The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

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Seeing her teacher return with Bree, Evelyn temporarily put the matter of artifacts aside to examine the blonde girl.

The soul form of Bree had already looked like an adult, both before and after dealing with the chaos bone spear, but Evelyn had felt that Bree's situation had definitely undergone some change after they were done with the purification process this time.

Due to their desperate situation at that time, Evelyn hadn't had the time to carefully sort the matter out and see what happened, but now that she finally took a closer look at the blonde girl, the pink haired girl realized that she looked even more confused than usual.

Her appearance had changed a little, and now she looked more like a girl in her early teens, but that didn't provide Evelyn much relief. Taking a look at Bree's status, however, she soon realized what was wrong.

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[Checking Status…]

- Bree Devaughn: Level 82 [ Exp: 843,110 / 967,230 ] 

Hybrid Special Physique: Blessed Thunder Qilin 

[ Anomalous State: Fractured Soul ]

- Recovery progress is at 84%

—Physique: 1156 / 1156 

—Spirit Power: 786 / 786 

—Soul Value: 655 / 779 

—Vitality: 1581 

[ Enhancement (available): Raijuu's Blessing ] 

[ Affection: 100% (Max) ] 

[ Unable to view skills until the anomalous state is removed. ] 

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Previously, she had been completely unable to see what was wrong with Bree, but now that her situation was no longer as bad, the anomaly was finally detectable.

'Fractured Soul' wasn't a completely foreign concept to Evelyn, as someone who practiced a grade nine soul cultivation technique. Even without the system, she could more or less tell what had happened and what she needed to do.

Different from simple consumption of soul power, fracturing of the soul referred to damage to the soul itself. If depleting soul power was like losing water in a bowl, damaging the soul was like poking holes in the bowl itself.

Depending on the damage to the soul, not only the abilities, but also the memories of the person could become unavailable, or even completely lost. Generally, this damage was either completely unrepairable or extremely hard to undo, and that too was within a certain extent.

Evelyn didn't know to what extent Bree's soul had been damaged before. For her to be able to do so, she needed to have seen her intact soul space before it was damaged, but she had been too weak and powerless at that time to even know such a possibility existed.

With the system's help, however, Evelyn now knew that the damage must have been close to fifty percent. At this point… there was no certainty how much of Bree's memories and personality could be restored after her soul was healed.

The good news, however, was that her soul could still be fully healed without any permanent damage, and not all of her memories and personality would be lost, if any. 

The breaking point of soul damage at which a person completely crossed the point of no return was 15%, and Bree was far from that, making Evelyn heave a sigh of relief.

"Evelyn?"

The pink haired girl smiled at the confused look on the now slightly taller girl's face. "Do you remember who I am?"

The girl clutched her head in pain as she frowned. "I-I… my mom…? N-No… my baby? N-No…"

Evelyn sighed. "I'm your niece. Your sister's daughter."

Seeing her incomprehensible expression, the pink haired girl couldn't help but squeeze her cheeks with a grin. "Don't worry about it too much. Lie down for a while and rest, sort out everything in your mind to see what I remember. Anyway, no matter what, I'm always here."

Bree looked a little relieved after hearing her words, and didn't protest when Evelyn took out a silk sheet from her inventory and spread it on the ground before making the girl lay down and rest.

Shortly after… she fell asleep.

Evelyn and Aurora stared at each other for a while before the platinum blonde sighed. "Just say it."

The pink haired girl coughed. "D-Do you, um, know some way I can get to the Spirit Forest without attracting any attention?"

Aurora remained silent for a while before shaking her head in denial. "It's impossible. Even if I had taken you over personally, it would still take a long time to make a round trip. Now that the Lord of Bones is here… it's even more difficult."

Evelyn had expected as much, and could only sigh in disappointment. "I guess the matter of her recovery will have to depend on luck, then."

Aurora frowned. "What did you need from the spirit forest? The academy has a lot of things, maybe I can help you take a look."

Evelyn's eyes shone immediately as she nodded. "Well, you know how Bree was actually hurt quite badly before, I found out that she actually had her soul fractured. Incidentally, that the energy from the Lord of Bones' attack actually ended up helping her heal a little."

Aurora nodded. "I could tell it was much denser than spirit power and even soul power, so it's possible that it had the effect of stimulating her soul to point that it started mending."

The pink haired girl smiled. "Actually, even before that, when I first arrived at the academy—"

Aurora listened to her student's speculation about the effect of what she called 'chaos energy' as well as the possibility that there could be a minor source of it in the residence of the spirit beasts far away.

She could tell that the thing had great importance to Evelyn, but still, the fact remained that there was no way to take her there right now.

But Aurora knew that the situation was dire, and even if she had no way to help, she had to figure out some alternative. Otherwise, they would really be leaving everything in the hands of the blue moon throne, and it just didn't sit right with her at all.

Aurora nodded. "How about this, then, I'll arrange a way for you to enter the academy's vault in three days. At that time, you can see for yourself if we have anything that might be able to help. Meanwhile, you can consolidate your strength."

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Aurora didn't stay with her any longer, and immediately left after a brief farewell.

Evelyn assumed that the academy's vault must not be a place that could be accessed so easily, or her teacher wouldn't need so much time. But the reasons did not bother her too much, as she had many other things to worry about.

The first thing she had to do now that she had already taken a look at Bree was figure out the situation with Nadia, and take care of revamping her arsenal while at it.

After all, the stronger she was and the better artifacts that she had, the less likely it was that something could go wrong. Moreover, only if she had enough strength would she have the ability to assert her will.

The road ahead was bound to be arduous, and Evelyn knew better than anyone that although Gwendolyn had not said so openly, the trials that awaited her would be anything but safe.

Since she was also going to have to take her friends along, it was all the more important that she increase her strength and combat ability to the highest point that she could.

The artifacts that Nadia had quite a few exceptional items, even with a casual glance. And using her probe skill, Evelyn was soon able to confirm her thoughts.

The people who dove into the Siren's call were usually those with exceptional strength and ability. They either had the spirit of adventure, or simply wanted to force a breakthrough when they were stuck.

In such cases, these people obviously prepared to the best of their ability before diving into the lake. Evelyn had no doubt that some could have even borrowed or stolen things that they could never have had the ability to afford otherwise.

As these things had been accumulating for thousands of years already, and Nadia had collected mostly the shiniest of them into her cave, her selection was really nothing to scoff at.

Of course, there were also some who gambled with their lives before they were ready, so there was a healthy mix of common goods among Nadia's toys. Evelyn still used her probe skill on these lower grade items, just to be thorough.

Obviously, Evelyn didn't really have the intention to take away all of Nadia's treasures. She had already determined that the girl either couldn't or didn't want to leave the lake, so how could she take away all the toys of such a lonely child?

That being said, she still intended to look through all of them to find what would be the best for her. Evelyn knew Nadia wouldn't mind, and she could always replace them with 'newer toys' anyway. 

It's not like Nadia would use any of them, after all.

The more she looked through the pile, however, the more Evelyn realized that Nadia had already given her the best and most suitable artifacts when she had been 'decorating' her earlier.

Evelyn, who had previously believed that Nadia had no idea what these things were except 'shiny', could only refresh her cognition in shock.

One or two items could be a coincidence, but all of them?

No, not only did Nadia have the ability to perceive the quality of these items, she should also be able to more or less tell which ones were the most compatible with Evelyn!

If this was all purely based on intuition, it was really too terrifying.

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