Infinite Potential System

The thieves watched in horror as their fallen comrades stood up once again, but the look in their eyes wasn't the same. The decapitated skulls reattached to their bodies, a thin line forming on their necks where they were once cut.

"Roar!" the reanimated thieves ran towards their former friends with their knives and daggers held forward.

Those without weapons directly entered melee range, while the remainder stood back and casted the respective Magic they had awakened during their life. Since he didn't have to worry much about hurting himself or others, William ordered them to cast their largest-scale area of effect Spells.

The reanimated thieves didn't recover any Mana from the moment they died, but thankfully William had killed them fast enough, so their Reserves were still mostly full.

Blizzards and sandstorms formed, mixing together into an abominable tornado of tan and blue. Directly following the tornado were blasts of fire that obliterated anything else that dared to remain in the area.

The cave shook, fragments of rock and Fire Shards raining down as William retreated to a safe distance. He controlled the thieves from afar with his Necromancy Magic, ordering them to return to his side after their Mana was spent.

When the Magic Spells ended and the scene cleared up, what remained shocked both William and the thieves that survived.

On the other end of the cave from William, a single group of four Nascent Soul thieves were maintaining a series of Intermediate Barrier Arrays, while the remaining three hundred or so were nowhere to be seen.

That's because they were all...dead!

Buried beneath piles of rock and Fire Shards, every thief that was in the Golden Core Realm or below could not possibly survive such an onslaught of attacks when they had nowhere to go.

Waves of Potential Points entered William's balance as the dust cleared up, hinting at no enemy survivors.

This included the reanimated thieves, none of which able to come to William's side despite his order. Some of which were thoroughly destroyed, beyond recognition and definitely not suitable to be turned in for the bounty.

It didn't really matter though, considering the sheer number of bodies that were still suitable for storage. William didn't care that much about losing a few bodies, as long as the Space Rings survived.

If they were outside, the Necromancy Magic wouldn't have had such a tide-turning effect, but the caves were a perfect place to use sacrificial pawns. William nodded in satisfaction at the results of his first time using Necromancy in a battle against humans.

He looked at the remaining four Nascent Soul Cultivators with a sparkle in his eye, his Vision Talent focused on their sparkly Space Rings. The group shuddered, feeling that William didn't consider them living beings anymore.

One of the thieves tried to run deeper into the cave, but his movements were stopped when a wave of ice grabbed hold of his foot. William walked up to the group slowly, who casted their strongest Spells in response.

"It's useless." William said as his figure flashed to the side, a bolt of Lightning piercing through the rock at his previous location. With the Reflexes Talent and his insane speed, even the Soul Formation Cultivator could barely injure him.

How could a mere Nascent Soul do the same?

"Did you think you had a chance because a Golden Core assassin managed to sneak up on me? Ha!" William said as he simultaneously sliced off the heads of two Nascent Soul Cultivators.

The remaining two were terrified. It was obvious that William had been hiding his Cultivation the entire time, since a Golden Core Cultivator couldn't possibly insta-kill someone in the Nascent Soul, much less two.

They tried to read his movements before he reached them, backing away while stacking up Intermediate Barriers, but it was useless. They knew as much as he did that Intermediate Arrays meant nothing when dealing with overwhelming power. It was a futile attempt.

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With two clean flicks of his wrist, the heads of the last two Nascent Soul Cultivators rolled across the ground. William separated the Space Rings from their bodies, then stored everything in his Space Rings.

Carl was still hiding inside of the tunnel and hadn't seen the battle clearly. He was worried that something would happen to William if he got himself caught, so Carl made sure to conceal himself as best as possible.

Only when William called out to him did he move from his spot, pushing away a small boulder to reveal the apocalyptic scene inside the cave.

"Did you...do all of this?" he asked carefully.

"They ran away." William said with a smirk.

Carl nodded, but he didn't believe William. He didn't see any bodies, but there were bloodstains everywhere he looked, and debris littered the floor. It was obvious the thieves hadn't simply "run away", but he knew what his friend was getting at.

There's no need for people to know what he can do. It's better to feign weakness.

With the largest group out of the way, hopefully, William and Carl were able to proceed forward with little hindrance. Their descent was much bolder than before, no longer hiding in the shadows as they traveled with increased confidence.

By the 120-kilometer mark, the partially collapsed cave had returned to normal, and there were no longer any piles of rubble blocking their path. Additionally, the Greater Fire Shards transitioned into a rarer- and much more durable- material.

Sparsely dotting the walls and ceiling of the cave was something that the Forging Talent labeled as "Flamerium". While still considered an ore, its properties appeared more like an incredibly tough stone, almost impossible to break through with normal tools.

Even the System said that the process to extract Flamerium was very arduous and required a lot of time, since the real ore was actually located within the tough stone. The stone itself was imbued with Fire Mana and no longer had the properties of Earth Mana, but the real treasure was located deeper within.

Not only was it hard to break through, but the ore itself was very sensitive to Mana other than Fire, so one had to use either brute strength or slowly melt away the rock with Fire Magic. If they chose to use a different Element, the ore would react with the Mana and lose value.

William wouldn't be able to break through and extract a piece for at least a few hours, which explained why the Thieves' Guild hadn't managed to extract these earlier. The entire cave was filled with rare and delicate resources, which had to be handled with extreme care.

It explained why the cave was so reinforced, and why there was so much commotion after it collapsed. Just the self-detonation alone was probably enough for the Thieves' Guild to lose millions or even billions of Gold Coins, but those responsible would probably be punished severely.

If William knew the thieves had been drawing him deeper into the cave for his capture, he probably would have asked which idiot came up with the idea. If they had just ran away at the first sign of trouble, perhaps they would still be alive, and their cave would still be in perfect condition.