Spirit Soul

Kyle couldn't tell whether Gaby was playing with their lives or not.

Despite that, he followed her.

There was no need to waste his precious resources. This included their time and Gaby's strength.

As such, he gave her a faint nod. He knew he had asked her to hunt with them just for one day.

And, he had already seen her prowess and capabilities.

Kyle wouldn't simply waste the opportunity to amass more fortune.. With that in mind, he decided to not back off.

Instead Kyle would advance at a much faster speed if he were to take risks.

This was not something uncommon for Kyle and his impatient mindset.

But while risking his life, he would rather depend on his own strength than someone else's.

Nevertheless, Gaby reassured them that they would only stay at the outskirts.

Even she knew the risks of venturing deeper into the territories of other, stronger beasts.

Thus, they would stick to the outer area where many packs with beasts at the peak Fortification stage resided.

Most of them had a leader at the Vitae stage.

If her sources were correct, some were said to have a few subordinates that were at the same stage too.

Gaby's archery skills were superior and definitely not rusty.

Kyle believed that even a beast at the late Vitae stage might lose against her.

He thought so based on the way she could wield the ice affinity seed she had awoken.

This was if he were to evaluate her current strength.

Because of that, there were no issues and he felt confident about accompanying her.

Thus, they roamed through the outskirts of the denser part of the forest.

Several hours passed and Kyle had lost count of the number of souls he had devoured.

He only knew that he had used his Nurture ability more than ten times.

This was the highest count he had attained with respect to using his ability so far.

The masses of dense soul particles that had swept through Kyle's body had energized him.

Simultaneously, the Emerald Fox had consistently absorbed the surrounding energy and converted it into soul force.

At the same time, its mutation had progressed by leaps and bounds.

Despite that, it took Kyle until the evening before his Spirit Soul's mutation path had dispersed.

This served as an indicator that it couldn't be further nurtured.

The mutation path had been completely saturated.

Additionally, the Emerald Fox's fur had changed from its bright green color to a soft azure tone.

The small horn on its head that looked more like a small bump had now taken the shape of a nice 7 centimeter horn.

Its height had also increased to a total of 15 centimeters.

Sensing so many changes made Kyle want to have a good look at his Spirit Soul.

He had a strong urge to let the horned azure fox out of his body.

Horned azure fox was the closest name he could come up with to refer to his Spirit Soul's race. It was only now that Kyle realized that he hadn't given his Spirit soul a proper name.

'Is it really necessary to give it a name? Has my Spirit Soul even a gender?' Kyle suddenly wondered, not sure whether it had a gender or if it was just genderless.

More and more questions flashed into his mind, and he wanted to find out the answers to them as soon as possible.

However, now was not the time for him to figure out everything.

Once they would return to their room, he would try to solve all mysteries.

Earlier, he wasn't looking forward to ending their escapade and simply wanted to hunt.

But now, Kyle was eager to go back and find out how strong his Spirit Soul had become due to the mutation!

It could consume soul particles, indicating that it could grow once again.

As such, Kyle was happy which was clearly visible.

His face had lit up with a bright smile at the thought.

Despite that, there were still a few hours left before they would call it a day.

Thus, it took him only a few seconds before he regained his senses.

Unfortunately, Kyle's ambition to continue hunting for hours was crushed by Gaby who threw in her opinion.

"I've stored far more than 100 corpses of beasts at the peak Fortification stage, and 9 corpses at the Vitae stage.

The three spatial rings are filled to the brim, and there is at most space for one, or two beasts!

After hunting two more beasts at the Vitae stage we should depart. We have to return to the town before it gets dark.

So, it's better to do this as long as we still have some sunshine"

Gaby's comment was once again logical.

Though Kyle had become overly ambitious and wanted to kill more beasts, he couldn't find fault with Gaby's words.

Hence, he nodded his head, suppressing the greed within him.

It had been long since he felt like that- greedy for power and strength.

Kyle took a moment to collect himself.

He reminded himself that they had a bountiful hunt.

As such, there was no need to be overwhelmed by his own desires.

Keeping that in mind, he agreed to hunt two more beasts before departing to the town.

Only one hour passed before they encountered a pair of Thunder deer at the Initial Vitae stage.

They were quickly hunted by Gaby, who didn't show any signs of mercy.

In a swift move, she utilized her affinity while shooting a total of five arrows in quick succession.

Her archery skills were truly strong, and seeing her made Kyle conscious of his poor skills.

Thus, he couldn't help but feel that he should practice archery once again.

His memories should allow him to recall the basics as he had learned them a very long time ago.

Nevertheless, this was not something they should pay attention to right now.

Kyle devoured the Thunder deers' souls before tending to Gaby's wound with his Nurture ability.

Throughout the day, she had been able to regain some of her sight owing to him healing him in breaks.

This was something she could have never dreamed of before encountering Kyle.

But somehow her deepest wish had come true, and Gaby was glad about it.

Her eyesight was still less than 30% to have a perfect vision, but with enough time everything should work out!

While Gaby was deep in thoughts, Kyle nurtured the horned azure fox's potential path.

Nevertheless, he was mindful of leaving out enough soul particles for later.

After all, Kyle wanted to have enough stockpile for his Spirit Soul to grow into a mature fox once again.

Once he was done, they left the Krysal stage beast's territory.

All of them returned to Vila town half an hour after dusk.

Without wasting too much time, they went their separate ways. Kyle and Selene returned to Milli's guest house while Gaby returned to the Guildhall.

They had decided to look at the corpses in the morning because it was already late.

Plus, Kyle and Selene were exhausted and wanted to rest. None of them was in a hurry after all.

