SPIRIT SOUL

Kyle didn't believe that he was the first living being to enter the Castle of the Undead.

Yet, after giving it some more thought, the idea didn't sound so absurd.

At least, if one were to say that he was possibly the first participant in the Inheritance trials.

This, however, meant that he was the first living, breathing existence that made it to the Castle of the Undead since it was constructed which was around 50,000 years ago.

Even if he tried his best to stay positive, this was quite hard to achieve, considering that he had hoped to leave soon.

It was not like the opportunities within the Castle of the Undead, or the cultivation energies in the entire region around him was lacking.

On the contrary, it was like a tailor-made training ground for him.

It was perfectly suited to his current capabilities and it would certainly help him to become stronger and reach a higher cultivation base in a short time.

Kyle was also confident that it would be possible to nurture Arashi, once he had matured.

Letting him mature, mutate, and then evolve once again would probably require tremendous amounts of soul particles and energy to supply the Nurture ability.

Yet, that was not what worried Kyle.

Instead, he was a little bit concerned about Selene.

He didn't know what was going on in the Sadorla forest and was worried about her well-being.

He had promised her to meet inside the Lahin kingdom.

Because of that, she would probably enter it in a few months.

She would go to the kingdom in hopes of meeting him, either with the Jars by her side, completely alone.

When they had been forcefully separated, Kyle hadn't really thought about what he said.

He had simply blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

It was not necessarily bad, but there was something that bothered him. Whether it was the unique flower's existence, and the fact that a single mutated crop had manifested a Tenux storm, or something about the Lahin kingdom, Kyle couldn't say for sure, but he was definitely worried about Selene.

Unfortunately, Selene was not his only worry at the moment.

The few terrifying existences that had observed him were no less worrisome if Kyle were, to be honest with himself.

When they had noticed that something was off, these existences had vanished.

Despite the ghosts getting slaughtered, they had refrained from further disturbing him from completing the final steps through the first trial.

While absorbing the dispersed soul fractions of the Ghosts, Kyle didn't think about invigorating himself.

He might be exhausted, but wasting the precious soul particles which he used to supply to the Nurture ability was not necessary.

His clothes were slick with his sweat that was trickling down his forehead and his head was also aching. Yet, Kyle felt oddly free.

It was quite late, but only now did he really understand how much he had missed out in his first life.

He had always known that cultivators lived a far better life.

But now as he reaped the benefits, he couldn't help but feel sorry for himself and his past life when he had been unable to cultivate.

Thinking about his past, Kyle had many good memories, but the share of regrets and unfulfilled desires was not less either.

However, the number of good memories he made during the last few months, and the happiness he felt on recalling them made him feel content.

It was already much more than his past life's, while he promised himself to not leave room for regrets.

When Kyle reached the end of the maze, a large open area was revealed in front of him

At the end of it, there was a gigantic stone gate.

It towered to the height of more than 20 meters and its width was more than 30 meters.

It was engraved with all kinds of runes that shone faintly, only for Kyle to realize that the runes were interlinked.

While the lower part of the gate was vibrantly glowing, the uppermost part of it shone in a feeble glow.

From the looks of it, the runes were slowly dimming down, at an almost untraceable pace.

Fortunately, owing to the Nurture ability, his eyesight and other senses were indirectly strengthened.

This allowed him to see the subtle changes that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.

At that moment, one of the wooden signs' letters shine was dimming down.

'Does that mean that the variety of items I can choose my reward from keeps decreasing the more time passes?' Kyle wondered with a frown while facing the gate.

Somehow, he had assumed that the tiny ancient village was supposed to be his reward.

The things he had obtained from the houses were already valuable enough to be considered the hidden reward which he had to find first.

As Kyle looked at the ring with the bat emblem engraved on it, his thumb circled the outer edges of the ring. He thought that the spatial ring alone was worth more than everything he could get as a reward from the first trial.

As such, he couldn't help but feel odd that it had simply been lying around in one of the ancient houses.

It made no sense, and Kyle couldn't help but imagine that the ring might have belonged to one of the few powerhouses, whose hues he had seen through the Nurture ability.

However, in that case, the question about the 'why' was extremely confusing.

Why would someone gift him something as precious as the spatial ring that was now bound to his blood and soul force?

It's storage space seemed to increase proportionally alongwith the advancement of his cultivation base!

That was something Kyle had figured out during the last few days in which his cultivation had increased by a small margin.

This had already been enough to increase the storage space inside the spatial ring by half a cubic meter!

Because of this discovery, Kyle knew that the price of the storage ring was well beyond his current wealth.

It was something he wouldn't be able to lay hands on under normal circumstances even after saving every last penny in the next few years.

If he was not wrong, the spatial ring was a Special grade item at the Secur grade!

Mell would probably faint the moment she was to set her eyes on his spatial ring.

