"Let's not waste our breaths over such useless things," William didn't care about what that old man wanted to do, "where have you been?"
"Told you, was with my grandpa," she paused, and her face turned a bit unsightly when she realised what he meant, "sorry… But Lude insisted on taking me far from the academy, back to the clan."
"No problem," William waved his hand, "the most important thing is that you are alright."
"What did I miss?" She wanted to say thanks for his obvious worry but was stopped by her shyness. Only her cheeks turned a bit rosy, while William ignored this and explained to her what went into the little meeting from before.
"What? You know Sara? And she agreed to join us?!!" When she heard about this part, her reaction wasn't any less intense than others. Yet she didn't remain silent and kept speaking about how impossible it was to meet the headmaster's granddaughter by any disciple.
"... How did you do it?!" After speaking for almost ten minutes nonstop, she finally returned back to the point she started from.
"I accidently ran into her before," William gave such a vague, and yet honest answer, "and we ended up being friends."
"Oh…" for a moment there, Berry felt unexplained sadness that shadowed over her heart.
"She will join our team," William missed the slight change in her face, "and right now they are trying to recruit others from the academy."
"They… Must be overdoing it," Berry sighed, while the reason behind her sigh was slightly different than what William guessed, "the entire academy now knows about our team and your offer… And many are thinking about joining us."
"Hmm… I won't accept just anyone," William crossed his arms, without showing any change on his face.
"But… I heard even gold grade disciples are seriously considering joining us. Will you turn such strong dudes down?" she gave him a weird look, as if he didn't realise the magnitude of the storm waiting for him at the corner.
If someone like gold grade disciples came to join and he rejected them, then they'd turn into his enemies at the spot. And that was quite bad in her eyes.
"I don't mind getting strong folks indeed," William nodded, before shaking off his head, "but I just don't want anyone. Strength is something important, and gold grade spirit masters look awesome and such, but it doesn't really matter to me."
"How so? They are enough to raise the overall strength of the team!"
"We are weak right now, but we'll reach that stage one day, and even cross it. We only need time, and that means we aren't that desperate to accept anyone coming at us."
"..." Berry was still thinking like a kid, thinking about how precious and rare it was for gold grade disciples to join any team. But to William, he was speaking from his vast experience of his past life.
No matter how the gap between his team and these strong disciples were, after a few years, his team would all be formed of gold grade disciples and even dark gold spirit masters would appear as well.
So why would he accept questionable dudes in the team? Ones who might bring more trouble than help? If this was the issue of strength, then it wasn't a problem in his eyes at all. He already had plans to raise the overall strength of the team without the need to accept any extra members.
"I want people we can trust, not people with strength alone," William stressed over this, the same way he did with others back at the meeting, "and even after accepting the first batch, I'd screen them further during the mission."
"Mission? Did you already pick one?" Berry didn't hear yet about what he did back at the Mercenary department.
"We got a mission far away from here," William nodded, "and it'll be a good test for our team."
"What mission? Tell, hurry, tell me about it!" Berry got excited when he mentioned going far from here.
For her entire life, she lived confined either in the clan or in the academy. She didn't get a chance at all to travel to any different place thanks to her old special situation. And hearing about going far from here enticed such desire inside her.
She wanted to venture the world and see places she had never visited before.
"Have you ever heard about Scorching Lands before?"
"Scorching Lands? Isn't this the big meeting point where many trade routes are met?" her eyes shone brighter, and she even jumped off her seat as she said these words amidst her excitement.
"It is," William nodded, "we are going there."
"Wow! I know that my father once went there in the past year, brought lots of gifts and interesting things back," Berry got excited for totally the wrong reasons, leaving William speechless behind, not knowing what he should say.
"What are we going to do there? Huh? Tell, come on, tell me!" she even grabbed his arm, acting a bit weird from her normal self.
"Well… We are going to search for the dark spirit masters," William once said it, he noticed the instant change over her face. "What? Afraid of dealing with them?"
"No, it's just… Have you heard of the current trend in the academy already? My grandpa told me it's still a secret, one that's not known by many."
"What trend? What secret?" William got a little puzzled and interested before Berry started explaining everything she knew like a good girl.
"Oh, is that so? Hahahaha!" William couldn't help but laugh the moment he realised what was going on. The dark spirit masters were going to have it hard in the next few weeks or even months.
From Berry, William got to know about the plans the academy and big clans prepared to uproot many of the evil roots of the dark spirit masters around.
It seemed what he started grew to a huge thing, giving lots of leads for the big shots in the academy and various clans to see lots of the dark spirit masters' hiding locations.