After having dinner at Milli's guest house, Kyle lodged in the same room as before.

He extended their stay for an entire week before they returned to their room.

Both of them were subjected to weird gazes , but by now he had gotten used to them. Thus, he simply ignored it.

Milli was also looking at them with a confused expression that said more than a thousand words.

"Rumors spread faster than I expected." He murmured as they entered the room.

Selene hadn't heard him because she was too busy trying to not cry again.

She was torn between her happiness of being cured, while feeling uncomfortable with the gazes that lingered on her.

Some of them were hostile glares that had made her feel queasy.

Selene had only half her mind on the food while the other half had been busy not trying to hide behind Kyle.

Thus she had eaten half-heartedly, unsure of how to act during the entire dinner.

Like always, her eyes had flicked to Kyle only to notice that he was extremely calm.

He had told her to act as if nothing was going on, and focus on the food.

Sadly, she was not a born actress but a girl who got easily scared.

Despite the glares they received, nobody asked them why Gaby had been out hunting with them, for the entire day at that.

She had never left the Guildhall in three years, but suddenly had gone hunting.

The fact that she chose to step out of her makeshift home with strangers was surprising.

Hence, it was obvious for everyone to be suspicious about the sudden change in her behavior.

Even then, Kyle remained silent, and ignored the suspicious stares.

He simply finished dinner and returned to their room.

Once he closed the door, he let out the horned azure fox out of his body.

The little horned azure fox squealed out in delight upon seeing both Kyle and Selene.

Its behavior allowed the young Lohar to forget her earlier discomfort.

Kyle had already explained everything about his Spirit soul to her including its mutations.

Thus, she knew that it would change in appearance and strength over time.

Nevertheless, she was astonished and fully occupied by the horned azure fox who had been instructed to distract Selene.

Meanwhile, Kyle went to take a quick bath before changing into a clean set of clothes.

After that he told Selene to do the same before he returned to his Spirit Soul.

Now, he was finally free to inspect the completed evaluation his Spirit Soul had undergone.

The mutation process hadn't been spectacular and his Spirit Soul had just slowly changed.

The change was directly proportional to the progress of the mutation path.

As for the potential path, this should be something different.

It would allow his Spirit Soul to evolve once a certain threshold had reached.

At least that was what Kyle expected because he had no idea what else could happen.

His knowledge about Spirit Soul cultivators was shallow.

Even his inadequate knowledge would be extraordinary.

Most races were clueless about Spirit Soul cultivators, and this could already be seen as an exaggeration!

Thus, he could only give his best and experiment a little bit.

Hence, he randomly decided to nurture some of the newly emerged hues that appeared around the horned azure fox.

This would have to wait for the time being.

The next few steps on his plan were slightly different than one might expect.

He wished to focus on them first.

Yet, at the same time, they were the most basic to build a proper foundation.

If he wanted to protect his life from strong foes which he would inevitably face in the future, Kyle had to act disciplined.

This included his physical condition, practical experience, and even more so, his knowledge that had to be up-to-date.

Testing out several things, Kyle observed the Emerald Fox in nervous excitement.

The first thing he did was to check how much the Spirit Soul's energy absorption and energy conversion rate had increased.

This was not really difficult to figure out.

Thus, only after a few minutes of watching the horned azure fox cultivating, Kyle was done with his evaluation.

However, the result confused him extremely.

'The energy absorption rate has doubled, that's really good.

But why does it feel like the horned azure fox can process the absorbed energy even faster?'

The final result was logical, but Kyle took a while to realize what he was missing out on.

It was then that he heard his Spirit Soul's quiet yelping noise.

'Maybe, I have to start absorbing the surrounding energy by myself too? At least, if I want the perfect result… That's not what I expected to happen, but it should help me learn how to sense and control other energies to a certain extent too!'

With this result, Kyle was content, and he should be the last one to complain!

His Spirit Soul was extremely strong and combined with the Nurture ability, they turned into a force to reckon with.

The mutation was already a welcome sign to Kyle. It indicated just how powerful the combined traits he had chosen before reincarnating were!

Despite that, he was unable to figure out how strong the horned azure fox could truly become.

His knowledge about Spirit beasts was shallow thus he was not sure how high its racial limit was.

As such, he assumed it to be able to reach a cultivation base around the Mid Fortification stage.

This was already much stronger than an Emerald Fox could dream of reaching, and Kyle would be more than happy to see that.

In the end, Kyle was extremely tired and his eyes were falling shut owing to the busy day.

Later, they had stuffed their bellies with hot and fresh food.

Thus, he decided to pay attention to everything else later.

There were so many things yet to be completed.

But having figured out the most important aspects of his Spirit Soul's mutation made him happy.

He didn't regret having revealed certain aspects of his secrets to Gaby.

The benefits he had received outweighed the disadvantages if there were any to speak about!

Gaby had other things to pay attention to than revealing his secrets, and she was still in need of him too.

Because of that, Kyle was not worried at all.

Instead, he was extremely relaxed and decided to sleep instead of cultivating through the night.

He was way too tired and for a change prioritized sleep before work.

His last thoughts lingered on the hues he had seen within the horned azure fox as he drifted to sleep.

'I should also try nurturing the lush green hue. It might be a racial ability or even affinity...'

Falling into a deep slumber, Kyle didn't even notice that Selene's eyes were gleaming brightly.

Instead of falling asleep like him, she sat down to start cultivating.

Despite feeling exhausted, she was able to absorb mana for the first time in her life.

Thus, Selene wanted to test how it would feel to cultivate in both the path of strength and the path of mystic energy!