Spirit Soul

If he was not wrong, the spatial ring had at least the size of 5,000 cubic meters.

That was amazing, but something about it bothered Kyle.

As soon as he had seen the ring he had the urge to put it on.

But, he was stung by it, causing blood to run down the finger that splattered on the ground.

Taking a proper look at the bat that was carved on the ring, Kyle realized something.

Its eyes felt oddly familiar to him for some reason.

But, Kyle dismissed the thought and shook his head as he ridiculed his wild imagination.

'Just what am I thinking…'

Ignoring the blood and the sting, Kyle observed the ring intently.

He felt that the dimension stone that was embedded in the ring was extremely small in comparison to the ring's true spatial storage.

But that was perfectly fine as dimension stones were compressed versions of the spatial stones that were usually used in order to create spatial rings with storage space.

However, even weirder was that it felt like the ring had yet to reach its highest storage capacity.

Kyle was not sure why he thought like that, and he was unable to really explain what was going on.

Some spatial rings were unique and had special features, which was something Gard had told him a long time ago.

As such, it was clear that the ring he had picked up, had been manufactured by a true blacksmithing and inscribing master!

This was truly great, and further increased his curiosity about the huge stash of books.

If the ring was so valuable, he couldn't wait to see what treasures awaited him in the books.

This thought made him want to start reading, the sooner the better.

Yet, despite his extreme curiosity, Kyle decided to explore the surroundings thoroughly.

He felt that he would miss out on something if he let his impatience get to him.

Thus, he looked around and his eyes fell on yet another bunch of stashes in a corner.

This time, it were not books though.

A wealth of materials including tools and weapons greeted him.

His eyes went wide with surprise as he hastily stored all of it in his spatial ring.

He was amazed at the abundance of the items stored in the decrepit and desolate houses.

But, for the first time since being dragged to this unknown place, did he truly feel delighted.

As he inspected his Tiola machete and the other weapons he had collected in the last few weeks, he realized that they were no match to those weapons he had found in the ancient houses.

The weapons came from the blacksmithy and warehouse, and were incomparably stronger than the ones he owned.

In the end, they had deteriorated from a high grade to Low Primar grade weapons, but that didn't make a big difference to Kyle.

That was the case because Low Primar grade weapons were still a lot better than the strongest Ranked weapon that could barely injure a beast at the Vitae stage.

As such, Kyle pondered about changing his weapon.

Now that he had a variety of options to choose from, he tried to find one that suited him better than a crude machete.

It was not exactly easy to fight properly with a machete.

The weapon forced him to enter close combat as its reach was restricted.

Furthermore, he was not all that proficient with the use of machetes since the beginning.

His fighting ability took a hit if he had to do this and did not allow him to use the wind affinity to the fullest.

After all, it was best to increase his movement speed, reflexes, and other traits that focused on his agility.

Because of that, a better bow would suit him well, even if it was not the best for the Castle of the Undead.

Other than that, close-range weapons like daggers, flying knives, and mid-range weapons like a spear, glaive, and halbert were much better suited to him.

Kyle was aware of this even before entering the castle.

But, it only showed how truly important it was when he fought against the Undead Giant.

It's combat strength was much higher in close combat than using a heavy longsword.

Kyle had sensed that the longsword seemed to slow down its movement, and prevented it from doing what it was really good at.

Even if Kyle was not sure why the Undead Giant had wielded a weapon, to begin with, that was not the important point.

What Kyle tried to figure out was a way to become stronger without necessarily cultivating.

There were multiple factors that could help him do that.

One was the choice of weapon, while another one was avoiding unnecessary movements.

He could achieve that by reaching a perfect mastery with the Swift Steps movement technique and the Deathly assault martial art technique.

At least, through this he could inch as closer to his ultimate goal as possible.

However, Kyle also knew that he had to choose a new weapon, abandoning the machete for good!

That was a decision, he took without hesitation, as he stored it inside his new spatial ring.

The old spatial ring was still in a usable condition.

Thus, Kyle decided to segregate the items into important and miscellaneous items.

He used the new ring for storing the important items and the old ring was used for all the miscellaneous goods.

In the end, Kyle had not much to do inside the tiny ancient village.

Instead of wasting more time than necessary, he decided to choose a new weapon.

Thus, he spent the next few hours trying and testing all the weapons he could see.

Swinging them around one after the other, he tried to see which one was the most suitable for him.

If he wanted to create lethal and swift attacks, the weapon of his choice couldn't be too heavy or resist wind too much.

This would be counterproductive and clash with his affinity.

As such, Kyle ended up with a grayish, plain spear that had a long, flat-headed tip. The spear was more than two meters long, but it barely weighed one kilogram.

