Spirit Soul

Some time passed after they finished fighting the Fiery Fist apes.

Thrusting the Starbreaker Katana out, Kyle's arm shot forward, piercing through the Forest Tiger's chest.

A moment later a gust of wind shot out from the katana's blade, causing severe damage to the innards of the Tiger, whose entire body began to inflate.

The currents of wind caused its body to enlarge, penetrating its flesh as the spikes pierced out from the other end and escaped the body moments later slicing everything that came in its way including bones.

Being able to control the wind currents around him, manifesting wind within the body of an opponent was just too much of an advantage.

However, this was only possible because his weapon had pierced into the beast, whose will to fight against the lethal injury had diminished at a rapid pace.

Thus, the sudden wind spikes Kyle had released from Starbreaker's blade killed the already severely injured Forest tiger before devouring its soul of all the energy it had accumulated.

Blood splattered on his face, but Kyle was not even able to notice this.

Instead, he turned around, and raised his katana to support the others, only to witness that they had already defeated their opponents.

There were six tigresses at the Low Vitae stage followed by four at the Mid Vitae stage that were lying on the ground.

Based on the lethal injuries visible on their bodies, they had been defeated in one, at most two attacks.

This was exceptional and allowed Kyle to turn away from the five corpses of beasts he had killed as he accelerated towards the detached souls.

Like always he thrust his katana out at them, and used his Soul force to accelerate the Soul energy devouring effect.

It was because of this function that he was able to devour the energy of all souls before they ascended, and disappeared from his sight.

Afterward, they stored away the corpses that were nearly unscathed, either cut cleanly, or slightly charred at just one spot.

Owing to that, they would be able to earn a huge fortune for all corpses without any deductions for damages on the valuable materials of the beast corpses.

Glancing at the corpses, Kyle figured out that Beatrice had started to get a hang of the small portion of the blood armor she was able to manifest.

The blood armor gloves enhanced the strength in her wrist without hindering her movements in the slightest.

With the added protective function, they were quite powerful, and allowed her to make use of her blood affinity around her gloves even better.

Thus, the beasts she had paid attention to were partially drained of their blood.

Beatrice had still lots of things to learn but owing to her inexperience with the blood affinity, she was slowly comprehending everything necessary.

It would take some time before she would be able to manifest, let alone control the entire blood armor, but Beatrice was not in a hurry.

Rather than rushing, she wanted to build a proper foundation of knowledge before attempting to excel at the task.

This should allow her to prevent to comprehend something wrongly or to imprint faulty knowledge in her mind.

Learning something from scratch was much easier than fixing one's faulty knowledge, after all.

One month had passed since Kyle had showed off his proficiency with the wind affinity, and many things had changed since then.

Beatrice was not the only one who had learned a lot, but those around him had made significant progress as well.

Kyle may not be focusing on cultivating right now but that was mostly owing to the fact that he supported Arashi in every possible way to reach his racial limit.

The Spirit Soul took only a month to create two more beads in his vessel, meaning that he would soon reach the Mid of the Vitae stage.

Arashi's combat prowess was extremely powerful too, but that was what the little beast had achieved by observing Kyle and the two women.

Rather, Kyle had used his entire Soul force, and every single trace of the excessive soul energy towards the Spirit Soul's growth path.

Once the growth path was satiated for the day, Kyle averted his focus on Arashi's energy absorption and conversion paths, and nurtured them as well.

This did not only help himself, but also the Spirit Soul to accelerate the process of cultivating.

As such, it was mostly Kyle's neverending support that had allowed Arashi to manifest his seventh bead.

Only two beads had to be created before he was to reach his racial limit, and after that was done the process of satiating the energy absorption and conversion paths would follow suit.

Afterward, Kyle would focus on himself using the highest possible cultivation speed which Arashi would be able to reach for now.

However, it was because Kyle focused on Arashi's growth that Beatrice had been able to reach a higher cultivation base, making him fall behind.

This made her weirdly proud, even though Beatrice was fully aware of the fact that she was supposed to reach a higher cultivation than Kyle.

After all, she was already proficient in cultivating…with a solid experience of 50,000 years, and Kyle didn't even focus on cultivating at the moment.

Nevertheless, she was happy, and Yasmine felt the same.

Her cultivation didn't increase a lot, but that was not something that could bother the overly excited halfling.

Yasmine was way too happy about having learned how to control the Phoenix bloodline of hers to a certain extent.

Her body had only awoken a fraction of her bloodline, but that was more than enough to turn her into a lethal force against every single being that dared to face her head-on.

Kyle had figured this out too, and from the looks of it everyone in their small group was trying hard to exceed the others.

This was a ridiculous yet amusing sight because even Arashi attempted to be better than the others, including everything the trio was doing.

However, Kyle didn't think that the competitive spirit was bad.

Instead, he felt that it was quite beneficial because everyone including him was improving at a rapid pace.

