Spirit Soul

While the Lohars were slowly gathering on the open field, and outside Vila town, Selene spotted a beast at the low Fortification stage.

She severely injured it to bring it to Kyle, who was still holding the reins of the Lakin.

Finishing off the beast, he devoured its soul without hesitation.

Through the soul particles, Kyle wished to test a theory.

He wanted to figure out whether the white shrouds nurturement was higher if he provided soul particles directly instead of using the Nurture ability.

In the end, the effect was roughly the same, or at least it seemed that way.

As such, he was able to create a training schedule for himself in the journey that would take several weeks.

However, before Kyle could finish his task, Sven had already returned.

With a faint smile on his face, he thanked Kyle for his earlier advice before returning to his serious expression.

Now that everyone was present, the Soldiers were divided into groups.

This way they would be able to protect the Lohars in the best possible way.

There were several things they had to pay attention to.

But in the end, the Soldiers knew that they couldn't protect everyone from every single beast attack.

Thus, the stronger Lohars were asked to remain at the outer edge of the group.

In case of an unexpected beast attack, they would protect the others, and buy the soldiers some time to come over and fight alongside them.

In case a large beast group was about to attack, the soldiers would rush to their aid as fast as possible.

But, it might take a few seconds, and in the worst case, possibly even a little bit longer if multiple beast groups were to appear.

The Lohar group which consisted of more than 2500 individuals was just too appealing for some beasts.

It was their highest concern and Sven was busy coming up with defensive tactics.

Despite the concern, the soldiers were confident that everything would work out.

And, even if they weren't, keeping high morale in their group was the most important in testing times like these!

With that in mind, the large group departed.

Meanwhile, the Vila town's guards could only look down at the large crowd of Lohars with a deep sigh.

"Just what happened during the last few days...what are we supposed to do...now that Dirk is dead? Are we continuing with our plan?"

No sooner had one of the guards said this, an eerie sensation enveloped him.

This said guard began to shiver uncontrollably all of a sudden.

Turning his head at a slow pace, he felt a premonition sweeping through his entire body.

Laila was glaring at him with bloodshot eyes.

After talking to her brother, she had felt relieved, and much better than the day before.

He had even apologized to her for everything he had done, or rather didn't do.

It had freed her of every single trace of anger and sadness.

The deadweight that had been weighing her down had been lifted off, and she felt relieved.

Because of that, she had wanted to see him off, only to hear what the guard was saying.

This ignited a deep sensation of wrath within her as she grasped the guard's shoulder tightly.

Releasing a flame within her palm, it burned through the guard's shoulder.

Staring daggers at him, Laila asked him in an eerily cold voice,

"What...did you just say? Do you mind explaining what kind of plan you have? Just why do you need Dirk, who betrayed us?"

At that moment, the guards realized that their entire plan to overthrow the Guild had been for naught.

With guard Dirk dead, their cover seemed to be blown away.

They felt as if they had invited their own doom as they saw Laila launch a thorough investigation.

Owing to this, more than half of the guards were convicted for colluding with Guard Dirk.

They were charged with diverting from their codex as guards, attempted murder, and many more acts that made them guilty of breaking the town people's trust!

Through this, they were exiled and branded as rouges.

In an extreme case of punishment, some guards were publicly beheaded to make an example for the others.

Meanwhile, Kyle and the others were oblivious to everything that happened in the Vila town.

They were traveling through the flourishing environment of the Sadorla forest giving their utmost effort to survive.

**

As the two strived to become stronger, the days went by faster than Kyle realized.

It was already time for his small group to separate from the Lahin kingdom's soldiers.

The initial crowd had reduced to around 2500 Lohars owing to unforeseen circumstances.

Niro town was approximately two weeks away from their current location.

While the same applied to the Lahin kingdom's borders, only that the directions were different.

Four weeks had already passed since they had departed from Vila town.

And, it was only now that Kyle regained his senses.

He had been so engrossed in his comprehension of the wind's essence, the practice of martial art techniques and improving his knowledge that he barely had time to eat, let alone sleep.

However, Kyle was not the only one to feel so because Selene didn't notice how time flew by either.

While she was fully focused on practicing with her darkness affinity seed, she didn't neglect cultivating.

Selene also paid adequate attention to using the overly complex cultivation technique she had obtained from the Guild. Doing so many things at a time frustrated her a little.

Hence, she was trying to find a balance between training her martial art techniques, studying, and going out to hunt which was extremely difficult.

Improving his combat awareness while going out to hunt with the Jars and Gaby was extremely helpful.

Having them around him freed his mind of being mindful of possible attacks.

Thus, he could focus on trying to hunt without being interrupted by surprise attacks of strong beasts.

Similarly, it was possible for him to devour many souls of beasts at the Vitae stage.

Not just him, but the Jars and Selene were hunting for him as well.

Owing to this, Arashi's white shroud was becoming firmer by the day.

Kyle felt that it wouldn't take too long before his Spirit Soul's evolution would already finish, which was great to hear.

Despite that, he also noticed that Selene's cultivation was progressing at a rapid pace. She was leaving him behind and gained an upperhand in terms of progress.

Both of her cultivation paths had reached the Mid rank of the Fortification stage!

At the same time, Selene didn't have to comprehend her elemental affinity seed because she had awoken it by herself.

Meanwhile, Kyle's comprehension of wind was barely half of Arashi.

Even that was through Arashi's help, as his Spirit Soul helped him sense his affinity seed.

