Spirit Soul

Three weeks were certainly not a long time, even less for Cultivators to prepare themselves.

As such, Kyle had many things to do.

Amongst the most important tasks was to increase his combat prowess.

However, this was, by far, the most difficult to accomplish in the rather short time of three weeks.

Thus instead of focusing on himself, Kyle had decided to continue with the plan he, Beatrice and Yasmine had pursued, with only one difference.

Earlier, he used to go hunting with his small group, and procure soul energy from beasts they had killed.

What had changed now was that he had asked the Blazing Legion unit to help him out.

Each of them was at the Krysal stage, and they would be able to support his grind to procure the most important resource he required to grow; Soul energy.

Even without him revealing what his ability could do, Sven and his small unit of the Blazing Legion had decided to help him out.

This was only normal because they knew that Kyle wanted to procure a mutated Licara flower seed for their Queen.

Thus, by helping Kyle they would, in turn, help their own kingdom.

As such, it was only normal for them to hunt all kinds of beasts for him without directly killing them.

They didn't know why Kyle was in such a high need of killing living beings, but upon seeing him kill them one after another using the Starbreaker Katana, they were even more confused.

Yet, after sensing that some sort of energy was being transferred through the blade of the katana, and stored in the area between the handle and the blade, everyone understood that there was something unique about his weapon.

Having some knowledge about special types of weapons, Sven was intrigued by the katana and immediately asked him.

"Is your weapon able to drain the life force of your opponents? Even after killing them?"

Sven was not exactly wrong but Kyle didn't drain his opponents of all of their life force, but soul energy and neither was it 'even after' killing them, but 'only after' he killed them.

Given the incorrect assumption, Sven and his soldiers presumed that Kyle was trying to stockpile energy for the Brawl.

Because of that, their efforts to clean the surroundings from beasts that had been agitated by the large-scale battle between the three races, only for a Quetzalcoatl to intervene.

As such, killing two birds with a single stone, they supported Kyle by providing him with heavily injured beasts that he could devour the soul energy from easily while simultaneously protecting Briskandt from sudden attacks of huge beast hordes.

In the end, they didn't neglect their work, but it would be a lie, if they were to say that they were not uncomfortable about the given situation.

They might have celebrated their survival, but the tension in the Sadorla forest was still unbearable.

After all, a large number of prodigies would enter the territory of the Sadorla forest soon, and each party expected to face several assassination attempts before the brawl.

Some may think that this was dirty and unfair, but who would care about fairness if it was possible to kill a potential future threat in addition to obliterating the opponents of their descendants?

Even Kyle could understand the reason behind planning assassination attempts in the current times because the presence of many prodigious talents of all races at one place was simply too enticing.

It surprised him that nobody dared to fight openly, but then none of the races or so-called mighty warriors would be able to face the wrath of the Quetzalcoatl that was likely to return much faster than before reducing everyone to cinder in no time.

With that in mind, Kyle was glad that nobody considered him a huge threat.

In fact, he was someone nobody expected to enter the brawl.

After all, the Aldra race might have figured that he was siding with Briskandt, while the prodigies of the Lahin and Anadra kingdom might as well attack him too, believing that he was an Aldra.

Thus, Kyle was quite confident in his assumption that everyone would attack him the moment he obtained a single treasure even if these so-called treasures would be nothing but seemingly useless items.

However, that was not his goal, to begin with.

Kyle's only target was the mutated Licara flower seed that mattered to him.

Unfortunately, there was one particular issue that Kyle had not thought about before.

'What will happen when I leave the dome with a mutated Licara flower seed?'

He was unsure whether he even wanted to know the answer to that question.

Yet, after thinking about it for a moment, he concluded that handing over the mutated Licara flower seed to Sven was likely to be the best solution.

He was forced to trust someone else in this regard, and Sven was certainly the most trustworthy Lohar he knew, if he were to exclude Selene.

While thinking about her, Kyle wondered if a few prodigies from the Glory Knight academy would travel towards the Sadorla forest in order to join the Brawl.

There should be a handful or so, who would love to try their luck and emerge victorious in the Brawl a change, but Kyle presumed that most of them would either die, or be heavily injured.

After all, if one couldn't procure any kind of treasure, crippling or killing the prodigies of their race's opponents was the most intelligent move.

Making peace with them was also possible, but given the historical background of the three parties, a temporary treaty was comparable to a big red flag that screamed 'betrayal'.

As such, it was unlikely for someone belonging to different races to team up as long as they didn't plan on trusting each other wholeheartedly.

This was quite disadvantageous for Kyle because nobody would want to team up with him.

Beatrice and Yasmine were too old to enter the Dome and he didn't really know anyone else!

