SPIRIT SOUL

To say that Kyle was shocked would be an understatement.

But he decided to take a deep breath before analyzing what was going on.

Misunderstanding her words could put both of them in an awkward situation!

Selene was in a bad mental state due to her past traumas. As such, she was in dire need of someone to rely on.

He was the first and probably the only one, who had supported her in her entire life.

Based on her spontaneous outburst back at Gard's shop, he had learned a bit about her past.

The poor Lohar had been abandoned, frowned upon, and punished for being ill and labeled as cursed.

Because of that, it was only obvious that she would blurt out things without thinking twice. This could be one of her spontaneous outbursts as well.

As such, Kyle decided to not mind her words for now. Selene had to understand and accept herself first because it was unlikely for her to know the severity of her words!

Thus, Kyle used the small chance he had perceived to escape her grasp before picking up the Maest crystal from the ground.

"Let's eat something before cultivating."

He avoided reacting to her comment and simply stated what to do next. Meanwhile, Selene could only stare at Kyle. Getting up from the bed, he hurriedly left the small room.

A gasp escaped Selene's lips as she put her hand on her mouth.

Suddenly, her pale cheeks turned beet-red as realization dawned upon her.

"W-what have I just asked???" She couldn't believe what had just happened. Never in her life had she done something so reckless and stupid which caused her to curse herself.

She was beyond embarrassed and all she could think of was to dig up a hole and crawl in it.

Under normal circumstances, she would have rushed after Kyle, but she realized that staying away from him would be better for the time being. She had to calm down after all.

The last few minutes had been an emotional roller coaster of desperation, fear, and various other conflicting emotions bubbling within Selene.

And to make matters worse, she had gone ahead and embarrassed herself in front of her master.

'Can I ever face him again?'

While she was struggling to deal with the mortification, her stomach rumbled, and she got distracted.

Selene spent a minute, fiddling with her fingers and pacing the room up and down before she made up her mind.

Sighing deeply, Selene realized that she couldn't avoid Kyle. As such, she gathered all the courage within herself to follow him.

She quietly took a seat beside him inside the pub where they ate something.

Kyle didn't mention the incident again, and it was as if it had never happened.

Selene wouldn't vanish into thin air, instead, she was likely to tail him everywhere.

Despite being a little clingy, he believed that she was a trustworthy companion.

Thus, instead of dwelling on her unexpected behavior, Kyle decided to focus on the important tasks he had planned for the day.

With that thought in mind, he paid a total of six Maest crystals to cover food expenses for a day.

It also included extending their stay in the small, shabby room for four days.

After the payment, both of them left the pub.

They returned to their room, where Kyle packed the big backpack he had left inside the room.

Turning to her, he stated his plan for the week.

"Now that we have a total of 5 nights left to spend inside the tavern, we should make the best out of it. Your instincts saved you against the Vine lionesses, but we never know when those instincts will fail you."

Hearing those words made Selene feel a little sad, but she knew it was the truth. As such, she listened to him attentively while he continued,

"I can teach you some basic stuff about daggers. It's not much and you will have to figure out the rest by yourself, but I guess it is much better than nothing."

Saying so, he walked out of the tavern with the big backpack thrown over his shoulder with Selene following him meekly.

Returning to the same spot he had trained on earlier, he demonstrated the simplest moves to Selene, who looked like a bunny-eared amazonian with fair skin, before asking her to repeat the same.

Then, he stood back with his hands folded across his chest as he began to observe her.

In the beginning, she would only repeat the same movement sequence over and over again, while Kyle corrected her flaws.

Training her was a lot easier than he had expected, and it was evident how hard she was trying to improve.

Because of that, it had been possible for Kyle to simultaneously pay attention to the Emerald fox.

He annexed and merged with the soul force it had expelled inside his body, before feeding the Nurture ability to its potential path.

The amount of energy Kyle used was negligible, but even a minuscule of it was useful to provide the little fox with some nutrition.

In the end, the small, seemingly insignificant nurturing would slowly accumulate and grow with time, just like an exponential graph that started very low!

Once everything was completed, Kyle began to spar with Selene, which took lots of effort on his side.

His technique and strategic thinking were superior, but the little Lohar was simply too strong for him!

Nevertheless, Kyle learned a lot during the fight, while the same applied to Selene.

At least he hoped so, otherwise, the spar session would hinder Selene from becoming stronger.

**

Two days passed as both of them focused on cultivating, improving weapon proficiency, and training relentlessly.

Initially, Kyle's plan was to leave the village to hunt, but the number of injured Cultivators that had returned to Alsa had significantly increased during the last two days.

