"What about the newly joined ones?" the leader moved his eyes among the elders to silence them, "the ones you sent from different worlds? They didn’t live to see you in action, didn’t experience what others did."

"And yet they lived through the end of their worlds and survived," William casually said, "if that experience didn’t crucify their spirits, I can’t think of anything else that can. Anyway, prepare all these materials for me, it’ll take a long time to prepare the well."

William knew the moment he laid out that well, the tainted spirit power with the well fire wouldn’t be normal again. It was like adding poison to water. It was either to discard the water entirely or drink it and hope you would survive the hit.

That was why he decided to do something else first. He planned on dividing the entire grand space here into three major sections. One would be formed of the normal spirit power he created using the bombs.

Another would be formed of spirit power concentrating arrays and formations, to be used to brute force the missing little gap to hit the bottleneck for any master.

Then the third one would be formed from the fiery well. Like this, he would turn this place into a holy ground for all his guild’s affiliated masters. And even with his absence after ascension, the future generations of masters would find a proper way to keep raising their power over the world’s threshold and eventually ascend.

"It’s ready," William said, spending almost one whole week making the well and other zones. He used a separation formation to line up the three zones. It was the sort of formation that would separate any adjacent natural existences from each other. It wasn’t a common formation, yet it was easily done and didn’t require too many materials.

"Get everyone who hit the bottleneck here," William said, before stepping into the well zone, "I’ll start myself. Let others come inside and simply cultivate. Once someone breaks through, let them wait for my return."

"Return? From where?" The leader was puzzled, yet William said nothing. If any, he showed a faint smile on his face.

William knew that when he started breaking through the bottleneck, he would be teleported to where the Fox spirit was. He was so eager to see what that old friend of his was doing, what happened against the offensive and hostile spirits that attacked its home before, and where was that dude all this time.

William didn’t know what type of challenge the Fox spirit would give him this time, yet he was so eager to see it. He had the feeling this time wouldn’t be as simple as past ones; he wouldn’t end up fighting fog shadows. So he expected to take longer than normal to make the breakthrough.

The moment he stepped into the fiery well zone, William discarded all these useless thoughts. "I need to first cross that bottleneck," he picked a spot at the centre of the area, sat cross-legged, adjusted his breathing, then started to cultivate as usual.

William knew by logic that he shouldn’t face any obstacle in the breakthrough. He already met lots of challenges recently, fought hard from one war to another, slain lots of powerhouses, even from the upper realm. So he knew his spirit was baptised properly by everything he lived through. And that would set him on a smooth sailing towards breaking through.

Just as he was training inside the fiery well, lots of masters started to be led towards the same zone. The number was staggering; tens of thousands had already hit the bottleneck and were ready to take the final leap.

Seeing this made the leader get lost in deep thoughts. He started to see why William was so focused on taking control of the Medium World. Taking control over such a huge pool of masters would give any force the needed boost to their ranks.

He knew once they ascended, they would start from base zero. Yet seeing their staggering numbers, a thing that was destined to keep growing steadily with more masters hitting the bottleneck from different lower realms, the leader could see the future potential in such a strategic move.

"He is planning things so far ahead, interesting," the leader knew this was simply a glimpse of William’s mind, how he spotted the world, and how he planned for his big moves.

Realising this made the leader quite curious and excited, wanting to see what William would be like after five years promised period.

As the masters who hit the bottleneck flooded the zone, William was already on the verge of the breakthrough. It was just like he expected; his spirit was ready, and only lacked a slight push that he gained from the fiery well.

The Fiery Spiritual Well was, as the leader feared, quite berserk and violent. If a normal master tried to train inside, he would go insane, lose control over his spirit power, ending up dying from a spirit power explosion.

Yet William wasn’t worried over his masters. He wasn’t saying the early words to the leader out of his defence to his masters. He was speaking the truth, his core belief, and he knew they would sustain this pressure and volatile spirit power easily.

"It’s time," just as he got lost inside for over two weeks, William suddenly felt like some sort of a dam had broken in his spirit. It was like a closed door was broken open by force. And he felt an amazing and familiar feeling; the feeling of his spirit power taking the leap and evolving into the upper realm spirit power.

Just before he would enjoy the moment, he felt a strong tug of power tapping on his back. The power didn’t just stop there; in a few breaths, it surrounded his body and dragged him by irresistible force towards somewhere else.

William wasn’t startled, didn’t even break his training stance. He knew this was the calling he had waited for. The Fox spirit finally resurfaced, appeared after a long time of silence, and it was time for him to undergo the last step before getting ready to ascend; his spirit evolution step.