For a moment there, William couldn't think about a reason for all this but thanks to the actions of the Aspire academy back there.
It was clear to him that the actions of the spirit masters of the Aspire academy were taken quite seriously by the dark spirit master community. "I won't be surprised if this was the root for all this," he thought to himself.
He never thought it was all thanks to him. It was partially related to the actions of the Aspire academy indeed. But the dark spirit masters decided to make an example of him and his team for others, so no one would follow suit of the Aspire academy's hostile and aggressive actions.
It was like a deterrent action, by taking him and his team out, others would get scared from following the Aspire academy's example.
William knew the moment he'd arrive at the main fort of the Scorching Lands; he'd part ways with this group of spirit masters. The more they talked and expressed their ideals, the more he despised them.
But he learnt tons of valuable information about the current situation inside the main fort.
It wasn't governed by a single force, but a collaboration of many forces. They weren't related to any academy, nor even related to the kingdom as well.
They were a weird mixture of few impacts, large associations, and few extremely wealthy merchants as well as ancient strong families in the fort. William knew getting in the middle of all this was going to be a headache for anyone, for him. The entire power situation here was simply described as a total mess.
He learnt that the main fort was indeed an impregnable fortress. Just the number of silver and gold spirit masters here was in the hundreds of thousands, no less than the total number of the spirit masters in his academy, even much more than what the academy and all the clans combined could gather.
There were even more dark gold spirit masters here, reaching a terrifying figure of a few hundreds.
That was the true backbone of this fort, the scary deterrent force that kept this place running and safe for all this time.
William also learnt that there was no real law governing the fort. As long as fights happened fast, without getting noticed, and without affecting the trade business or the interests of any scary powers in the fort, then no one would really care about anything.
It was a harsh and cruel place, one that suited a place of outlaws not a place under the flag of the kingdom.
Aside from all this, William got to hear good news at last. He learnt about the presence of the Big Seven, the wealthiest merchant guilds in the fort. From the mouth of the team members, he listened to crazy stories about many items getting sold at skyrocketing prices of tens of millions of spirit crystals, even hundreds of millions as well.
This happened in the auctions that were regularly arranged here. And from the insane prices he kept hearing from these dudes, he knew that deep pocket spirit masters were regularly attending these auctions, even living here.
"As for living, you can just rent a room at any hotel," the leader said as he felt how neutral, or even a little cold, William acted towards him and his team, "mate, go towards that direction, cross ten kilometres and you'll find the main fort."
"Aren't you coming?!" William looked in surprise towards the leader. And that dude just shrugged as he said the first reason that popped in his mind:
"We forgot something important and have to turn around to get it. Good luck mate, it's all safe from here towards the fort."
"The patrol guards are usually moving in a fifteen kilometre radius around the fort, so don't worry about meeting any dark spirit masters or strong monsters here."
"Thanks," William got what this team wanted to do. They didn't like his company and decided to part ways with him right now.
And he just felt the same as them and didn't mind getting away from those unworthy dudes.
As for the patrol story, he didn't buy it. They walked for five kilometres in the assumed safe area and didn't see a shadow of a single patrol team at all.
That told him they were either lying, or the patrol teams were just acting careless.
"See you in the fort later on, mates," William cupped his hand and thanked them. Even if he didn't like their vision about life, they still helped him in the end and got him towards the main fort.
Not to mention the lots of valuable information they told him about, which was going to save him lots of trouble in the fort.
"Good luck mate," the leader cupped his hands and left with everyone else. They selected a direction randomly and went away from William.
During their walk together, they met a few groups of monsters and more teams of spirit masters. It seemed that the closer William became towards the main fort, the less monsters and the more people he'd face.
"Time to go and visit that fort," William finally was about to arrive at his destination. The journey that he started close to ten days ago was about to come to an end. And a new adventure was waiting for him there.
He initially planned, before setting out from the academy, to first get here, find the Mercenary department and register his team out there as an independent one. Then he'd start collecting intel about the entire area, before deciding what his next move would be against the dark spirit masters.
However, this all changed by what he and his team experienced. Instead of going towards the Mercenary department, he planned to first look for the Lockheart impact main headquarter, go and ask about his team.
*Boom!* *Bang!* *Boom!*
However, just before he'd crossed one hundred metres, he heard loud bangs and explosions coming from a certain direction, sounds of a harsh battle going on. And it felt like this battle was getting bigger at a fast pace, getting closer to him.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