The access he received was planted into his soul vessel.

But, unfortunately, it didn't grow even a tiny bit.

Under normal circumstances, he should have been frustrated because it was his goal to cultivate and become much stronger than anyone else.

His body had already reached an age where he could attain a much higher cultivation base.

But that didn't really matter to him!

Rather than being jealous, Kyle had used some of his overflowing soul particles.

Through that he empowered his ability to nurture Selene's cultivation veins.

As a result, this would hopefully improve her cultivation speed even further.

Unfortunately, the amount of nourishment cultivation veins required was vast.

But it was still insignificant in comparison to nourishing Selene's darkness affinity seed.

In the end, Kyle knew that he had to focus on himself and his own progress.

Only when he was relatively stronger, could he seriously consider nurturing others.

Nevertheless, he had wanted to try out certain things with which he could determine the talent certain people had.

For example, Kyle used his Nurture ability on various people without letting them know.

This allowed him to understand that those with a higher talent to cultivate required more nourishment to be further developed.

Kyle found this logical, and because of that, he couldn't help but feel glad about having Selene around.

She seemed to have a good cultivation talent which made many things easier.

Selene was still improving her understanding of the cultivation technique she used.

This only proved how talented and hardworking Selene was.

Despite having been mistreated in her past, she didn't let the trauma get to her.

She felt bad about advancing faster than Kyle.

But at the same time, Selene was fully aware that he would charge up to her.

It was quite possible that he would overtake her, the moment she slacked off.

Thus, she ignored the fact that Kyle, the Jars, and Gaby had been hunting.

Instead, Selene had bombarded Sven with as many questions as possible.

She was determined to figure out how to further accelerate her cultivation speed.

In the end, Sven's cultivation base was unknown.

But it was evident that he was at least on par with Felix, and probably even stronger.

Because of that, even Kyle couldn't help but ask many questions that mostly revolved around the tradition of the Lohar race.

There were too many things he didn't know about the Lohar race and Lahin kingdom.

Sven's suggestion made him consider entering one of the academies he had recommended.

Initially, Kyle was not comfortable with this idea.

But after hearing about the opportunities one could get by studying in an academy of the Lahin kingdom, his opinion gradually changed.

Kyle still required many things.

And, the most important was having connections to powerful beings, merchants, and comrades!

Even if here were to be bullied because he was not a Lohar, Kyle was confident that it was a good idea to enter an academy.

He had also sensed that Selene would have to prove herself as she had just become a noble.

Talents were always sought out, which was why he wanted Selene to become much stronger in the next few months.

At the same time, he wanted to try changing the mindset of the Lohar nobles.

He wanted them to be neutral towards the Aldra race, or at least him as an exception.

He didn't care about the Aldra race more than other races per se.

He would rather connect with people that had a suitable personality and mindset to him, instead of judging them based on their race.

In his past life, he had seen ample cases of people harboring biases and prejudices against specific beings or races in general.

This hindered them from encountering people who would sacrifice their lives for each other in the face of danger.

Those with prejudices were also more likely to make big, and unnecessary mistakes that they might even regret.

As such, living without prejudice of any race was a principle Kyle wanted to pursue, even if he was not sure how much this would work.

Other than the benefit of creating useful connections with all kinds of people, Sven often said that the competition within the Lohars' nobles was fierce.

This was mostly because the most renowned academy for nobles, called Glory Knights, was a coveted institution.

It was known for its bountiful events and focus on nurturing and training the strongest prodigies of the entire kingdom.

Because of that, everyone wanted to be the strongest, and receive the grace of the Queen's investment.

Everyone was striving to possibly receive her attention and get in her good books.

As it was heavily funded by the Lahin Kingdom, the Glory Knights academy was generous in handing out bountiful rewards to their nobles.

The academy believed in investing in their future prodigies.

After all, further strengthening the kingdom's safety was what it required the most.

In the end, the Queen was said to be the only true powerhouse of the Lahin kingdom.

Even if one would consider this as a disadvantage, this fact was the very reason for the other kingdoms to not attack the Lahin kingdom.

They might try to provoke her, but the Queen was strong enough to overthrow the Thunderclaw and Razgra kingdom. The only downside was that it would force her to leave her own kingdom unprotected.

Thus, she had to endure certain provocations and not take the bait.

Instead, she was slowly building up her own force of powerful nobles that were ought to protect the kingdom!

After knowing all of this, Kyle grew confident that Sven wasn't really exaggerating about the rewards one could obtain from the Glory Knights academy.

They were truly bountiful and the fact excited him.

This made the Lahin kingdom even more attractive to Kyle, who couldn't help but feel that Selene would be perfectly nurtured there.

Meanwhile, he could adapt himself to all the circumstances presented before him.

The only things he truly required were enough time to nurture Arashi, and even more importantly, souls to devour.

If he had the two in abundance, it would shorten the time they required to become stronger!

With that in mind, Kyle was convinced that the Lahin kingdom was an ideal destination for them after they had completed all their tasks in Niro town.

However, before that, they would have to enter Niro town.

It was still a two-week trip away from them.

And, they were just about to separate from the Lahin kingdom's soldiers who had protected them.

As such, they entered unknown lands in a small group of five with only one combat proficient Aldra at the Vitae stage.

Under normal circumstances, this would have never become a problem.

Little did they know what their future had in store for them.

The next turn of events was going to turn their life upside down to an extent nobody could have ever assumed.

**

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