Additionally, runes were carved along the length of the spear.

Despite the light weight, it was extremely sturdy and he could move it freely in his hand.

Wanting to test its strength, he drove the spear into the Black bones that laid on the ground, not too far from him.

The tip pierced into the bones quite easily as if a hot knife would cut through butter.

However, t was close to impossible for him to shatter them.

The spear, mainly its tip, was made for slashes and stabs, and not to crush anything.

Nevertheless, the weapon would serve its purpose, if he could pierce into the Skeleton's Undead cores and cut through their bony defenses.

Ultimately, killing the Skeleton was what mattered, and shattering the bones was not important.

Thus, while looking at the spear, Kyle couldn't help but smile. Despite being millennia old, it was an exceptional masterwork. He could only marvel at the spear's finery and feel lucky that it had landed into his hand.

At that moment, he saw the emblem of a large serpent that was coiled around the spear's shaft.

With that emblem in mind, he decided to call the spear "Silver serpent spear". It was probably much better than any other name he could have thought of.

It was a relic from an old era that had deteriorated to the Primar grade as time had left its imprint on it.

Kyle's biggest hope was that it could be restored by a master blacksmith and runemaster to its former glory.

The runes were not shining brightly anymore.

And even after inserting soul force into them, there seemed to be no visible change in them.

They were damaged and unable to execute their full potential anymore.

Meanwhile, a part of the silver metal had caught rust. It was definitely not something Kyle wanted to see on his weapon.

This rust was also not normal and couldn't be removed by normal means.

It had spread through the metal's energy veins, preventing a smooth circulation of Kyle's soul force.

However, that was not alarming as of now.

Even without the supply of energy, the silver serpent spear was still sharper than any weapon he had seen yet.

Furthermore, the soul force he had right now was not enough to fully fill the Silver serpent spear in its current deteriorated state.

It would require a huge amount of soul force to restore the spear.

As such, Kyle was finally able to leave the tiny ancient village with huge gains.

A bright smile appeared on his face as he entered the left path that laid in front of him.

He had already researched if there were any clues about the fastest way to leave the maze.

But, so far he had found nothing useful. Thus, he could only continue with the same tactic which he had already used before.

Not pressured by a lack of time, Kyle could afford to spend it as he wanted.

With that in mind, he even told Arashi to lead the way before taking out a familiar tome from his new spatial ring.

It was the Karnias heritage tome which was the most important literature he had to read right now.

There were many other books Kyle had found in the village and was interested in.

But none of them would help him as much as knowing every nook and cranny of the Castle of the Undead.

Arashi was a loyal companion and kept a lookout for dangers while walking ahead of him.

Because he trusted Arashi, it was possible for Kyle to divert the majority of his focus to Karnias heritage.

The tome seemed to have bewitched him, and he didn't even notice how much time passed as he read it.

When he was hungry, Kyle ate something, without tearing his eyes away from the tome, while the same applied to drinking.

However, when he was tired, Kyle didn't simply sleep.

Instead, he dragged himself ahead, ignoring the growing fatigue.

Being a scholar in his past life, he was accustomed to reading for hours on end.

And it was only when his legs and eyes grew tired that he realized that his mind was befuddled.

Unable to continue reading, he forced himself to sleep for a few hours before the same cycle repeated itself once again.

Just like that, three weeks passed, and Kyle had finally read through the entire tome for the first time.

He wanted to reread it again, but before doing that, focusing on finishing the first trial was important.

Through the information he had obtained, Kyle now knew much more about the entire Inheritance site than before.

This allowed him to rush through the maze's pathways without caring about accidentally walking into the traps. Now, he knew the location at which they were placed.

With his newly acquired knowledge, Kyle wanted to make up for the time he had used to read the tome.

Thus he kept advancing forward, and only stopped to kill Skeletons and Ghouls.

In fact, there were many more undeads attacking him.

They were also much stronger, exceeding the cap of his cultivation base.

Because of that, it would either take some time before he would face other Undeads, or the trials would adjust themselves according to his advanced cultivation rank.

In the end, this didn't matter to Kyle because he had already figured out everything he needed to know.

At least, everything concerning the Castle of the Undead was known to him.

There was only specific information that seemed to elude him which included the information about the crimson eyed being.

He had read about it, but other than the crimson eyes that were specifically named, nothing seemed to be written about it.

This intrigued Kyle, but at the same time, there were too many other things he found out. Those seemed to be even more interesting and mysterious at the same time.

And one of these things was that Karnias had been one of the Souls of the old universe that reincarnated more than 50,000 years ago!