SPIRIT SOUL

Instead of focusing on earning a huge fortune, and saving the acquired funds, Kyle had other things to do.

It had been more important to tend to Gaby's injury, as well as nurturing Arashi.

By the third day of their hunting week, Gaby's eyesight had recovered completely!

Unfortunately, at the same time, this caused her combat prowess to decrease drastically.

She was not used to fighting with her crystal clear and sharp eyesight so it was more difficult than she had expected.

The bright sun rays dazzled her, forcing her to close her eyes.

The sudden pop up in the color and intensity of everything around her.

It was enough to distract her once again as she had been too focused on her eyesight.

This had almost caused her to miss a beast at the Vitae stage that had suddenly pounced on her at that time.

Fortunately, she had reacted in time, preventing her from receiving even a single scratch.

After an entire week of hunting, Gaby had slowly adjusted to her healed condition.

She had even screamed in joy when she had realized that she was completely healed.

Turning around, she hugged Kyle tightly who was startled at her reaction.

Kyle was happy that it had been possible for him to heal her completely.

But, healing her had come at a price. To restore her eyesight, he had given away a means to devour the souls of beasts at the Vitae stage.

Fortunately, this was not important anymore because Arashi was growing up at a rapid pace.

Even after reaching a fully mutated state, Arashi was still growing up.

Yet he had already reached the Mid Fortification stage, by devouring huge masses of soul particles.

At the same time, Kyle had fully nurtured Arashi's potential path.

This would allow the Spirit Soul to evolve soon.

Simultaneously, the azure path was already halfway through being nurtured.

Kyle was already eager to find out what the path would bring forth because it required loads of energy to be nurtured.

Even the potential path had taken less energy to be completely nurtured.

However, this was only an indicator to show how unique the path was.

By the end of the week, Kyle and Selene's combat experience and prowess had increased exponentially.

They had finally reached the common mastery over the Deadly assault martial art and Swift steps movement technique. Meanwhile, their cultivation progressed at a steady pace.

After thoroughly studying the basic cultivation technique they had purchased, they practiced it religiously.

This increased their overall speed. Despite that, Kyle lacked behind by a lot.

In the end, it made him wonder how much time he would have taken without the tremendous help.

Arashi could absorb and convert energy into soul force which Kyle could make use of.

However, he required much more than thrice the amount everyone else required to cultivate.

This was because he focused on every single aspect of his body without neglecting anything.

As Kyle was a Spirit Soul cultivator, who did not rely on one of the three main cultivation paths, he had to put in extra efforts to cultivate.

Kyle had no problem with a cultivation speed slower than Selene.

He knew that the pace at which he could cultivate would increase in proportion to that of Arashi's progress.

He felt that it was possible to evolve Arashi, the moment he had matured.

And owing to the cultivation techniques he had received, it wouldn't take long anymore.

Once that was done, Arashi would turn into a strong beast soul.

With his Spirit Soul's help, he could cultivate at a rapid speed and fight side-by-side too.

Even now, the small horned azure fox was still maturing.

This led to a gradual increase in the pace at which he could absorb and convert energy into soul force!

During the period in which Arashi was likely to evolve, Kyle assumed that he wouldn't be able to properly cultivate for several months either.

As such, there was no need for him to hurry. Instead, he focused on giving Selene as many benefits as possible without actively nurturing her cultivation veins!

This was something that was likely to take an eternity.

So rather than focusing on something that could wait, giving Selene a Pryr/Maest double awakened cultivation technique was much better.

In absence of the proper soul force which he could require to activate his Nurture ability properly, it would be a fool's errand to attempt nurturing Selene's veins.

Going to bed early the day before their departure was necessary for both Kyle and Selene.

Since the last few days, they had focussed on hunting and cultivating leaving them with little to no time to take adequate rest.

Exhaustion had made them sleep well past their intended time to get up.

Because of that, Gard and Mell had to wake them up.

Realizing that they had slept in longer than necessary, the two young adventurers woke up with a start.

Then they dashed to their respective bathrooms and quickly got ready.

After hastily wearing a fresh set of clothes and putting on the spatial ring Mell gave them, and both of them rushed towards the Guildhall.

On their way, they encountered Milli, and Nina, who were purchasing groceries for the guest house.

It had been a while since Kyle and Selene had seen the mother-daughter pair.

They smiled at Nina, who waved back at them enthusiastically.

However, upon seeing Milli look at them with furrowed eyebrows, the two young Adventurers were confused.

There was something going on, but they didn't really understand what it was.

Too many things had happened in the last few weeks.

In light of the recent events, Selene had even forgotten that Dirk existed.

Even Kyle had too much on his mind to bother about the incident three years ago.

This incident involved the Jars, and Gaby, who were all important enough for Kyle.

Just in a matter of weeks, he had grown fond of all three of them.

Not knowing what had exactly happened between them, he wondered whether he should intervene in their business or not.

Yet, after thinking about it for some time, he decided to let it go. Kyle already had his plate full and knew that he shouldn't give himself too many tasks at once.

Furthermore, Gaby wanted to find out the truth about the Blood Nasga incident and Guard Dirk's mistake on her own.

