SPIRIT SOUL

With the things he was learning, there was only one thing Kyle knew for sure; Milli and Dirk were partners!

Adding to that, his perception told him that Milli was not even sad about the untimely death of her husband.

If she had truly loved her late husband, at least a trace of sadness would have flickered in her eyes.

But based on what he observed, neither her body language nor her voice showed any sorrow of her loss.

Rather, she had come up with a string of excuses to protect Dirk.

According to him, they were also shallow and didn't hold water.

Despite that, Kyle simply nodded his head as he said, "I understand."

He truly understood everything Milli had said and her actions had implied.

Even Milli herself hadn't really realized what she had revealed to him.

This caused him to look at Dirk, who was still drowning his worries in beer.

A single tear fell down Dirk's eye that he didn't even bother hiding.

'Is everything Milli said the truth or nothing but a charade?' He wondered while looking at Dirk before he averted his attention a minute later.

"We will cultivate now and come back later to eat something. don't be too angsty, alright?"

The last sentence was said to calm Milli down and Kyle didn't pay anymore attention to the young woman, who hoped that she explained everything correctly to the two Adventurers.

Yet, instead of clearing the misunderstanding, it was almost like everyone except Gabi was seeing the truth and something that should have remained hidden from everyone's sight.

That was at least if Kyle had connected all the dots together without misinterpreting anything.

However, when he entered the twin bedroom Milli had given him and Selene, Kyle heard a deep sigh next to him.

Turning around he saw Selene's expressions, and instinctively knew that she had arrived to the same conclusion as him,

"You find it odd too, right?" He simply asked her, while Selene could only nod her head in response before she hastily launched an elaborate analysis.

"In the beginning, I believed them, but I can sense that something is off. It's weird that only two guards were ordered to evacuate an entire area. Furthermore, it was known that Gaby's mother had a disease making it difficult for her to move.

As such, it was common sense to let Gaby's family be the last to be evacuated either way.

But the fact that they simply ignored this is weird! Guards in a town should know most citizens, even more so if they're the parents of their own guard captain!

Because of that, the reason for guard Jael to evacuate the secluded area as he couldn't handle the tension was not justifiable.

I also cannot understand how or why this guard suddenly vanished. Saying that he left is the easiest way to cover it up, but I think this is not the true story

However, that is just the beginning of all the confusion. If Dirk had protected Milli and Nina properly, how did he fail to protect her husband?

That could only be possible if her husband was far away from her or Dirk was rescuing more citizens.

Interestingly, I observed something else that makes me doubt if all of this is a farce. It may look like Dirk is feeling guilty and frustrated about his own decision, but his heartbeat is normal!"

Selene's last line proved to be the final nail in the coffin which caused Kyle to smile.

"You've improved quite fast, huh? I'm glad you're becoming more confident!" Lightly stroking Selene's hair, he said the words Selene had been dying to hear.

She stared at him with a proud expression before Kyle averted his attention back to what he had figured out.

The young Lohar hat truly exceeded Kyle's expectations.

He could have never assumed that she would be able to transform so fast, let alone overcome her trauma. It was a welcome change and Kyle was happy to witness it.

Selene's thorough analysis increased his suspicion about everything that had happened.

'Maybe Milli and Dirk had already been lovers before, and the Blood Nasga attack was the best way to get rid of the husband?'

Kyle's assumption would make sense to some extent as it would explain why Dirk had left his position to 'protect' Milli and Nina.

However, in that case, guard Jael's statement wouldn't make any sense.

Neither would the reason for the said guard to abandon Gaby's family hold any merit!

Unable to come to an accurate conclusion only based on the limited information was not possible.

Hence, Kyle decided to focus on the tasks at hand.

First, he used the majority of soul particles within his body to empower the Nurture ability.

After that, he vitalized Selene's cultivation veins, soothing her pain while slowly tending to her ailment.

The remaining soul particles would be equally distributed.

One part of it would be given to the Spirit Soul to consume, while the rest turned into his emergency funds.

"You should cultivate for a few hours, I'll wake you later to have dinner together," Kyle advised her while his eyes were trained on the two small books he had received from Gaby.

His thoughts were still lingering on figuring out the truth about what had happened.

But on the other hand, Kyle asked himself if the trouble was worth the possible gains!

This was definitely not the case and was more of an unnecessary hassle.

It made him return his full attention to the Guild shop book.

He wanted to see what goods the Guild in Vila town had.

That would help him calculate how much funds he had to stockpile to purchase everything he required.

