The Glorious Evolution

The Next Morning...

Inside a small, cozy room within the Samsara Temple, Levi lay on a soft cushion flat on the wooden floor... he was tucked in, with only his head exposed.

Despite the overwhelming exhaustion he had felt after pushing his spirit to its limit, his face showed no signs of fatigue.

In fact, he looked comfortable and relaxed, a soft smile tugging at his lips... it was as if yesterday’s horrific experience had been nothing more than a nightmare.

As the birds chirped near the window, their melodies seeped into Levi’s mind and woke him... with the same smile, he stretched his arms and yawned wide, like an exhausted salaryman waking up after a full night of deep sleep for the first time in a long, long while.

”What is this feeling...” Levi murmured as he removed the bedsheets.

He felt refreshed, like his soul had been bathed in a pool of pure spiritual energy... cool, soft, and tingly.

Even his spiritual vision was heightened to a new level, revealing extra details and extending his reach, as if he had upgraded a camera lens.

’Rejoice...’ Ash’Kral said. ’Risking your life for these weaklings had some merits after all.’

Levi knitted his brows in confusion as the memories of what went down yesterday flooded his mind... he recalled every detail down to the last moment before he passed out.

Swiftly, he extended his heightened spiritual vision to its limits... to his utmost surprise, his spiritual reach kept going for tens of kilometers until it landed on the territorial barrier separating the Noble Houses.

Everything.

Everything within House Zen’s territory that had a spiritual wisp or even a whisper appeared in Levi’s world of darkness.

It was like Levi was gazing at everyone from an omnipotent position... allowing him to observe everything from up close or from a high vantage point.

Besides this immense enhancement, the colors had changed as well. Previously, Levi was capable of viewing spiritual ’colors’ based on each spiritual identity. But now? They appeared ethereal green, as if he was inside a cheap copy of the Aether Realm.

If Levi had to describe it, it was a worse version of his Harmonic Spine’s frequency vision in terms of details, colors, and such... however, distance-wise? There was no competition.

Using this newfound spiritual aetheric vision, Levi picked up on the harrowing aftermath of the attack... the hollowed-out area where Zen’s estate mountain once stood, the destruction nearby, the Runehoof Kin moving in unison to clean up the mess, and even the aftermath of the mountain he had hurled toward the borders.

Despite everything appearing in ethereal green, it was enough to paint a scene he could never erase from his mind... and neither could the Runehoof Kin.

Still, he was glad to have intervened... for the results would have been much, much more catastrophic.

Agh...

Soon, Levi shook his head as a sharp pain assaulted his mind, forcing him to lose concentration... the Aetheric world rapidly extinguished until Levi’s spiritual vision returned to normal.

’Don’t push yourself too hard... your spiritual prowess might have been upgraded, but your tank is still recovering,’ Ash’Kral warned.

’Upgraded?’ Levi frowned as he massaged his temples. ’How so?’

Levi had a feeling that it might be related to the Runehoof Kin’s Infinite Constellation Circuit Technique... he couldn’t forget the feeling of spiritual omnipotence during its activation.

Without hesitation, he switched to his wisp inside his Spiritual Leywell and joined the tenants at the table.

As expected...

”It’s the Infinite Constellation Circuit Technique.”

Ash’Kral shared calmly while resting his chin thoughtfully on a paw.

”The technique doesn’t merely flood one’s body with spiritual energy... it also cleanses and tempers one’s soul while continuously forcing the spiritual reservoir to adapt.”

”Hmm?” Levi held his chin as well. ”You mean something like pouring an endless river into a lake?”

Ash’Kral nodded at how quickly he grasped it.

”If the water never stops coming...”

”The lake has only two choices.”

Levi exhaled.

”Overflow... or expand.”

Levi realized that his spiritual tank couldn’t overflow at the time since he was consuming so much spiritual energy each second. Otherwise, it would have crippled his mind the instant the Runehoof Kin’s flood stopped!

To lift an entire mountain using only his spiritual prowess was an impossibility at his level... despite being an Anomaly-Class talent. However, his talent did come in handy.

His attunement to the spiritual plane made it possible for his soul to take full advantage of the technique’s bonus properties... cleanse and temper!

Ash’Kral continued calmly.

”Thanks to your absurd efficiency, the constellation technique had been pouring spiritual energy into you almost nonstop... sourced from thousands of Runehoof Kin.”

He paused.

”Every second it continued... your soul was cleansed, and your reservoir was forced to stretch itself further to accommodate the constant influx.”

”Again.”

”And again.”

”And again... until...”

Levi instinctively looked around within his Spiritual Leywell... immediately, he felt the subtle changes. His spiritual lake felt broader, and even the subconscious barrier appeared sturdier and more resilient.

Yet, what caught his attention the most was his main soul’s purity... the slight Sun and Void corruption that had remained was cleansed at once, replaced with a greenish tint.

Although the other two souls remained as corrupted as ever, still... his main soul, for now, was cleansed!

”Until your main soul was purified and evolved one level closer to its peak before the soul-split process,” Ash’Kral continued with a faint smirk, pleased with the outcome.

Hearing this, Levi’s heart skipped a beat... he had absolutely no expectation of receiving such rewards. He had only wanted to buy time for the Runehoof Kin to escape the collapsing mountain.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And now... he basked beneath the emerald radiance of his strengthened and thoroughly purified main soul... a blessing that, at his current level, only the Runehoof Kin’s sacred constellation technique could have bestowed.

If Levi had decided to listen to Ash’Kral and give up on helping them, the future would have been different.

Immediately after, a long-suppressed memory resurfaced in his mind from when he was only five years old.

Levi’s lips curled into a faint smile as he recalled the day he found a tiny spider crawling across the floor of his mother’s study while he was reading beside her.

His first instinct was to stomp on it, but his mother stopped him and caught the spider with a cup... then she released it outside despite his annoyed protests.

Once it was free, she turned to face him with a gentle smile and said softly, ”Never harm what doesn’t harm you... for Kindness is never truly lost, Levi... the world has a strange way of returning every good deed when your heart needs it most.”

At the time, Levi didn’t pay much attention... it was nothing more than one of his mother’s many confusing lessons.

But today, with everything that had been going on in his life twisting his view of kindness and what it meant to simply be a good person, the memory resurfaced at just the right time.

It might have been the Sun’s corruption that made him too proud to let go of the mountain, but he was under no obligation to go this far for the Runehoof Kin in the first place.

The signed contract was to help them take down House Targon, not risk his life to save them from any terrorist attack sent their way... especially when these attacks had no ’proof’ of being linked to them.

’...I guess you were right, Mom,’ Levi murmured inwardly. ’Just like how Ash was right in his own twisted way...’

This event might not have seemed like much, but it confirmed to Levi that his way of living and thinking was correct... being an extremist like Ash’Kral wasn’t the answer.

He had to avoid letting his personality become corrupted by the tenants’ ideologies and the Origin Seeds, and they would keep trying him.

The only way to do that was to remain... Himself.

At all times.