Sprites were considered sly, they liked to joke around, and they loved causing trouble. This was especially the case while others were immersed in their cultivation.
Crippling the cultivation of others was something they would love to achieve. There were multiple ways for Sprites to be born, with one of them being created from an excessive amount of cultivation energies.
They would gain sentience and be considered the Guardians of the region, even if their combat prowess was close to nil.
"Hard to kill, annoying but not powerful." Kyle merely said, shrugging his shoulders at Yasmine's baffled expression.
She couldn't understand how Kyle could stay so calm. As Kyle said, they might not be powerful, but they would never fight someone head-on, to begin with.
The moment they found a target to kill, they would create traps, lead beasts to them, and do other things to fulfill their goal.
A Sprite was not something one could joke with, even if one was extremely powerful.
It was a big mistake to provoke them, and they loathed the talented, which was quite funny because their cultivation talent was extremely high.
Only their actual strength lacked behind, which was why Kyle didn't actually feel bothered by the existence of the Sprite in the deeper parts of the mountain.
He continued to walk down the cave, he didn't hesitate to choose a tunnel when there was an intersection and in only two hours they found their way in front of the end of the tunnel.
"Where are we going now?" Selene asked, slightly bothered that they had found another dead-end.
But Kyle merely smiled, while Arashi yelped out as a mining pickaxe manifested in his hand.
"Well, we're going to work now." He said throwing the pickaxe toward Selene.
Afterward, another mining pickaxe appeared in his hands. This one was red in color, quite resistant to fire and perfect for Yasmine.
Kyle threw it to her before a third pickaxe appeared in his hand.
"It was definitely a good decision to have purchased a few utensils for every possible situation." He mumbled before inserting his Soul force inside the pickaxe.
Simultaneously, he engulfed the pickaxe with strong currents of wind, so that each of his strikes would be faster and generate more impact.
With that in mind, he used his entire strength before he lifted the mining pickaxe over his body, just to strike down at the dead-end of the cavern tunnel.
Dirt and rocks were flung through the tunnel, Kyle got dirty but he didn't mind that, at all.
He was fully focused on mining deeper in a particular direction.
Selene and Yasmine looked at each other when they saw that Kyle was serious.
"I guess we should follow up?" Selene asked before she went to Kyle's side to start creating her own path in the same direction as Kyle went.
"Weren't we supposed to search for the Mana Stone deposit, and try not to mess with the Sprite? What the hell are we doing now?" Yasmine mumbled, feeling confused and not understood as she approached Kyle's other side to start mining as well.
'Well, whatever…'
Hours passed by, and both Selene and Yasmine felt exhausted. With their cultivation, it was no problem to mine for an entire day if that was necessary.
However, they were simply mining through rocks and dirt, nothing else.
Kyle kept mining as if he was driven by some crazy demon, and finally, after more than six hours had passed, a bright glow appeared in front of them.
With the last strike, Kyle had managed to pierce through the thick wall that had separated the tunnel's dead-end with a hall.
The hall, in name, was the place where the deposit of the Mana stones was located, and the place Kyle had wanted to reach.
There was no other entrance, or Kyle had no idea how to find it by relying on his Nurture ability's sight.
That was why he had chosen to take the straight way, using force, willpower, and their muscles.
Selene and Yasmine's exhaustion was washed away as they were flooded by an endless stream of mana.
They began to smile like small foolish girls, who saw something beautiful right in front of them.
And even if he was not like his two partners, even Kyle had to agree that the humongous-sized blue stone that entered his sight looked magnificent.
It was, at least, twenty meters in height, and fifty meters in width, and Kyle couldn't see how long the blueish rock was because the hall's walls blocked off his sight.
However, what he could see was that the stone was longer than the fifty meters it had in width.
"Amazing," He blurted out before tearing down the rest of the wall to enter the huge hall.
Kyle could see the small humanoid figure of the flying Sprite almost immediately but he choose to ignore it for a moment.
His emerald eyes were fully fixated on the Mana stone deposit that looked like it was just one extremely huge Mana stone.
He took a few steps toward the Mana stone deposit, just to halt in his tracks as he perceived something on the ground.
'Traps created out of pure mana? Well not bad, I guess. Unfortunately, it's not good enough to go up against my Nurture ability.'
