One of the more infamous things that people with extremely powerful souls can do is effect those around them in various ways. Some of the most well-known versions of this particular trait are the auras of bloodlust that surround the more powerful cultivators but there are other, more subtle things that people with powerful souls can use their soul energy for as well. Someone with a powerful soul can influence people to do or feel things that they otherwise would not. They can make a cowardly man brave or a brave man a coward. Make those sick more likely to recover or make healthy people more likely to fall suddenly ill. Of course, people who can use their power in this way are looked upon fearfully, even by the nobles who controlled the main cities spread out over the human world but that doesn’t stop them using them for their benefit when needed.
-Excerpt from Telram’s notes on Soul Energy
“Hey everyone,” Telram said as he and Jai walked in through the front door of their new house. “Is dinner ready yet?”
Most people would’ve considered this to be a bit rude, but Lily only shook her head with a wry smile on her face. She knew that he had asked about dinner first because his Body Strengthening Technique worked it used up a lot of energy, which meant that he needed to eat a lot more than a normal person did. If he didn’t the technique would stop working to strengthen his body, which was a safety mechanism that Telram had been forced to put in when he realised that he could be in trouble if he found himself in situation where he couldn’t eat.
“Yes dear, I’m plating it up right now,” she replied as Telram gave her a gentle hug. She was so thin now that he barely even touched her skin as his strength was now so great that it was getting increasingly hard for him to judge how much he was using and if he wasn’t careful, he could injure her by accident. “Why don’t you go and take a seat next to Iris?”
“Okay,” Telram agreed before walking over to the table and taking a seat next to his student who was fidgeting nervously. “Are you alright Iris?”
“Yeah, I’m just a bit uneasy about the idea of destroying my Mana Core and creating a new one,” the tiny girl replied quietly. “It just seems like a risky thing to do.”
“Is this because I told you that it could be dangerous?” Telram asked as his mother placed a massive plate of food in front of him.
“What else would it be about?” Iris asked as she eyed Telram’s meal with a frown.
“Fair enough,” Telram snorted. “Well it is true that doing this is relatively dangerous. But we have several people who have been studying Mana Cores for a long time and have very powerful souls which are what are used to create the temporary barrier around where your Core is. It would also be more dangerous for you to try and advance to the Ascendant Realm with your current Core, even if you tried your very best to improve it.”
“Is it really that bad?” Iris asked as Telram took a bite of his food.
Seeing that Telram was trying to decide between trying to talk while eating or finishing his mouthful Gerry decided that it was time to step in before he ruined his standing in front of one of his students.
“Allow me to explain Iris,” the old man said quickly before Telram could make up his mind and receiving a grateful glance from his student in return. “Your Core is badly misshapen and has a lot of areas where it is far too thin. So, if you put too much Mana into it the Core could rupture which would likely end with your death. Now if you want to give up on entering the Ascendant Realm then this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, I need to enter the Ascendant Realm,” the small girl replied firmly. “And maybe even the Immortal Realm to accomplish my goals.”
“Well then it will be far safer to recreate your Core now than to attempt to enter the Ascendant Realm with the one that you already have,” Gerry replied firmly. “And that’s without even mentioning the Immortal Realm. Even my own Core would barely be well made enough for me to enter the Immortal Realm if I ever reached that point.”
“Alright that’s enough of that,” Lily admonished them. “You can talk about that later. Now eat your food before it gets cold.”
Lily’s tone brooked no argument despite her frail frame, so everyone did as she had requested digging into the food that had been placed in front of them. All except for Iris who sat there staring down at her plate for a few seconds before looking up to see everyone else enjoying their meal. She had been cooking for herself since her parents had died and having a meal prepared for her like this brought back memories of her own mother’s cooking. Slowly picking up her spoon she scooped some of the fried rice that she had been served into her mouth. As the piping hot food touched her tongue tears started running down her face and she started shovelling it into her mouth faster and faster, barely even stopping to breath.
The others watched the small girl with sad smiles on their faces. It was painfully obvious by how thin she was that Iris hadn’t been eating properly since her parents had died. In fact, she had basically been subsisting off of poorly cooked rice, bread or whatever fruit and vegetables she had been able buy with the small amount of money that she had made from selling the herbs that she had grown in the small garden next to her house. So, for her eating something that had been prepared by someone who was actually a good cook and had actual meat in it was almost like a dream.
They continued eating in silence until they had all finished their meals. At some point both Willa and Jai had come to lean up against Iris in an obvious effort to comfort the girl and as Telram cleared her plate away he saw that she was now stroking the soft fur on top of their heads. He knew that they both had more than enough control over their strength that they could put just enough weight on the girl to let her know that they were there without crushing her by accident so he chose to say nothing and just patted the girl on her head as he passed eliciting a surprised gasp from her.