Fortunately, he had Arashi, the Spirit Soul by his side that had finally attained maturity once again.

At the Mid rank of the Vitae stage, Arashi was stronger than Kyle, owing to the same cultivation path he possessed.

By making use of Soul force, it was not impossible for Arashi to defeat beings at the Late Vitae stage, and using Kyle as a means of support would only further increase their chances.

With their forces combined, even prodigies at the Late Vitae stage shouldn't be too difficult to defeat.

Nevertheless, Kyle had to be careful as he knew that nobody would run around alone, at least not if their combat prowess was questionable.

Running around alone was either an indicator of massive strength, suicidal, or a desperate attempt of making use of the golden opportunity that had unfolded in front of one who truly had no companion.

Kyle was neither of those, or so he hoped at the least.

Instead, he was just an Old Soul who wanted to use the second chance to the fullest and solve the issues at hand using the simplest solution.

And this would be the case even if it meant that it was a huge hassle.

In the end, the situation of the Brawl was not something one could predict.

A dark horse might emerge from the shadows of the brightly shining prodigies everyone knew about.

Thus, Kyle had decided to be vigilant against everyone, to nurture Arashi as quickly as possible, and to stockpile a massive amount of Soul energy in order to make use of it.

In the worst-case scenario, he could, at least, attempt to flee using the Soul energy as a means to empower the Nurture ability with which he could do numerous things.

That was only the worst-case scenario, but Kyle had already figured out that every possibility had to be taken into consideration.

This was also the reason he had requested Sven and his Soldiers' help in providing beast corpses.

They would earn merits and their Queen would be delighted for their efforts in acquiring a mutated Licara flower, while Kyle was bound to grow much faster.

In fact, satiating the growth path had been possible, but even the energy absorption had reached its limit after slightly more than two weeks.

Kyle felt that this was an exceptional feat, considering that it was bound to require an enormous amount of energy to be satiated.

In the end, only the energy conversion path was something Kyle had wanted to finish nurturing.

Yet, instead of focussing on what he wanted, prioritizing his needs was more important.

Because of that, Kyle used the last week to cultivate for more than twelve hours each day and utilized the remaining time to practice his martial arts practice, procuring information about the other contestants, and killing beasts in order to acquire their soul energy.

Acquiring intel about other contestants was neither easy nor difficult.

After all, most of the Vitae stage beings that entered the Sadorla forest were likely to be contestants as well.

Thus, the most obvious information such as everyone's rough cultivation base, and what kind of traits one was likely to have was no more a secret.

However, other than that, it was quite difficult to get more in-depth intel about the other contestants as everyone acted quite secretive.

Only those young individuals with an influential background were able to make use of their connections to find out more about the most likely participants of the Brawl.

In the end, more than ten thousand beings were likely to be participants of the Brawl.

The number was huge in comparison to alloted area of the Sadorla forest's center where the Brawl was likely to be held.

There were not too many places to hide, and owing to the fact that one would sense where rare treasures that had been stashed by the others, a massacre was bound to unfold.

After processing the provided information, Kyle spent the majority of his little freetime thinking about the best plan to procure a mutated Licara flower seed.

This treasure was the most wanted, and highly sought after which meant that nearly everyone would try to lay their hands on it.

As such, the vast majority of participants would attempt to acquire, at least, one mutated seed, if not multiple ones.

Once procured, they had to survive a whole day in the Sadorla forest before they were able to take it outside the dome.

However, the most problematic in this situation was not the one-day waiting period, but the fact that one was forced to stay in a range of a meter from the items, or store them away.

Otherwise, the timer would be reset, or stop completely until the requirements to start the countdown were met once again.

This was said in the second notification the Guildhalls had received.

There was additional information such as the treasures that had been scattered through the area within the dome.

Apparently, the Master of the Guild wanted to make things even more interesting by awakening the participants' innate greed.

​ The final goal seemed to be to figure out whether the strongest prodigies would attempt to take more items with them.

This would increase the time in which they had to survive within the Sadorla forest, while thousands of rivals would attempt to steal the items while fighting against them.

Kyle presumed that there were numerous such prodigies, but there was one thing he was pretty sure about.

'If I can procure a mutated Licara flower seed, and leave the dome, that doesn't mean I cannot return if there is something that attracts my attention!'

His thoughts were brimming with confidence, but reality was cruel.

Unable to know whether he was even able to procure anything during the Brawl, Kyle could only hope for the best.

Yet, deep within his conscience, he knew that it would already be a great fortune for him if he were to be able to get his hands on the flower seed, to begin with.

Rough days awaited Kyle, in which he would have to face numerous dangers and even more threatening opponents that wanted to reap everything greedily and leave nothing for others!