Kyle didn't feel any less shocked, knowing that the ring was a rare relic, not even beings at the Peak Krysal stage could procure it easily.

As such, it made even less sense for someone to simply offer him the spatial ring as a present.

No matter how much he thought about it, he was unsure of why or who had deemed him worthy of receiving such an invaluable item.

Shaking his head in denial, Kyle tried to distract himself from the fact that everything inside the ancient house had been extremely valuable.

It was not only the ring that was worth a fortune, after all.

Yet, looking at all the wide variety of rewards, Kyle could only smile dryly.

"I… don't need anything!"

This realization caused Kyle to halt in his tracks before he read every single wooden sign once again.

'How is that possible?' He wondered while biting at his lower lip.

Confusion spread through Kyle's mind, and he couldn't really get the hang of the situation.

For a while, he let his thoughts run wild only to hear Arashi's yawn.

The Spirit Soul laid on his shoulder with his tail curled around his body, sleeping soundly.

He was recuperating from the exhausting efforts of creating wind blades causing it to bleed a lot.

Kyle didn't feel much better and he was also exhausted, but he had to choose a reward.

Unfortunately, the rewards were even less promising than he had first imagined.

Now, the question was what he should take as a reward.

It had to be somehow useful because it would be a shame to waste an opportunity to get a reward.

If there was truly nothing for Kyle to use, he could still choose the most expensive item, and sell or barter it later.

That would only help him increase his wealth.

He could even choose to procure cultivation crystals, and possibly even cultivation stones in return.

p In the end, this was his Plan B because he had a different way of approaching things.

Rather than getting his hands on something that had only a monetary value, Kyle wanted to invest in himself.

He prioritized this over anything else.

A cultivator's true wealth, after all, was not materialistic possessions but his cultivation base and high combat prowess. This had a much higher value to him, and if used properly, it would turn into a vast fortune.

As such, he couldn't help but eye one particular wooden sign that was on his far-right and almost hidden behind the maze's walls.

Shrugging his shoulders, he told himself that it was probably the best he could acquire.

With his mindset in stone, Kyle thus approached the wooden sign with the words [Fyire ayr Moet] written on it.

Under normal circumstances, one wouldn't know what this meant because it was written in the language of the ancient.

However, Kyle was not an ordinary cultivator.

Owing to the research he had done in his past life, in order to find possible ways to change his inevitable fate, he had learned the ancient language.

Or at least he had tried to, using the little connections he had to procure a single book written in the ancient language.

It was for toddlers at the kindergarten level, but that hadn't bothered Kyle at that time.

After inserting his soul force into the wooden sign, they had glowed a little.

To his fortune, studying that book had made it possible for him to read the simple words.

"Fire and Metal"

These three words were simple, but Kyle had an assumption about the meaning behind them.

As such, he closed his eyes with his arms held out, hoping for his guess to be true.

But only a moment later, he was thrown to the ground when his reward landed in his hands.

Stumbling backward due to the unexpected weight that flew into his arms, he fell face-first on the ground.

Right beside him lay a huge, thick book that was extremely heavy.

"Yes!!" Kyle exclaimed, unable to hold himself back upon seeing the symbol of an anvil on the cover. His face lit up in a broad smile which made him ignore his pain and Arashi's complaints.

Scampering towards the book, he got up and sat cross-legged as he opened the book.

The pages were filled with all kinds of hieroglyphic symbols that looked vaguely similar, yet different to the universal language.

'It is the language of the ancient!' He concluded within moments before flicking through the pages.

There was lots of text, but that was not exactly what Kyle was looking for.

In ancient times, only royalty was said to be able to well versed with reading and writing.

Blacksmiths didn't fall under the privileged category.

And, even if they were able to read a few simple words owing to their occupation and trade, their knowledge about reading, let alone writing was scarce.

Thus, most techniques that taught blacksmithing and all kinds of other occupations, had been drawn into books.

As opposed to text-filled pages, the techniques had exhaustive and detailed drawings explaining every single step.

It was exactly due to this, that Kyle was astonished to see so much text in the [Fyire ayr Moet] blacksmithing technique.

It was rare to come across such a piece of literature. And, it also indicated that someone very knowledgeable had created the technique.

Fortunately, there were more than enough pictures inside it.

The drawings provided useful insights to Kyle, giving him the chance to learn something about blacksmithing.

Had it been completely filled with text, he would have had a hard time deciphering the meaning of each word written in the ancient language properly.

However, Kyle decided that he should enter the second trial before even thinking about reading the blacksmithing manual. There were many regulations about the Castle of the Undead, Kyle didn't know.

To be precise, his knowledge about Inheritance sites, their trials, and so on was purely based on the book [Karnias heritage], which didn't even seem to be correct.

The book seemed to be filled with Karnias' observations and assumptions and, as such, lacked validation.

Thus, Kyle had to be prepared for everything.

Yet, even with that thought in mind, his preparations fell short for what awaited him!

**

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