"I can’t believe I’ll end up being a monster when I hit the ceiling of the upper realm’s power," he clenched his fists, "there must be unknown pieces of information, this can’t be real!"

William tried to find another piece of the mystery, yet all he heard for long hours was the same. At some point, the Fox spirit returned with other spirits, looking like they had lost a few inside that world.

"It’s not there," the Fox spirit said, yet paused the moment he saw what William was doing. He didn’t say anything, as it was clear what was going on.

"Shall we head to the next spot?" William snapped a finger, and all the captured semi-spirits were killed.

"Lead the way," the Fox smiled, one that wasn’t a real smile. He wanted to ask William about what he had learned, but decided to wait for later. He moved his elliptical eyes around and could already tell what William heard from these semi-spirits.

"You know," just as they arrived at the next batch of portals, and as everyone passed inside except for the Fox spirit, the latter said, "those semi-spirits never lived inside the spirit world. They only got the side of the story from the Chaos camp."

"I know," hearing this drove an inward sigh of relief inside William, "still, it’s not a bad thing to learn more about your mysterious world, right?"

"You can ask me, the real spirit, to know what you want," the Fox spirit said, yet William only smiled and said nothing in return. He already tried, and all he got was nothing.

For the first time, William spent the waiting period while interrogating the semi-spirits. As he kept hearing the same answer over and over again, he focused on learning more about the ongoing clash in the spirit world.

He was surprised to learn that the Chaos camp was winning the war. In fact, it looked more like a one-sided fight, and it was all thanks to the damn Fox monster.

The Chaos camp was supporting the Fox from the shadows, helping him to gain more power and take control over the upper realm and humans. When William asked the most troublesome question, the source of all these spirits and semi-spirits, he got a surprising answer.

"So... There are tons more of such worlds in the universe?!!" This was the first time for him to hear about such a thing. "They are looking like the same version of the upper and lower realms. That explains it then..."

Learning there was an endless number of parallel worlds out there, ones that were the same as the one he came from, explained the mystery about how all these spirits and semi-spirits came from. And yet, it still didn’t answer a new question.

"What’s special about my world? Why the entire war between spirits revolving around it?" he tried to get an answer, but it was like how the Fox spirit warned him before, they didn’t live in the spirit world and only knew bits of information the spirits in the Chaos camp told them about.

The semi-spirits got no answer to such a question. And William knew if he simply asked the Fox spirit, the latter would evade the question and wouldn’t explain anything.

After a few hours, the spirits came out from the portal, looking more miserable than before. They lost a few of them, and William didn’t need to ask to know it was very brutal on the other side of the portal.

"Next one," William kept leading them towards one group of portals after another for days. The Fox spirit led the other spirits to one hellish battle after another. During which, it was clear how grave the situation was that no one ever tried to probe William to lure him towards their side again.

William already had a plan in his mind to solve the mysteries he had learned. If any spirit wanted him to seriously consider taking part in it into his spirit when evolving, then they needed to give him more information about the spirit world.

Yet he didn’t get a chance to give his conditions out loud. By the last portal, the spirits didn’t return as they were supposed to. Only the Fox spirit came out, and even with a deep wound on his belly, he had a victorious smile on his face.

"Did you find it?" William asked, yet he knew the answer already.

"It’s secured, at last," the Fox smiled, before turning his eyes around, "I see you stopped the foolish attitude you were doing recently. Are you tired of hearing part of the truth?"

"You can say I heard everything they know for now," William responded with a smile, yet his eyes never showed any hint of that, "you can save me the trouble and tell me everything. How about that?"

"Hahaha, keep dreaming," just as William expected, the Fox spirit wasn’t willing to share anything with him. "One day you’ll get to know everything. It’s still too soon for you to hear about reality."

"I know all spirits have human or monster origin," William paused, trying to gauge the effect of these words over the Fox spirit. Yet all he saw was a poker face, telling him nothing, "tsk! After all we went through together, you are still acting in such a mean way."

"It’s for your own good," the Fox spirit’s face changed to show absolute seriousness, "you can’t share any of what you learned here with anyone back at your realm.

If you do, the Chaos spirits will sniff about that and will target you. You are a valuable asset to me for the Order camp. And yet you aren’t ready to fight on the biggest stage. Just bid your time, lay low, and keep growing stronger."

William could tell the Fox spirit wasn’t bluffing, and yet he deeply cared about him.

"Fine," he succumbed, "anyway, I’m going to ascend to the upper realm as I told you earlier. See you when I raise my level higher."

"Keep surprising me," the Fox spirit paused, he wanted to warn him against going against the Fox monster directly. And yet, he knew no matter what he said, William would never stop targeting that fox.

He snapped his fingers, opened a portal and added, "As you are ascending, you’ll have a chance to integrate a new spirit into yours. I know many asked, and I acted coldly towards them. But out of all, that ferocious lion is a good spirit without doubt. If you want, just say his name out loud when you start adapting to the new realm’s spirit power, and I’ll let him know."

"Sure," William nodded, while walking towards the portal, "if he is willing to be generous and share bits of information about the spirit world with me."

"Again?!" The Fox spirit thought he had deterred William enough from this path, and yet it seemed he didn’t succeed.

"Just tell him what I said," William fully entered the portal, while his body got engulfed into the portal suction force, "the upper realm.. Here I come!"