SPIRIT SOUL

'Is he simply asking me to join him? Not follow or serve?' The young girl was confused, but her bunny ears that had gone limp due to fear, frustration, and sadness just a moment ago perked up yet again.

The young man's words implied that he wouldn't abandon her! A faint trace of hope glimmered in her eyes to think that she wasn't going to be thrown away.

"Yes, please!! Let me come with you!"

Not wasting even a single moment, the kneeling girl got back on her feet and spoke expectantly with her hands clasped together.

Her gaze didn't leave Kyle's as she subconsciously stuttered again.

"Mas-ter...I mean....Sir??"

Kyle was still exhausted from exerting his nurture ability and soothing the young girl's pain.

As such, he dragged himself to the pile of hay the Nasga used as padding before he laid down on it.

He took a deep breath that felt refreshing as his entire body relaxed a little.

"Just call me Kyle. It would be best if you think of a name for yourself too. I don't like to call you 'you', 'bunny girl' or anything like that. That would be inconvenient."

Saying so, he began to think of his plan that was already beginning to take shape, and his search for a guide seemed to have ended too.

Furthermore, the young girl, who was currently pondering about her name, had great prospects of turning into a strong Lohar, if nurtured properly!

'The Nurture ability can strengthen the cultivation veins individually as well as together. Other than that, her legs, ears and even the affinity seed within her can be nurtured separately from the rest of her body!'

Relieving the girl of her pain had already been difficult for Kyle, and his accumulated strength had been reduced to zero again!

The entire energy he had painstakingly accumulated had been used up, and despite that, the young Lohar's problem was far from solved.

"I don't know what name I want to have. I'm sorry Mas--Kyle."

Kyle had already closed his eyes because he wanted to rest a little when he heard the young girl's words.

She sounded frustrated with herself and before he fell asleep, Kyle mumbled,

"How about Selene?"

Before he could hear what the young girl thought about the name he had suggested, he had already fallen into a deep slumber.

At that moment, the young Lohar looked at Kyle in utter confusion.

'He...simply fell asleep? Is he not worried that I will run away? Didn't he think even once that...I could even kill him, take his stuff and run away once it's dark!...Why doesn't he bother about that?!...and, what about the name...Selene..is that some sort of a curse?!'

Unsure of what to do, she was second-guessing everything while looking out of the window, keeping one eye trained on Kyle, who was sleeping peacefully.

'Could it be that he is just...kind? No, that's impossible! He must have an ulterior motive...but he healed me...Maybe, he will just threaten me by saying that he won't continue to heal me if I don't obey him!!'

While the young Lohar was tormenting her mind with how things could go wrong, Kyle was sleeping soundly without any worry of being killed or betrayed by the little Lohar.

In his sleep, memories of his past life came rushing to him, when his mother had been alive and his father hadn't drowned himself in his addiction.

It was a beautiful time and the best memories he had of his past life! Those were the memories he cherished the most.

Unfortunately, he couldn't dwell on those as he woke up before he could spend some time with his parents.

Despite knowing that it was not real, he would have loved talking to them. It might have been an illusion but that was still fine with Kyle.

**

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the young girl was resting a bit farther away from him. When he shifted just a little while trying to switch to the other side, her eyes flew wide open, the moment her sensitive ears heard the faintest noise.

She quickly sprang up on her feet, ready to greet Kyle in the politest way she could base on what she had learned during the last few years as she remembered something.

'He doesn't want me to act like a slave and be overly submissive… right?' Even though Kyle had said so, the young girl was not sure what to do.

Thus, she simply greeted him with a faint bow.

Kyle just waved at her, indicating that this was not needed as he asked her while stifling a yawn.

"Morning. Are you fine with my suggestion or did you figure out a better name?"

Upon hearing the question, she hesitated for a moment while shifting her weight from one leg to another nervously, before she asked,

"How did you think of such a name? It's beautiful!... But… is that the name of one of your lovers? If that's the case, I don't want it!"

Kyle couldn't suppress a chuckle, yet the young girl could see a glint of sadness in his eyes.

