"We saw how strong and quite capable you are. In fact, you aren't any weaker than any silver grade spirit master. Hell, you are even at the same level of strength as me and other gold grade spirit masters."
"Oh, thanks about this but…"
"Just wait and listen," Sith knew William was about to reject his offer, "you can consider the place we came from as one of the top and strongest forces in the world. We have a great reputation, and we never limit the freedom of our members. Why not join us?"
"Yes, you are now like a brother to us," another member spoke up, "and joining us won't affect being part of the Aspire academy."
"You aren't part of an academy?!" The meaning behind these words was quite clear. They were a strong force, famous all over the world, but they weren't actually from any academy.
William could only think of a very exclusive short list of names in his mind when he gathered the little dots together, "tell me, where are you from? For real?" he moved his eyes among everyone, before finally landing over Sith.
"We are from the Lockheart Impact," Sith's words revealed the truth at last. And that identity was one of the few William guessed already.
He didn't know that name for specific, but he already guessed that they belonged to one of the famous impacts at least.
Impacts were like a gathering of lots of spirit masters coming from different origins in the world. It was like an association, a guild or something, for those who shared the common goal and beliefs with others.
In other words, they were like a cult or something similar to that.
"Hmm… To be honest with you, I never heard about such a name before," William was cruelly honest here, "but I do know of the impact word. And that makes me wonder, what high beliefs do your impact have?"
"It's normal for a lad like yourself to not hear about our impact's prestigious name," another member spoke, not in any arrogant way, "we are always one of the top ten list of impacts all over the world at any given time."
"That means we are quite strong," Sith doubted that William would get what his friend meant to say, "and we have the prestigious goal of helping the spirit master community in breaking through the shackles of this world as our top goal. We always tend to help the weak, save as many spirit masters as possible, and nourish those youngsters with great potential, like us, like yourself."
"Interesting," William felt like this bunch of spirit masters and the impact behind them shared many things in common with him, "but… As one of you said, I'm a part of the Aspire academy. I got friends there, family, and lots of things that I can't just ditch and throw away to join you."
"Just like I told you before, our impact never attaches any strings around any of us."
"But… Here you are, travelling very far from your impact, and doing something big, right?"
"It's the five years assessment test," one of Sith's members said, explaining what William didn't know about their real purpose here, "all the teams belonging to the impact will have to gather once per five years. We compete together over a few goals. The higher one team would reach, the bigger the support it will get from the impact for the next five years."
"And we aren't from far from here," another member said, "we are all from places around the Scorching Lands territory. So, one way or another, we are slightly similar to you, we are all from places around here."
"But you have to leave everything and do this thing, right?" William knew this dude was trying to make things look light or quite simple by what he said.
"It's a must to have a test, at least for selected teams," Sith looked a little troubled by something, before his features eased a bit, "you don't need to worry about such tests for now. If you join, you'll still have five years before the upcoming test anyway. And there are lots of dates to select from to have your test, not like we'll force you on a single date or something."
"It's a good way to assess the value of each team using such a method," William nodded, "but… To join your impact, shall I go to your impact's headquarters or what? And what if some sort of conflict occurred between the interests of the impact and my academy? What shall I do then?"
William wanted to know more about this impact. He wasn't that much interested in joining them for now. But if he'd gain the help of such a team here, with the possibility of letting them join his independent team in the future, then he'd consider accepting their offer in a year or so.
As long as there was nothing much that he had to do, and what he'd do for the impact wouldn't harm his interests as well, then he didn't have any objections to joining them.
But before thinking about any of that, he had to know more about this impact.
"Our impact has many bases all over the world," Sith paused, before pointing towards a direction, "the test is going on in many small bases, one of these is located at the nearby Scorching Lands. You do know it, right?"
"What a coincidence! I heard about this place a lot and wanted to visit it one day," William didn't say it directly that his real aim was to go there.
"You should then," one of Sith's team said, "we are going to gather there in one week. When you'll see how grand our numbers are, and how many high-grade spirit masters we got, you'll feel lucky to join us."
"Thanks, but till now I prefer to work alone," William knew what this dude wanted to convey, but he didn't like his tone.
He wasn't someone who'd cry and plead to join a force.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel