Spirit Soul

While staring down, Kyle could spot nothing but white clouds for as far as his eyes could see.

They covered the sight of what lay behind them.

This could mean that they were on an enclosed rift that was disguised as a flying island, but that was not the case.

He did not believe that the other Undeads had simply dumped them in the middle of nowhere.

He was sure that the Undeads would have told him about the ways to leave the rift or whatever place this was.

"That's a flying island?!?! And you guys were confused why nobody came to the Razkadan castle? Where are we even?"

Yet, instead of answering him, Beatrice was simply staring at the magnificent sight of freedom.

And, there was nothing but wide open space all around her making her feel as if she was in the clouds herself.

At least that was what she was thinking right now, only to be pulled out of her train of thoughts.

"Hmm? What did you say?.. The flying island? Yeah, I didn't know about that but where is the problem?"

Kyle knew that Beatrice has raised in the Razkadan castle all her life.

This meant that she had been sheltered, and was living without any real issues.

But, upon seeing her nonchalant reaction, he couldn't help but feel flabbergasted about her ignorance.

" And… how do you plan to get down?" He thus asked, only to receive a glance from Beatrice that seemed to ask 'Are you fucking stupid?'

"We fly down obviously!"

He had been hoping for a great and logical answer, but upon hearing her words, he simply muttered, "Ah, you want to fly down…"

But it was just a moment later that he realized what Beatrice had said, making him exclaim.

"Huh?!? You want to fly down? How? Do you even know how deep this pit or whatever it is could be? We don't even know how long it will take before we fall or fly to reach the ground…let alone where we are?"

Kyle felt that Beatrice was missing an important point.

And, when he heard her answer that sounded slightly frustrated, he knew that his assumption was correct.

"Obviously, I want to fly down. You'll just need to have learned the technique, and the energy consumption is a little bit high, so you need to have a high cultivation base! And it doesn't really matter where we are at the moment.

Once we reach the ground, we should be able to find someone to procure information from!"

Somehow, Kyle couldn't help but feel that Beatrice's ignorance was adorable.

However, he knew that he would only think of her as cute until they were faced with a life-threatening situation.

As such, he remained serious and gave no outward sign that he felt her current behavior adorable.

"So..you ignore that there might be a gigantic ocean below us including the fact that you're at the Fortification stage? How long do you want to fly until you fall and smash into the ground?

Half a second or less than that?"

Shaking his head, Kyle asked her logical questions and hoped that Beatrice would notice her mistake.

And, when he heard a light smack, he looked up, only to see that Beatrice had slapped her own forehead.

Covering her face, she tried to avoid making eye contact with Kyle for some time. Only now did she realize her mistake and was embarrassed about what she had just said in her idiotic and unfounded confidence.

On the other hand, Kyle had never lost his vigilance and did not let the emptiness in front of him trick his mind.

Initially, he had felt quite intrigued about the emptiness.

Getting to know that it was a flying island was great, but the unknown factor about the environment below them made him a little bit uncomfortable.

As such, the earlier plan he had was quickly ignored.

Thus, he had to think of a different way to figure out the necessary information to leave the flying island.

"Did none of the Undeads say anything about a possible way to leave the flying island? Like a flying ship, a teleportation circle, or anything like that?

Or even more important, are you sure that you don't know anything about the environment on the ground? Like…is there an ocean or at least some ground to land on without being lost and isolated?

Please try to remember if someone said anything about that!"

Ignoring Beatrice's embarrassment, Kyle asked her a bunch of questions.

He wanted to show her that it was fine to make mistakes or act foolishly sometimes.

That was normal, and fixing the problems ahead was more important than anything else.

As such, Kyle put aside the plan he had in mind.

For now, he was focusing on trying to figure out what exactly was behind the clouds.

This was the most important because flying down was not exactly an issue.

At least, not as much of a problem as he had previously assumed.

In fact, there were quite a few items inside Beatrice's spatial ring that could be used in order to fix this problem.

Despite that, jumping into the unknown was not exactly what he had planned to do.

At least, he was not desperate enough to do that yet.

Kyle had just escaped from an unknown place that was the Razkadan castle and was in no rush to experience something similar again.

While Beatrice tried to come up with an answer to the questions Kyle had asked, he continued to look down the ledge, trying to find gaps in between the clouds.

Yet, because he couldn't find any, Kyle began to try creating them himself.

Manifesting a single wind needle by inserting soul force into it, he threw it down the ledge while his eyes followed the trajectory.

Everything seemed to work and a small hole was created within the cloud.

But before he could rejoice, it closed in on itself after the tiny needle penetrated through it.

"Well…I could have expected that…"

Sighing deeply, Kyle thought of different ways to figure out an answer to assess the situation on the ground.

Unfortunately, there was not much he could do.

With that in mind, he did whatever he could.

His cultivation base might be weak and the same could be said about Arashi's.

The exact opposite was the case for their comprehension of the wind affinity and precise control over soul force.

