The Crux Of The Problem
Berry felt a strange link with the lights dancing inside the crystal, so strong and intimate that handing it over to William felt like severing part of her soul away.
Yet unlike what she expected, when William reflexively took the crystal from her, the lights never vanished or even faded.
"Look," William pointed at the crystal while motioning for her to come closer. And without knowing why, she listened to him. "Look carefully past the white dots filling the crystal. Can you see these red and golden specks of lights?"
She already noticed them. So, she nodded. "What's special about them?" she asked with little expectations to hear something new.
Yet what William was going to say was something that would flip her life upside down!
"You have twin spirit," William released the shocking news he just realized from seeing the result of her test.
"Twin spirit?" she gasped in surprise, paused with a gaped open mouth for a few seconds before adding in doubt, "I never heard about something like that."
"That's expected. After all, anyone with a twin spirit would face a deadly encounter when reaching the ninety-nine bottleneck, just like you."
"D… Deadly… Did you say deadly?!" her face turned ashen white at this moment. She didn't know why but she started to lose all the doubt towards what William was saying, as if she was listening to a grand master's wise words.
"It's not that deadly for now, at least if you didn't force a breakthrough," he said while in his mind, the old incident became fishier.
A spirit master coming from such a grand clan with a twin spirit… How come her death from his past life be this simple?
'I'll save you,' he decided in determination. According to his master's instructions from before, he had to repay kindness with generosity.
Plus, he hated to owe anyone favours, not in his past life and for sure not in this life. She helped him, not just today but many times before. He considered his help now as a way to repay all his debts towards her.
"Then… What shall I do now?" she asked while feeling relieved that she wasn't in any danger, not anytime soon at least. "And what does this twin spirit even mean?"
"You know we are born with a spirit that we can train. In your case, you have two different spirits inside you."
"They are these red and golden dots?" she pointed at the crystal in his hand before leaning over like any kid would do and gazed closer at its content, "the red might be related to my fire dragon spirit, right? Then what's about this golden light? What spirit is it?"
William slowly nodded before saying, "the red one is related to your clan's spirit. But the golden lights are related to another spirit, one that's considered a nemesis of any dragon… Phoenix spirit!"
"What?!!" She was a smart kid, a genius if one had to describe her. So, it was simply easy for her to understand what William said. "How come I have such a hostile spirit to my dragon spirit inside me?"
She looked at her body as if she was exploring it for the first time. William could only sigh. As his master used to say, any disaster was actually a blessing in disguise.
"What's important now is the state of your spirits and their relationship with your stagnation," he said before waiting for her to be more focused with him, "The two spirits inside you are fighting over the dominance of your body. If you keep going in this path, letting them get entangled like this and fight with each other, then no matter what you do, your spirit power won't budge an inch!"
"That makes sense when you put it this way…" she paused for a long minute thinking about what he said.
She lacked all the knowledge and experience William had, but she was a smart kid after all. With the simple explanation of William, she realised the issue she had, and knew the reason behind her own problem.
"What shall I do then?" her eyes suddenly sparkled as she recalled something William said, "You said you can fix it, right?"
Her voice carried immense expectation. She might act tough, uncaring for her current situation. She even joked about it, treating this disaster lightly as if she wasn't bothered by it.
Even when she saw her father panicking over her condition, she treated it as a funny situation.
But deep down her heart she knew she wasn't feeling this way. She never felt cool towards such stagnation, no one would be cool in such a position.
She resorted to jokes when she failed to deal with the real problem. Deep inside her heart, she craved to get over this predicament. She wanted a way out, but everything around told her there was none.
Instead of crying bitterly over her disaster or blaming the world for such a curse, she decided to act as if she didn't care about anything.
But right now, at this late hour of the night, and inside the outskirts of the Blessing Forest, she finally found a light at the end of her dark tunnel.
It came from someone she would never consider a saviour, not be considered at all as a person capable of saving her! She didn't know if William could really treat her, but she chose to believe so.
She decided to believe in him. And her feelings were conveyed through her wide opened eyes and sincere tone to William.
So how could he stop now?
"There is a solution," he slowly said, "but this one requires a lot of time, many resources, and a great deal of effort from you."
"I'll do anything," she said in a totally different demeanour than before, "I'm willing to do anything to solve it! As for your reward…"
She paused. She didn't pause out of being stingy, but because at this moment, her emotions overwhelmed her. She resisted the urge to let her tears pour out through her eyes.
If someone ever managed to treat her condition, then she was willing to be by his side forever. That was a secret pledge she made a long time ago.
Wealth? Resources? Power? No matter what William wanted, she would give it to him. Even if he asked for her body, soul, and heart, she would also agree.
"Don't talk about rewards for now," but William wasn't such an opportunistic person, not the kind of person she thought her saviour would be. "I'm doing this to help you as my friend."