He didn't even remember how many beasts they had killed during the last month, let alone how much of a fortune they had earned.

Yet, Kyle clearly recalled that they would soon become B rank adventurers!

This was what they had planned to achieve, but when they returned from their hunt, the guards provided them with a new set of instructions that were quite worrisome.

"Adventurer Kyle, I know that you are not an Aldra, but if you want to stay in Briskandt it would be best for you to keep a low profile.

Wear a mask and robes if you step outside, so that nobody can tell whether you are a demi human or an Aldra!"

In the past month, every single guard had grown familiar with Kyle.

In fact, he had befriended most of them and talked to them in his spare time so as to keep himself updated on the latest newest information once they received it.

Even the entire Unit of the Blazing Legion liked him, which was quite hard to imagine, considering that he looked like their archenemy.

Nevertheless, Kyle's never-ending attempts had been a success and they began to trust him a little.

As a result, he was always informed if something was about to happen.

The others were genuinely concerned about the incidents within the Sadorla forest, and also what would happen to Kyle if some of the garrison's citizens were to take out their frustration on Kyle.

He was always helping out the guards by killing the beasts in the surrounding areas, and easing their task to protect the garrison.

As such, it was only obvious for them to feel like warning him.

Yet, when Kyle heard the third warning to disguise himself, and to stay inside the Guildhall if possible, he was unable to hold back from inquiring more about the situation.

Despite that, instead of asking the guards, he looked out for a more reliable source.

Once he was fully examined and tested, Kyle and the others were allowed to enter through the second wall of the garrison.

Afterward, they didn't waste much time and exchanged the beast corpses with the rewards they received.

Ignoring the fact that Yasmine was just promoted to a B rank adventurer and the gazes all around them, Kyle looked at the young receptionist who returned his gaze with a faint smile of an apology.

It was obvious that the young receptionist knew what was going on, and Kyle's stare clearly indicated that he wanted the man to speak up.

Taking a deep breath, the receptionist looked him in the eye and spoke to him in a hesitant voice.

"I'm sorry to reveal this all of a sudden, but Adventurer Kyle, it would be best for you to leave the garrison, or to prepare yourself for a harsh treatment of the citizens that don't know you."

Kyle didn't expect the situation to escalate so quickly and grumbled.

"I guess the faction of the Aldra race made their first move, right?"

It was only obvious that the others would warn him when it was something bad that had to do with the Aldra race.

As such, it was not difficult to figure out what was going on.

Yet, seeing that the young receptionist nodded his head before taking a deep breath to answer, Kyle was unable to do anything else but frown.

"Yes, you are right, the faction of the Aldra race infiltrated the Sadorla forest with more than 200,000 Soldiers at the Krysal stage. That should make up more than 80% of the Thunderclaw kingdom's elite fighters!

The Sadorla forest may not be small, but Soldiers at the Krysal stage are pretty fast. That means we could be attacked at any moment.

It might sound harsh, and like something you cannot imagine, but Briskandt might be run over the instant the Aldra race's faction decides that we are too much of a nuisance.

As you might have already noticed, the pressure on us has increased in the last few days, or even weeks, and the news that reached the guild and some higher ranked Soldiers of the two kingdoms might spread soon.

So… be careful about what you do because you're likely to be observed by everyone. A single wrong move and you might get killed owing to the tension in the garrison!"

Listening to the words of the young receptionist, Kyle gave a disappointed sigh once more before nodding his head as he replied with a forced smile.

"I will think of something. Thanks for your concern…"

After he said this, Kyle turned away from the receptionist and returned to his room with the two women following suit.

Yet, instead of staying calm and quiet, Yasmine bombarded him with all kinds of worried thoughts that flashed through her mind the moment she entered the room.

"Let's leave, right now! What's the use of staying here if you might get killed?? We will be relatively safe in the Anadra kingdom, and I'm sure we can somehow enter the Lahin kingdom.

My mother can do anything, and she should be able to bend the rules of the Lahin kingdom a little bit!!"

It was great how highly Yasmine thought of her mother, but Kyle was not as optimistic as she was.

Thus, he could only smile dryly before closing the door once all of them were inside.

"Leaving Briskandt right now, is comparable to provoking someone to kill us.

If a force of 200,000 Soldiers at the Krysal stage entered the Sadorla forest, the wild beasts would certainly be in an uproar.

Even if we're not found by the Soldiers, some Krysal stage beast that runs astray will certainly get us.

I have an idea, but it is quite stupid and dangerous, so I'm not sure how useful it is…"

The two women didn't expect Kyle to have a plan, and from the look on his face, it was certainly not something great.

However, they didn't have any other option other than listening to him because neither Yasmine nor Beatrice had a great idea.

Only when the two saw how Kyle's gaze moved towards his necklace did their mind start to rattle.

'He won't be thinking of doing that?!'