Chapter 140: Planning
William spent nearly an hour just sucking on the Miniature Soul Stone until it had fully dissolved in his mouth, the bitter feeling spreading across his body in the form of Soul Strength.
+1 Soul Strength
–Unlocked Extended Statistic: +3 Potential Points
The physical feeling wasn’t quite what William expected, but with a few questions to the System he understood that this was indeed what the masked girl had been using to power her attacks. Unfortunately for him, to include Soul-Related attacks in his arsenal, William would need to eat quite a few more Soul Stones.
He got straight to it, putting a regular Soul Stone in his mouth. Just as he started absorbing the Soul Stone, William had an idea.
What if I absorb multiple at the same time?
-I wouldn’t recommend that.
Why not?
-You’ll turn into a Soul Beast.
A what?!? William had never heard the term Soul Beast before.
-Think of it as a ghost.
So I’ll die?
-Technically, yes.
Fair enough. William didn’t consider placing another Soul Stone in his mouth after that. He was thankful that the System was a bit more talkative now, because it wouldn’t have given him such a timely warning back when it was E Rank.
A regular Soul Stone took William three hours to absorb, which was much faster overall compared to the Miniature Soul Stone, considering the Miniature Soul Stones only gave one Soul Strength, while the regular Soul Stones gave five.
At this rate, however, it would take William 27 more hours to absorb the remaining nine Soul Stones, so he decided to break it up into three days of 9-hour sessions. This way, William could absorb three Soul Stones per day, and spend the remainder of the day practicing his Magic or preparing Runes on the weapons of his improved Array Puppets.
***
While William was absorbing Soul Stones, the Cultivators at the base of the trial tower were working on something else.
“Hey you! Which Sect are you from?” a large, bald-headed man wielding a battleaxe called out to a stranger that was just entering the courtyard to the trial tower. William would recognize this to be the same person that tried to fight with him over a piece of Star Ore.
“Ice Immortals, why?” the Cultivator pointed to the emblem on his right shoulder of a snowflake surrounded by four fairies of different colors.
“Perfect, get over here!” the bald-headed man’s eyes lit up.
“What is it?”
“So you see, it goes like this…” the man explained to the newcomer what was going on in the trial tower lately.
The Cultivators had all been alerted when William reached the fiftieth floor of the trial tower, and it had only been four days since he entered the second floor. At this rate, William might clear over a hundred floors before the end of their period in the Gravitas Ruins.
The Cultivators and Sects tried to compete with William, sending their groups inside to catch up, but there was a Flame Dragon on the second floor that very few people could get past.
Those that could, were eventually stopped at the tenth floor by a massive number of crossbows and other traps that were impossible to dodge. They immediately gave up on trying to catch up, and instead came up with a different plan.
“So you’re saying that since this William is already on the fiftieth floor, he should have fifty treasures waiting to give to us?” the Ice Immortals Disciple asked with a raised eyebrow. He wasn’t entirely convinced by the man’s words, thinking he was lying.
He looked around at the expressions of others in the trial tower, listening in on a few conversations, but he didn’t find any problems. The bald-headed man’s words seemed to be true!
“Oh but of course! Just think of it. How many treasures have you gained during your entire lifetime from the Gravitas Ruins? I’m sure it can’t be more than ten! But this William, he has earned fifty by himself! Even if we gather ten Sects and share the loot evenly, each Sect should get five treasures!”
“That makes sense, but if he’s so powerful are you sure we can beat him?” the Disciple asked with a bit of worry in his voice. While he believed himself to be a genius, he knew that against true power, he wasn’t much. If William cleared all those trials by himself, he was bound to be a formidable foe.
The bald-headed man frowned, his face turning serious. “Of course, we know he is strong, but I’ve experienced his power first-hand. If we can counter his Array Puppets, William isn’t much. Rest assured we have considered other scenarios, but what we truly lack is manpower. What do you say?”
There was a pause while the bald man looked at the Ice Immortals Disciple, who nodded in understanding. “It seems you have a plan at least. I’ll contact my Sect.”
The bald-headed man smiled and bade the Disciple farewell, then approached a group of four Cultivators sitting in wooden chairs around an earthen table. Including him, they were the five leaders of the Five-Pointed Alliance, which would soon turn into the Six-Pointed Alliance.
They were huddled over a map of the courtyard, a few squares and circles depicted on the map with an unclear purpose.
As he approached, he heard one of the leaders speaking, “…and we should have an anti-magic Array Formation in this area. You and I both saw the Meteor spell he used, that could obliterate us in the blink of an eye.”
A leader nodded, “In that case, my Sect will focus on applying negative statuses to him. According to one of my sources that participated in the regional Desert Trial, he’s almost as fast as a Nascent Soul Beast. If we can slow him down, we might be able to seal his movements completely with the help of one of my treasures.”
While the bald-headed man joined in the discussion, another group of four Cultivators were also talking about William just outside the Labyrinth of Tears.
“Julia, did you hear? Someone spotted the S-Rank NPC in these Ruins, meaning he is here with us. This is our best chance to gather the S-Rank item from his corpse before someone else beats us to it!” a brown-haired boy in a modern-style green hoodie exclaimed in delight as he scrolled through the forums.
Next to him was a girl with long red hair and deep red eyes. Julia nodded at his words, also having read the forums post, but one thing made her pause.
“Why would you want to kill him though, Jack? He’s an S-Rank, shouldn’t he be recruited?”
A boy with cyan-colored hair and purple eyes spoke this time. “Have you ever tried to recruit an S-Rank NPC?”
“No, have you Chet?”
“Yes, actually. I’ve seen the recruitment information for an S-Rank NPC before, and let me tell you, it’s insanely difficult. It would be better to kill William and pick up his unique drop that is guaranteed to match his rank.”
A girl with blonde hair perked up, her bright blue eyes glistening as she thought of something. “What if it’s an incredible Cultivation Technique? That would be way better than an NPC that might cause more problems than he would solve!”
Julia laughed. “You’re just daydreaming, Rena. If anything, I hope that it’s a powerful dagger that can insta-kill Golden Core Beasts!”
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