of the large cities in the human kingdom and most of them have been forced by the dangerous area that they live in to become Cultivators with everyone learning from each other to bat the very least be able to escape the attacks of the vicious Mana Beasts that were their neighbours. However, while those who liv3 in the small villages dotting the borderlands are all cultivators to some degree finding ones that are truly powerful actually becomes more difficult due to the dangers of their daily lives and the comparative lack of resources as most resources that they found had to be given to whatever Lord was technically in charge of their village.
* Excerpt from Telram’s notes on the world of Nerrus.
Telram took the scroll that the list of techniques that those who had survived to the end of the evaluation from the scholar’s outstretched hand ignoring the man’s scowl as he did so and immediately found the only technique that he was really interested in.
“I’ll take the Solar Emperor Cultivation Technique,” Telram said in a bored tone of voice causing those within earshot to gasp at his disrespectful way of speaking but to their surprise Irian’s lips curved up into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and silently nodded his acceptance.
The Solar Emperor Cultivation Technique was a cultivation technique that focussed around raw power and required a high affinity for fire, allowing anyone capable of mastering the difficult technique to use some of the most destructive techniques around. It was also known for being quite a difficult technique to master but the power it provided was more than enough to make up for this difficulty.
However, Telram wasn’t interested in the technique itself but wanted an example of the most powerful fire-based cultivation technique that he could find, he already had cultivation techniques of various elements and ranks in his collection and this was the last one he needed for what he was planning.
It was hard to keep a grin off his face as he recalled when he had told Gerry why he was collecting so many different cultivation techniques. It had been a couple of months ago when he had just started to prepare for the evaluation, he had been sitting in Gerry’ study writing down the latest set of notes on his techniques when Gerry had walked in with a book containing one of the other cultivation techniques he had requested.
“Telram would you mind telling me why you need so many different cultivation techniques?” Gerry asked his student as he handed him a book with the most recent addition to his collection to him. “You do realise that you can only use one of these, right? Also, why is the rank of these techniques all over the place?”
Telram chuckled as he opened the book that Gerry had given and gave it a cursory glance before nodding his satisfaction.
“I’m trying to figure out what makes these techniques different from each other,” Telram replied. “Then I might be able to figure out how to make one of my own.”
“Don’t be reckless!” Gerry shouted slamming his hand down on the desk that Telram was sitting with such force that the top burst into splinters. “Do you know how many cultivators have crippled themselves and lost their lives trying to do something like that!?”
“And how many of them had both the level of control over mana that I have?” Telram asked. If there was one thing he knew, it was that someone at the same or even a similar cultivation wouldn’t be as good at controlling mana as he was with his powerful soul even if they held off on increasing their cultivation to the Ascendant Realm for years.
“Well that’s true I suppose,” Gerry admitted. “But it’s still too dangerous.”
“Is it though?” Telram asked in the same calm tone of voice he had been using the entire time brushing splinters from his robe. “Remind me again how many techniques I’ve already created that other people either deemed impossible or simply never thought of?”
“Besides,” he continued as Gerry looked at him with a shocked expression on his face. “We both know that this is probably the best way to learn about what happened to my mother.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mum’s Mana Core was damaged when she attempted an untested cultivation technique, right?”
“Right.”
“Well then what better way of finding out what actually happened than by someone else doing the same thing under controlled conditions?” Telram asked giving the older man a smug look.
“Well I suppose that it would be a good way to get more information about what happened to Lily,” Gerry grudgingly admitted.
One of the main problems they had with finding out why her injury had occurred in the first place, they had managed to find a way to fix Lily’s Mana Core but when they had used the technique on her the repairs had only lasted a few seconds before failing catastrophically leaving her in a worse state than she had been before the attempt something that had sent both of them into a state of despair for months while they attempted to stabilise her worsened condition. In the end they had managed to do so, but they needed to keep checking and occasionally replacing what was essentially a patch for her Mana Core every week.
“Right and even if something goes wrong when I try to use the technique that I end up coming up with we should be able to prevent me from suffering the same fate my mother did,” Telram pointed out causing Gerry to sigh in defeat.
“Alright I guess I have no choice but to allow you to at least make an attempt to make your own cultivation technique,” Gerry admitted.
He was still worried about what could happen to his student, but he had to admit that if anyone could do it then it would be Telram, after all the people who had lived on Nerrus before the current human inhabitants had arrived had been able to do so, so inventing a cultivation technique had to be possible. What’s more like Telram had said he had managed to make several techniques that were completely different from anything that Gerry had ever seen before so if he did manage to create his own cultivation technique it was sure to be something impressive.
“Alright then help me clean up this mess you made old man,” Telram had replied gesturing at the destroyed desk and the splinters that Gerry had spread around the room when he had struck it.
“Uh, right,” Gerry had replied shaking his head in defeat before joining his student in cleaning up the mess.
***
As the other cultivator made their choices one after the other Telram kept an eye on Irian, of the next part of his plan didn’t work out the way he needed it to then all of this would be for naught.
