They collaborated, buried the three fallen friends, and left their graves here in this spot. As everyone returned to celebrate the win back in the city, the Fox guild announced pretty interesting news.
First of all, they were opening their doors to recruit. Under the banner of the need for more masters to nourish and crush the bad people, everyone heard about the call for recruitment.
At the same time, they also announced their claim of the damaged fort. It was just a normal piece of land, one that had tons of mountains and hills, but it was also a strong fort.
There was that huge wall, and the deadly trench surrounding it. That wasn't why the Fox guild leaders claimed this area for themselves, but it was because of the great significance this place held to them.
All the battles they took part in so far were just collaboration between them and other forces. But this one, was handled by them, especially at the very beginning.
They saw it as a mark of their destined rise in power and growth. At the same time, there were lots of graves inside this fort, all of great masters and friends, very talented members of the guild.
This place was destined to be known as the heart of the guild. The guild might have started from the Scorching Lands, but the place most cherished and looked at by guild members in the future would be this fort.
Lara handled everything back in the city, and yet the test place to get admitted was in the place of the last epic battle. At the same time, many masters all over the world heard about that and wanted to come and join.
Yet another piece of news spread over; the Fox guild would only select from the pool of masters who took part in the last war.
This news was quite shocking and depressing to many, quite surprising and delightful to others. The ones who didn't take part in this war deeply regretted it now, and the ones who did were glad they came and helped.
The one who made such a decision was Anjie. She spoke about the future battles of the guild, as they grew to such heights to be able to shoulder entire battles on their own. So if the time came, and they asked for assistance, then they should reward those answering their call more than everyone else.
This also would teach everyone a lesson. If the Fox guild asked for help, then all should jump at once to volunteer. Or else, a big opportunity would be missed, and they got nothing but to blame themselves for not acting per the guild's standards.
Lara gave everyone one day to heal, recuperate, rest, and then come to join. The admission window was open for as long as it took, and would only stop when the last master would show up.
They also decided on that so they'd let all the masters here feel privileged and rewarded for their aid. Not to mention this would make the guild look much better in the eyes of everyone, even in the eyes of those who failed to join the guild.
As for the admission test, it was done by William's standard method of assessing spirit power. But this time, they raised the standards to join the guild.
They only accepted gold grades at the guild, and dark gold at the Golden team. As for special talents, they'd be admitted directly no matter how their spirit power grade was.
They met many they couldn't fathom, and they knew when William would return, he'd take a decision about them. But in the worst case, they'd be admitted to the general pool of the guild. So they let all of them in.
They first thought by raising the standards, they would accept a low number of masters. But eventually, they let a huge number of masters in, getting much more than what they best hoped for.
During all this, William and Sloth were having fun while travelling through the islands. They felt they got separated from the entire world of spirit masters, without any means to learn about anything at all. In fact, meeting a spirit master on these islands seemed much harder than they initially thought.
They'd walk for days without meeting a single one, something that they never thought a place in the world would have. The islands were mostly inhabited by normal people, and for a reason, they were void of monsters or dark masters, void of any dangers.
"This gives me the vibe of the two safe zones you built before," Sloth sighed, before looking at the distant ocean, "If not for the presence of deadly aquatic monsters, I'd have considered this place totally safe."
"They sent their masters to the two continents to train, and they didn't have any feud against one another, didn't have any big enemy or threat to worry about," William paused, before adding, "It's nice to see people living safe and sound from time to time, right?"
"It's great and all, but it's still weird," Sloth shook his head, before adding, "Won't tell me to whom you are speaking?"
"Not telling," William tucked his tongue, enjoying this little game that started from the early moments of their long return adventure. Sloth kept asking about the spirit, and William didn't say anything.
While they walked, the spirit never stopped speaking, spamming William's mind like a pro trash-talker! He got a headache sometimes, pretty annoyed other times, ending up shouting at that spirit, or even mocking him from time to time.
Sloth didn't miss any of that. Even if William's words didn't make any sense at all, he tried to link them and get any meaning from them. But even till now, he couldn't decipher any. So he kept pestering William, and the latter found it interesting to spend time thinking of new ways to say no to him.
He sometimes tugged out his tongue, sometimes placed both arms to form an X sign, or even transformed, shook his four tails, to let Sloth unable to hold back his laugh.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel