Those who were with William since the days of the Aspire academy felt how wrong this was. They never saw Leo before, nor heard about William having such allies and friends.
Yet under William's stubborn stance, they all got rejected and didn't manage to come with him.
As for the flying monsters, the moment they delivered masters to the safe zone, they returned to get sealed again. Zin and others were now considering them their most precious asset, even guarding them personally and not allowing anyone to come near them.
"What about the contest?" Sara looked at others before adding, "if you took a long time with them, we would miss it."
"Let's do it this way then," William knew he got no definite time for his return date, "you go there first, enlist our names there and see things. Don't stir up trouble and try to collect as much intel as possible."
"I want to see those dirty masters from this shitty academy," Ibra waved his glaive twice in the air, "I want to kill these dark masters first."
"No," William firmly rejected what Ibra just said, and what others thought about, "first gather intel and don't do anything. This isn't the forest, not the open world, it's the kingdom's capital. Many rules are applied there, and without a solid proof, you are going to end up facing trouble instead."
"But…" even Berry wanted to take a bite at those dark masters.
"This is non-negotiable," William strictly warned them against doing so. By his warning and direct words, everyone couldn't help but feel much disappointment.
"Don't worry," Zin suddenly approached, "I'm going to be with them and make sure they won't do anything on impulse."
"This…" William knew this old master didn't volunteer to go without something in return. And the next words of Zin clarified what he was really after.
"After that, you can repay my kindness as you are repaying your debts."
Zin even winked, and William knew this old master wanted to know more about Leo and his mysterious legion and force.
"Let's talk about this later," William didn't want to directly reject such a request. He wasn't sure what he'd know would need others' help or not. If he found great secrets, ones that would affect the entire world, then he'd need the help of those formidable masters to do things he couldn't.
But if he found secrets that got nothing to do with the current fate of the world, then he'd just keep what he learnt to himself and wouldn't share any with others.
Just as everyone was celebrating and preparing to head back towards the city, William went towards Leo and his legion.
He expected to see a couple of hundreds, not a force of thousands in front of him. Leo was as young as he expected. The fact that he was the leader over such a large number of masters, with many old ones, meant how special and powerful this young man was.
"I see you managed to survive in the end," the first thing Leo said was such a weird statement.
"As if you expected me to perish or something," William rolled his eyes, before adding, "so… What's the final answer from your side?"
"Well… They are still negotiating about it," Leo said something that William never expected at all, "let's give them enough time. From my knowledge of the Cardinals, they will eventually accept."
"Cardinals?!" This word was alien to William. And that told him that no matter how he considered himself knowledgeable, he was destined to end up learning about something brand new.
"You'll know everything when time is right," Jeremy suddenly said, attracting William's attention.
"And you are?"
"He is my right-hand man," Leo cleared his throat, "you'll walk with us until we get the final answer. Let's go, we have to cross a large distance anyway if we want to visit my home."
"Fine," William intended to leave with them anyway, "lead the way then. Can you tell me what's the name of your force?"
"Well, even saying such intel isn't allowed," Leo sighed, "let's go. Once I get permission to speak, I'll tell you enough."
William sighed, realising that this trip would be quite boring. Yet as he kept his silence and marched with everyone, he started to hear soft discussions going on between the members of Leo's legion.
Leo didn't leave William to wander around, but that didn't stop him from noticing everything using his spirit sense.
First of all, William knew the name of the force this legion belonged to. It wasn't an impact or guild like what William thought, it was a Cult. It was a weird and new name in William's ears, one that made no sense to him at first.
But soon enough he learnt more about these people. They were especially talented masters, ones who were born with spirits that got an affinity with fate and destiny. Such masters were sought out by the Cult, and the Cult got branches at many worlds, including the vast and outer one.
William never heard anything about such Cult before. And so, anything he eavesdropped was brand new to him.
Leo and his trusted subordinates weren't fools. They knew their people were going to speak, nonetheless. Yet none tried to warn them, stop them from saying anything, and kept a tight mouth while watching William listening to everything.
Gradually, and as time passed slowly while they were walking through the dense forest area, William started to grasp more information about this Cult and the people belonging to it.
The Cardinals Leo mentioned before were acting like the general leaders of the Cult. they were the strongest, the most authoritative, and the ones with all the power in the Cult branch in the entire world.
William got shocked when he learnt that they existed everywhere, taking bases at the deep hearts of any grand mountain, overlooking and watching in silence the world.
The Cult and its people were responsible for watching the fate and destiny wheels. They got to make sure that no one would interfere and do anything bad to these wheels, a thing that just William experienced.