"What are we going to do here?"
Inside the Fox territory, William stood just ten metres after passing from the gate. And Thomas followed with a dark look on his face.
William didn't stop just to wait for him. He knew that in any territory filled with traps, the twenty metres area around the entrance gate was considered safe.
It was a tradition to leave behind a space for those who belonged truly here to execute their special ways to deactivate the different traps. And as William didn't trust this crazy old dude, he decided to half this distance, just to be sure.
"I want you to do what you trained on," William didn't even turn to Thomas, as his eyes were attracted by the space inside.
He got the impression before that this place was huge, but not as big as it showed from outside. He thought there was some sort of optical illusion thanks to the sealing array. And this area wasn't that huge.
But he was wrong! When he went inside, the buildings that looked far looked even a bit further away. It seemed as if the entire space he imagined about this territory got doubled, or even tripled.
And that was all great news for him.
"Do… What exactly?" Thomas was still confused, and William couldn't help but roll his eyes in response.
"What else? Just use the technique I just taught you."
"And?"
William felt like he was an adult and Thomas was the kid here. He turned to face this youth, and slowly explained while pointing towards the place around:
"I want you to use your technique over all this, check the ground, check the buildings, even check the f*cking air. Check everything and see if you can spot any shining stars, threads connecting these stars with each other, and point towards them for me."
"O… Ok…" Thomas wasn't faking it, he indeed didn't know what he was supposed to do here. He got what William wanted him to do, but didn't get what was special about all this, how would any of that help in solving the problems in this cursed place.
He wanted to ask what the value was of using his technique in such a scary place. But as William was strict and firm, didn't explain anything and just wanted him to use his technique, he didn't have a choice but to follow his master's words.
William stood by the side, watching Thomas change his appearance as he used his spirit element. His hair and eyes turned silver white, and he looked like a totally different person.
And when he used his technique, he looked as if he was a god overlooking the world of mortals. William knew in the eyes of Thomas, the world now looked much different. And he was supposed to see spots and marks of the things related to the ancient spirit master who owned this place long years ago.
And as he expected, Thomas indeed saw such a thing. But unlike what William thought, Thomas didn't see the world the same way he saw it when he used his technique for the first time inside the pocket world.
"Master… This… This…" he stuttered, and even his body trembled.
"Get back! Cancel that technique now!" William shouted the moment he saw signs of spirit power depletion. It was quite scary and unbelievable for such a thing to happen. But William was too experienced to not miss the early signs of such a thing.
Thomas' body was trembling, his faint gold spirit power kept flickering, and even his eyes started to release a thin line of blood.
It was clear what was going on. And without even thinking about why this happened, William hurriedly shouted to not lose this gem of his.
If Thomas didn't hurry to cancel this technique, he'd end up getting all of his spirit power depleted. He'd lose consciousness, and who knew what would happen to him later on.
This wasn't just a simple depletion of spirit power while using normal technique. This was a technique that was centered around a unique spirit element. And if Thomas didn't cancel his technique fast, he'd might end up losing part of his spirit power and even would get lowered a grade or something.
"Agh!" Thomas instantly followed his orders, yet to end up staggering backwards, gushing a full mouth of blood, before falling on the ground like a broken kite.
"What's wrong… What's wrong… With me?!!" Thomas was racing to catch his breaths while he didn't even get what just happened to him.
"Here, take a few drops first," William took out the potion he got from Ben, the highest-grade potion he ever had, opened its lid, and let a few drops fall into the mouth of Thomas.
Thomas was lying on his back, with his body twitching as if he was getting a seizure or something. William knew this kid just delayed cancelling his technique for a few seconds, ending up for him to suffer such a great deal of damage.
As Thomas started to look a bit better, his ashen face started to show more vitality, with his twitching body getting stopped, William stood by his side while thinking about what happened.
Thomas was a gold grade spirit master, one who used to live his life in a hard way, serving others, not enjoying the pleasures of life in the fort.
He wasn't weak, not weak willed at least. And yet just by activating his technique for less than half a minute, he got almost all of his spirit power depleted.
This came as a shocking surprise for William. There was only one thing that could explain what Thomas went through, and that was related to this place.
"Don't tell me this damn fox left tons of things here, guarding against the possibility of someone coming with a karma or time element…" William muttered in deep frown, while his eyes were moving across the seemingly normal land in front of him.