Spirit Soul

Two weeks had passed since Kyle's hellish training with Knirg and Lahan had started.

In the beginning, everything seemed to be useless.

But owing to his unbending will to pass the second trial, Kyle improved.

The process was slow but steady and he had made considerable progress compared to the first day.

Because of that, he was now almost unaffected by the death aura.

Even the battle intent that was released to a much higher extent than before, didn't seem to bother him anymore.

Rather, Kyle was able to understand something specific from the strong battle intent.

If his assumptions were correct, it seemed to be the manifested will to fight and overcome all obstacles in order to defeat every opponent.

Figuring this out had taken a long time for Kyle.

To him, it made no sense that faint mana currents intertwined with this seemingly obvious intention would create battle intent.

However, that was not everything, and there was more to it.

Kyle slowly learned that battle intent was not that easy to manifest.

What he understood was that it was not just his will to fight and overcome all obstacles.

But there were also other important aspects he had to pay attention to.

Both Knirg and Lahan could easily control and release one's battle intent within the annexed cultivation energy.

This allowed them to be fully concentrated on the fight as if their mind was cleared of all doubts.

Furthermore, battle intent also allowed someone to perceive dangers from further away more easily.

After all, the mind would also be fully focused on the surrounding, sensing far more than usual.

There were many kinds of battle intent, that were mostly divided into the three cultivation energies.

As such, each battle intent was different and had a different use.

Only a few characteristics were the same in everyone's battle intent.

Some of them included having a clear mind that was fully focused on the fight, while others were quite unique and able to conceal the intention to attack as well as the early perception of dangers.

This alone was already enough for Kyle to feel as if he had to comprehend battle intent as soon as possible.

It was simply too good to be true, after all!

However, auras seemed to be too good to be true too.

This caused Kyle to be in a dilemma because he wanted to learn both how to release and control battle intent, and his own aura.

Some were of the opinion that an intent was required to manifest and comprehend an aura, but that was not necessarily the case.

Having a battle intent certainly helped, but auras were different from a normal battle intent.

The biggest plus point of having an aura was that it didn't require any cultivation energy to be released!

This could be a little confusing to understand.

Energy was required to show the full potential of an aura, but it was not necessary in order to reveal the basic intention.

Additionally, it was also not required to showcase the effects of an aura that was already exceptional without a single trace of energy supplemented!

For example, the death aura that every Undead being released subconsciously had a different density, purity and effects according to the understanding of 'death' itself.

The longer Undeads were moving around as intelligent beings with wisdom, they were likely to comprehend a stronger death aura.

This would further strengthen it, and Kyle would be at the mercy of these two powerful undead beings. E

Even without releasing their mana to empower their death-aura, beings like Knirg and Lahan would be able to turn Kyle into a mindless marionette, the moment they wanted to.

An aura could be transparent, but that was a race specific attribute.

In fact, most auras were built on the foundations of something one desired.

However, it was exactly this fact that desire was sometimes manifested differently than one would normally think.

The Death-aura of Undeads was the best example of this phenomenon.

Their biggest desire was to be alive, yet, their aura was made of nothing but death itself.

In the end, this happened because the Undeads overcame death, and continued to live while being dead. This was something that defied the natural laws of the Universe.

In turn, it led to the formation of the death aura that was necessary for Undeads to survive.

The stronger one's death aura was, the stronger the Undeads were allowed to become.

In fact, one of the limitations holding back Undeads from advancing was their aura.

As for living beings, their aura could have all kinds of different reasons to be manifested.

Some comprehended an aura as their desire, some as what they wanted to protect, some as simple affinity enhancement, while the others enhanced their cultivation speed, combat prowess, or abilities.

In the end, an aura was something living beings could comprehend on their own.

The only thing they had to ensure was a thorough understanding of the desired theme they wanted to take as the main ingredients to create the aura.

This manifested auracould be strengthened, developed, and even evolved by adding multiple more comprehended themes into it.

Yet, this wasn't as easy as it appeared.

The requirements to have multiple main themes in an aura were harsh and the development was difficult.

But the gains were tremendous!

In fact, the most important difference between an aura and a battle intent was the fact that one could comprehend an intent much more easily.

It was simply because one could have an intent of everything, but this wasn't the case for an aura.

This was also one reason for Kyle to be more interested in completely figuring out the complexity of the battle intent.

At his level, it was far easy to understand if he compared it to comprehending an aura.

Furthermore, an aura was absolute and one could only have a single aura.

Because of that, Kyle had yet to figure out what kind of aura he even wanted to comprehend.

On one hand, he would love to have an aura developed around his wind affinity.

