SPIRIT SOUL

While Beatrice and Yasmine were trying to figure out what was going on with Sven but gave up after a few tries, Kyle was occupied with something else.

He had already used up a small portion of the stored Soul energy in order to empower his Nurture ability.

Through this, he had tended Alice's exhaustion and invigorated her.

Kyle had hoped that this would make him seem friendly and approachable to her. Making use of the small favor, he wanted to negotiate about the possibility of them entering the Lahin kingdom without too much trouble.

In his opinion, rescuing and tending to the wounds of one of the strongest Lohar, if not the strongest of the younger generation should be worth it.

Had he known that Yasmine and Alice had been talking for a few minutes, followed by the weird behavior of Alice, Kyle wouldn't be as calm.

Rather, he would start doubting Alice's behavior because it was just too weird.

Yet, he had no time to ponder about it as Kyle was fully occupied with trying to sense where the surrounding treasures were located, and where most strong prodigies were likely to have gathered.

From the initial number of more than 10,000 participants, more than half had died, while the rest groups had scattered all over the dome and some of the prodigies had also been forced to leave the dome in order to save their own life.

Some of them had been beaten into a pulp and utter exhaustion had engulfed them making it unable to move even a muscle due to the lack of energy and sore, aching limbs.

But these were still doing better compared to those who had lost limbs, and even a handful of prodigies whose cultivation veins had been injured.

While perceiving all of this through his Nurture ability which allowed him to see the hues of all living beings, Kyle continued to walk around the outskirts of the dome.

He didn't plan on entering the core area because he knew that a single group of the strongest prodigies would be strong enough to kill him in no time.

Keeping as much distance as possible from them so as to avoid unnecessary clashes was amongst the most important tasks at hand, followed by being able to leave the dome at any moment.

If necessary, he could release a terrifying speed at once, turning into a gust of wind to emerge outside the dome within the blink of an eye.

Nobody had witnessed the highest speed he could attain yet.

Other than that, he had not revealed Arashi either who was still hiding safely.

Thus, Kyle had a few ways of escaping the grasp of others the moment they attacked him.

Yet, upon seeing the numerous badly injured prodigies lying on the ground outside the dome made him frown.

The so called prodigies were so injured and exhausted that they had no energy left to even scream in pain, Kyle could only shake his head.

'Just what is the Mastermind behind the Guild trying to achieve? I doubt it is just because of me, but I don't really think he is recruiting talents for the Guild either. If he wants to show off his treasures to lure some prodigies to his side, the mutated Licara flower seed…might be enough…'

At first, he thought that it was impossible to lure the strongest prodigies of the three alliances to the Guild's side.

Yet, after giving it some thought, he realized that a potential enhancing seed that could be used to concoct several potions with the same effect was nothing short of miraculous.

Yetthe Master of the Guild had not instructed the Quetzalcoatl to bring all of the seeds to him.

Instead, he had considerately allowed others to pluck the fruits of his hard work.

After all, it was the Master of the Guild, who had planted Licara flower, knowing that it would produce seeds once in a while.

The more Kyle understood things, the more he realized that his initial assumptions had been far off from reality.

This led his mind to churn out new theories as fresh doubts and questions replaced the old ones he had been seeking an answer to.

'Why would the Master of the Guild even plant the flower if he doesn't need its seeds?'

If Kyle recalled properly, the seeds of the Licara flower seed had been in use by the surrounding kingdoms for a few millennia.

As such, the Master of the Guild hadn't used them, and neither did he intervene in the schemings of the Aldra, Nasga, or Lohar race.

That meant something must have changed from before.

'Is it the mutation of the Licara flower seed, my arrival, or something else the reason behind this? Are there new dangers that the Master of the Guild fears? Probably not, otherwise, he would have used the Licara flower seeds for himself too.

Maybe he needs strong prodigies to become his powerful forces…being alone is quite convenient considering that one required fewer resources, but there are many things one cannot do alone…like controlling the Shalivra valley, or the powers within..'

While his mind ran wild with all the possibilities, Kyle continued to pave his way through the center of the Sadorla forest.

He walked past all kinds of treasures without giving them another look and completely ignoring their existence, while his focus remained on the hues in his surrounding, in addition to his thoughts that became complex the more time passed.

This was quite inconvenient, and in the end, Kyle knew that he was unable to do anything even if he were to know the truth.

Because of that, it would be best if he were to use the knowledge he had at hand.

What this meant was quite simple.

He should follow his heart and gut feeling while giving his utmost efforts to procure a mutated Licara flower seed as long as it was possible before leaving the Sadorla forest.

Afterward, he would just hand over the responsibility of protecting the Licara flower seed to Sven, who could bring it to the Queen, or whoever was deemed fit by her to grant him permission to enter the Lahin kingdom, or even better, the Glory Knight academy.

The only thing Kyle would have to do in-between was to survive, to become stronger, and to understand some mysteries of the universe, or Shima, to be precise!

There were simply too many things he didn't know, and the entire Shalivra valley felt much bigger than he had initially thought.

Too many things bothered Kyle, but the majority of them was something he wouldn't be able to change, even if he wanted to.

