Fifty minutes. I've almost managed to last the entire hour.

Ten minutes left. Ten minutes before I have enough power to activate the formation, and the only thing that's changed is that the once dimly lit SOS signal has now started to grow brighter. Whatever it is it's getting too close for comfort.

And what of the sender? Still doing the same thing as before it seems, staring unemotionally into the night sky. Crack a smile why don't you, or at least display some sort of emotion you look way too foreboding with that stare.

Then again, her pale white skin is creepy enough as it is, giving her some emotions may just make the whole situation even more disturbing, especially since she's already giving me the feeling of a vampire or demonic entity which is going to turn around any second now spouting some mumbo jumbo.

Other than that, she seems beautiful enough. I'm guessing a horde of adolescence teens and grown adults have already fallen to her beauty, due to that striking figure and; thought emotionless, beautiful face with strangely enough purple eyes, very exotic.

Well enough worrying about the potential vampire, or would it be Jiangshi with the whole Oriental feel coming off of her. Anyway, let's ignore her for now and instead worry about the boy who's life I've been attempting to save for the past hour instead. Why oh why did his soul become damaged, normal people tend only to get one of those.

However, other than continuously checking up on his soul there's nothing I can do at the moment, other than to wait for the soul to heal naturally. Well, once I get around to removing the wild mana currently inside of him and then sealing the cracks properly by forcing his own mana to seal the cracks, instead of me just plastering it up with my own mana.

Now then, all I need to do is wait some more and then I'll be...

...Why does it feel like I'm sweating? Can spectral apparitions even sweat? Why is my luck so shit today? Calm down William, and be at peace. All you've got to do is stay inside and pretend you're not home, that way whatever coming to us will only see a man who looks like he's dead.

So there's no need to go outside and investigate.

None at all.

...Sol be damned, I need to know what's happening outside, I can't just cower inside this guy and wait until whatever is coming either kills us, capture's us or does both.

Projecting my conscious outside, I'm meet with the domineering sound of drums, lot's of drums in fact, and that noise is drawing closer and closer towards us.

Equally terrifying for me, is the fact that the once slightly increasing glow on the horizon has gotten much brighter while I was momentarily inspecting this man, and along with the sound of drums it's closing in fast. How the hell is it so fast? Who knows, who cares. Not me right now. Instead, I think it's time to escape.

Even if the long range teleportation formation isn't ready to be used yet, all that truly means is that I'm going to have to use a much shorter teleportation formation and then cloak us. I might not get the miles away as I wanted but a couple of hundred meters is good enough for the current situation.

Unfortunately, while setting up the formation, I quickly discover that I have yet more issues to deal with. Because either due to the fatigue of having my mana forcibly sucked out or since my soul was slightly damaged during the tethering process, the speed at which I construct my more advanced formation had been servile lengthened.

But I can still do this. So what if I'm temporarily slower, I'll escape this place and get my vengeance on that slime for the predicament it's put me in. Or my name isn't William Nixon.

Though once an annoying slime always an annoying slime. Since due to some unknown goal it had, or it just simply wanted to piss me off, instead of allowing all three of us to escape whatever was coming towards us it instead destroyed the formation before I could start charging it up with mana.

Our situation was dire.

Moving my gaze from the man back to the girl, the gaze that she was giving us seemed to indicate that she might of finally figure out that there was something suspicious going on back here. Though rather than be cautious towards this potentially unknown threat, instead she merely grins.

Now me a few minutes ago would be happy that this unemotional girl was displaying some other emotion than perpetually neutral. But the me of now can't help but feel that this grin is perhaps even scarier than the otherwise downright creepy indifferent vampiric impersonation.

It might also be due to the fact that the slight smile she's carrying now is making me feel angry, since she's blatantly taunting me right now as if to say 'See I was the one who won'.

Well, we'll see about that little miss.

Though my thoughts were mainly bravado, since I still have the desire to be somehow else at this moment in time and preferably unhassled and uncaptured by whatever is arriving.

Speaking of which, 3,2,1...

'BOOM' With an ear deafening explosion the golden glow and its army of drummers finally arrived in an explosive fashion right between the girl and us.

And boy is the new golden glow guy scary, unlike his mob of undistinguishable retainers that were circling the young lady. I would care more about them, but other than being dressed up in the same armour I had found earlier the only notable thing about them seemed to be the fierce aura that was leaking out from them.

Nevertheless, what did catch my full attention was the one-man army standing in the front, silhouetted by the dust created from the crater he made.

Peering through the quickly dissipating dust cloud, I could see the man had begun to climb out of his self-made crater, and seeing his rising figure I can only fathom to be a good eight to nine feet high, this colossus of a man had all the imposing presence from one as well.

Emerging from the dust, that giant of a man's Crimson armour glinted in the night's sky; which appeared to be a crossed between Oriental ceremonial armours style and the thickness associated with heavy plate armour.

Farther up, his face was mostly cover up by his fully enclosed steel helmet which had a Crimson dragon curling around the head until it rested on top. The eyeholes contained piercing red eyes which were gazing at us, giving off the feeling of hostility and blood-lust.