"Selene is the name my mother would have given to me if I were a girl. Well...that's what I remember of how she used to complain about not having a girl. She died a long… a very long time ago."

The young Lohar didn't know what to say to that so she fell silent for a moment before she remarked,

"If it's too uncomfortable to have someone with the same name next to you, I should take a different one…"

However, instead of agreeing, Kyle shook his head as he realized that the girl liked his suggestion.

"I'm fine with calling you, Selene. Just use it if you like the name."

A smile blossomed on her lips to hear him, and if Kyle was not wrong, that was the first time he saw the young girl smile since he had met her. Her little face shone in delight as she almost squealed in excitement, "Thank you!!"

Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks and Kyle was about to comment that she was overreacting, only to realize that the girl's past must have been filled with lots of mental and physical abuse.

Selene was almost his age, yet she had only received a name from him! Despite that, the simplest of a gift made her cry in gratitude!

Even if he wouldn't accept her as a servant, let alone a slave, she knew how fortunate she was to have met Kyle!

Kyle just nodded his head as he noticed that the horned Emerald fox was lying next to him.

He got up, and only then did he notice that his entire body was filled with soul force which he had to annex and merge with his body.

"How long did I sleep?" From the amount of soul force in his body, he was fairly certain that more than eight hours must have passed, and it was only when Selene looked out of the window of their hut that she answered,

"Maybe half a day, I'm not certain...I'm sorry…"

Kyle sighed, hearing 'sorry' again which caused him to remind her yet again,

"Please stop apologizing. We don't even have a clock here, how could you give me an exact answer inside the hidden tribe where you can barely see the sun?"

Selene had already blurted out, "I'm sor-..." only to notice that she was apologizing again as she improvised midway, "What is a clock?"

It was obvious that her attempt to change the topic hadn't worked, and Kyle almost laughed out.

Fortunately, he could contain himself as he answered the question.

"To put it simply, it's a device with which you can determine the exact time of the day."

"Ohh," Selene muttered, acting as if she was interested in the device called 'clock', only to see Kyle shaking his head.

He was in no mood to explain it any further and to avoid this, Kyle took out a few pieces of raw meat from the backpack.

"You are currently malnourished, so it would be best if you eat only small pieces of meat, one at a time. Eat slowly, chew properly, and don't force yourself to eat more than you can handle.

If you eat too much at a time, you might vomit, and we don't want that, right?"

Now, Kyle only had slightly more than 2 kilograms of meat left, but it was starting to smell funny. Based on that, he could tell that it could only be consumed right now, and at most, in a few hours.

However, after that, it would go bad, and Kyle didn't want to risk food poisoning.

Even if a Yadras' stomach had a great metabolism, he didn't want to test his body's limits. Eating such meat would lead to far more adverse side effects for the Lohar race, and Kyle didn't want to risk it.

"Maybe I should sell the rest before it goes bad too?" He mumbled while biting into the raw meat.

Just at that moment, he noticed that Selene, who had nodded her head vigorously after hearing Kyle advise her about eating slowly, devoured the small piece of meat he had given her in two bites.

She was about to grab another piece of meat as Kyle gently slapped the back of her hand with his flat hand to stop her.

Instinctively, she flinched and immediately retracted her hand, moving away from him as her eyes shone with fresh tears.

'What have I done wrong...do I have to raise a grown-up baby now?' Kyle sighed before he repeated his lecture about eating slowly while chewing as much as possible.

When Kyle had hit the back of Selene's hand, he noticed that despite appearing frail and weak, she was much stronger than he was.

p Thus, he started to annex and merge with the soul force that his Spirit Soul had converted from the energy it had absorbed during the last 12 hours.

This process was not extremely difficult since he had repeated the same process several times over the last few days.

It only required time and focus.

He had heard that it was possible to do certain activities passively, but he neither knew how this was possible nor how high his concentration or cultivation must be to even consider something like that!

However, Kyle knew that he had ample time to achieve everything he wanted to, and the only thing he required was a well-thought strategy.

Unfortunately, his initial plan had already been modified several times in a matter of days, and Kyle had yet to think of a foolproof one!