As such, he shook his head and prepared himself to focus on the task at hand.

Yet, it was just at this moment that Arashi issued a warning.

A fraction of a moment later his Spirit Soul had already materialized a wall of compressed wind in front of Kyle as he saw a glint of steel advancing ahead.

Arrows flew straight towards him with a terrifyingly high velocity!

With a thunderous sound that was unlike the projectile that collided with the wind wall right in front of him, the arrow's velocity was drastically reduced.

This gave Kyle the chance to evade them by a hair's breadth as the first two arrows fell to the ground after dispersing the wall of wind Arashi had materialized moments ago.

Meanwhile, a third arrow advanced through the scattered wind currents, nearly striking Kyle.

But the sharp reflexes that he had honed through intense training and fighting beasts and beings of various races alike helped him evade it as well.

After twisting his body to avoid the arrow and Arashi having used a small portion of his Soul force, Kyle spotted three Aldra who had attacked him without showing any mercy.

The gazes they threw towards him were filled with the intent to kill, but none of them was tense.

This showed that they were not afraid of killing someone but also that they weren't doing it for selfish gains.

Kyle didn't have a single treasure, after all.

As such, it was quite obvious that the higher authorities of the Aldra race had ordered them to kill the robed man wearing a mask.

Initially, he expected that only the Nasga race would be agitated about the fact that he rescued Alice.

However, their plan to kill her seemed to have been much more important than Kyle first assumed which he had meddled with.

Because of that, the Aldra race was annoyed about having lost some of their strongest prodigies without the end result they had wanted.

And to make matters worse, Alice's savior was just someone at the Low Vitae stage.

He was one of the few independent individuals who had entered the Brawl with the aim of gaining something by making use of the grand opportunity that unfolded right in front of him.

After all, Kyle didn't look strong enough to travel around on his own and tackle several groups of powerful prodigies all by himself.

This was completely different for someone like Alice, who could only be held back by groups of the strongest prodigies who had joined their forces to attack her!

As such, getting rid of Kyle was something that would be done quickly, alongwith pacifying the anger of the Nasga and Aldra race to some extent…or so they thought.

By grossly underestimating Kyle, they simply believed that he had been lucky to scavenge through the surrounding area without being attacked by any group. Hence, the Aldra had first sent out one of their weaker groups which they separated from the main force to take him out.

In the end, there were less than 2000 participants left in the brawl, and amongst them, the majority was already feeling drained.

Having fought dozens of battles for the last 30 hours even the strongest prodigies were bound to be exhausted.

Yet, the moment they would slacken a bit and decided to rest, others would be able to gain an advantage and overwhelm them.

After all, the countdown until which some of the treasures could be claimed for oneself was already nearing its end.

This meant they had to take away the treasure and reset the countdown before leaving the dome to rest a little, or they would have to wait till their own treasure's countdown would finish and step out of the dome with the treasure before returning empty-handed inside to continue hunting for treasures.

Kyle had yet to perceive the perfect timing to launch his attack, which had been the reason for him to walk through the center of the Sadorla forest with an alert mind and careful steps.

How could he know that the moment he was distracted, three Aldra prodigies would attack him?

Yet, even though Kyle was attacked by three prodigies that were at the Late Vitae stage, he was not exactly bothered.

They didn't have a single affinity seed in their mana core, and the depth of their cultivation was also much worse than Kyle's.

In fact, he believed that Arashi could single-handedly tackle one of the prodigies.

However, this was too dangerous, and Kyle knew that he shouldn't underestimate the prodigies of any race.

After all, there was a reason why they were called prodigies, and this was even more so the case inside the Brawl.

The three prodigies had survived inside the dome for more than 30 hours, and they were still not as exhausted as the others.

Whether this was because they had rested or not didn't really matter.

Instead, more important was the fact, that they had been able to conceal themselves, before attacking him with an extremely tricky and sudden attack.

Each of the arrows had been shot at an extremely powerful velocity, and only owing to Arashi's otherworldly fast reflexes was Kyle still alive.

This reassured Kyle that his efforts in nurturing Arashi had all been worthwhile.

However, at the same time, it told him that Arashi's comprehension of the wind was strong enough to block simple shots of arrows.

However, just as he thought this, he saw a different kind of gleam originating from the direction he had been attacked for the first time.

At the same time, he sensed strong mana fluctuations from that direction as well.

Through this, Kyle immediately knew what was going on.

'They switched their arrows…with mana imbued arrows…made of different metals at that!!

Are they special ranked arrows?!'

Special ranked arrows were made of certain types of metal that could be imbued with any kind of cultivation energy.

By engraving runes on them, they could be enhanced with specific traits, such as being armor breakers, or explosive, or simply overly sharp.

Their functions were endless as long as one was creative and knowledgeable enough.

Kyle was quite interested in special craftworks as his prized possession, the Starbreaker Katana, was also one.

Yet, facing the special arrows shot out by three Late Vitae stage Cultivators was certainly not something, Kyle looked forward to.

Instead, he felt that the type of special arrow was a deciding factor in whether or not he would survive the next attack!!

After all, the arrows could be everything!