Spirit Soul

After a long and a rather tiring day, Kyle went home with a new haircut, and wearing new clothes, a definitive gait in the way he walked which was full of excitement.

The following days would be extremely interesting, and Kyle was eager to figure out how the future would be, and what lay ahead of him.

There were too many things he wanted to figure out, and too little time which caused him to smile dryly, feeling excitement coursing through his body.

'Being alive…is truly wonderful!'

*[Several days later]*

Pulling the crimson dagger out, it tore through the thin clothing of Kyle, who could barely evade being severely injured.

A thin red line could be seen on his arm, indicating that he had been lightly cut as blood oozed out of it.

Yet, before he could move, he felt the droplets of blood being drawn out of the cut.

This caused him to frown as he stared at Beatrice, who gave him a sly smile.

Sighing inwardly, he couldn't help but feel that she was cheating.

Yet, instead of letting her do as she pleased, Kyle used a tiny trace of his Soul force in order to empower the Nurture ability that tended to the faint cut, stopping the bleeding within seconds.

In the meantime, Kyle had already distanced himself from Beatrice, who was running through the combat arena with a shocking speed.

She was holding two crimson daggers in her hand, and a faint bloody hue was enveloping her tightly.

Her eyes were glowing owing to the bloody hue that strengthened her entire body, letting her balance herself better, while she was staring straight at him.

The moment the blood droplets were pulled towards her, the blood hue began to change.

Though the changes were faint and could be missed by the naked eye, Kyle knew what was going on.

Instead of using the droplets of blood as a  means of attack, Beatrice focused on supporting and strengthening her entire body in order to create more powerful attacks, without neglecting her defenses.

Fighting against her was extremely dangerous because her reflexes were lightning quick and combat awareness was shocking, and even the smallest cuts could lead to his downfall because she could make use of her opponent's blood to her advantage.

As such, Kyle had to stop the bleeding from every single cut, otherwise, she would defeat him in no time.

This forced him to be more vigilant of attacks, which was great for training purposes without a doubt.

Finding every single opening, Beatrice's overwhelming combat experience was clearly visible, and she was not even sweating right now while Kyle was beginning to feel tired.

Having fully accustomed to her strength that had drastically decreased, her body and mind were in unison once again, giving her the ability to extract the majority of her combat prowess.

Despite that, everyone knew that she was even stronger, but the only issue was that she would need to have the intention to kill in order to reach the peak of her combat prowess.

However, even without it, Beatrice was able to overwhelm Kyle, who was now sprawled on the ground, breathing heavily, just a few minutes after they started their fight.

"Aren't you abusing your advantage a little bit too much?! You can control my blood much better than others. How the hell is that supposed to be practice for you?"

Kyle asked while gasping for air, only to see that Beatrice was staring at him from above, smiling vibrantly at him.

Yet, instead of feeling the beauty hidden behind the smile, everyone was seeing, Kyle could only shake his head as goosebumps sprang all over his body.

During the last few days, he had numerous sparrings with Beatrice, Melin, and even Yasmine, which allowed Kyle to figure out how strong everyone truly was.

Though now Beatrice's cultivation was on par with that of Kyle's, her amplified strength was lower than it was the case with him owing to his Spirit Soul cultivation.

Nevertheless, Beatrice was much stronger than him, owing to her combat experience of 50,000 years.

However, that was kind of obvious, which was the reason why Kyle was not really bothered about losing against her.

Rather, he was happy that Beatrice was so powerful because he could finally learn from someone, who was an exceptional combatant.

She was probably on par with Lahin and Knirg in terms of combat prowess, which was exceptional, to put it simply.

Only her way of teaching was a little bit odd and it took him a while to get used to it.

Despite the odd way of imparting lessons, Kyle was exhilarated when he first figured out that he and Beatrice were able to spar with each other, without the blood pact creating an obstacle.

As long as Kyle wanted to spar with Beatrice, she was able to injure him.

Inflicting lethal injuries was restricted but that was something Beatrice could easily avoid owing to the precision with which she wielded the two crimson daggers.

At the same time, her control over the blood affinity was slowly increasing, because of the fact that her soul mate's blood was coursing through her body, allowing her to duplicate the blood cells and fight using them.

According to her words, the blood affinity was changing, but Kyle had no idea what she meant by that.

In fact, even Beatrice had no idea what she was talking about because the only thing she could sense was that something had changed.

Beatrice felt that the changes were something advantageous and not an unpleasant experience that would occur if she was undergoing an adverse mutation, which would be extremely bad.

She was excited and wondering what exactly was about to change, but from the looks of it, quite some time would have to pass before everything would have colluded.

At the same time, while sparring with Kyle, Beatrice got to know that he might be weaker than her.

Nonetheless, his growth and combat awareness were terrifying enough to make her feel as if she was doing something wrong.

Having observed him inside the Razkadan castle was completely different to fighting against him by herself, and it was only now that Beatrice could fully understand the reason behind Lahin and Knirg's excessive interest in nurturing Kyle.

She even began to question her strength and wonder if their comment about her being a talented combatant was correct.

The longer she fought against him, the more it felt as if she wasn't talented at all which was somewhat depressing.