If rumors were to be believed, three villagers had been killed in an attack of beasts at the peak Fortification stage.

Kyle didn't think that this was surprising as a beast attack was a common occurrence in the wilderness.

But, according to the other villagers who had been in the same hunting group as the deceased men, something was wrong about the beasts inside the forest.

Never in their life had they seen beasts that were terrified about something that was supposedly chasing them.

In their haste to escape whatever danger was tailing them, they chose to run into the hunters.

The beasts trampled the hunters under their weight, squashing the men into pulps.

Luckily, some of the hunters retaliated by hacking their bodies with sharp weapons.

This decreased the total death toll that would have been significantly higher if not for the hunters' quick thinking.

Even after Kyle heard this, he wasn't stunned or thought of modifying his plans.

If his assumptions were correct, at the worst, it would be some beasts at the Vitae stage that might wreak havoc.

Most probably it was owing to the hormones their body released, indicating that they were in heat and were willing to procreate.

This was how nature worked and should happen from time to time.

Kyle would only start worrying if beasts at the higher stages would start to wreak havoc as they could destroy entire landscapes.

Fortunately, beings with a higher cultivation base were less likely to procreate due to their stronger life essence.

This prolonged the interval between each reproductive or heat cycle in female beings in addition to slowing down the rate of sperm production among males.

However, once beasts were in heat, even hell might shatter as they aggressively pursued female beings and fought to death when it was mating season.

Nevertheless, Kyle didn't think that anything bad would happen inside Alsa.

The entire village had at least four Cultivators at the Vitae stage which should be more than enough to protect them.

Among them, two were hidden from plain sight and disguised themselves to look like commoners.

Based on their appearance alone, no one would believe that they were amongst the strongest Cultivators in the village.

In order to become a ranked blacksmith or inscriber, one was required to have a cultivation base at the Vitae stage.

This meant that Gard and Mell Jar were amongst the strongest inside the village.

This was common knowledge, but Kyle didn't initially expect to find a true blacksmith and inscriber in the same village. Thus, he was positively surprised to find that the couple weren't con artists.

During the last two days, he had sold a few batches of meligna grass which made the pharmacist suspicious of him.

Fortunately, she didn't have time to bother about him, otherwise, she would have already investigated his source thoroughly.

In the end, their trade was a win-win situation as the hunters were in a dire need of the anti-inflammation paste.

Now, Kyle and Selene were left with only three nights to spend inside the Alsa village before he planned to leave.

As such, he visited Mell's inscription shop again, to see what he might be able to purchase with the large discount the married couple had offered him earlier.

It was not enough to purchase a spatial ring, but Kyle had figured it out already.

Hence, instead of fretting about the spatial ring, he had taken a liking to a different object that was cheaper than expected.

It was a simple spatial pouch that looked like a small linen bag with the capacity of a medium-sized backpack.

By inserting mana into it, the inscribed rune would enlarge the pouch's inner space. With that, one had more room to store several items, ranging from the size of a pebble to that of a boar corpse.

Only four days later he would have saved up enough Maest crystals, to make up for his expenditure on the pouch.

Owing to that knowledge, Kyle left the shop with a satisfied expression while Selene followed him hurriedly.

Suddenly, he heard several voices nearby causing both Selene and Kyle to slow down in their tracks.

"You can't provide me with more?? Why am I even paying you with cultivation resources if you can't convince these brainless and disgusting ratmen? Just throw a few slaves at the Nasga tribes which they can sacrifice and they will kneel in front of you!! As for th-...."

It was the voice of the merchant, yelling at a villager Kyle had never seen before.

However, he abruptly shut his mouth, the moment he spotted Selene.

Under normal circumstances, he, and the Vila town's guard would have already left Alsa.

But the news about a pack of beasts at the Vitae stage made them stay for a few more days.

However, hearing what the merchant had said just now, Kyle began to doubt their reason to stay in Alsa.

During the last two days, he hadn't seen the guard, but the merchants could be seen running all around the village as if they were stung by a bee.

Kyle might not be acquainted with the way business was carried out by merchants on Shima, but he could tell that something was weird about the chubby man.

Not knowing what exactly the merchant was searching for, Kyle couldn't evaluate the situation properly.

But, based on whatever he had heard the merchant say, it was likely to be something important!

Otherwise, there was no need for the chubby merchant to be so agitated!

Because of what he understood, Kyle felt uncomfortable staying in Alsa, but venturing out of the village was probably even more dangerous.

As such, Kyle was determined to make himself and Selene become stronger in the following days.

The last thing he wanted was to be ripped apart by some beasts after all!