Thomas got what his master wanted and shouted on the top of his lungs at the surrounding people.
"William?! So, his name is William?"
"He is here!"
"Open path! Let him pass, let's get this starting!"
"I'm dying to see what's going to happen, how he's going to die!"
"Yes, me too, hahahaha! It'll be fun!"
Thomas was slightly enraged, but a single warning glance from William made this dude control himself. The people started to part ways, creating a space for him and Thomas to pass through.
As the two passed, they heard many whispers and loud comments like the ones they heard before. And when William arrived at his territory's gate, he lost count of how many insults and rude comments he heard, and most were hoping to see him die.
After all, most if not all of those here came to bet against his success.
"Master! You are here!" and when he arrived there, he saw Trevor standing with a group of twenty-five men and women. And as Trevor shouted like this, everyone turned to look at William.
"Welcome," William looked at them as he slowly added, "I believe you got what I want you all to do here, right?"
William didn't inform Trevor about what he wanted to do here in detail. But news already spread over the fort. And it'd be quite surprising if these people didn't get wind of what he intended to do.
"Hi sir William, my name is Remy," one of the people sent by the Refos stepped up, a refined looking, young lady. William estimated her by the looks to be in her mid-twentieth, but he felt like she was in her fortieth or something.
"Hi Remy," William nodded in greeting, "do you know why you are all here?"
"Sure," Remy took out a scroll, with lots of words written there, "we also prepared the contract based on the terms your man here proposed."
William admired how fast the Refos group worked. News spread just at the same time he sent Trevor over, and yet they were ready with a contract.
William took the scroll, read through it, and made sure everything was ok.
They placed the conditions and terms of this deal right. Be it his own or the ones who'd bet over his death and failure would win, the Refos group were going to get thirty-five percent of the total commission.
And the commission was decided to be ten percent of the overall wealth placed in this deal. When William looked around, imagined the final number of spirit crystals involved in this bet to be in the hundreds of millions, or even might reach a staggering one billion mark, he couldn't help but admire the machinations of the Refos group.
They made sure no matter who'd win or lose, they'd end up being one of the winners. And that wasn't all. If the total number of spirit crystals here reached one billion, then the commission alone would be one hundred million crystals, with the Refos group taking thirty-five million and he'd take the rest.
And it wasn't only that. If William died, and as he didn't have any successors in the fort, then the rest would be kept in the Refos group as ownerless wealth, with permission for them to take over them.
In other terms, in case William lost and died, they'd end up having one hundred million spirit crystals on the spot without the need to even break a single sweat or suffer anything.
That was why merchants were so scary.
But William knew they were at least putting some effort in return for such an expected high return.
They didn't just bring twenty-five experienced merchants here to supervise and rule over this huge event, but they also brought hundreds of strong and fierce looking guards.
When William passed through the people gathered here, he had to go through lines of guards who blocked the way for anyone to reach the gate or the merchants of the Refos group.
They thought about everything and prepared the stage for such an event. And that would save William lots of headaches.
The only thing that stopped them from starting to accept bids and such was the contract. And William simply used his spirit power to sign it on the spot, making it valid.
"We are good to go," Remy chuckled in happiness when William signed the contract, "good luck. In fact, we at the Refos group hope you'd win this."
She even winked at him, before she started to work with her teammates.
William stood on the side, watching what was going on around. These people were pros in their career and knew what to do.
The first thing they did was to divide themselves into smaller teams. One team stayed behind, holding lots of scrolls and even took a few desks and seats out.
They were the ones supposed to take note of all the bets and record them. Not only that, one of them took out a grand board, one that was made entirely of special ore.
William recognised this board, as it was similar to the ones he saw before at the Mercenary department at the academy. Yet this one looked a bit advanced, made out of much higher-grade ores than the ones at the academy.
William saw the black board starting to show golden numbers and words, with two sides on it. One side expressed the bidding odds on his win, and the other showed the odds of his loss.
Right now both were the same, at one to one. William knew this was going to change in the upcoming few hours. And he didn't care about how much the final odds would be.
He already got the solution for the big dilemma regarding Thomas' technique. And he was quite confident in his ability to decipher and crush all the traps left by the ancient fox.
The fact that this dude left a message for him, mentioning William by name, meant that William got the ability to crack all the traps and purify this entire place, ending up obtaining the message left by the ancient fox.
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