Chapter 67 A Countermeasure

"No, that's all…" she paused for a moment before adding, "by the way, back then that young spirit master didn't have that ring on his fingers, the one you took after killing him."

"This ring?" William raised his hand but kept his fingers raised in full and didn't lower any.

"Yes, that's the one," Lina nodded, "he didn't wear it back then."

"Are you sure?" William paused and Lina nodded again, "how many days passed between crashing into that meeting and the start of everything?"

"Three days," Lina gave a firm answer, and William was lost in thoughts after that.

"If what she said is true, then there is a big possibility that this ring came from the dark spirit masters," William thought to himself after returning back to his room.

There was lots of mystery surrounding that ring. And the more he thought about it, the more he became sure of his earlier doubts.

This ring hid a very important secret, and he was determined to find out what it was.

He spoke a little more with Lina but failed to learn anything new. She was quite scared back then and hurriedly left without waiting any longer.

He understood what she went through. After all she got terrified from seeing all these spirit masters and realised the mistake she accidentally made.

So, he dropped the things she said and started to focus more on his ring. Even if Lina knew something vital about the dark spirit masters' plans, these were all invaluable to him.

He didn't plan to go to the Golden Sky academy anytime soon anyway. Instead of worrying about such useless stuff, he held his ring in his hand and kept staring at it for a long time.

He checked its content when he returned to his room. Aside from the normal things he found before, he couldn't find anything out of norm.

"A ring with a mysterious origin, one that was enough to stir up the dark spirit master rats here to try and get it from my hands… I can understand why they targeted the two girls… But this ring…"

He kept looking at the ring without knowing what was wrong with it. The ring looked quite normal, and it didn't contain anything that could attract anyone's attention.

The more normal it was, the more suspicious he became. In his eyes, this ring didn't have anything to link that young master to the dark spirit masters, nor had any secrets that would endanger the dark spirit masters at all.

He was sure that something was fishy about this ring. Storage devices were considered one of the safest places for any spirit master.

It was normal for spirit masters to hide anything in them. They were quite small in size, could be carried anywhere, and weren't that easily taken from any spirit master without killing him.

William thought he'd find something to link that young spirit master or his clan with the dark spirit master world, or find more plans of dark spirit masters that might target his academy… And yet he found nothing at all.

"It's a normal ring, one that can be found with any spirit master…" William tossed the ring in the air thrice before finally wearing it again, "I'll keep it close until I'll unravel its secrets one day."

"Tsk… All I got is useless intel about a faraway disaster that has nothing to do with me… Did they get scared by the spread of news about their relationship with the dark spirit masters or what?"

William thought there was nothing that connected him right now with the Golden Sky academy. Least to his knowledge that his path was going to intersect with that clan in the following months. And such trivial knowledge he thought useless would one day save his life, and even turn him into some sort of a hero to many.

He decided to drop these issues for now. Unless he got lucky enough to entrap one of those related to dark spirit masters in the academy and interrogate him, he'd never know the truth behind this illogical situation.

"We need to change our plans…" away from his place, the two old spirit masters were having a totally different type of discussion.

The knowledge they accidently eavesdropped upon changed everything in their eyes.

"It's better for one of us to be there," Kong slowly said, while feeling more anger towards the daring actions of the dark spirit masters.

Things weren't that clear to their eyes yet, but their reaction was totally different from William.

The big contest that was held each few years wasn't something they couldn't retreat from. This competition was responsible for putting academies at their rightful ranks in the entire continent.

Based on such ranking, the academy would get resources from the kingdom, and even get a few applications from wandering strong spirit masters or disciples from far away locations.

If they didn't send anyone, that meant their rank would end up at the rock bottom. That would be quite severe for their prestige and future in the next few years.

On one side, they knew danger lurked and awaited their potentially strong offsprings. And on another side, they knew they couldn't get away from such danger or else the consequences would be quite severe.

"That's a good solution… I will also accompany you," the headmaster refused to believe that with the presence of the two of them together, they would fail to protect their kids.

"Who said I'm going?"

"Don't try to trick me, I know you already made up your mind the moment you spoke up," the headmaster bitterly smiled, "do your preparations, and do them quite well and quite discreetly, ok?"

"I won't risk anything to happen to my people," and in his heart, Kong added another line, "I won't let anything happen to Berry."

The headmaster had the same type of thoughts. As the two decided on such a response, they started to speak further about other things related to this decision.