William asked, and Lara and others nodded, in much excitement as if this was great news.
"We are getting much more materials from the outer world, something like every day's gain is equal to one month... Can you believe that?"
"I want these materials!" Before William would say anything else, Fang appeared out of the blue. William was sure he didn't actually leave, and just followed them silently from the shadows.
"If he says so, I'll give them to you," Lara was resentful against Fang for not saying everything that happened between William and Anjie. So, she decided to punish him a little, until he'd spill out what he hid.
Fang's face changed the moment he heard Lara's words, but William waved his hand as he said:
"It's not the time for that! I'll go to the underground city."
"I'll be coming with you then," Fang's face beamed with excitement, and even laughed, "you are after these materials, right? Right? Let me come, you promised to give me access..."
"I said it before, no underground city for you for now," William instantly rejected, "just stay in the town, Lara will come with me."
"Why her?" Anjie shouted in distress, while William rolled his eyes and said:
"I was away for a long time now; I need her to guide me to the city."
"Just say it, you're afraid I'll make a deal with her and enter that city!"
"As if I'll hide her forever from you," William evilly laughed, "stay patient, and reflect on your actions, old man."
"No, they'll just stand in my way," William instantly interrupted her words, "When we arrived, send out the word. They have three hours to leave, or else they are responsible for their lives."
"Is it that serious?" For the first time since William said he wanted to go to the underground city, she felt deep worry over him, "are you going to be ok?"
"I'm going to be fine," William said, "but no one else is. I don't have time to take care of anyone, so it's best for them to leave."
"Got you," she nodded in agreement, and then didn't speak with him again until they arrived in the city.
William didn't have time to check the city when he came here hours ago, but now he could. As Lara went to deal with things to call everyone back, he went around and strolled around the city.
He didn't do this to check on the city's progress, but to try and sort out his thoughts.
"The only way to make the portals increase in frequency is the destabilisation of that gate... What possibly could have gone wrong for it to go berserk?"
He muttered to himself while walking down the city streets. As he went off radar for a long time, not many recognised him. The ones who did, only stopped walking, looking at him as if they were looking at a ghost or someone great.
He didn't care about any of that and kept walking while listing all the answers he could get.
There were many scenarios that would cause such a phenomenon. "The worst is that someone found the crack in space in the outer world, and is trying to amend it... I can't do anything if that's the case..."
This was the worst scenario he could think of. Luckily, he knew such a thing had a very low chance of happening. It required a very skilled master with a space element to detect the crack there, and that needed him to be close to the crack by less than five hundred metres, and be there when the crack worked.
There was a long list of conditions William could think of for anyone to detect such crack. And that made such scenarios hold the lowest chances in his list.
As for the one that got the highest possibility was for someone or something to interfere with the gate. This was a very common thing to happen, if someone interfered with the gate.