Spirit Soul

Defeating the remaining two Black Skeletons that had arrived after hearing the commotion Kyle and the other Skeleton had caused was not exactly difficult.

Rather, it was much easier than Kyle had expected.

However, that was mostly due to his extreme focus on using subtle movements and preventing useless steps.

He wanted his combat experience and prowess to increase.

Thus, Kyle had to take every single chance he could get, and Undead beings were literally the best type of sparring partners he could get.

Not only were they moving, but they didn't even feel pain.

As such, it was not absurd for Kyle to make use of his current situation.

The castle of the Undead proved to be an ideal training ground for him!

Nevertheless what Kyle had been fully focused on were not the Black Skeletons or his movements. Instead, his focus had been on the center of the ancient houses where he had seen the glowing, crimson eyes and silver hair.

It had only been the blink of an eye, but that had been more than enough to shock Kyle because his Nurture ability had still been activated.

Because of that, he had been able to see the hue enveloping the being that had taken over his entire attention.

This had almost caused him to die a painful death, but fortunately, nothing happened thanks to Arashi's great support.

In the end, Kyle was not sure what kind of existence he had seen a few moments earlier.

But after the two Black Skeletons had been defeated, he devoured their souls before picking up the three Undead cores.

Feeding Arashi with two Late Fortification souls barely satiated the little Horned Tempest Fox.

The soul of the first Black Skeleton had escaped from his grasp.

But that was not further problematic as the sight of the mysterious being in front of him was worth much more.

Kyle knew that his trials were adjusted to the Fortification stage. As such, the being he had seen had to be unique, like an overseer, or something similar to that.

This was the only logical explanation Kyle could come up with.

Yet, at the same time, he couldn't help but feel more excited about the Castle than before.

Initially, he had not wanted to enter the Castle because he thought it to be a waste of time.

However, with time, Kyle couldn't help but think that it was exactly things like Karnias heritage that made being alive and a cultivator exciting.

With that in mind, even the boring maze had become more interesting, even more so after he saw the extremely small ancient village.

At least, Kyle assumed that it had once been a village.

If not for this assumption to be true he had no idea if any kinds of beings had inhabited the maze, let alone how old the houses were.

Despite the questions that lingered in his mind, Kyle decided to take care of the remaining three Black Skeletons first.

They had heard the commotion but didn't move towards him.

Either, they were thinking that the three Black Skeletons were enough to finish off Kyle, or their orders didn't allow them to move.

In the end, the reason for them to not approach him didn't matter to Kyle.

He was confident to defeat them, in all kinds of situations, after all.

Through this confidence which Kyle had accumulated during the last few weeks, he stored away his own and the Black Skeleton's weapons.

The addition of the weapons filled his Spatial ring to the brim.

Afterward, he entered the open field, and it was only at this exact moment that the remaining Black Skeletons rushed towards Kyle.

Unfortunately, he was already prepared, while the same applied to Arashi.

By manifesting more than a dozen crescent wind blades, Kyle's soul force was rapidly drained.

Beside him, even Arashi managed to manifest strong wind currents.

The little fox enveloped Kyle's crescent wind blades with the strong wind currents and controlled them freely as Kyle simply held them in place.

Under normal circumstances, one would question what kind of stupid thing they were doing.

However, right now Kyle and his little Spirit Soul were combining their forces to multitask.

Together, they managed to create an attack that someone at their stage would be unable to create!

To hold them in place, Kyle used his entire willpower and mind that had been strengthened to be on par with any kind of Spiral beast at the Late Fortification stage.

As such, they were firmly held together and the blades were razor sharp. Arashi controlled the wind he had manifested quite freely.

Shooting the crescent wind blades towards the three Black Skeletons that were still more than 30 meters away from them, the Horned Tempest Fox was accurately controlling the wind currents.

Through this, the wind blades shot past the longswords that attacked them, while simultaneously evading the shields.

The shields were supposed to protect the Skeleton's Undead Core but somehow ended up doing the exact opposite.

They left the back of their entire body unguarded as the skeletons had just moved both of its arms ahead.

With their entire back left unguarded, the wind blades flew around.

They seemed to spiral out of control, only to accurately cut through the thinnest bone in its rib cage.

A faint gap was created that could be targeted to kill the Black Skeletons with a single attack.

And exactly as planned, one of the dozen wind blades was sacrificed after rendering tremendous damage.

It was pierced into the narrow gap, killing the Black Skeleton within a single moment.

Meanwhile, the remaining 11 wind blades didn't seem to stop as they wreaked havoc.

They were slowly killing the remaining two Black Skeletons, just before they arrived in front of Kyle.

