Spirit Soul

Five days passed in a blur and the day they were going to hunt with Gaby had finally arrived.

The first rays of the sun had yet to reach the town walls as Kyle and Selene waited in front of the Guildhall.

They had retired to bed early the day before and were now impatiently awaiting Gaby's arrival.

Hence, they were fully energized to make use of the entire day with Gaby, who had yet to arrive.

However, instead of waiting idly, Selene decided to make use of the time.

Thus, she began stretching her body, trying to test out several things that had been too painful to do in her previous condition.

Thankfully, her pain had lessened considerably.

As such, with a bright smile, she circulated primordial energy through her body, strengthening her body tremendously.

At the same time, she demonstrated several movement sequences to Kyle, who could only smile gently at her, thinking that she was quite adorable.

He could fully understand her excitement as he felt the same when he had begun to cultivate.

Yet, not only cultivating was something that excited Kyle, but also hunting.

This was something he realized as they had been out to hunt more than 10 beast groups during the last few days.

Owing to the Emerald Fox's added ability to devour souls, they were able to catch almost every detached soul too.

Thus, he could use the soul particles of around 100 beasts at the Initial rank of the Fortification stage to empower his Nurture ability!

He made use of the vast majority of the Nurture ability to tend to the problem Selene's cultivation veins caused.

This was also the reason for her exhilarated behavior.

She had no problems cultivating in the path of Pryr thanks to Kyle gradually healing her.

Owing to that, the pain Selene had experienced since her childhood was now negligible.

Now, her only issue was to absorb and annex mana.

But, Kyle was confident that this problem could be solved soon enough, possibly even today!

The same could probably be said about his Spirit Soul's mutation path progress.

However, Kyle didn't use the entire Nurture ability to tend to Selene's issue.

He paid equal attention to the Emerald Fox and nurtured its mutation path.

Through this, its fur was now halfway azure-colored making the fox appear greenish-blue.

Meanwhile, the small bulge on its head had grown into a six-centimeter-long black horn.

It wouldn't take long before the mutation path was completely nurtured.

As such, Kyle hoped that he would be able to finish this task today as well.

Other than that, his plan was to nurture the Spirit Soul's potential path while slowly accumulating energy.

As promised to Gaby, he wished to heal her, but by slowly using his Nurture ability at regular intervals.

The short spurts of his ability's usage would make her feel the efficiency and improvement in her eyes!

In the end, he couldn't be sure whether or not the girl was worth his investment and trust.

But Kyle just hoped that his gut feeling wouldn't betray him.

Otherwise, it might end up in a far uglier mess than he could ever imagine.

Fortunately, he was spared thinking about the worst-case scenario as he saw Gaby walk out of the Guildhall.

'Does she sleep inside the Guild?' He wondered.

But that doubt was soon replaced by fascination.

As his eyes fell on Gaby's equipment, he couldn't help but feel a little jealous.

She was wearing a black leather armor, with several sets of daggers and other throwing weapons fixed to it.

A longbow hung from her shoulder, seemingly as if this was the place it belonged to.

A leather quiver was fastened to her back with a bunch of arrows inside.

Other than that, she wore three spatial rings on her left hand.

Overall, her equipment might look ordinary to those who were oblivious to manufactured goods, or simply uninterested in cultivating, but Kyle felt excited to see her equipment.

The three spatial rings were already enough to make him feel like that.

Despite that, Kyle couldn't help but stare at the bow for some time.

At first glance, the bow looked like a somewhat lethal longbow.

But when he observed it intently, Kyle saw certain engravings which he had never seen before.

On the contrary, the material out of which the longbow was fashioned seemed to be oddly familiar.

Yet, no matter how hard he tried to recall it, the memory simply evaded him.

The faint, and almost untraceable energy fluctuations radiating from her equipment indicated the worth of every piece she wore.

Impressed by her preparations caused Kyle to smile as he greeted her.

It meant that she had taken his word seriously and didn't want to accompany them just for the sake of it.

"Good morning!"

"Morning.."

Somehow, Gaby seemed to be excited yet, also suspicious about what would happen. This caused her to be doubtful of Kyle as she stared at him.

Mana fluctuations radiated from her helping her sense things around her.

That made her perceive the immediate surroundings much better than her bad eyesight.

"Before we leave the town, let's make some rules. That's fine with you, I guess?" Kyle asked seriously while looking at Gaby.

"Sure. But let's not waste too much time. Everything I hunt today would belong to you. I also brought three small spatial rings with me in order to store everything we find today.

So we won't have to waste time running around just to sell a few corpses."

Kyle was glad to hear Gaby and he commended her for having put in much thought in their small expedition today.

Her planning made many things easier before.

There were only a few things he had to figure out to establish proper coordination with her.

After that was done, they could already depart!