But on the other hand, a nurturing aura that amplified his Nurture ability might be exceptionally useful too.

Unfortunately, given Kyle's current strength and cultivation base, he would take a lot of time to comprehend an aura.

And, given the fact that he could only have one aura, it had to be the best of the best!

A spear intent would allow Kyle to pierce through defenses that were much stronger than what his spear would normally be able to pierce.

However, in order to learn the most basic spear intent, Kyle would require a lot of time to comprehend the spear as an object and weapon itself.

He had tried to achieve this in the last two weeks.

But it was way too difficult to attain this in such a short time.

Fortunately, battle intent was easier to comprehend.

His only struggle would be to provide it a steady stream of energy to be empowered.

To his immense relief, Arashi was growing gradually and was slowly approaching maturity.

With his Spirit Soul's help, Kyle could easily fill in this energy crunch.

It would still take a few months before Arashi would be fully grown.

But the little Spirit Soul had already reached the peak of the Fortification stage.

On the other hand, Kyle's cultivation base hadn't changed during the last few weeks, at all.

His sole focus had been on finishing the second trial and learning to improve fighting.

This included smoother movements, and preventing his opponents from perceiving where he would attack them with a spear thrust.

He had been focused on improving his perception, speed utilization of affinity, soul force, and much more.

In the end, becoming perfect in all of these aspects in mere two weeks was simply not feasible, and close to impossible.

Kyle was aware of this, but that didn't mean that he would stop trying.

His opponents were not ordinary beings but several thousand-year-old Undead war veterans. But, he took that in a positive way.

He considered this as a rare opportunity for him to learn and improve that would otherwise take him several years.

Unfortunately, he didn't have several years of time to solely focus on improving his combat awareness, perception, prowess, and all of it.

He wanted to reunite with Selene and help her stand up for herself.

Even if their time together had been fairly short, she was very important to him personally and his plans.

Being an important comrade, she shouldn't be forced to enter the Lahin kingdom alone.

Kyle knew that he wouldn't be able to meet her anytime soon.

But spending years in the second trial was definitely not something he should do, even if it meant that he would become unparalleled amongst the beings at his cultivation base!

After all, upon reaching higher cultivation, some things he just learned would be less valuable as they were right now as the variety of opportunities increased.

Nevertheless, the downside was too high, which was the time he would have to spend achieving this.

Somehow he felt responsible for Selene and her safety.

He wasn't sure if she would be able to survive inside the Lahin Kingdom as a commoner who had suddenly been promoted to a noble.

Problems were bound to happen in this scenario, and even if he was not the strongest, Kyle wanted to help, protect and console her as much as possible.

He was responsible for what happened to her, so he would take care of her, until the end!

Being able to protect her and the ones he loved by growing stronger was how he had kept himself motivated ever since he had been dragged into the castle.

Since the last few weeks, the accumulated energy in his Nurture ability had amassed to a like never before.

Right now, Kyle was only waiting for two things to happen.

First, he had to comprehend battle intent in order to hide his true intentions, while being able to perceive the best possible moment to attack with much higher precision.

After that, he could use the Nurture ability to invigorate himself to an extent that allowed him to exceed his limitations.

Through this, it should be enough to hit at least one of the two Undeads just once.

This would be enough to disqualify one of them, leaving him with one opponent to touch before he would be able to leave.

It was to his advantage that Lahan and Knirg were changing their mode of attacks because it gave him the perfect momentum.

Several days passed as he worked on his plan.

He grew a little confident thinking that there wouldn't be much the Death Knight and Dullahan could do against his extreme tactic.

However, he was not the only one who realized that the second trial was slowly approaching its end. Both Lahan and Knirg were prepared for what was about to happen.

Having received specific intel from the Lich, they knew about Kyle's ability to a certain extent.

As such, they comprehended that Kyle was only waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack one of them.

Despite knowing that this would happen, they continued imparting lessons.

And, while doing so the two Undead's soul flame flared up as Lahin nonchalantly said.

"Now, that you have adjusted to a little bit of pressure,  both of us shall start attacking you at the same time!"

The moment Kyle heard this, he couldn't help but look at them appalled.

Halting in his tracks, he stared daggers at the Undeads, whose soul flames seemed to be indicating their ridicule of him.

But somehow, Kyle knew that it was not their ridicule, but something else they had planned.

In the end, it didn't take him long to comprehend that the two Undeads had seen through his facade and knew that he was upto something.

Furthermore, Kyle was also able to understand that they had yet to show him something else.

As such, he was fully prepared for the following days that passed in the blink of an eye.