William found it surprising how quickly a year passed. Was it being around people who didn’t consider that a long time, or was it just his own self adjusting to having lived many years? As with many things, it was probably a bit of both, but he still felt that years had seemed longer in his previous life, not too long ago. On the other hand, he would soon be older than when he was Yu Hui’Lam- less than a dozen years. He hadn’t lived a particularly long life his third time.

Regardless, time passed quickly. He always had things to do. When one was trying to learn all about magic, it led to wanting and needing to learn about… everything. Needless to say, everything was quite extensive. It encompassed physics, chemistry, biology… depending on what one needed to do with magic, looking at the world from these different perspectives provided different results. Though William had something approaching a doctorate level of understanding of these subjects, he knew there was always more to learn. Leaving out there were some things he had ideas about from his time on Earth that were basically unknown in this world, Earth wasn’t at the pinnacle of knowledge either. William knew he was lacking some understandings that would have been expected from someone with a doctorate on Earth, but he had a broad understanding of many things… and having actually manipulated some of the forces involved with magic was in a category of its own.

William would have been content to stay at the academy studying- or even going out to study in new places- but with the possibility of the Demon King returning and gaining power, he couldn’t. After all, the Demon King was responsible for the destruction of much knowledge and understanding, even when that wasn’t his goal. In addition, while William wouldn’t consider himself a saint, he was not content to just let wrongs continue, and there wasn’t much he could think of more wrong than trying to wipe out an entire species- or several of them. Except perhaps destroying the souls of most or all of those same species- though it appeared that souls weren’t restricted to just one of them. Plus, the Demon King might have a personal vendetta against William now, if he knew he was alive and had been the one to destroy him. He might not know or understand that, but William was his enemy regardless. William couldn’t just count on the possibility that the Demon King’s fragments would fail at all of their endeavors and die, then lose their memories in the normal process of reincarnation.

-----

William sat in front of Lila. “So, today I brought you here to-”

“Bwaaah!” Lila fell over backwards, her chair clattering to the floor. “What was that for?” She glared at William.

“As I was saying, I brought you here to test your ki training. I’d say it’s acceptable.”

“You could have warned me.”

William raised an eyebrow, “If I warned you, you’d raise all your defenses. That wasn’t the point. At least now you stayed conscious, which shows you’ve been training diligently.”

“That’s right! My soul defenses are pretty strong now!” Lila grinned.

“So, now that we’ve done that, it’s time for you to raise all of your defenses, and I can get a bit serious.”

“Huh?” Lila’s eyes widened, “That wasn’t serious?”

“Of course not. Do you think you can passively defend against my dozens of years of training with just a few years of effort? Now, get ready.” William watched while Lila prepared herself. It wasn’t the fastest process- she would need to work on that. Still, at least it was smooth, and her defenses seemed decent. William visualized them as a castle. When he felt that she was finished, he started sending attacks to batter against her. Though they were attacks, he would stop before actually causing any damage to her soul. At first, she withstood all of his attacks without issue. After a few tests to actually feel her strength, however, he grew a bit more serious. After every subsequent strike he saw her defenses tremble, but they still held up. If he gathered even more power, he knew he could shatter them, but that would be rather dangerous. He could cause damage just by breaking the defenses, and he might not be able to withdraw his attack afterwards. If he was wrong in the amount of strength required, it could be disastrous. He nodded. “Not bad. Your defenses are quite improved.”

Lila grinned, “I told you!”

“Still, they can be stronger. Also… though they are strong, they lack a certain finesse. There are small gaps in your defenses, and that means the right people can just…”

“Just what?” Lila tilted her head inquisitively.

“Do this.” William grinned, and Lila fell over unconscious. Then he shook his head. “She’s going to be so mad when she wakes up. Still, that will guarantee she works on fixing that issue.”

-----

In his personal cultivation, William was still somewhat concerned about the soul necrosis. He was continuing to remove it, but if it became dangerous near the beginning of the window that Marek had estimated, it could be a problem. William wasn’t sure if the estimate at all included the time it had already been around either which had been… at least a couple dozen years, but probably much longer. Still, he was removing it at a steady pace, and coming close to returning his cultivation to full power, minus the space still taken up by the necrosis.

Still, William had already started considering how he would continue after it was removed. Rotational Soul Pressure had hit a limit in his previous life, and though it may slightly continue afterwards, he would need another method to truly continue growing in power after that. He had magic now, but it never hurt to have more personal power, especially when mana could be controlled by someone else or removed from the situation. Though his soul was basically recovered, Marek told him it was best not to cultivate to increase his strength until he had removed all of the soul necrosis. Otherwise, it could mix into his soul permanently, and cause irrecoverable wounds or death. Even the soul necrosis was already considered almost irrecoverable- most people would not be able to do anything about it. However, since William’s cultivation was based around the soul, he was more capable of dealing with problems therein. William was glad for that, because he really liked being alive. It was hard to appreciate that unless you had experienced near death- or actual death. Or, in William’s case, the near destruction of his soul. Though that wasn’t exactly the Demon King’s fault, he did try to destroy William’s soul just before William destroyed his. William supposed it didn’t matter much in the end- he was going to destroy the fragments of the Demon King regardless of any personal grudge. In fact, he was just about to set off on a journey with that very purpose- though there weren’t any guaranteed results.