Answer

"Did you really make 5 strands? That was impressive. Are you sure you're not from a family of Spellcasters?" Denise said in surprise. She can still recall how Kyle mentioned that he had only made three strands a month ago.

Anyway, since Denise's older sister had attended the Academy for a while, she learned quite a few things from her… She also learned why her sister, Cressida, had become a target of envy from the sons and daughters of the so-called noble families.

She remembered how Cressida mentioned that one of the first activities in the academy was to determine the Spiritual Force of the students.

At that time, Cressida had produced a total of 15 white strands while her classmates that are supposedly nobles and such had only produced 3 to 8 strands!

The difference is so huge that it was no wonder she failed to befriend anyone and has even become a target for the nobles. Furthermore, Cressida was only starting in her Arcane Path so she had a lot of potential to grow.

This resulted in numerous threats to her life until she disappeared.

'Well, I'll warn him of the dangers if it reaches eight…' Denise thought as she looked at Kyle's face.

Then, she realized that Kyle wasn't focusing on her question and was instead looking at the crystal in her hands. At this time, the Spirit Converging Crystal in her hands had already shown results…

There were a total of 17 strands in it!

"W-what… 17 strands and your magic zone is small? Did you not mention to me that you can only cover 18 meters at that time? Are you neglecting your training? I can't believe your magic zone is that small considering your massive Spiritual Force…" Kyle said in surprise.

The difference in their strands is indeed huge.

He only has 5 strands but he can already cover twenty-five meters! Although what was needed to increase the magic zone is the physique's adaptiveness to the mystical state, it doesn't mean that the Spiritual Force wasn't part of it.

Denise didn't seem surprised at his reaction and she looked at him with a complicated gaze.

"Heh… I can only train normally. I'm not like you that can drink those potions that were worth 10,000 zen each."

"R-right…" Kyle nodded as he felt really thankful for the resources that his master gave him.

"You've had Spirit Enhancement Potion including that Idle Mind Potion. If I managed to drink those potions as well, it might get a lot easier to expand my Magic Zone."

"Well, I might learn how to make these potions someday. In the future, as long as you have the ingredients, I won't charge you a labor fee and I'll make them for you." Kyle can only give her an empty promise after seeing her feeling down.

"Hurry and get in… If you're late, Sir Heinz might send those corpses to the furnace already."

With this reminder, Kyle hurriedly went to the laboratory. He realized that the carts where the corpses are piled up are still in the corridor outside the laboratory.

'Right… I didn't see the Variants go out just now.' Kyle mused as he ignored the corpses for now to check the laboratory.

There, he saw Mr. Heinz seemingly busy. There are items on his workbench and he seemed quite nervous handling them.

'No wonder the Variants can't complete their delivery.'

Realizing that it was not appropriate to enter, he decided to complete his extraction in the corridor.

Kyle cautiously glanced at the Variants… They still looked quite scary with patches all over their bodies but he was no longer scared of them.

"You can leave the corpses here. I will be carrying them inside once Mr. Heinz finished his job." Kyle decided to speak to them since he knows that Variants have brains and can understand instructions.

They may not be capable of communicating with their stitched mouths, but they can still understand what he was saying.

"…"

The Variants didn't reply so he continued.

"I will be staying here to guard the corpses. They're not going anywhere. I'm sure you have other tasks so you can just leave them here. Take the carts later tonight or tomorrow when it's convenient." Kyle said as he tried to appear reliable in front of the Variants.

"…"

Finally, after more than a minute of staring contest with the Variants, Kyle saw them lowering the handle of the carts before stepping out.

Soon, the five Variants left the carts to Kyle without any words…

"Phew…"

Kyle heaved a sigh of relief as he started working. He finally had the time to observe the corpses and realized that the first two carts have corpses that are wearing normal working clothes. If he would make a guess, they're probably some of the workers in the dockyard that had perished after the attack happened.

'"re they going to be incinerated as well? Aren't they normal people? They didn't drink the Darkness Possession so they shouldn't become a vessel for evil spirits and become evil creatures after death..."

Kyle muttered in confusion as he recalled the reason why they are being incinerated in the first place.

In any case, he didn't think too much of it as he started his extraction.

[ Human corpse has been discovered. Would you like to extract it? ]

"Yes."

[ Extraction successful. Energy +2 Vitality +0.01 ]

"…"

Kyle had to pause for a moment after seeing the result.

This is the first time he had extracted a Vitality Attribute! It was quite unbelievable and also a pleasant surprise to him.

"So it's ordinary humans… I can only extract vitality points from those unrelated to Mysticism or Arcane Path…"

Kyle finally had an answer to this mystery as he continued his extraction with mixed feelings.

[ Extraction successful. Energy +2 Vitality +0.01 ]

[ Extraction successful. Energy +2 Vitality +0.01 ]

…

[ Extraction successful. Energy +2 Vitality +0.01 ]