In the end, Kyle felt that he still required lots of practice as it didn't work the way he had hoped for.

The crescent wind blade storm, which was the best name he and Arashi could give it for now at least, was supposed to injure their opponents with thousands of small cuts within a short time.

Unfortunately, it was not exactly easy to achieve this feat. It was even less while being at the Fortification stage, and in the comprehension phase of the wind's essence.

If their comprehension were to be high enough, and the amount of soul force they possessed several times greater, they would be able to control wind blades by themselves.

At the same time, they wouldn't shatter upon colliding with any solid object as they had been doing for the entire time.

The sole exception was if Kyle was using his entire focus and soul force to prevent this scenario from occurring.

But, it was not exactly helpful because he would have to be able to continue fighting under normal circumstances.

Fortunately, they were currently only in a testing period.

They were fighting against Undead beings that were at a cultivation stage Kyle couldn't be bothered anymore.

At least, not to the extent he had worried about before.

It would be extremely helpful for him to be able to freely control the wind while moving around crescent wind blades that wouldn't destroy upon touching literally anything.

Yet, it was both Kyle and Arashi's misfortune to be lacking the necessary strength and proficiency to master their combined attack, without one completing the other.

Nevertheless, now that the Black Skeletons had been defeated, Kyle couldn't see any undead or a being that could be nurtured with his ability.

Thus, he approached the ancient houses.

Kyle remained vigilant, but he found that there was nothing to be suspicious about.

As such, he entered one house after the other.

All of them were filled with hundreds of old books amongst which more than half of them were barely held together by threads.

They fell apart the moment they were touched.

This was not surprising, but what astonished him were the unique items he found inside all of the ancient houses.

"Three houses for the basic auxiliary occupations, one storage, and...one library?" He mumbled, after having skimmed through each of the houses for a mere five minutes.

Kyle had hoped to find just a single sign that would indicate the presence of the being he had perceived earlier.

Unfortunately, there was nothing, and he could only sigh, not hiding his disappointment at all.

The disappointment quickly dispersed as he found many interesting things inside the almost completely destroyed houses that seemed to have stood the test of time.

While the herbs and potions Kyle found inside the Inscribing and Alchemy-oriented houses were far from usable, he still picked up the herbs.

Through his nurture ability, he might be able to save them. This would require lots of energy, and Kyle could only hope that they were rare enough to be worth the investment of his precious ability and time.

Meanwhile, there were also all kinds of books, but they were already crumbling apart.

However, what made Kyle interested in the Inscribing and Alchemy house, were not the books, but the tools that seemed to have not let time affect them.

That was astonishing as they seemed to be nearly intact.

But, it was also a great indicator for the rank the tools had over a millennia ago.

Now, they had already lost most of their capabilities, but Kyle still collected them all as they were still worth a lot.

Each of them was engraved with something extraordinary, and if someone could fix them, they would be worth even more.

If Kyle's evaluation wasn't wrong, they should still be Primar graded tools that were above the Ranked grading.

As such, these tools were likely from an even higher grade that was prevalent a millennia ago.

This was not only interesting, but it caused Kyle's greed to flare up too.

Under normal circumstances, he was able to control his greed.

But in the face of being forced to enter the Undead Castle, Kyle couldn't even think of holding back.

Because the creator had forced him to do things he didn't even want to, he would take everything as if it belonged to him.

That was the only justice and a way of securing he could see right now.

In the end, Kyle gathered everything that wouldn't fall apart in the center of the five ancient houses.

Each house had its own small stash, and Kyle couldn't help but nod in satisfaction to see everything around him.

The most impressive was the huge pile of books that were enveloped in a faint hue of energy.

Some were releasing primordial energy currents, the others spirit force or mana, and some individuals had more than one energy enveloping them.

However, all of that was not important to Kyle because he was interested in the knowledge he could gain through the books.

He was least interested in finding out the kind of energy was holding them together.

This was simply not important to him at the moment.

His scholarly side was shining through his past life, seemingly re-emerging within him.

His eyes were gleaming brightly like that of a small child who had unexpectedly received a mountain of candies.

The only difference was that Kyle's candies were in the form of old, and tattered books.

"Every single item should have been at the Secur grade before it deteriorated over time.

That's amazing...and the books' content looks even more impressive."

Yet, what had caused Kyle to be the happiest was the fact that he even found a Spatial ring in one of the five houses.

It was made out of a silver material, which highlighted the pitch-black bat that had been engraved onto it.

However, the most impressive parts about the ring were two facts, its crimson colored eyes, and its size!

Suddenly, just as Kyle put on the ring, his face stiffened.

While inspecting its gigantic storage space, a drop of blood trickled down the exact same finger.

"Ouch!"

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