Thomas got jolted awake from his amazement and returned to draw. This time, he worked double harder, fueled up with the mere thought of following someone great and genius like William.
He never felt anything towards any of his previous masters. In his eyes, they were just rich folks and nothing more, ones who mostly inherited their current wealth from their families.
But William was different. He came from a weak academy as Thomas heard. And he got nothing at all when he came here.
In front of Thomas' eyes, William was climbing the ladder of wealth and fame like a rocket. And that wasn't all. He still didn't know how strong his master was.
Just thinking about all the things William did made Thomas believe his master was much stronger than what he looked like.
When he moved his eyes towards William, who kept releasing his knives around, detonating traps in a fixed rhythm, while taking firm steps forward on the cleared lands, he knew his guess was correct.
"I'm lucky to have met him when he isn't that famous yet," he muttered to himself, thinking about how lucky he was to get such a chance.
Once William started acting seriously, the sounds of explosions never died down for hours. The entire world around was filled with cheers and shouts of excitement at first, but soon enough such celebrative signs died down.
In the eyes of everyone out there, they knew these explosions came from triggering the cursed traps in that place. But seeing how William kept detonating traps at a constant rate for five hours straight without pause made them think about a scary and crazy scenario.
"Hahahahaha! That gem boy is killing it! Hahahaha!" in the group of the Lockheart impact, the scary leader with purple eyes kept laughing while moving his eyes around.
The looks over everyone's faces here were quite priceless. They weren't just the only strong and formidable folks who came here. That dude already recognised many from other impacts, even many from other Big Seven groups.
Even the royal families, the ones who hailed from ancient families that established this fort, sent people here to join the fun.
From the weird and heavy silence, the gloomy atmosphere here, this dude could tell that they betted over William's loss.
"Don't mock them when you also betted against that kid," Ben rolled his eyes, not believing how shameless his leader was.
"But we got you, the lucky lottery ticket that will win us much more than we lost, hahahaha!" the leader even winked to Ben, making the latter want to vomit.
"Anyway," that leader calmed down, took a deep breath before adding, "your old plan about using that kid's team to lure him in won't work. That kid is indeed special. And someone like him won't lower his head for the few members he gathered when he was weaker and without a name."
Ben looked at his leader and recalled how he got forced to spill out everything he knew about William. He even spoke about his former plan to use William's team against him. "How so?" Ben still didn't drop this plan. In his mind, it was a feasible one, one that held good chances of success.
"I don't need to speak about how famous this kid will be after all this," the leader paused, moving his eyes around as if he was looking for something, "not to mention the grand wealth he'd gain from this event. But didn't you all notice that youth over there?"
That leader pointed towards the far distance, towards the direction of Trevor. As he did that, everyone on his side turned and looked over Trevor as well.
"He kept shouting about recruiting for that kid's guild. I don't know what guilds even mean, but it seems like that kid is after forming new teams."
"And?" Ben got what this dude wanted to say, and yet wasn't convinced, "this team is different! It came from his homeland, from his academy."
"That's not a guaranteed thing," that leader shrugged, "if he can get ten times the number of teams just from this event, and I'm sure he'll get more than that, then he won't need such a team anymore."
"But…"
"I'm not speaking just about numbers," the leader paused, "this kid… He can rope in lots of the rogue spirit masters roaming around the world, lots of gold and even dark gold masters if he wanted. Tell me, will anyone in their right mind listen to any threatening demands when he has much stronger teams on his side?"
"We are the Lockheart impact!" the lady in this little gathering said in arrogance, "anyone will fight to just be part of us!"
"Anyone, but not him," that leader shook his head, "if he wanted, he could simply establish something on par with ours. So, thinking from this perspective is wrong, totally wrong."
The hidden intentions in this leader's tone were clear, and they startled everyone here.
"Are you referring perhaps… That we will deal with him like our equal?!!" another dude said in disbelief. And that leader slowly nodded.
"Provided that this kid managed to clear this cursed place, then he is destined to soar higher than any of you here can imagine. It's better to make good friendship ties with him, instead of starting all this with unforgivable grievances and enmity."
"..."
The leader's words left everyone here baffled, lost for words. But they didn't dare to question his words again. They all knew who he was, and no one here was courageous enough to argue for a long time against him.
If he said they should do this, then it was decided.
"So…" Ben took a deep breath, "are we going to give him his boys back?"
"Not only that," that leader shifted his eyes again towards the direction of the fox territory, listened to the scary explosive noises coming from inside for a long minute, "we will also donate part of our people over to him."
"This…"
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