In the last few months Kyle had been both a hardworking and a diligent student, intently working on and learning the teachings imparted by the Undeads.

At the same time, Arashi hadn't focused on cultivating all the time either.

Instead, the Spirit Soul had tried to make use of the things Kyle comprehended.

He used this in addition to his own understanding of soul force, and the wind affinity in order to become much stronger.

As such, the pair of Spirit Soul and Spirit Soul Cultivator were able to utilize their affinity to a much higher degree than one would normally be able to at the Initial Phase of the Vitae stage.

With that in mind, Arashi appeared on Kyle's head and gave a startled yelp.

He almost lost his balance when he saw that he and Kyle were staring right into nothing but white clouds.

Sensing Arashi's confusion, Kyle explained the situation to Arashi, and what his plan was.

The two partners visualized the likely scenario in their mind before acting upon it.

Without showing any hesitation, Kyle used his entire soul force in order to create uncontrollable wind currents.

Through this, his hair and clothes began to flutter in the wind, followed by Arashi who followed suit.

The Horned Tempest Fox yelped out as he released the entire accumulated soul force at once, just like Kyle.

Meanwhile, Beatrice only stared at the two in confusion.

Yet, instead of manifesting more uncontrollable wind currents, Arashi used his wind affinity.

Through this, he tried to control the surrounding wind currents, which demanded much less soul force than expected.

Once he had control of the large wind currents, he slowly clubbed them together.

It took the shape of a several-meter-long spike that pulled a loop of loose wind currents behind it.

Turning the pointy tip towards the ground, Kyle redirected his entire focus towards the position Arashi was told to aim.

Just a moment later, the large, several-meter-long spike of wind was blasted in the direction of the ground.

Leaning forward, he could barely avoid slipping down as a droplet of sweat trickled down his forehead.

Just at that moment, he was able to subtly perceive something, making him grin faintly.

He could finally catch a glimpse of something below through the large hole the wind spike had created in the clouds that were densely packed.

"I can see…green! Perfect, there is land!" Kyle smiled seeing that the ground was enveloped in a natural green tone.

He grew delighted that they were not stranded in the middle of anywhere but that there was flourishing nature below them.

This was great and made him forget about his exhaustion.

Even Arashi had merged with his body and returned to the soul core where it recuperated from his tiredness, only to hear an uncertain voice.

"It's great that you know what will await us on the ground…but how do we go down? You just said that I cannot fly…"

Right now, Beatrice was too confused to think properly.

She had been straining his memory and recalled almost all kinds of conversations she had had with the Undeads, but none of it had been truly useful.

Because of that, she was currently a little bit frustrated, feeling entirely useless despite her old age.

It was almost as if the young man in front of her and she had swapped their age with her being a young girl, and Kyle turning into an old man.

And this feeling was only proven correct as Kyle spoke in a tone that sounded similar to a lecture.

"Don't you know what kind of items you have in your spatial ring? We don't need to fly if we can glide down the flying island!"

That being said, he grasped Beatrice's hand in order to access the spatial ring on her hand. H

He then subtly touched it and took out a hang glider.

"I don't know what you guys really think about Karnias, but I don't really think he betrayed you. Otherwise, why would he bother about storing a hang glider inside your spatial ring?"

In the end, it looked like Karnias had already thought far ahead and planned in advance, equipping her with every possible thing she would require once she was to lose her cultivation speed.

He seemed to have expected that the other Undeads would leave Beatrice behind and made provisions for her to leave the island without being forced to rely on someone else.

This realization hit Beatrice, who had almost thought that Karnias barely used her like a pawn, deeply.

She was not even able to say anything, and simply stared at the hang glider Kyle had put down.

Giving Beatrice some time, Kyle took a look at the hang glider, checking if everything was fine with it.

He noticed that it was made out of rare items that wouldn't become rusty even if they were to be exposed to rain for tens of thousands of years.

Even if Kyle wanted to think that Karnias was a bad person, his gut feeling told him otherwise.

In the end, he returned to holding Beatrice's hand in order to console her a little bit.

But he did so subtly without actively interrupting her while continuing to look through her spatial ring.

There were all kinds of necessary items, and now that he finally had the time to take a good look at the items to find things that would help them to leave the flying island, he found many more useful items than he first thought.

'Another hang glider, a batch of paragliding suits, and a few more items to survive falling down somewhere…was Karnias really just exploiting the Undeads and Beatrice?'

Unsure about the truth, Kyle could only sigh deeply.

Simultaneously, he let go of her hand, which draw her out of her train of thoughts.

Smiling at Beatrice, who seemed utterly confused, he decided to ask her straightforwardly,

"Are you ready to go? Shall we start the beginning of our journey with the magnificent sight of Shima's pristine lands?"

Even though he had wanted to remain calm, Kyle's excitement about being able to see Shima's land from a bird's eye view was clearly visible.

Kyle's excitement was infectious and seeing him, Beatrice was unable to stay unaffected as she began to smile lightly while nodding her head.

"Yeah, let's go…to the Lahin kingdom, or whatsoever!"