Now this is the look of a warrior who was extremely versed in battle, what a nice way to die. Once again lamenting my doom, I almost fail to notice how easily the Crimson man covered the few meters between us in a few seconds, a more pessimistic person would feel that his time was at an end, and, well, I was also under that assumption.

However, contrary to my expectation instead of either capturing us or killing us the Crimson man instead stares at the unconscious guy I'm inhabiting, and after a tense couple of seconds under his gaze, he begins conversing with the girl behind him in a clear and dignified voice that effortlessly travels throughout the air.

Though speculating who the mysterious guy was; and how we were still alive, I finally realise something from the conversation the two people were having with each other...

…and that was that I didn't understand a single word they were saying. Who'd of though landing on an alien world I wouldn't be able to comprehend this world's words? Preposterous.

Nevertheless, I must obtain the language from somewhere in the vain hope that negotiations are possible with these people, and wouldn't you know it there's a buffet of knowledge right near me?

Sorry kiddo, but be warned that with my damaged self right now I might accidentally peer into something I shouldn't look at, but it should be okay since you'll never find out.

Now then its time to dive in.

[Ten minutes of 'searching' later.]

God's above, I'm going to have to shower after that experience. Never again am I stepping inside that boy's mind. I'll have to purge most of my memories later, but for now, I just need to communicate and hopefully get away.

Thankfully my little reading spree wasn't noticed by anyone since those two are still talking. Well, mainly it's the girl talking to the Crimsoned armoured man while he mostly either grunts or glares at us.

Either way, I still can't understand what there saying but hopefully at least one of them knows this kid's language. Plus, the fact that the Crimsoned man isn't glaring as much seems to indicate that he isn't suspicious of the unconscious guy anymore. Marvelous.

Amplifying my voice with my limited mana. I give the speech that I used while dealing with the unknown. "Be awed mortals for I am the Great Mage William Nixon. For generations, I have lain dormant..."

But, before I could even get halfway through my speech, that dignified and composed Crimsoned man interrupted me. "Never heard of a mage before, what does it mean?"

Is he serious? Gathering my thoughts, I reply back to him in the same voice. "It was my title when..."

"How long ago?" He interrupts almost immediately as I finished.

"At least thousands of years ago, probably more. I haven't been keeping count." The hell am I saying, where'd the script go. I'm finally losing control, aren't I.

Seemingly satisfied with my answer he turned around and ignored me again as he talked to the girl. "So you called me out here to deal with an ancient spirit that's awoken and appears to be mentally insane. Where's the dangerous situation you were talking about."

To this, the girl rolled her eyes as she answered her questioner. "I never said it was a dangerous situation Uncle, all I said was that I needed someone to be the middle man during the first contact. Now let me handle the actual negotiations before you cause another diplomatic incident."

With that statement, the once grinning girl who was now beaming quite happily, she took a run, hop and a skip and easily cleared the distance between us, while her uncle took a few steps back as she landed a few feet near us.

Stopping still, she arched her back, put on a dignified pose and in gentle yet authoritative voice spoke to me. “Greetings Senior, my name is Bai Lihua, and from what my Uncle told me was that you are an ancient spirit from an even more ancient era, so exciting.” I'm not that old. Though I don't have the heart to tell that to the starry-eyed girl. "Now then, as you may have heard, I was having a passionate debate with my dear Uncle over there, and we finally came to an agreement that if you wish, then you can join our Rising Lotus Sect as a guest Elder." To this, her Uncle shakes his head as she mentions the passionate debate I mostly missed.

“If Senior accepts my request then not only can you rest and recuperate from your deep slumber, but you'll also be able to obtain benefits if you earnestly prove your yourself.” Prove myself? What is this girl up to? “Some of these benefits you can receive can be of great use to you and your 'host' down there since they can help to increase your potential, or...” Pausing to stare at the space above the boy. “...You can get material to re-build a body for yourself. Since many martial artists who train their souls can still live on after losing their bodies and need to re-build a new home to live in. Though I doubt I need to remind Senior about such minor details.”

…Hook, line and sinker.

Buuuuuuut, I don't trust these people a single bit, who knows what nefarious plans they have in mind for me. "'Ahem' Your offer is greatly appreciated to this person. However..."

"Great!"

"Erm, wait a second."

"Oh, Senior doesn't need to worry about being given a bad deal. I'm one of the best diplomats in the known world at my young age." ... "Plus, I've dealt with many spirits like you before, and they were all content with me swearing and oath to the heavens."

"Miss Bai, you really need to let me..."

Unfortunately, she seemed to of been carried off into her own world as I begun to speak again. Not losing her dignified pose she begins speaking some unknown language that lights up the area around her as a ray of celestial light descends upon her.

While the light show was short but I could sense a considerable disturbance in the surrounding mana. I would care more about this new thing, but I can't help but wonder what the hell I had gotten myself into.

As the various minions at the clearings back begin moving, I can't help but think over and over again that I've finally lost control of the situation.

[Meanwhile back at the original landing.]

"Oh William, Oh William. You really should have read the exact wording of the spell I gave you. Since now we've got to compete and decide which of us is the better half."