“Now that you have all chosen your reward it is time to decide the best way that you can use your talents to benefit our fine city!” Irian said using some sort of technique to make sure that everyone in the audience could hear him clearly without deafening those standing close to him. To someone who wasn’t a cultivator this technique seemed deceptively simple but Telram knew just how difficult controlling something like sound at that sort of distance with Mana. However, it did tell him that one of the elements that Irian had a good affinity for was air as that was the only element that could create an effect like that, up until now Telram had only really been certain that Irian had a high fire affinity so this was an interesting addition to his intel, not that he was going to be able to do anything about Irian any time soon but it was still a good thing to take note of.
Telram gritted his teeth it was now time for him to make his move and if he messed up now there were a lot of things that could go wrong, including him and his family being killed. Ironically that might almost be less painful in comparison to what he was about to do.
Lord Irian, if I may make a request?” Telram started noting that as expected whatever technique Irian was using also worked on him making him think it was a technique that worked over an area so that the audience knew everything that was going on, this was a good thing as far as he was concerned as a lot of what his plan was centred around his family ‘reacting’ to what he was about to say. His words caused one of the scholars to gasp in shock that he dared to interrupt the lord of the city, but Irian turned to glare at the unfortunate man causing him to choke on whatever he was planning on saying before turning towards me.
“Of course,” he said calmly. “How could I possibly refuse such a promising young cultivator?”
“As you know my lord, I am Gerry’s student and I believe that makes it harder for you to trust me,” Telram explained even as he snarled inwardly at Irian’s superior attitude. “So, I would like to request that you make me researcher and to make this easier to stomach I have had a copy of the research that Gerry and I have been doing on various aspects on cultivation.”
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Muttering broke out among the scholars at this, while it had been years since Gerry had been forced to quit his job many of the scholars considered his work to be years ahead of anything they could come up with, even now they were only beginning to reach the point where they could finish working on a lot of the theories Gerry had been researching when he lost his job making this great news as far as most of them were considered.
Irian turned to glare at the scholars once more before turning back towards Telram and considering him for a few seconds. Naturally he knew that Telram was not only Gerry’s student but that he was Lily’s son so it was odd to him that the boy was acting this way, he had been sure that Telram would hold what had happened to his mother against him. However he couldn’t deny that he would have difficulty trusting him if Telram became a guard despite the fact that he was a good combatant for his cultivation level making the idea of placing him under Pavel as a researcher was one that Irian quite liked, while Pavel wasn’t anywhere as good a researcher as Gerry was Irian knew that he could trust him especially when it came to things like this.
“Very well, I agree,” Irian said with a slow nod and was about to continue but stopped a ruckus broke out in the crowd.
“What is this!?” Gerry shouted as he got closer. “Telram! How dare you give away my research!”
“Your research?” Telram replied a cruel smirk covering his face. “As I recall we both worked on it and besides all cultivation research done in Palamar City belongs to Lord Irian by law as the former head scholar you should know that.”
The rest of his family who had been following Gerry all stopped in their tracks as they heard his words. Although Gerry, Willa and his father knew that this was all part of his plan Telram had purposely not told his mother any of his plan to make sure that at least one of the members of his family acted in a way that he couldn’t completely predict and make everyone else’s reactions seem more genuine to keep up with them and the look on her face was such that Telram almost broke out of the role that he was creating for himself to tell her it was all a lie but he managed to control himself just in time to see a snarling Willa leap at him only to be knocked out of the air by on of Jai’s massive paws as he moved to defend Telram.
The crowd gasped as the two powerful beasts grappled with each other, this naturally also a part of Telram’s plan by showing that Aran no longer had full control over Willa now that she had evolved to an Elemental Mana Beast, he could make sure that Irian would have no choice but to do something to prevent her from running amuck in the city.
“Jai, back off!” Telram shouted as a number of guards pointed their weapons at the two Mana Beasts. “Father can you no longer control that savage creature!?”
“How dare you!?” Aran roared loudly his face turning red as though he was enraged Telram’s accusation, if Telram hadn’t known that his father was acting then he would’ve completely believed that Aran was as angry as he seemed.
“All of you please stop!” Lily cried as she wheeled closer. “I don’t understand what’s going on!”
“Isn’t obvious?” Telram scoffed even as he felt his heart breaking inside his chest as tears flowed down his mother’s face. “I never believed that it was Irian’s fault that you’re in the state that you’re in. The only reason that you failed was because you’re weak!”
The guards who had been pointing their weapons at the still snarling Willa changed their targets to Gerry and Aran as they attempted to leap over the wall to get at Telram. Seeing this several members of the audience including Pavel started screaming for their heads, but Irian raised his hand to stop them.
“Young man,” he said turning to Telram. “You have done me several favours today, not only have you given me that research that you have been working on, but you have revealed some of those who have been working against me within my own city.”
Telram almost broke character with this somewhat unexpected reaction but carefully schooled his face to prevent the sudden wave of fear that threatened to overwhelm them.
“My Lord, if I may make a request then?” he asked bowing his head to Irian.
