William knew Panther's ability wasn't godsent, and had its weaknesses, but it wasn't right for him to feel such hesitation about what he saw.
It felt like he didn't find such an answer on his own, and someone else presented it to him. And that was why he felt such uncertainty and doubts, yet he couldn't get what drove him to question his ability after all these years. So he couldn't express himself in a better way.
"Sure, I'll prepare everything for that battle… About the recent recruitment you issued…"
"They'll go back to Lara's city," William firmly said, "they won't be part of this. They are going to train to get ready for the worst that's going to happen."
"Is something big happening?" Panther wasn't the only one who said this, but Sloth as well. The two grasped the meaning behind William's words, and the latter rolled his eyes.
"Do you think I'm just loving to get my as* kicked all the time by stronger enemies? Be sure everything I'm doing is for the greater good of everyone. And for that slim hope we have, we need to put all the efforts we have, kill any enemy we can find, to make our future odds much better."
He waved his arm, and turned around, before adding, "I'm going to lock on myself for a month, then you need to come. Bring with you a few hundred capable masters, ones you totally trust, better to have any relation with time, karma, life, and death elements, got it?"
"... These are all pretty damn rare elements, and what's about the death element? Is there even something like that in the world?!!" Panther was surprised by William's words, but he felt this youngster had a way to get to the bottom of what he saw.
"There is everything you can and can't imagine in this world, just bring good and capable masters by then. I'll leave Sloth in your care, take note of him as he is pretty noisy and annoying."
"You are a rude kid!" Sloth didn't want to lose the glorifying image he got in the eyes of Panther and his men, so he controlled himself to not go there and slap William again.
"You two seem close to each other," Anjie followed William inside, and the latter looked at her in a weird way.
"We? No way! He is pretty annoying for an old fart!" he knew she was referring to Sloth, and his comment made her chuckle.
"He never had a family, never acted like this towards anyone. I bet he is taking you as a son, or grandson perhaps, hehehe."
"Stop spreading rumours, it will ruin your skin," he coughed, "now we are going to train, in a place that may seem dangerous, but it's not."
"Dangerous? Here?!!" She was surprised by his words, but soon enough she got to learn about what he meant. The two of them went towards the central building, where there was such a big hole in the ground.
William wasn't the same as before, he got his spirit power increased and he was much better at handling the situation. He protected her, and held her by a claw while jumping deep down to the bottom of that hole.
"Impressive…" she couldn't help but think about this place and the city, think about Lara's rumoured underground city and the surface city, "don't tell me every big place in the kingdom is built over something!"
"These are just coincidences," William knew what she was talking about, and yet didn't believe what she said, "Let's go, you are going to train here, and I'll train there."
"A statue?!!" she felt weird the moment she spotted the fox statue, "is it for you?"
"No, it's not built on me, can't you see we don't look similar?" he rolled his eyes, before pointing towards a faraway place, "train there, we got one week here before going out to meet the new recruiters."
"You are going to send me up there to test them, right?" she could see through his intentions pretty fast, and he couldn't help but raise a thumb toward her.
"Nice quick wits you got there!"
"And who said I'll agree? Huh?" She crossed her arms, and he couldn't help but bitterly smile.
"I got no one else but you on my side…"
"You said it in a way that's not totally related to this situation…" she paused, before her face turned a bit rosy, "At least you can speak well to girls, nice… I'll do it for you then."
William smiled, knowing that he played her right in his palms. He didn't say anything more, went to sit beside his statue, closed his eyes, placed a palm over its head, and then started to absorb its spirit power.
The spirit power stored inside sounded endless, but he knew it wasn't enough to let him cross the gap to the pinnacle stage. The best estimate he got was for it to make him reach the high stage at most, but might lack a few thousand points to reach there in the end.
As he started training and absorbing the spirit power from that statue, Anjie was getting the shock of her life right now. She thought William wanted to distance her away to concentrate, but didn't realise he was trying to protect her life.
When he trained, a massive shadow appeared. It wasn't just his fox, but there was a snake, a dog, and a weird bright star in the middle of all that.
Just seeing all this gave her cold shivers down her spine, and she couldn't tell if she was going to die if she was just next to him or what.
She took a few hours to overcome her fears and a few more to get used to such a scene. William kept training diligently and didn't bother about what was happening around him. He kept absorbing spirit power madly, while she started to train at last.
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