Spirit Soul

Kyle had never felt as well-rested as it has been the care since his reincarnation.

It felt as if it had been ages since he had fallen asleep peacefully.

The thought of predators lurking around or the need to amass a lot of wealth had always bothered him.

Hence, in what seemed like an eternity to him, he had been free of both the worries.

Even if it was for just a night, he was glad to sleep without any nagging thoughts.

Giving himself a break from the usual chaotic mornings, he had decided to sleep in.

Thus, when he woke up with drowsy eyes, the sun was already high up in the sky.

While rubbing his eyes, he noticed a light weight on his chest.

Reluctantly, he opened his half-lidded eyes that still demanded more sleep from him.

It was then that he saw his Spirit Soul, the horned azure fox sound asleep.

Stroking its fur, he stayed in bed for a few minutes while smiling brightly.

It was only when Kyle turned his head that he noticed that something was amiss.

'Did Selene already get up?' he wondered.

He finally got up from the bed grudgingly and placed his feet on the ground.

While holding the horned azure fox in one hand, he looked through the room.

'She is cultivating…oh, and with mana at that?'

Getting out of bed, Kyle looked at Selene.

A slow smile appeared on his face to see her working hard.

Thus, he sat beside her cross-legged and started to cultivate too.

The horned azure fox had converted enough of his surroundings' energy into soul force.

As such, his entire body was brimming with soul force.

With that, he could cultivate for a few hours, enlarging the foundation of his Spirit vessel.

By the time he was done, Selene had also finished cultivating.

Thus, she opened her eyes to greet him with a vibrant smile.

Looking at him with hopeful eyes, she proudly stated,

"I can finally cultivate with mana too!"

Kyle found her reaction oddly amusing. As such he gave her a thumbs up.

However, just as he was about to praise her, Selene's expression changed.

She seemed to be sorry and added in a low voice.

"But I can't cultivate with both primordial energy and mana.

Neither can I circulate them through my body at the same time…"

Kyle felt as if Selene was taking her situation too lightly.

Cultivating with two repulsive cultivation energies at the same time was highly dangerous and risky.

In her effort to please him she seemed to forget why she had been under unbearable pain for her entire life!

Even after he had tended to her ailment, she was far from healed.

Though he had tried his best, there were problems in cultivating two cultivation energies at once.

Nevertheless, he was confident that she would be able to do it soon.

To prevent running into any issues in one's cultivation, there were special techniques that were designed to help people cultivate.

This included rare techniques about the cultivation of two activated cultivation paths, or even three.

Unfortunately, Kyle knew that the Guild in Vila town didn't have such rare cultivation techniques.

Hence, Selene was forced to depend on a single cultivation technique to focus on a certain cultivation path.

If not, she had to divide her time and practice two cultivation techniques.

However, Kyle didn't favor the latter because Selene would progress much slower that way.

Nevertheless, it was Selene's decision about how she wanted to cultivate.

Kyle would let her take her own decisions and never wanted to intervene in her choice, to begin with.

It was rush hour when Kyle and Selene had taken a quick bath before they decided to have lunch in the dining room.

Milli was still eyeing them with a faint trace of hesitance, but Nina was being her usual self.

It was nothing uncommon for a young girl to be unbothered by what the adults thought or did.

She couldn't understand her mother's reluctance and instead served Kyle and Selene with a bright smile.

After they had a hearty meal, it was time for them to leave the guest house and to turn towards the Guildhall.

Even though Kyle had spent a large amount of the day sleeping leisurely, he was now eager to claim his wealth.

There was no way that he would miss out on the huge fortune he was about to obtain.

As such Kyle made a rough calculation of what he would receive today while getting ready.

He had a fair idea of how many of the lowest quality Pryr crystals he would receive in exchange for the corpses.

But that was not his major concern as the souls he had devoured had been the most important.

As for the Pryr crystals, they would immediately be exchanged for other things he and Selene required.

Right now, their fortune was at 300 Pryr crystals.

It was already a huge fortune considering what they owned days ago.

Their expenses were negligible in comparison to what they could earn in a single day.

There were not many hunters in the town and even the prices for beasts at the Initial Fortification stage were high.

This made the opportunity even more exciting for everyone inside the town.

Despite that, only a handful of them dared turn the opportunity into a fruitful outcome for them.

The vast majority of town people were still traumatized from the event that had occurred three years ago.

After the Blood Nasgas had created two large and gaping holes in the town wall, things had spiraled out of control.

This had allowed a few beasts to enter the town.

What had followed was a bloodbath where innocent citizens lost their lives and entire houses were demolished.

In the end, they had been unable to kill many citizens.

But their barbaric deeds of violence had struck terror in the hearts of the citizens.

They would still shudder due to the memories of that fateful day.

Even after all these days, only a few dared venture into the world outside the town walls.

Kyle didn't mind others' behavior or their fright.

On the contrary, he was quite happy because it decreased the competition he would face.

Less eager people would mean there were more beasts for him to hunt and more opportunities to earn wealth.

Being able to earn more because the demand for hunters was high could only be described as a godsend for Kyle.

Owing to this and the help of both Selene and his Spirit Soul, Kyle had been able to earn such a huge fortune.

'Using the fortune I would receive from the corpses to purchase a used spatial ring, in addition to some martial art- and cultivation manuals should be feasible, I guess?'

Less than 10 minutes later they stood in the doorframe of the Guildhall.

No sooner had they walked in, they felt the watchful glares upon themselves.

Every single cultivator in the Guildhall had stopped whatever he or she was doing to look at them.

Even the receptionists couldn't help but stare at Kyle and Selene with awe and interest.

Not only had Gaby left the Guildhall for the first time in three years, but her entire demeanor had changed ever since her return.

The latter was barely noticeable to strangers.

But the other receptionists were able to tell the difference right off the bat!

'Just what happened yesterday?' The same doubt was in everybody's mind.

While those who had seen her outside the Guildhall could only wonder what had made her finally leave the Guildhall.

It was sudden for her to leave the walls of her supposed home.

What was even weirder was that she had chosen to do that with Kyle and Selene.

They were strangers to the town folks and called themselves adventurers.

In the end, Kyle and Selene had barely spent a week in the town so they had already become the talk of the town when Gaby had walked out with them.

Selene was still feeling uncomfortable under everyone's gaze.

But, she saw Kyle maintain his cool and quickly adapt to the situation.

As such, Kyle was not worried about her as he approached Gaby, who had already spotted them.

Gaby didn't do anything out of the ordinary.

Even she had seen how they were the center of attraction.

So, Gaby didn't want to add more to the growing curiosity about both of them.

Thus, the moment Kyle appeared in front of her she simply told him what he had been waiting to hear.

"The beast corpses of the three spatial rings can be exchanged for 72,190 Pryr crystals at the lowest quality.

If you're interested in the calculations I can share that as well. The average price for a beast at the peak of the Fortification stage was 110 Pryr crystals at the lowest quality. Meanwhile, 11 of the Vitae stage beasts were worth 2500 Pryr crystals each on average.

The Blood owl is a rare beast and can be used for several purposes. Its blood and bones could be used for forging, concocting and so on. It's also a beast at the Mid Vitae stage.

As such, its corpse is worth 25,000 Pryr crystals at the lowest quality!"

Selene was utterly astounded to hear the price.

She had never heard anybody receive such a price before.

But, after looking at Kyle's calm composure, she could only force herself to maintain a poker face.

While intently listening to Gaby's explanation, Kyle nodded his head.

His mind furiously calculated the numbers while pondering about the path he and Selene should take next.

There were several things he wanted to do with the huge fortune he had just obtained.

Nonetheless, he had to calm down his jittery nerves and not go on a spending spree.

There were certain aspects he couldn't afford to forget about his future plans.

'Should I buy a spatial ring or simply rent one in order to purchase a bigger one later? Focusing on cultivating is the most important right now as well as increasing our combat prowess. That means we need both cultivation and martial art techniques…'

While he was deep in thoughts, he barely heard Gaby who provided an elaborate explanation.

"As you might know, the cultivation resources at the lowest quality are efficient for a limited time. You can use them as long as you're still at the Initial-, or low rank Fortification stage.

Once you cross those levels, you should use Pryr or Maest crystals at the low quality. If you don't do that, your cultivation speed would go for a toss.

50 lowest quality Pryr crystals can be exchanged with 1 low quality crystal. As for low quality crystals, you can exchange them for the same ratio with medium quality crystals. But that should only be interesting for you once you're about to break into the Vitae stage!"

Despite listening to Gaby half-heartedly, Kyle found her words to be informative.

After hearing her, he was able to grasp the importance of cultivation resources much better.

The surrounding energy wouldn't be enough to absorb once a cultivator advanced to the next stage.

This would, in turn, hold the cultivator back from progressing further.

As such, they had to use cultivation resources to speed up their advancement.

But this had a downside.

Nothing in the world was ever available freely.

One had to lose something to gain something in return.

The difficulty in advancing further progressively increased as one's cultivation base increased.

The higher one's cultivation base, the more expensive the resources.

This was only logical, but Kyle hadn't really thought about the problem of procuring cultivation resources until now.

He was far from reaching a state in which he would require lots of cultivation resources.

Even Selene's demand for a suitable cultivation resource wouldn't be high for now.

As such, he took a quick glance through both the books he had received from Gaby.

Flicking the pages, he took a while to make up his mind.

72,190 Pryr crystals were everything but a small fortune.

For poor and ordinary citizens, that amount of wealth could make them live debt-free for their entire life.

Even for most cultivators, this sum was ridiculously higher than the majority made profit in an entire month.

The expenses during a hunt were excessive considering the equipment and potions.

Advanced equipment was expensive and the high risk of it being damaged was always present.

Additionally,  the potions one had to use were equally expensive.

Other than that, most Guild members hunted in groups of five.

As such, the entire loot had to be equally distributed amongst the group.

This was different in Kyle's situation. Gaby had already received some of her payment.

As for Selene, she belonged to Kyle according to her own words.

Thus, he was able to decide what to do with the entire fortune.

The day before, he had already made up his mind.

However, upon reaching the Guildhall he felt like changing his decision.

Gaby and Selene noticed his hesitation.

But before Selene could open her mouth, the former captain guard had already leaned forward.

In a barely audible whisper, she said something that made Kyle relax visibly.

"You already stated that you can only heal me slowly without your ability being activated by killing strong beasts. Let's help each other. I will go out hunting with you two, and regain my eyesight at a much faster pace while you will receive the beast corpses!"

Hearing this was definitely a blessing, and Kyle couldn't help but smile at her proposal.

He felt as if he had won Gaby over.

Her eyes shone with a faint glimmer of hope and excitement.

If he was not mistaken, he saw a little bit of greed too.

This caused him to hesitate once again as he remarked,

"Don't become too greedy...I know what you want to do...but calm down. You've already waited three years, a few weeks won't kill you, right?"

Like her, evenKyle was eager to increase his fortune.

He was equally impatient to hasten the saturation of his Spirit Soul's potential path.

But, his rational mind told him that Gaby had become too restless and eager.

He knew that neither would help her finish off the pest that went by the name Dirk!