He couldn't help but let his thoughts drift wildly towards that direction. He never expected that the main reason for such absence of monsters was thanks to what the large team of Lockheart impact's spirit masters, led by the dark gold one, did.
Instead of using this chance and speeding up, he started to carefully walk through the forest. He feared he'd find himself in the middle of something big, something he had no power to face.
It was normal that during the next day, he crossed almost half the distance he was supposed to traverse, only crossing no more than twenty kilometres.
He crossed so far close to forty kilometres. And he knew if he kept walking at this rate, he'd arrive at the Scorching Lands in four more days at most if nothing happened.
As he felt something was amiss, he started to shift his routine. He found safe hideouts to stay the night at, consumed a hundred silver cores during his rest, while leaving the rest for the harsh times coming ahead.
After consuming the one hundred cores, his spirit power exceeded the nine hundred mark. It wasn't going as he hoped for, but it was still an increase in his overall power.
"Six more hundred spirit powers, six more hundred points and I'll smash the doors of the silver grade," he kept telling himself this, with much excitement and impatience.
He knew the remaining six hundred points would take much longer time and much harder effort from him than the nine hundred points he gained so far.
It wasn't just the issue of the little points gained out of late from the silver cores he had, but it was also thanks to the weird situation he was now facing.
Travelling in the deep parts of the forest without meeting a single monster for days? That might be a dream that any spirit master would hope to happen, even scream out in a cheerful way and celebrate by dancing all over the place, but not William.
He wanted monsters, wanted to kill more and absorb as many cores as he could to grow stronger fast. So, in such a situation where any spirit master would be celebrating in joy, he was feeling down and gloomy.
"Three days passed, and still there is no sign of a single monster out there… What the heck just happened to all the monsters? Don't tell me they got a festival or some sort of sacred ritual or something like that!"
He didn't even buy anything of what he just murmured. But facts were right in front of his eyes. The forest, the scary deep parts of the forest, were very quiet and awkwardly empty of a single monster.
But on the fourth day, all this changed.
"At last! I met a monster, at last! Come, let me hug and kiss you, my dear precious little rabbit."
The first monster he met was a weak and common bronze grade rabbit. It was half a metre in length, with four sharp fangs extending from its jaws.
It wasn't that deadly or dangerous, not to him. William broke out in tears the moment he spotted this rabbit. And instead of doing what he jokingly and mockingly said, he instantly slain this rabbit using all of his knives.
It was a long time indeed since he last used his weapons. He felt a longing for using his sword as well, didn't keep his hands, took a dash forward, activating his lightning technique after days of letting it rot, and landed his sword while clenching its hilt with both hands.
It was indeed a needless move, but he felt alive again after doing this. "Damn! Living in peace… That's a shitty life for me!" he sucked in a deep breath, while holding the first core he ever gained for days.
It felt like a shark that got deprived of water for many days, to finally return back again to his playground ocean.
And starting from this moment, William started to meet more monsters the further he moved forward.
He met single monsters, groups of monsters, and even monsters in large numbers as packs. He killed white, bronze, and silver grade. He met a few of the scary gold grade monsters, ending up running away from them.
William kept moving while checking his current location all the time on the map. He wanted to make sure he didn't go astray anymore and kept looking for his team from time to time by climbing the canopies of huge trees or using his Bullets.
But no matter how many times he tried, he failed to spot a shadow of them. And he knew most of the reasons behind this was thanks to the lack of monsters at the last seventy kilometres zone.
How could he find his team without facing monsters and fighting with them? Without causing enough ruckus for him to spot them from afar?
But soon enough he started to spot not only one team, but dozens of them. "It seems I came so close from the Scorching Lands main fort, and from now on I'll meet lots of teams," he muttered to himself, deciding to totally abandon his earlier search action.
As there were lots of teams out there, William decided to evade meeting with any for the time being. He didn't know if there were any dark spirit master teams out there or not, and he leant towards being cautious until he'd arrive at the Scorching Lands main fort and meet up with his team once again.
But just as he killed his way towards the Scorching Lands main fort, he ended up facing a team of spirit masters.
"Yoho, who are you, mate?" It was a team of twenty spirit masters, and luckily for him none wore any dark cloak or anything like that.
"I'm a traveller from far," William didn't give any clue about his identity nor his origins, "may I ask, my friend, what exactly happened here in the forest? I haven't seen monsters for a couple of days already."
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