As he was now busy teaching the village children during the day Telram couldn’t help his mother make dinner, so he quickly got to work cleaning everything while the others prepped Iris for what was going to happen once he was done.
When he had cleaned everything Telram dried his hands and walked back over to the table where they were waiting for him patiently.
“Well then,” Telram said. “Let’s get started.”
Earlier today he had used up quite a lot of his Soul Energy helping to stabilise Henry when he made a mistake that could’ve caused the Core to turn out far worse than it had. He had actually done so quite often not that any of his students had been able to notice this which was why he had been struggling more than he otherwise would’ve been towards the end. Synchronising his soul energy with Henry’s well enough not to cause any problems for the boy later had been extremely difficult but he had only made temporary patches before casually signalling to Henry so that he could fix the problem himself.
Thankfully, enough time had passed now that his soul energy had recovered enough to help Iris out, one of the others would have been able to handle the job themselves but Telram needed to practice synchronising his soul energy with people weaker than he was. Besides depleting your Soul Energy was actually one of the easiest ways to increase the amount that you had so doing this was also increasing his already impressive amount of Soul Energy.
Immediately Iris closed her eyes and concentrated on entering the state that would allow her to interact with her Mana Core. Once he was certain that she was ready Telram placed a hand on her forehead and sent a tiny amount of his Soul Energy into her body which came to rest in the same area where a small orb of white energy was waiting for him next to a misshapen but still somehow pearl-like Mana Core. This small orb of light was the form that Iris could currently take in this area as she was not yet capable of forming a true spiritual body. With the amount of energy, he had placed inside of her the spiritual body that he could form was tiny but that didn’t matter much for his purposes.
“Alright Iris, you need to relax,” Telram told the small girl carefully. “We can’t do this if you don’t let your guard down completely.”
This was the hardest part of what they were trying to do. Telram could in fact destroy her Mana Core with brute force fairly easily but the shock of doing so would badly injure if not kill Iris. So, Iris had to let her guard down so that she wasn’t hurt by the backlash of her Mana Core being destroyed.
“Okay, I’ll try,” the girl replied and Telram felt the pressure that had been upon his spiritual body since he had created it start to lessen. “How’s that?”
“A little more,” Telram replied. He knew how difficult this sort of thing had to be for her but if she didn’t accept him this wouldn’t work. “Trust me.”
Iris frowned as she tried her best to relax. Doing this was extremely difficult with someone else’s spiritual body inside of her body as her instincts were screaming at her that letting her guard down was dangerous.
Seeing that she was struggling Telram summoned another tiny amount of soul energy to try and help her out.
“Focus,” he whispered sending a wave of calm through Iris that quickly spread to the others around him. “Remember why you want to recreate your Mana Core and let me take control.”
Gerry’s eyes widened as the small wave of energy broke over him. He had known that Telram had been working on using his voice to project a soul energy-based attack, but he hadn’t expected that Telram had already figured out how to use his soul energy for things like this. His eyes narrowed slightly, using your soul energy this way was something that a lot of people were wary of and for good reason. Indeed, it was said that there were some very powerful Lords who used a similar technique to control the population of their city and keep them docile. As such, having a skill like this naturally attracted the attention of people that Gerry would rather Telram didn’t have anything to do with. He would have to have a conversation with Telram later about the dangers associated with using techniques like this.
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Meanwhile Iris had finally relaxed enough for Telram to begin. Letting the others know to prepare the barrier Telram lashed out with his soul energy shattering the poorly formed core in front of his spiritual body into an uncountable number of pieces.
Back in the real world Iris slumped in her chair from the shock of what had just happened but managed to keep what passed for her own spiritual body from fading away as Gerry, Fergus and Diana reinforced the barrier that they had created to prevent the Mana that had been contained in Iris’ Mana Core.
Once he was certain that Iris was alright Telram began to walk her through recreating her Core in much the same way that he had with Henry earlier today. There were some pretty major differences this time around, however.
The first of these differences was of course the fact that there was a barrier surrounding Iris’ soul space which made it far more difficult for Telram to keep the spiritual body from fading away which was part of the reason that he had made it much smaller than he had the previous time. In fact, he regretted making the spiritual body he had used to help guide Henry as large as he had as that was probably part of the reason he had been struggling towards the end.
The second was the sheer amount of Mana that was currently struggling against the barrier that was keeping it from ravaging Iris’ body but thankfully the barrier was holding up without any real difficulty. Seeing this Telram nodded happily, as expected Gerry and the others did good work.
