"Here," William got one ring of the many he got, "there are ten million spirit crystals there."
"Thanks," Remy received the ring, and handed it over to one of the people responsible for gathering the bids. As the number of people gathered here grew, the Refos group sent reinforcements to help.
The total number of working merchants here exceeded one hundred already, yet they still were led by Remy. As for guards, hundreds more were added, and that told William the number of spirit crystals involved here reached an unimaginable scale.
"When are you going to start?" This was the main goal of Remy's coming here in the first place.
"Hmm… I'm going to start in a few minutes," William knew he already reached the five hours deadline he decided before, "but keep the bidding going. The process of clearing this place will take long hours, even days!"
"Ok!" Remy's face beamed with a bright smile, "make us proud and clear the traps safely."
"That's what I plan to do," William smiled in return, before turning to Thomas and added, "I'm going inside, use an attack, and then you'll follow after ten minutes. Notice if anything happening inside would appear to those outside."
"Got it!"
This was one of the main concerns of William since he started this circus. He didn't want anyone to know about his fox spirit, or his abilities and way of fighting.
If things inside would appear to those out there, then William would think of a way to seal his actions off the prying eyes.
But he didn't think the old fox would leave his place open for anyone. William just wanted to be sure, and then he started to walk into his place.
William stopped just ten metres away from the gate, got out his bow and one of his arrows.
"I need to find time and make more of these," he knew he had little arrows left, not enough for him to enter a battle. And that was expected. He was using the arrows he made back at the Forging department of the academy all this time.
And that made him realise he got more chances in making better arrows. He was going to get enough wealth after all this, not to mention the strategic place of this fort.
Finding any ore here wasn't a problem. And if things went smooth, he'd also gain capable and experienced artisans on his side to make whatever he wanted.
*Boom!*
He simply released the arrow, let it fly and fell at a spot hundreds of metres away. It was void of anything, so it wasn't supposed to leave behind much damage.
But to his surprise, another thing happened.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Rumble!*
Just as his arrow landed, the entire spot it landed at trembled and quaked, looking like it was made out of soft jelly or something.
The arrow released a ball of fire in the air, but the traps it activated released pillars of fire, so high enough to reach one hundred metre distance.
It was scary! And the scariest thing was that the spot it landed at got caved in, before a landslide started to appear there.
The earth didn't look like a normal piece of land. It kept twitching and trembling, while releasing different explosions, ranging in ferocity, all were quite deadly, all got triggered with just one arrow.
"Damn me! That old fox was indeed crazy!" William thanked his luck that he released this arrow far from his spot. And thanks to that, he didn't suffer any damage.
But that wasn't the case for the area that the arrow hit. In a radius of a hundred metres, the entire ground changed, filled with gaps like deep scars.
Not to mention the myriad of explosions that got launched from there, enough to take down any dark gold spirit master for sure.
William now realised why this place got such infamy. Without the right way to deactivate all this, who'd ever try and purge this place out of traps? No, who'd be courageous enough, dare to set foot here, knowing that at any second a deadly attack would kick in and kill him?
"I need to test it again," William just released that arrow to see if people outside saw anything happening here or not. But now, his thoughts drifted away and started to focus over something else.
He took another arrow, placed it in his bow, and aimed again at the same spot.
He wanted to see if after triggering a group of traps, danger would get cleared or not. And soon enough he got the answer.
"Damn that fox! He indeed made sure no one would come here and take over his place!" The next wave of explosions wasn't any weaker than the first. And the ground showed more cracks and devastation than before.
That proved to William that triggering these traps wouldn't affect them at all. In fact, he felt like the second wave was a bit stronger than the first.
"So, I had to find another way than just triggering these traps from far," William had this idea before. Yet from his accidental experiment here, he got valuable intel about such idea.
"If triggering them won't do, then I have to analyse the entire structure of these traps…" he turned around and started to walk back to the outside.
And when he passed through the gate, another world of excitement and chaos appeared in front of his eyes.
Everywhere his eyes fell, he heard lots of cheers and shouts, saw lots of people celebrating, seemingly happy about what just happened.
"These people are crazy," William shook his head, before turning around, looking for someone.
"Master, what happened inside got felt and heard by everyone here, but nothing appeared at all. No one saw what you did," Thomas approached William, thinking that he was looking for him.
"Great," William just nodded to him, before finally his eyes landed on the person he wanted to meet, "go and tell Remy to come and meet me."
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