"Alright, that's what I planned too, but I have to add a few more rules. If you want to be cured, you're not allowed to disclose my secret to anyone. Just tell them that I brought a rare magical treasure with me that healed your eyes.

As a matter of fact, the healing process will take longer. I won't be able to heal you completely right off the bat.

That's simply not possible, and I think you can understand that. You're at the Vitae stage yet there is nothing you can do about the injury. Meanwhile, I'm merely at the Initial rank of the Fortification stage.

That means, I need lots of energy to heal you, which will take some time."

His explanation was on point and felt reasonable to Gaby.

Thus, even if she wanted to regain her eyesight as quickly as possible, she nodded her head.

But then she recalled something as she froze in place.

"I agree, but Laila might have already found out about your ability…"

Kyle had heard this name for the second time but knew nothing about this person. This caused him to sigh as he asked.

"And who is Laila?"

This was not difficult to answer and Gaby was even a little bit astonished that Kyle didn't know that.

But then she recalled that he and Selene had arrived in Vila town just days ago.

"Ah, right, you don't know her. Laila is the fiery red-furred Lohar, or to be precise Vila town's Guildmaster! I think she noticed when we spoke with each other five days ago, including my unusual reaction..."

Even Gaby had to agree that her reaction had been out of the ordinary on that day. As such, her friend should have noticed something.

Kyle felt that this was unfortunate, but instead of complaining, he just nodded his head, thinking that this was bound to happen in the future.

"As I don't know the Guildmaster, I hope you can refrain from telling her my secret. It may sound rude, but I don't want any strangers to know of my ability. At least, if it's not essential for her to know it because of whatever reason."

Gaby was astonished that Kyle seemed to be calm and almost completely unbothered about her reaction which was something she hadn't expected.

He even switched to the topic he found to be more important than needlessly wasting time on overthinking everything.

"We spotted quite a few beasts at the peak of the Fortification stage outside the town. Let's hunt them first. Afterward, I might be able to help you recover a little bit. Just don't expect too much in the beginning, my ability is not a miracle!"

With that being said, Kyle and Gaby seemed to have come to a consensus while Selene was still focused on her own body.

She investigated everything thoroughly and had already cried several times during the last few days.

It was as if a dream was about to come true, and everything weighing her down was slowly dispersing.

After agreeing to the do's and don'ts, everything was cleared and the three left Vila town. Meanwhile, the Emerald fox remained inside Kyle.

There was no need to endanger his Spirit Soul as they were facing beasts at the Vitae stage.

However, before they would start hunting, Kyle wanted to figure out how strong Gaby was.

He believed that her combat prowess should have suffered owing to her severe injury.

She may be able to see a little bit and appear confident. But it was evident that the young receptionist was unable to utilize her archery skills as efficiently as three years ago.

It was also likely that she had spent months in depression, grieving the loss of her family.

This would probably have made her ignore cultivating, let alone practicing archery!

Thus, the peak Fortification stage beasts Kyle had been talking about were the most suitable to practice with.

He could make a huge profit in terms of the quality of the detached soul and the carcasses' high worth!

As the group was leaving the town, the four guards were astonished to see Gaby outside the Guildhall and fully armored at that.

Thus, they simply stared at her in shock without saying a single word.

This affirmed Kyle's suspicion that Gaby must be practically living inside the Guild, cut off from the rest of the world.

While wandering through the wilderness, it didn't take them long before a small group of Onyx wolves swam into their view.

Normally Kyle and Selene would have avoided them at all costs, but not today!

They were beasts at the peak of the Fortification stage and were far stronger than them.

However, when Gaby spotted their pitch-black fur and heard their growls, she acted upon reflex.

She swiftly knocked an arrow on the bow she had been holding in her left hand since they left the town.

Kyle was glad that she hadn't forgotten to stay vigilant while being shut in the Guildhall for three years. Otherwise, this would have been a disastrous night, and it was even better than her reflexes were still trained.

The Onyx wolves caught wind of their group's scent and turned towards them.

But before they could react, a low *surr* sound followed by a loud thud was heard. With that, the first wolf collapsed on the ground.

Gaby had already released one arrow and she didn't hesitate for a second. In an uninterrupted flow, she nocked on another arrow to shoot the second wolf, followed by the third, fourth and fifth.

Not even fifteen seconds had passed and the small pack of Onyx wolves had been annihilated. The familiar sight of their souls detaching from their dead body greeted Kyle.

"Hm...I'm rustier than expected"

Just as Gaby said this, Selene turned towards the young woman. Her face bore the expressions of shock and exasperation.

"That was beautiful!"

Kyle could only silently agree while his inner voice was shouting out in joy

'She can definitely benefit us greatly! Asking her to hunt with us might as well be the best decision I could have made right now!