Making a detour, Kyle smiled before he kept advancing to the Mana stone deposit. He changed his direction every one or two steps, avoiding the numerous traps that had been installed on the ground.
Kyle could also create wind platforms above the traps, but he felt like provoking the Sprite a little bit.
Even if Yasmine had warned him quite a bit about the Sprite, he wanted to make his own picture of the Sprite.
His Nurture ability detected quite a few interesting things about the beast that had been formed out of mana.
That was also why he wanted to figure out more about the beast.
And the easiest way to make the Sprite come to him instead of the other way around was to approach the Mana stone deposit.
After all, the Mana stone deposit could be considered somewhat important to the Sprite.
"Stooopp!! You filthy thief! Don't you dare to touch my mother!!" A tiny voice resounded in Kyle's surrounding the moment he lifted his hand to touch the Mana stone deposit.
A faint smile crept up on Kyle's face as his head turned to his right, where a small humanoid face looked straight into his eyes.
'Looks exactly like a small fairy,' Kyle thought calmly.
The Sprite in front of him was just a mini human with semi-translucent wings on her back. Her hair was blonde and she stared at him in anger.
"I didn't steal anything yet, and I'm not exactly filthy…You call the Mana stone deposit your mother, so it gave birth to you, I guess." Kyle just said before adding,
"My name is Kyle, and I wish to farm a few Mana stones from the Mana stone deposit. We also wish to stay here for a few days. Are we allowed, to do so?"
Kyle knew that it was not necessary to ask any questions. He could just do whatever he wished but it was always better to ask and to avoid trouble than to jump straight into trouble, which was actually what he usually did.
"You…want to hurt my mother?! Are you insane?? Why should I allow you that?!? LEAVE!" The young Sprite was enraged, hitting him with its tiny fists.
However, even though it had already reached the Krysal stage, the Sprite was far from attaining the average strength of a Cultivator at the Krysal stage.
That was how Kyle could simply ignore her and do whatever he wanted to.
"I guess you can sense your mother. You have some sort of connection to her, right?" Kyle didn't want to offend the Sprite because he could clearly tell that Yasmine was worried about its existence.
Thus, Kyle gave it another try.
"Yes, I can sense her, so don't hurt my mother!" She shouted, ready to set up a mana trap right below him.
"In that case you will be able to feel whether your mother is hurt or not when I mine a few Mana stones, right?"
Kyle had already perceived a few things about the Mana stone deposit and the Sprite that others wouldn't be able to tell even if they were to try to.
This included the tiny manifestation in the center of the Mana stone deposit and a miniature version in the center of the Sprite.
It was exactly the same, possessed the same fluctuations, and had the exact same hues of development.
Even their development degree was exactly the same.
'The Sprite was not born from the Mana deposit but it is a part of the Mana stone deposit's most concentrated area.'
That was Kyle's understanding of the Sprite. It didn't seem to be an ordinary Sprite, if something like that existed, in the first place.
"Yeah…but why…. nooo…it won't hurt her? But how, what do you mean? I…you…." The Sprite was visibly confused, saying all kinds of things, but nothing made sense.
However, this was mostly owed to the fact that Kyle had held his index finger out, touching the top of the Sprite's head before he had inserted a trace of his accumulated energy for the Nurture ability into her.
She felt invigorated and much stronger. Her emotions were in a disarray and she couldn't help but feel odd.
'Is he a good person? Good people won't hurt my mother….so…is it fine for me to allow him to take a few Mana stones? Mother's core is deeper inside, so only her body would get smaller.
I would be closer to her if her body were to get smaller… as long as it doesn't hurt, it should be fine, right?'
The Sprite didn't say anything for a minute or two.
However, one could clearly see that she was deep in thoughts. Meanwhile, Selene and Yasmine weren't moving at all.
Yasmine felt as if Kyle had turned insane since they entered the Ancient treasury. However, when the Sprite finally began to speak, Yasmine felt as if her jaw hit the ground.
"Okay, you can take Mana stones as long as you don't hurt my mother! But if you hurt her, I will haunt you even in your death!!" She screamed out, pointing her fingers at him.
'Is she really a Sprite? She is quite nice...' Kyle could only think before he smiled lightly as he replayed,
"Yes, Yes!"
**
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