Time passed slowly, and Kyle could only repeatedly be thankful that he could understand what was written in the books.

Not being able to understand the written or spoken language had been one of the biggest problems Kyle could think of.

Thus, he was glad that he didn't have to face this problem.

It was one less thing to worry about given the other complicated situations he had been facing since he had reincarnated!

After Kyle finished reading through the Guild shop book, he averted his attention to the book about goods that could be leased.

He remembered Gaby telling him about the weekly and monthly leasing discounts.

This helped him decide what he would lease the next day.

Less than an hour had passed and Kyle switched to cultivate.

He used the soul force the Emerald Fox had processed from the surrounding energies it had absorbed.

His Spirit Soul was slowly improving in carrying out the necessary processes.

But on the other hand, Kyle felt as if he was falling behind.

His soul force circulation speed didn't increase as much as he had hoped!

At least that was how he felt which was unsatisfying.

Yet, it served as a motivation that allowed him to focus even more on the cultivation process.

After annexing the soul force inside his body, he used it to fill the small portion of his vessel's foundation.

The process was still slow, and Kyle's pace didn't accelerate.

But, he did everything smoothly which was the most important in his opinion.

Once he was able to annex, perceive and control soul force smoothly, it was time to increase his pace.

Again, this was to be achieved while maintaining the highest possible degree of control!

That would allow him to prevent many mistakes and have a quick reflex.

By drawing out soul force to circulate it through his body and fighting, he could easily win a battle!

The cultivation energies that had once been annexed and inserted into the vessel replenished passively.

It was the biggest advantage of being in possession of a vessel.

And, it was also the reason why those at a higher cultivation base were normally stronger.

Not only was their overall strength higher, but also the amount of energy they could utilize at once was greater too.

There were several other factors that could be added to determine one's combat prowess.

It included one's strategy and the specific techniques one had trained to fight.

Additionally, one's physique and the utilization of energy within the body to the fullest capacity had also to be taken into consideration.

But, the cultivation base was the best indicator to determine one's rough strength!

Thus, everyone wanted to cultivate as much as possible, and increase their strength at a rapid pace.

The only limiting factor was the shallow amount of energy generated by the Sadorla forest.

However, it was not just the energy as everyone Kyle encountered until now, had shallow natural talent as well.

After he had inserted the annexed soul force inside the small part of his vessel, Kyle gently nudged Selene.

She opened her eyes when he indicated to her that it was time to have dinner.

Selene finished cultivating and stood up hastily.

Her stomach rumbled loudly and it seemed to be at the perfect timing.

This embarrassed her a little bit, but Kyle found her behavior cute.

Reaching for her head, he lightly ruffled her hair before he went outside the room.

Walking down the stairs, they entered the large dining room.

It was filled to the brim telling Kyle that the food must be extremely good.

The same could be said about the beer because there was a large table at the end of the room filled with empty jars and drunken guards.

Dirk was still present, and his expression was filled with joy as he chugged with his brothers-in-arms.

Kyle just shook his head at this sight and found a seat, directly next to the small arc-shaped entrance of the dining room.

Selene felt uncomfortable with the drunken men all around her.

It brought back vivid memories of her past that she desperately tried to forget.

Despite never having been violated due to the sick look she had due to her unique condition, Selene had been forced to witness all kinds of traumatic events with drunken men.

This didn't go unnoticed by Kyle, and even he scrunched his face.

Like her, he didn't feel good at the sight of the drunken men either.

However, both would have to learn to cope with such a sight.

The more they traveled, the more they would see this and many other unpleasant things.

Nevertheless, this didn't mean that they could lower their guard at the moment.

They couldn't predict if the drunkards would cause a ruckus or just pass out later.

Based on the knowledge of his past life, Kyle knew that Cultivators had a higher alcohol tolerance.

But that made it even worse when they were drunk as the alcohol went straight to their heads.

They would somehow believe that they could offend those that were weaker including women.

As such, bars for non-cultivators had opened separately.

This was an attempt to prevent cultivators from raping innocent men and women!

Fortunately, Kyle and Selene's worries had been unfounded. They saw Nina, the little girl they had saved earlier in the day, help her mother serve the dishes.

Seeing the little girl unbothered by the drunken men calmed them down.

Kyle found his earlier thoughts to be foolish. He couldn't help but smile brightly at the little girl when she brought them their food.

However, instead of smiling back, Nina squinted her eyes as she said cheekily,

"Even if you smile at me like this, there won't be any seconds!!"

**

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