Spirit Soul

"You are a three-legged crow, aren't you?"

Kyle's question was simple and straightforward.

But the way in which Melin, Lyon, and even Yelene were staring at him, clearly indicated just how astonished they were.

Not knowing why his question received such a weird reaction, he fell silent while waiting for someone to say just anything, but nothing happened.

"Eh...was my question that weird? I just thought that Melin is different in comparison to Yasmine and Miss Yelene. Furthermore, his fire affinity and this special trait, or bloodline as he calls it, are definitely not any weaker than a Phoenix's!"

Kyle had multiple more reasons of clear indicators which made him believe that he knew about Melin's identity.

There were multiple signs of a sun, after all, and he was not a Phoenix.

With that in mind he looked at the three in front of him with a calm expression on his face, only for his gaze to turn towards the cut-off hand.

Seeing this, Yelene shook her head, turning her attention from Kyle to Melin and his hand.

Cutting herself, a crimson colored droplet of blood trickled down which Yelene caught in her hand.

Following that she used another droplet of her blood to smear it on the wound of his arm.

Ignoring Melin's deep frown, Yelene held his wrist and the cut-off hand together in a careful manner.

This confused Kyle who had noticed that there was something weird about Yelene's blood.

It was crimson colored and was gleaming lightly, but that was not all.

The sheer amount of energy within a single droplet of Yelene's blood exceeded what Kyle had required to free Beatrice from the Undead heart and to unveil the Orb of Life by several times!

This was shocking, but after seeing the state in which Yelene was after shedding just two of such droplets, he couldn't help but feel odd.

"Sacred blood of a Phoenix," Beatrice murmured in visible astonishment.

Yasmine gave her a fleeting glance before her attention returned to her exhausted mother with worry gleaming in her eyes.

However, it was only a moment later that Yelene straightened her back as she took a deep breath.

Letting go of Melin's hand she stumbled backward where Lyon had appeared with a guilt-ridden expression.

"Sorry, I should have stopped them earlier."

Yelene had to exhaust herself severely in order to almost instantaneously heal Melin and reattach the cut-off hand to his wrist.

This was a miraculous feat because when she was done, it looked like Melin's hand had never been cut off.

Kyle couldn't believe his eyes and looked at the process with great interest.

He was sure that his ability could do something similar, but he didn't want to know how much energy he would require to achieve even a fraction of the effect Yelene had created.

As such, it was only obvious that he was excited to see the healing properties of a Phoenix's blood.

Nevertheless, Kyle quickly regained his senses as he looked at Melin, who bowed to Yelene before he mumbled a few words of gratitude.

Afterward, he turned towards Kyle, knowing that he had yet to give an answer to the young man's question.

However, before answering it, Melin questioned himself about who exactly Kyle was, and why his master wanted him to defeat him.

After all, Lyon had even allowed him to expose the unstable state of his bloodline, which he had never unleashed in a battle before.

Thus, losing his rational sense was not unexpected. Despite that, his master had let them fight the battle, resulting in the injuries the two of them had received.

Yet, oddly enough, both of them looked perfectly fine if one were to exclude the charred clothes, and blood that was smeared on the last shreds of clothes that looked no better than a ragsack.

Even Kyle's charred skin was healing at a visible speed which astonished Melin. It was not something ordinary, even if Kyle had gulped down the serum Yelene had given him.

As such, having met Kyle directly in the arena, Melin was oblivious to Kyle's identity, which intrigued him enough to reveal his hidden traits.

"To be precise, I'm a Crimson three-legged crow, but that's not much of a difference if I were to put it in extremely simple terms.

My mother was a demihuman with three-quarters of beast blood, while my father is a three-legged crow. Maybe he is dead, who knows?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Melin didn't conceal much, and by testing his reattached hand, he quickly noticed that it worked as well as before.

It felt slightly uncomfortable, but that was most likely because the bones, veins, arteries, and flesh required more time to heal.

"How old are you? Are you also a later bloomer?" He thus asked, wondering if he had just lost against some younger than him.

From the looks of it, this shouldn't be the case because Kyle looked like he was about to hit 20. On the other hand, he was only 16, but you could never know when one had started to cultivate.

In his case, it had only been two years since he was able to start cultivating owing to the complications that prevented him from cultivating.

Even after the complications seemed to have disappeared, his cultivation progress was extremely low.

This was owing to the fact that his bloodline had been sealed, preventing him from breaking apart.

Sometimes, if an offspring was produced as a result of procreation between being of two different races, complications occurred.

Such complications were, in most cases, a superior bloodline that tried to suppress and overwhelm the other bloodline, which was not that easy to accomplish.

However, that was not the only problem that could occur, and it was more likely for halflings to die owing to the two different DNAs that repulsed each other.

Instead of existing harmoniously, they prevented the halfling from cultivating, causing his highly likely death.

Instances of a halfling being born were already rare.

And, if the two races were not extremely compatible with each other, death was the most likely to occur…and it was also the easiest way out for every party involved.

After all, halflings were, in most cases, too powerful to control and utilize their own energy leading to their body getting slowly torn apart as they grow up.

