Wasting no time, the druid rushed in with a left-hand punch.

Not daring to take any chances, Kenric blocked her punch.

This caused him to slide back some but not by much.

Seeing this, Kenric felt relieved.

‘It seems that I have the upper hand in strength and endurance while she has in technique but not by much.’

‘This means I can win.’

Staring at Kenric’s block, the druid frowned.

‘He’s strong. Physically that is. Not by much in my book though.’

‘I’ll have to exert a bit more force if I want to knock him out however.’

‘Now that he thinks I’m here for him alone, once I knock him out. I can begin searching for my real goal.’

[Enter, My Blade, Ulric]

[Cut all in my path to pieces]

A sheathed western longsword appeared and fell into the druid’s hands.

This surprised Kenric as he thought the druid was a fist fighter like him.

The druid then began to slowly unsheathe her blade.

“Surprised, I’m sure.”

“This spirit tends to nag at me when I use it too much so I don’t normally use it unless I feel like the match is un-winnable.”

“As such, feel proud that you’ve pushed me this far Kenric.”

“That ends here though. I may not officially be at the level of three leaves but that’s only because I keep putting off the test.”

When the druid fully unsheathed her blade, it seemed that to Kenric she had disappeared.

‘She disappeared? Is she that much faster?’

The druid appeared behind Kendric as quickly as she had disappeared.

Kendric was frantically looking for the druid to the point he failed to notice that a clean horizontal slash had formed on his throat.

This baffled him.

‘I didn’t even se-’

The druid then took out a glowing green leaf into Kendric’s mouth before moving his jaw and chewing the leaf for him.

‘A leaf of a life tree. Druids who have tamed the spirit of a life tree can use them to grow other life trees and as such create these miraculous things.’

‘For how effective they are, they don’t cost much.’

‘Only half a soul acorn for one.’

The currency that the druid kind used was soul acorns.

This was due to the secretive and regulated methods of how they could be grown.

What was true for all genuine soul acorns was that they could be used to refine one's soul and make it stronger or nurture an injured soul back to full health.

The druid then sat on Kendric’s unconscious body.

She sat on his back hunched over, hands on her face as if distressed.

‘Why do I have to act out this silly knight and honor chivalry type persona.’

‘I still don’t know why that man is so infatuated with some core-less nobody to the point that I’d be sent out.’

'Sure, his soul might be somewhat unique but an actual B-ranker of his would be more than happy to do this.'

‘Here I am fooling around as a fucking 2 leaf when I’m a 4 leaf’

Veins started to bulge on the druid’s head

‘If I wasn’t here on orders from sir then I’d have killed that druid leader as well, for daring to tell me what to do’

[I’m glad to hear that, good to know that my orders are something you can so easily dispute, Avis]

Hearing this voice, all the color on Avis’ face vanished.

Without any hesitation, she buried her face into the ground while apologizing profusely.

‘Sir! Sir! SIR! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to complain! I know my place! Dealing with some weak hybrid had gone to my head!’

‘I’m willing to take any punishment you have in mind for complaining, SIR!’

[Haha, I’m joking around Avis-]

Avis then started to raise her head.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

[Not!]

Her head went straight back into the ground, not daring to move an inch this time.

Avis knew he couldn’t see her but even so, she felt as if he would know if she didn’t do it.

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Sir, I’m sorry!’

[Haha, calm down, Avis. Any more apologizing and you’re making me out to be the bad guy here. Is that what you want to do?]

The calm, cool, and collected voice that Avis was hearing didn’t change in the slightest but when she heard the last sentence, she understood if she didn’t stop.

It would make the situation worse instead of better.

Avis got up off the ground, brushed off the gravel on her clothes, and then bowed a perfect 90-degree bow.

[Hmmm, that’s more like it. The polite, cute, and obedient Avis that I know.]

[How are things on your side so far?]

Remaining in the same 90-degree bow, Avis told him what had happened up until she knocked Kendric out.

[According to what I’ve planned then, the boy that I’m interested in has started heading in your direction.]

[Remember to teach him what you know, if I find out that he hasn’t learned anything and gotten stronger then I’ll be a bit annoyed.]

Droplets of sweat started to form on the back of Avis’ neck.

‘I’ll make sure of it!’

[Good.]

Avis then went to sit back on Kendric’s back.

Looking into the distance, she saw someone running to where she and Kendric were located.

He had black hair, blue eyes and was an overall average guy

[Soul Magic: Astral Vision]

Avis’ eyes turned full white.

What she saw left her dumbfounded.

‘His soul doesn’t leak! This must be why he’s classified as an irregular.’

‘To be specific, sir always calls him irregular #10’

As Reno got closer to the druid, she did her best to pull in her soul that was leaking out.

The body was a vessel that could only hold a fixed amount of soul from birth.

When someone got older, even by as little as a year their soul got bigger.

To most people, something like this should mean that elders get much more stronger the older they get, right?

In a sense yes, when druids, spirits, phantoms and other races that could control their souls got older.