However, knowing that she would stay by his side, Beatrice would be lying, if she were to say that it was bad to have someone strong by her side.

It was certainly better than Kyle being a weakling, after all!

After catching up his breath for a few minutes, Kyle got up from the ground. He wanted to continue sparring, but instead of fighting the same opponent over and over again, switching her to somebody else was the best in his opinion.

Thus, his eyes traveled to Melin and stared at him with a bright gleam, causing the young man to frown deeply.

He was not exactly sure if he should be happy about being challenged to another spar, even less because his opponent was a reckless fighter.

Melin liked experimenting with all kinds of movements, tactics, and means to attack.

This meant that if something didn't work, Kyle might be unguarded and unable to block Melin's attack.

Obviously, Melin didn't want to kill Kyle because he was certainly a good person who harbored no ill intentions against Kyle.

His good heart coupled with his equally good combat skills had made him gain the respect of his master during the last few days.

As such, he felt uncomfortable fighting against him.

Yet, going up against Kyle's relentless tactics to overwhelm Melin made the young man unable to retreat.

In the end, he fought against Kyle, giving his utmost effort, but the huge progress the young man had made was something Melin was unable to cope with.

Because of that, he ended up on the ground, his arms and legs bruised and covered in cuts while Kyle was firmly standing in the combat arena.

He didn't sustain even a single new cut and was looking at the pair of daggers he wielded with a faint smile.

"Focusing on agility is truly great if you combine it with high speed and a highly proficient usage of a movement technique, a wind affinity, and a strong physique…"

Kyle was excited about the progress he had made, and the daggers he wielded seemed to be extremely useful too.

Unfortunately, the weapon he had asked blacksmith Niko to forge was required to have a broader surface area than a small dagger blade.

That was a necessity because the Soul storage medallion had to be embedded or merged into the weapon of his choice, which made everything a little bit more complicated than it was ought to be.

Nevertheless, this didn't mean that he would always continue to use the exact same weapon in order to fight.

In fact, the weapon forged by Niko was but a mere short-term goal of his, and not something he had initially planned.

Despite that, studying the weapon and even more importantly, the inscribed runes which the blacksmith had hopefully finished engraving by now, it would be possible for him to hasten up his plans.

After he finished sparring with Melin, whose expression was brighter than one would imagine after getting defeated over and over again, Kyle retired to his room.

He took a quick shower up and put on a new set of clothes and prepared to leave for the blacksmith's shop.

Eager to get his hands on a new, and most importantly, customized weapon, Kyle left the shop early in the morning.

They had been sparring through the night, and if he were to be honest, the number of hours he had slept during the last week totaled to the hours most beings spent sleeping on in a single day!

In the end, there were just too many things he had to do, and sleep was what he required the least if he had the Nurture ability that could invigorate him.

Studying, and cultivating were just two of the tasks he had at hand, but even that required lots of his little time.

However, right now, his hands were itching to hold his customized weapon.

'I should quickly leave..maybe I can even leave the city to fight a few monsters and see if my new weapon works as I want it to?' Kyle wondered, imagining a pleasant surprise was waiting for him at the blacksmith store.

Yet, before he could leave, Beatrice and Yasmine found him just as they were about to go into Beatrice's room.

Looking at his wet hair and the fact that he hastily left the room, they were intrigued and Yasmine shouted from behind.

"Kyle, where are you going?"

Halting in his steps, he turned towards the two women who had become good friends during the last few days as he answered her,

"I'm going to collect my weapon now! It should be ready by now, and then we can leave either this evening or tomorrow, whatever you both prefer!"

Kyle didn't really care if they left today or tomorrow, he just wanted to leave quickly.

Unfortunately, this didn't seem possible because Beatrice and Yasmine looked at each other before they smiled lightly as they rushed after him.

Seeing Beatrice acting like a young girl felt weird to Kyle, but knowing that she was never able to live a proper childhood, he kept quiet.

In the end, he had to accept that they would follow him, and it was not like they would burden him in any way…or so he hoped.

Little did he know that they would gossip about all kinds of things until they reached Niko's store.

The moment they had entered the dark alley that was almost void of light, Yasmine felt uncomfortable, while Beatrice's eyes began to glow faintly.

She was ready to fight at any moment if lurkers were to attack them out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, Kyle was nonchalantly walking towards the store, ignoring their worry.

He knew that blacksmith Niko was in the shop, and couldn't help but feel excited the moment he stepped in and announced his arrival.

"Hello Niko, I'm here. Did you finish forging the masterpiece which I will soon call my own weapon?"

Kyle was trying to ease the tension that had suddenly bubbled up which was why he was just rambling whatever came to his mind.

Yet, after seeing Niko's bright expression the moment he saw Kyle, the tension prevalent in both of them subsided almost immediately.

Both were nervous, but seeing that the blacksmith approached him with fast strides, Kyle couldn't help himself anymore as the corner of his lips curled upwards.

"That is Starbreaker!" Niko suddenly announced with pride in his voice, only to unveil the weapon he had covered with a piece of cloth.

The pride in his voice indicated to Kyle that Niko was extremely satisfied with his creation.

Yet, the moment Kyle saw the weapon, he was unable to hold back from adding a few more words,

"...and the devourer of Souls!"

**

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