It was folded with red ribbon as if it was a gift or something of extreme value. William touched the scroll and wasn't in any hurry to remove the red ribbon for now.
"They were from the Black Eye organisation… It's a low tier thug group out there in the outer world. But it seems they have roots deep in this world…"
William kept fiddling with the scroll without even trying to touch that red ribbon. From what he knew that simple looking ribbon tying the scroll wasn't simple at all.
"It's safe to assume they used a sealing layered technique, one that will take the form of something common and familiar with anyone," William threw the scroll in the air, as if he was playing with it.
"They can't be using the Nine Star sealing array, right?" William didn't hurry to touch that ribbon. He knew this simple looking red ribbon was in fact a very troublesome sealing array.
A single wrong move and the entire scroll would burn to ash, and he'd lose such valuable lead he accidentally acquired.
"It's just unfortunate for you that this fell into my hands," William placed the scroll inside one of his rings, took out his sword, and started to widen the space around.
He needed a spacious area for what he planned to do. "I'll assume it's one of the high-grade sealing arrays. Let's see if it will burn the ribbon and open the scroll or burn the entire scroll itself…"
William knew this was going to be a gamble, but he didn't hesitate to try unsealing this scroll out.
Such a scroll he found in a weird group of dark spirit masters, one he accidentally met in the heart of the forest, not too far away from the academy lands, with rings filled with lots of gears and war supplies of potions and even explosive arrays was indeed quite fishy.
William was quite sure this scroll hid very valuable intel. And when he thought about the recent moves of the academy against the dark spirit masters around, he couldn't help but want to read the scroll's content more than ever.
Not to mention he was going to deal with the dark spirit masters at the Scorching Lands. So, any intel would help him greatly.
"I'm ready," to unseal such a high-grade seal, William had to use another array to do it. And he used his knowledge to go through all the materials inside each ring, until he found the materials needed for a single array he knew of.
"So, it's the Five Headed Serpent array," he muttered when he realised the nature of the array used to unseal the red ribbon array. All the content he needed to unseal that sealing array were all present in one ring, the same ring that contained this scroll in the first place.
And that made him suspect that this ring belonged to the leader of that team. Guessing all this, linking all this together, gave him more confidence in unsealing this scroll.
"Ignite!" William placed the materials in their places after clearing all the rocks he unearthed.
He could have gone out and used this method outside. But he feared it might cause a scene, attract monsters here and expose his place.
*Sizzle!* *Sizzle!* *Sizzle!*
Once William activated his array, the materials placed on the ground got all burnt in a bright blue light.
"It's good that I didn't use it outside," by seeing such a scene, William knew if he did it outside, then monsters would find his place in no time.
*Sizzle!* *Sizzle!* Sizzle!*
The materials all burnt fast, released the blue light to envelope and cover up the small scroll in the centre. It formed a thick veil of blue dome at first, then like a sponge, the scroll absorbed all the blue light slowly.
William knew it wasn't the scroll which did that, but the red ribbon. And as more blue light got sucked dry, the dome began to fade slowly, and the red ribbon started to show few changes.
It looked as if it was formed of some sort of liquid before, and by absorbing this blue light, it condensed into a solid red and blue material. And then fine cracks began to show up on it.
The scroll that laid on the ground in peace all this time started to get affected by some sort of power. It rose slowly in the air, until it reached one metre high and then stopped.
William stood on the side, waiting in patience. Even after the entire blue light vanished and his unsealing array reached the end of its fuel, he didn't hurry to grab or inspect the scroll.
"The last ten minutes are the final trap laid out for those who are ignorant about this seal," William repeated the words he once heard from a friend of his in the past. And that made him heave a deep sigh that was filled with lots of memories and little emotions.
*Crack!*
Just when he was lost in his memories, the cracking sound of this ribbon jolted him awake. He looked and saw the scroll landing on the ground in a peaceful way, without any speck or trace of that ribbon at all.
"It's unsealed," William smiled, while pushing aside his needless thoughts for now.
When he touched the scroll, it felt like he grabbed a piece of metal from fire or something. It felt quite hot, and that was just what was left from removing that red ribbon.
If he did anything wrong, then all this heat and more would have been directed towards the scroll, starting a fire, and eating it up in a few seconds.
William didn't wait for it to cool down and started to unfold it in a hurry. "Wow! It's not just a single scroll!" This was the first surprise he got.
When he opened the scroll, he found a group of smaller scrolls folded one inside the other. William started to place them on the ground, and ten different sized scrolls appeared in front of his eyes.
"They are all blank…" But after doing all this, he found out all the scrolls were just empty pieces of paper.
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