This puzzled William a lot, knew he had to go to the man himself and force him to spill out his secrets to get answers. But William didn't even think about this. It wasn't because he was weak, but because spirit masters used to have their secrets, a rule that William respected.
And yet that wasn't the crux of William's problem, the technique he acquired from that black fox was!
William didn't expect such technique to run over his accumulated spirit power. It required him to sacrifice part of his spirit power to elevate his mastery of this technique. And like this, even with the presence of that mysterious master's pocket worlds and tons of monsters, even with William's Devour ability, the latter couldn't help but feel frustrated every single time he sacrificed part of his hard gained spirit power.
The only reason that stopped him from throwing away this technique or halt his training in it was the grand benefits he gained.
This technique didn't just change his fox form but gave him the ability to control his transformation as well. He now had four tails, and in normal situations he could at most summon a fox body with two tails.
But thanks to this technique, William could transform into a fox body of three tails. That wasn't all, even the size and strength of his fox body was something much higher than what it should be.
On top of that, he could control his transformation, limiting it to be with one tail or two tails. Doing this greatly decreased the pressure over his spirit power and gave him lots of options.
If he changed into one tail version, the element he'd select for his tail would be in its purest and strongest form. Just like when he did it with Lawrence. Comparing this with his full version, then William could tell how big the difference was.
And so, even if all the ones under his tutor crossed one grade at least during the past five years, with few crossing even three grades, William didn't cross a single grade yet.
If not for his Devour ability and legendary training techniques that he created, then his spirit power would have stagnated as well. But luckily for him, he kept replenishing the amount of spirit power he kept sacrificing and adding even more to it.
Another thing actually helped him a lot in reaching the top stage of the silver grade right now. And that was the fox statue left in the Fox Lair back at the fort.
William kept absorbing spirit power madly from that statue. And it also gave him lots of information about the outer world, information that William didn't actually need.
And so going by logic, William should be the weakest one in the entire elite Black Tails team of his. However, reality proved otherwise.
Putting aside the low spirit power he had, he learnt many different fighting techniques that suited his different spirit elements. Not to mention his annoying ability to switch his fox form in the middle of the battle, cancelling the slight fox changes he'd experience, and switching tails with different spirit elements.
So, dealing with him in any direct confrontation was literally a nightmare for anyone in the team. And when they went out with him towards any of the pocket worlds, they realised he was really going easy on them when testing them out.
If they considered William to be a monster when he checked on their training progress, then seeing him fight monsters reminded them of the scary battles they experienced with him back at the war five years ago.
"Can't we talk about something else?" Berry suddenly moved, climbed the little stairs to his throne.
"Hey! Don't you see I'm also here?" but before she'd move halfway there, the other two girls moved and stopped in front of her.
"What? I was going to ask him about the upcoming competition," Berry rolled her eyes, while the other two girls scoffed in response.
"There is nothing to say about that," William said in a tired tone, "we already discussed this issue many times. You will participate in that silly competition, not me."
"But…" Berry and Sara turned to him at the same time and said in the same breath. William knew what they wanted to say, and he silenced them with a simple wave of his hand.
"I already told you, my promise with your grandfathers was limited for you to join. As for me, I'll cheer for your success from the audience seats. That's final!"
"Tsk! Why do you like to make trouble out of anything?" Ibra shook his head, leant over his glaive while feeling amused by this recurrent situation William found himself facing thanks to his stubbornness, "if you just lowered that damn ego of yours for a single time, then you can live a nice and happy life."
"Thanks, my life is great as it is," William rolled his eyes, knowing what Ibra was feeling at the moment, "I hate taking part in useless activities. What's the point in fighting other academies and big families' teams? It won't prove anything when I crush them, right?"
"But we would like for you to lead us like the old days!" Berry didn't step back like how she'd act five years ago. Instead, she crossed her arms, while giving him a defiant look, "I swear if you didn't participate with us, then I'll simply won't go!"
"Me neither!" In a rare moment, the two girls agreed on something, "let's see how you'll deal with our old men then."
"As if they could do anything to me before," William smirked. And the two girls went speechless for a moment there.
"Shameless!" Berry blurted out.
"Your skin is the only thing that grew in the past five years! It's thicker than the skies and the lands!" Sara also joined her, complaining in the same breath.
"Come on!" William watched the two girls step down at the same time, and seemingly others joined them as they moved out from here, "what a troublesome situation you two placed me in…"
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