The third thing was that Iris’ soul was far more powerful than Henry’s was which meant that she should in theory be able to create a better Mana Core. Of course, that was dependant on other factors as well but Telram was pretty sure that he could at the very least influence those for the better especially now that he had a better idea of what he was doing after helping Henry out earlier.
This time Telram didn’t bother to mask what he was doing when he corrected Iris. Everyone else knew just how difficult what they were doing right now was, so it would’ve been a waste of his soul energy to do so. So instead he simply worked with Iris, explaining his actions as he worked much to her surprise. She had noticed something odd earlier, but it was only now that she was experiencing it for herself that she truly realised just how much work Telram himself was putting into making sure that both her and Henry’s Cores were as well made as possible.
Thankfully this also meant that Iris’ Core was finished much faster than Henry’s had been and only a couple of hours after they started both Iris and Telram opened their eyes much to the relief of the others, especially the three that had been keeping the barrier up.
Seeing his student swaying in her seat from exhaustion Telram reached out to steady her before performing one final check on her body to make sure nothing had gone wrong.
“Alright then, how do you feel Iris?” Telram asked once he was certain that there wasn’t anything wrong.
“Ye-yeah,” Iris replied. “I’m just tired.”
“Okay, do you want to stay here the night?” Telram asked. This option was definitely preferable as far as he was concerned, and he could see by the looks on the faces of the others that they were confused as to why he was even asking. “Just so we can keep an eye on you of course.”
“I don’t really want to,” Iris said as she attempted to get to her feet before collapsing forcing Telram to leap out of his own seat to catch her before she hurt herself. “But maybe it’s a good idea.”
“Yeah,” Telram chuckled down at the girl whose face had turned red from embarrassment. “I think you might be right there. You can sleep in my room for the night and I’ll sleep out here.”
“Okay, I guess that’s fine then,” Iris agreed before Telram picked her up. “Hey!”
“Sorry but you’re in no shape to walk right now and you should be getting to sleep as soon as possible so that you can recover,” Telram apologised as he carried her to the room where he had been sleeping these past couple of nights. It was still hard for him to think of this as his home right now, but it was getting easier faster than even he had expected.
Stepping inside the room Telram gently placed her on the bed before stepping back and almost colliding with Jai who had walked in behind him.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed as he leapt to the side. “Hey what are you doing in here buddy. We’ll be sleeping outside.”
Jai blinked at Telram’s words before turning his massive furry head towards the girl who was lying on the bed and sent a worried sensation through their soul link. Telram nodded as he understood what the tiger was asking and turned back to Iris who was watching them with a confused look on her face.
“Jai wants to sleep in here tonight so that he can keep an eye on you,” Telram explained. “Would that be alright with you?”
“Sure, I guess,” Iris replied frowning slightly at Telram’s words. “Say Telram?”
“Yes Iris?”
“Jai seems to be awfully smart even for a Mana Beast, what’s going on there?” Iris asked surprising Telram for a brief moment before he recovered from his shock.
“Ah, well you are aware that a Mana Beast who has a Soul Contract with a human becomes more intelligent right?” Telram asked and Iris nodded her agreement.
She still looked a bit confused but that was understandable. Even contracted Mana Beasts usually took years to develop the level of intelligence that Jai possessed and were usually much more powerful as well. Willa was a much more typical example of what one could expect from a contracted Mana Beast, but Iris had already noticed that Jai was almost as intelligent as Willa was if not slightly more, so which seemed odd to her.
“Well when we were created our Soul Contract, we may have gone a bit overboard,” Telram told the girl awkwardly. “You see Jai was always more intelligent than the average Mana Beast and we both had more powerful souls than usual which allowed us to create a much stronger bond between our souls which in turn lead to both of us receiving more from the other.”
So that’s why your hair and eyes look like that as well?” Iris asked as understanding dawned on her face.
“That’s right,” Telram agreed as he scratched the side of his face in embarrassment. He was very aware of how outlandish his appearance was even years after the change. “It also changed other parts of my body and even effected my body strengthening technique. My body can handle much more Mana than a normal person’s can and even if I wasn’t using a body strengthening technique, I would be stronger, faster and tougher than any cultivator who didn’t have a body strengthening technique of their own.”
“I see,” Iris muttered under her breathe before meeting Telram’s gaze. “Would you be willing to teach me how to create a Soul Contract like you did?”
“Eventually yes,” Telram chuckled in reply. “I plan on teaching all of you as many of the things that I have learned that I can but you’re a long way away from being able to manage something like that. Now, you need to go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“As for you mister,” Telram continued as he turned to look at Jai. “You sleep on the floor. If you rolled over in your sleep, you could accidentally crush Iris. She’s not as tough as me.”