As such, Kyle didn't do anything and instead focused on himself and Selene only.

It was still early in the morning when they arrived inside the Guildhall.

But it was already bustling with more than 30 Adventurers at the Vitae stage.

They had all gathered in the large hall and were preparing themselves to depart.

Seeing Kyle and Selene enter made them throw disappointed looks at the odd pair.

To them, Selene was just a black-furred Lohar at the Low Fortification stage, and Kyle was an ordinary youth who was close to reaching the low Fortification stage.

They immediately broke into whispers as one of them mumbled,

"Isn't the Lohar a Slave who is said to have turned into a noble because of her double awakened cultivation veins? She doesn't look bad, either…

Maybe I should give it a try?"

The moment Kyle heard this, he felt rage flare inside him.

While he clenched his fists, Selene instinctively took a step back to hide behind him.

She made no mistake in sensing several dozen gazes filled with lust and greed lingering on her.

However, only a moment later, the same person who had spoken out, screamed.

A loud, and painful cry alongwith the sound of a bone-cracking resounded through the entire Guildhall.

This caused everyone to turn around, giving Kyle enough space to take a glimpse of what had happened.

From the looks of it a young, good-looking black-haired man had dislocated the arm of a middle-aged, vile looking man.

The gaps in his teeth indicated that he had already lost a few teeth as well.

What impressed Kyle was that it looked like the young man had barely moved.

While dislocating the arm, the young man had amplified the resultant noise with his mana.

The echo of the bone-cracking loudly was a glaring warning to the others who would try to step out of line.

Now that the attention was on him, he smiled faintly.

As if to greet everyone around him, the young man bowed lightly before he apologized in a soft voice.

After that, he released a faint stream of mana that, enveloped the dislocated shoulder.

The entire Guildhall was filled with an aromatic scent only a moment later as another crack echoed through the large space, the sound bouncing off the walls.

Yet, this time, there was no painful cry.

Instead, the eerily calm voice of the young man fell on everybody's ears.

"Don't even think about doing something stupid. Just accomplish the mission given to you, and protect the Lohar and the young man next to her. Whether she is a noble or not has nothing to do with you.

If you try to sabotage the mission once more, I will cut off your crotch right in front of everyone before I feed it to the beasts in the forest. Do you understand?!!"

Kyle was impressed by the young man's confidence and calm demeanor in which he threatened the middle-aged man.

But the young man's confidence was only logical when he heard the female voice of someone, who suddenly intervened.

"Felix! Here you are!! I have been looking for you everywhere and here you are tearing tear off someone's arm, don't do that! We're here to help, and not attack each other, right?

As a young prodigy who has entered the Krysal stage, you should know to behave.

Please don't do scare off someone at the Vitae stage either. Otherwise, they will think that you are taking undue advantage of them!"

When Felix heard this, he couldn't help but look at the little blond-haired woman in amusement. He then scoffed at her before retorting,

"As if I care about my reputation...and I'm by no means a prodigy, I'm already 25 years old.

The talents here are simply a waste, and you know that, Johana! We are in the Sadorla forest after all and not in one of the three kingdoms!"

Somehow, Kyle felt offended upon hearing this because a random person had labeled him as talentless.

But when he gave it some thought, he had to reluctantly agree that Felix was right.

The talents of the Sadorla forest were low, to put it mildly.

Hence, reaching the Krysal stage should be the peak of what someone could reach in the forest.

However, this didn't mean that he had the authority to label everyone as trash.

This fact made Kyle wonder if he had just wanted to show off earlier or if his personality was utter garbage.

Now, Kyle had his doubts about the intentions of Felix whom he earlier thought of wanting to establish good teamwork.

Hearing that the young man was considered a young prodigy in the Sadorla Forest made Kyle think that he was relatively strong.

And the fact that he was a newly advanced Krysal stage meant that he was amongst the strongest.

If Kyle could hazard a guess, Felix could even be the strongest to be in the entire mission's party.

As such, Kyle had a premonition about adventurer Felix.

He thought that Felix would either become too full of himself, or that something else would go wrong. Based on the way Felix behaved, Kyle had a nagging feeling that he considered himself the leader of the group and in control of everyone, and everything.

'If we have someone at the Krysal stage...wouldn't it be odd if at least one of the Blood Nasga is at the Krysal stage too?'

His assumption was not even weird, and likely to be the case.

Thus, Kyle decided that they should be even more careful, expecting the worst while hoping for the best.

Shaking his head, he couldn't help but feel weird at the way they were greeted by the others.

The situation in the Guildhall had already become tense moments after he and Selene had entered it.

As such, he decided to be on high alert and keep Selene close by.

His eyes swept through the hall, looking for Gaby and Laila.

They were the only ones Kyle decided to rely on to a certain degree.

'That's truly a...good way to start the mission…' Kyle thought sarcastically.

Moments later he spotted Gaby, which made him grasp Selene's arm.

Dragging her behind him, he approached the former captain guard and saw Gaby smile at them.

'Her ice-cold facade has also begun to melt a little bit? That's nice to see!'