Reincarnation Of The Strongest Spirit Master

The ninety-nine stairs will trials were a very famous thing in the outside world. They were controlled by a single faction out there, one that called on themselves The Holy Guardians.

It was as the ancestors of the academy here guessed; this trial was all about testing one's will. And William didn't need Lorance to speak further as he knew the ins and outs of such a trial.

"Each step taken will bring much fiercer lightning down," but Lorance didn't notice any of the reactions on William's face, and kept speaking about the trial, "and for others, each step will do the same. The highest record was done almost five hundred years ago, and it's at the seventy-three step."

"Only this?" William couldn't help but mutter in doubt. This was considered a pretty low result in such trials.

"Don't belittle this thing here, even dark spirit masters won't be able to get past the fifty steps easily."

William went into deep silence, considering one simple issue: Shall I help this dude? Help the academy? Shall I do it now?

This was what he thought about. He knew that the mindset of this elder, the mindset of almost all of the spirit masters who tried this trial, was wrong.

This wasn't a test of personal power but will. It was easy to confuse the two together, thinking about using strength all the time to solve things.

However, this wasn't true. In fact, if one used strength, then his will would get affected as he'd become distracted.

The real trick in overcoming this trial would be by doing two things. One was to let the spirit masters experience more battles and overcome life and death situations to strengthen one's will.

William was quite sure that not a single spirit master reaching the dark gold status would arrive there without sharpening their will. So, this wasn't the issue here.

The issue lied in not using any force at all whiles dealing with the incoming attacks that trial would throw at one's face!

When facing any attack, any spirit master would reflexly think about using spirit power to defend against the incoming attacks.

But as Lorance said, this kind of attack wouldn't kill anyone. It wasn't a real attack actually, but one that played on a spiritual level.

To pass such a trial, one had to not use a speck of his power, stand all the way there and welcome everything coming while enduring the pain he'd feel.

The pain wasn't real, just like the attacks coming towards anyone. It was just a pain of the spirit, not truly harming one's body at all.

After thinking for a few seconds, William decided to drop such a matter. He wasn't a god who could change the entire fate of the world alone, nor did he want to do such a tiresome task in the first place.

He just wanted to train a team, nourish them for the impending great calamity lurking in the future. Then he'd take this team with him, survive that disaster, and go to the larger world together.

If he got lucky, he'd end up with prodigies, with immense talent and bright future, and might help him at the end when dealing with that fox.

He wanted to act like his master, gather worthy spirit masters to nourish and train them to get stronger. William knew by this time; his master would start her long task of doing that. And he planned to meet up with her in the future with a strong and formidable team by his side.

Besides, he was more curious about the hidden motives behind the intentions of the Holy Guardians by placing such a thing here.

Until he discovered such motives, he wouldn't bring more trouble to himself right now.

"Won't you try it out?" Just as he decided to not step in and help the elder or the academy, William started to walk away.

"Sorry senior, I have little time today. I want to see documents related to forging."

"Forging? Weird! Are you interested in such useless things?" And against William's expectations, Lorance seemed to have a totally opposite view about forging.

"Forging isn't that useless," William said, waving his hand as he took out his sword, "they can add more power to us without the need to consume lots of time."

"That's wrong," Lorance walked by William's side, while shaking his head in disappointment, "these things, forging and alchemy, are a distraction! At the end of the day, they are an outside force, one that doesn't belong to you."

William got what Lorance here was speaking about. And he could only inwardly sigh.

Such a viewpoint was considered logical, but it was still impractical. "Senior is right indeed," he didn't want to start a debate with Lorance, especially when he knew he'd get nowhere by talking about such matters.

"Then you shall focus more on learning training manuals and fighting techniques. Come, let me show you a few gems."

"Thanks senior, but I still want to check on forging gems," William decided to take a step back, but he didn't intend to totally drop the real goal behind coming here.

"You are quite stubborn as a kid!" Lorance shook his head again, and even heaved a deep sigh, "you won't get what I said anyway. But one day you'll remember my words and regret not listening to me."

William resisted the urge to argue with such a stubborn old man. But as Lorance finally resigned to his will, William swallowed all the words he wanted to say.

The library was indeed a giant maze! William followed Lorance through many shelves, took lots of turns right and left until they finally stood in front of one of the huge walls lining the academy.

The shelves here stretched from the ground all the way to the dome shaped ceiling! And with all the holes inside, the entire academy looked like a terrifying colossal beehive!

William spotted a few movable long wooden stairs that could lead anyone all the way to the top.