Jai snorted in amusement but then nodded slowly in agreement making Telram smirk before patting his friend on the head and stepping out of the room. After closing the door carefully behind him Telram leaned up against it, placed a hand on his forehead and sighed. It had been a long and stressful day even though he had enjoyed teaching the kids. However, he had also used up a truly massive amount of Soul Energy. Twice. With only a short break in between as well.
“Alright then,” he sighed and turned towards the others who were still sitting at the table. “Gerry, did that give you any ideas?”
“Well yes and no,” Gerry replied. “We might have been able to do something similar if Lily wasn’t quite as weak as she is right now. But I don’t think that she could handle the strain right now.”
“Indeed,” Lily agreed. “I just don’t have the energy for that sort of thing anymore.”
“Okay,” Telram sighed as he slipped deep into thought. “And if we added in my own soul energy to bolster mum?”
“We would have to make sure that you can synchronise your soul energy with her own first, I know that you practiced doing that with the kids earlier but even they’re stronger than she is at this point and if you mess it up then you could kill her,” Gerry replied. “And even if we solved that part of the problem, we wouldn’t be able to contain all of the Mana in her Core when we broke it.”
“Even though it’s been leaking out for years?” Telram asked frowning slightly when Gerry suggested that he might not be able to synchronise his soul energy with his mother’s properly.
“She was right on the brink of the Ascendant Realm,” Gerry sighed sadly. “It’s just too much Mana, even if Aran helped out.”
“Of course, I’ll be helping you. Just try and stop me,” Aran interrupted, as he placed a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“I know Aran, I know,” Gerry agreed. “But the fact remains that it wouldn’t help.”
“How many more people would we need?” Telram asked. “I’m pretty sure that we could talk Dale into helping us out fairly easily.”
“Well if you could convince Dale to help us, I’d estimate that we’d need at least another three people, but they’d have to have fairly powerful souls. Not quite as powerful as Diane perhaps, but close,” Gerry replied thoughtfully.
“That might be difficult,” Telram sighed. Diane’s soul wasn’t too powerful for her cultivation rank, but it was still more powerful than that of most of the people in the village, except for perhaps the village head. Then Telram had a thought, it was a bit of a long shot but if it worked it would definitely help. “What if I could train Willa and Jai to help us?”
Willa looked up from her place at Aran and Lily’s feet at the mention of her name. She was smart enough to understand what Telram was talking about perfectly but also knew that her soul energy was only compatible with Aran due to her Soul Contract with him so as far as she knew what Telram was suggesting was impossible.
“Soul Contracted Mana Beasts can lend their partner their strength to a certain degree, right?” Telram asked and Gerry nodded his agreement. He wasn’t quite sure where his student was going with this, but he also knew that Telram’s understanding of soul energy was greater than that of his own.
“In theory,’ the old man replied. “But in practice it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“But Jai and I can do it relatively easily,” Telram revealed. He and Jai had been practicing transferring both Mana and soul energy between them in secret for some time now and could now even transfer both forms of energy over a short distance. When they started, they could only transfer one type of energy between them at a time and they had to be touching to do so.
“If you can then that’s because of the nature of your Soul Contract being different than the normal one though,” Gerry nodded as understanding dawned on his face.
“Yeah that’s what I thought,” Telram agreed. “But I think I might be able to come up with a way to reinforce the bond between Willa and dad, at least temporarily.”
“Well that would make things easier,” Gerry replied. “But only if you can do it.”
“Give me a week and I’ll see what I can do,” Telram replied. “I’ll also see if any of the villagers would be willing to help us.”
“This could work,” Gerry muttered as hope began to dawn on his face. He had been stressing out about Lily’s health for years now but for the first time he truly felt like they might be able to help her.
“I think so too,” Telram agreed.
Hearing the hope in their voices the others smiled. Lily had been suffering for so long, but it appeared that they had finally found a way forward.
“Right you two,” Fergus interrupted before they could continue their conversation. “It’s getting late and you both need your sleep. Especially you Telram.”
“Uh yeah,” Telram agreed. Fergus was right; besides it wasn’t like he was in any state to work on the technique that he hoped would allow Aran and Willa to transfer their soul energy tonight.
Giving her son a kiss on the cheek Lily slowly made her way to her and Aran’s room and the others filed off as well leaving Telram sitting at the table alone.
Telram’s list of things he needed to do was only growing but his mother didn’t have time for him to sit around thinking about things that he couldn’t help right now. Grabbing a spare blanket from a cupboard he laid down and closed his eyes.
As he drifted off to sleep all Telram could think about was how much he was looking forward to teaching the next lesson tomorrow instead of dwelling on thoughts of revenge like he usually did. For the first time since being reincarnated into this world he felt like he had discovered his true purpose.