“Hmm, very well.”
“While these people have indeed betrayed you, they are still my only family so I must ask that you do not have them killed!” Telram said quickly as he cursed himself inwardly, this was one of the worse outcomes he had foreseen and if he misjudged anything his family would be killed because of him.
“So, you want me to ignore that they obviously bear me ill will?” Irian asked giving Telram a frown.
“Of course not,” Telram replied, knowing that if he made a wrong step here his plan would go out the window and they would all end up getting killed. “All I’m requesting is that you don’t kill them.”
His words caused those near Lord Irian to start muttering darkly as they wondered who this boy thought he was to make requests of the lord of a city and some of the guards even started to point their weapons at him as they expected that he would be joining the rest of his family in their fate.
“Then what would you suggest?” asked Irian who was seething inwardly, he felt like he was being backed into a corner for some reason, but it was hard to believe that someone as young as Telram was capable of tricking him and he had promised to listen to his request.
“I think that exiling them from Palamar effective immediately and making sure that your allies know how untrustworthy they are would be punishment enough,” Telram said. This was something that wouldn’t affect the next phase of his plans while seeming like little more than a death sentence to most of the people here.
There were villages that were outside the control of any of the lord of the human realm due to their isolation on the edge of the area of Nerrus that could be considered under human control, a place where even people who had been banished from all the cities in the human kingdoms could live. The place where these villages were located was known as the borderlands and was extremely dangerous due to its proximity to the beast lands where Mana Beasts far more powerful than any that lived in the human kingdoms were known to roam with their own entourage of Mana Beasts that served them like a human lord’s vassals would serve them. Most of the ruins that had yet to be fully searched were in the Beast Lands, which from what he had learned from his research likely included the specific ruins from the stone tablet. So Telram had come up with a plan that would allow him and his family to leave Palamar and make it to the borderlands without being followed by Irian’s guards. They were still only in the first stage of his plan and he was already having to use one of his backup plans.
Irian considered Telram’s words for a second, in a lot of ways this idea could work out better than simply having them executed, all he had to do was send some guards along with them under the guise of making sure that they left his territory and then have the guards kill them. This would make him look merciful in the eyes of the citizens of his city while still dealing with a group of people who had been undermining his authority.
“Very well,” he nodded. “I will have my guards escort them to the borders of my territories”
“Thank you, my lord,” Telram said bowing his head as his family all shouted angrily. He knew that Irian was probably planning to have his guards kill his family but it was still a better outcome than them simply being executed and it wasn’t like they hadn’t prepared for this exact situation and it would take them several days to even reach the border of Irian’s lands with Lily so by the time that they figured out that the guards had been taken out instead it would be too late as Telram would’ve already made his own move.
Lily looked back at her son as they were escorted away, she still didn’t understand what was going on, but she had realised that this was something that Telram had planned. To most people the idea of being exiled was little more than a death sentence but she knew that Aran, Willa and Gerry would be able to protect her from all but the most powerful Mana Beasts.
“Now that we’ve sorted that mess out, we’ll continue on with assigning the rest of you positions,” Irian said turning towards the other cultivators who were looking with Telram with horrified looks on their faces. They obviously couldn’t believe that he had sold out his teacher and family the way he had which was a good thing as far as Telram was concerned, the more people who were convinced that he had betrayed them the less people would suspect him of lying.
After Irian had finished deciding where each of the cultivators would be placed, they were led away by one of the guards who took them to one of the dormitory buildings set aside for those cultivators who had been recruited by Lord Irian.
Immediately after closing the door to his room Telram sat down and leaned back against the door as Jai watched on, all the stress that he had been holding back came out all at once. He had managed to prevent his family from being executed and they were now outside of the city. He would have to wait a few days before following them as he had to prepare for his own escape.
Luckily, they had been thorough in their preparations and soon one of the paper birds that cultivators used to deliver messages flew in the open window and landed in his lap. Unlike the normal paper birds that cultivators used this one was black and contained more sheets of paper with the complicated patterns Inscriptions on them.
“Right then,” Telram groaned these Inscriptions had been made by Gerry as while Telram was pretty good at Inscribing he was limited by his experience and cultivation rank and these Inscriptions were not only a higher level than he could create but they were something that Gerry had come up with himself and he hadn’t had time to teach Telram ho to create them. “You know what to do right Jai?”
The massive tiger nodded his head solemnly, he was in a slightly bad mood after what had happened earlier but that didn’t mean that he was going to let everything that Telram had done go to waste.
“Good, you can start placing these around the city starting tomorrow night,” Telram said yawning as he did so.
The paper that the Inscription had been written on had been treated with a resin that would protect it from things like water or Jai’s saliva. Unlike Telram Jai would be able to move around at night unnoticed if he was careful, he couldn’t hold the paper normally, so they had needed a way to make sure that he didn’t damage the Inscription when transporting them around the city in his mouth.
“Anyway, it’s been a long day, let’s go to bed.”
In the morning he would have to go to his new job and who knew what Pavel and the other scholars would have in store for him, especially considering the events of today.