There were good and bad cases about possible ways to stay alive as a halfling.

As such, sealing the bloodline that was too powerful, was by far, the best route one could take.

In that sense, Kyle was fully aware of the fact that Yasmine was even more interesting than one would normally think.

After all, she didn't seem to have had any problems in her childhood, even though her mother was a Phoenix, while her father belonged to a human-like race.

They were certainly not compatible, but that was not the case for most ancestors of the demihuman races.

With that in mind, it was not difficult to tell that all demihumans were halflings, irrespective of the fact that the races that had given birth to them had been powerful or not.

Because of that, Kyle presumed that the biggest problem of halflings was if the parents belonged to the races whose innate strength were polar opposites to each other.

Given that possibility, the physique of newborns was a mixture of both races.

Depending on the strength of the race of either parent, it could either lower the overall standards of the powerful races or turn the halfling into an anomaly.

If both races have similar genetics and strength the newborn may as well exceed the capabilities of his parents.

But if only one parent is stronger, the newborn may be weaker or face far more severe consequences, and in extreme cases, death.

This gave Kyle the understanding to figure out that Melin's mother was likely to have died while giving birth to him.

If his guess was correct, she was too weak to birth the halfling of a three-legged crow.

Yet, at the same time, her race was strong enough to lower the average of their strength only to the extent that Melin could have been born alive!

'Did Lyon and Yelene seal his bloodline shortly after his birth then?' Kyle wondered.

He kept staring at Melin, who was not sure what to think of Kyle's gaze.

"I think Lyon will tell you something about my identity later, so I didn't even try to hide it. I started cultivating around one and a half years ago, probably a few months less. It doesn't really matter, to begin with.

My cultivation base is quite low, and it will take some time to increase that. As for my age, don't even try to gauge it."

Kyle didn't have anything against Melin, but he was not exactly comfortable speaking with someone as if nothing had happened just a moment ago.

After all, he had cut off Melin's hand after the young man had attempted to burn and cut his throat.

That was something he had to digest first, and if he were to be honest, Kyle didn't even think that he would meet Melin again.

He was an interesting young man, but Kyle would leave soon. Thus, he turned towards Lyon, who was taking care of his wife.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Sir, but I wanted to ask if this fight satisfied you, and if I am allowed lend Horice in addition to a chariot to fly. It will help us shorten the time I and Beatrice need to travel towards the city that is the closest to the Lahin kingdom's border."

Only now did Melin hear what Kyle had aimed to achieve through their spar. As such, he couldn't help but feel a little bit astonished.

Horice didn't allow Melin to come even close to him, and he had to maintain a distance of more than ten meters.

Thus, it was a shocker for Melin to hear that Kyle wanted to lend Horice, the ferocious horse that had been blessed by the God of the Winds.

Kyle might have a wind affinity seed, but to think that this was already enough to get in contact with Horice made Melin feel a bit jealous of him.

However, instead of being able to say anything else, his master intervened in their short talk.

"And what about my daughter?"  Lyon jumped in without answering any question he had been asked, looking at Kyle with an expression he was unable to decipher.

Staring at Kyle, he waited for an answer while drumming his fingers.

Hearing his question made Kyle furrow his eyebrows, not sure what exactly to think about him.

But, considering that Kyle had just revealed that he was only able to cultivate for less than one and a half year, it was likely for his reincarnation to have only been around that time.

This was insane considering that he knew some reincarnations of the old universe that were considered to be relatively young…and they were several times older than he was.

Lyon was already old, and after reconsidering Kyle's abilities, he couldn't help but feel that the young man might not be as bad as he had previously assumed.

'Maybe he took his time in the reincarnation trials?' He thus wondered, while waiting to receive an answer from Kyle.

"I won't force Yasmine to do anything, but if she wants to come with us, I will not stop her either. As such, its on her to decide.

If she doesn't want to come with us, I will stay in Lynar for a little bit longer until I get promoted to my C Adventurer rank, but that shouldn't be a problem either.

So my question remains the same too, what about Horice?"

Hearing that she was allowed to follow Kyle and Beatrice, Yasmine couldn't help but exclaim in joy.

This was rather awkward owing to the tension in the room, but she was unable to hide her emotions.

After all, Kyle didn't outright reject her, but he allowed her to decide what she wanted to do by herself.

In that case, only her parents had to agree, which was both concerning and not.

Convincing her mother was not difficult because she had never restricted her, following the morale of living in freedom. So it was only her father who might disagree.

Yet, having understood Kyle's behavior, Lyon couldn't help but acknowledge him. After all, he had defeated his direct disciple, despite having a weaker cultivation base, and recently started to cultivate.

He was unsure what or who Kyle had been in his past life, but it was impossible for Lyon to say anything against Kyle.

He had displayed his righteous side by not killing Melin even though he was on the brink of losing his mind.

With that in mind, Lyon sighed as he spoke to both Kyle and Yasmine.

"You can take Horice, and I'll give you one of the most comfortable chariots too…As for you, Yasmine, I allow you to do whatever you want…as long as you don't injure yourself heavily…and don't create too much trouble for them!"