Then they would get stronger if they could control the large amount of soul they had.

To have large amounts of soul is always good unless one cannot control it as when the soul gets much bigger than the vessel, the vessel starts to deteriorate.

Spirits and phantoms didn’t have a vessel so this was no concern for them.

Druids were the odd ones as their bodies were only a tad stronger than humans.

The reason that druids could still live longer than humans despite that was due to their amazing ability to control their souls.

With enough knowledge, a druid could compress or even materialize a piece of their soul as an object.

‘Some of the techniques I’ve made can only be used when a certain amount of soul is circulating in the body.’

‘As Reno has a soul that doesn’t leak, as long as I help him get a feel for moving his soul around’

‘He should be able to learn a thing or two even though he’s a human.’

Humans were notorious for being the worst at a variety of things but one of the main ones was controlling their souls.

The main reason was that humans were not able to perceive their souls.

No matter what was done, this fact remained absolute.

‘In the case of the boy. All of his soul’s on the inside so he doesn’t need to be able to perceive it or draw it in.’

‘He only needs to be able to ignite it and he’ll be able to get some effect.’

The best example would be that normal humans can’t scrape enough water off the ground of a shower to form a water balloon.

For Reno, he an entire bucket in front of him so he didn’t have this problem.

‘Reno, you’re lucky in the sense that with enough time you’d have been unrivaled.’

‘Too bad that most likely will never come to fruition.’

The second that Reno arrived, he wasted no time in trying to attack the druid.

Aiming for the neck, he used all his momentum to try and kill the druid.

Seeing Kendric in an unconscious state like the guard before, Reno hoped that he wasn’t late. He was trying not to assume the worst but he couldn’t help but do so

‘Fuck! Why can’t I be on time? Damn druids!’

To the druid, Reno, his sword slash and the entire world was moving much slower than she was.

At the level she was at, her astral vision not only showed her the state of one’s soul but also what their soul forms were going to do some seconds into the future.

Reno still had a soul so she could still get an idea of what he was going to do in the future.

Along with her spirit augmenting her physical capabilities, there were only a few in the city of Wester who could try scratching her.

Even so, she got up, tanked Reno’s attack with her sheathed blade, and then purposefully slid back some inches.

After which, she used her sword to point at Kendric.

“Don’t worry. He’s only unconscious.”

“You can check if you’d like to be sure.”

Reno glimpsed at Kendric and then back at the druid not daring to let his guard down for even a second.

Out of nowhere, the druid let out a hardy laugh.

“Hahaha! You’re so on guard even when you lack the power to do so.”

‘Uh… kill me now, I hate this role-play stuff.’

“My mission is to return with that guy. The question is… can you stop me from taking him?”

The druid then put her hand on the sword’s handle and looked as if she was ready to pull it out.

Goosebumps started to appear on Reno as he knew that the chances of him surviving one of her slashes based on the strength of the other druids were slim, close to zero.

Even so, he wasn’t moving from where he was.

The druid let go of the sword handle and then relaxed her posture.

“Hoh… You have some grit it seems.”

“Along with something else. Why are you holding back against me?”

“Go all out!”

Reno was confused.

‘Grieving Maiden’s on cool-down, other than that I don’t have anything else.’

‘What is this druid on about, she might be trying to fool me like the other one was.’

The druid facepalmed herself and then in a swift motion.

She appeared behind Reno, touched his back, and then reached right back to where she was initially with seemingly no time having passed.

“I mean that, why are you not using it?”

Reno was still confused.

“What do you mean by th-”

Reno wasn’t able to finish his sentence as a weird feeling came over him.

A strange rush of adrenaline paired with a mysterious energy was coursing throughout his body.

The closest feeling of Reno that reminded him of what he was experiencing was energy from the memories the old Reno had.

Compared to energy, however, this felt much more volatile as in the effects wore out much faster than energy.

Around 10 seconds passed until Reno felt like how he normally did.

‘What was that? It felt like energy but I don’t have a vital core. What did that druid do to me?’

As if knowing what Reno was thinking, Ariz started to answer some of what he was thinking.

“Don’t be alarmed, what you felt was the power of your soul.”

“Yours is unique for a human and enables you to use something that none of your kind has been able to ever do before. Unleash the power of your soul”

“Don’t tell me that you did not know this?”

Lowering his guard a bit, Reno shook his head.

The druid ruffled her hair a bit seemingly in a fit of inner turmoil.

“That’s no fair then! To fight someone when they're not going all out is something only bastards do! Give me a quick moment and I’ll help you learn to draw out a bit of that power.

If you don’t want to agree, I don’t mind killing you instantly.

I’ll hold off on attacking until you have some knowledge of what your soul can do.

What do you think?”

The druid held out her hand in an attempt to make a deal.

Reno shook her hand.

‘This is the only option.’

‘I can’t call for help so I’ll have to hope this druid doesn’t get pissed at me and kill me whatever she’s trying to teach me before Trista arrives or the backup Kendric might have called gets here.’