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William found it unfortunate that even in a world of magic, human lifespans were about the same. He didn’t care about it for himself, since he’d already been given the privilege of a second life. Though, if he could live two or three times as long, he might survive until the next incarnation of the Demon King, which would be nice. However, the main reason William cared about these things was because of people like Phineas Pierce. Those in his generation were quite knowledgeable, and though they had shared much of it, they still had much more to tell. It would be a loss to the world, in addition to the personal loss of a friend William would feel.
Of course, William didn’t just start thinking about this out of nowhere. Lately, it had become quite obvious how old Professor Pierce was. After all, he’d been somewhat old when he and William met, but twenty-five more years was weighing down on him. William had been trying to get the most out of the time available, though. He spent time learning every subject available to him. Likewise, he also taught as much as he could. Some of the knowledge William felt was similar to various kinds of upper level mathematics. It was correct, but had little practical use… yet, anyway. William didn’t think that would always be the case, though.
The only thing that William was uncomfortable with being public knowledge was the knowledge that chants, at least the specific words, didn’t matter. According to the demoness, the Demon King didn’t know that. However, if it became public knowledge here, William had no doubt that he would certainly find out. That could affect many variables. For one, casting speed basically had a specific minimum limit based on the chant. No matter how fast one could actually gather mana, there was a limit to how fast someone could speak. If they believed that they actually had to speak specific words clearly, then their spell could fail if they were too hasty. If someone like the Demon King, who William presumed would be very good at controlling mana, didn’t have to spend the time to complete a whole chant, they could react to situations much more quickly. Although the power wouldn’t be as much as could be gathered in a longer period of time, versatility was dangerous. Plus, if the Demon King stuck to specific chants, it would be easier to counter him.
It was always possible that the Demon King or someone around him would come up with the method, but considering that they hadn’t yet done so meant it wasn’t likely. Unless, of course, the demoness had been lying to William. He didn’t think that was true, but he wasn’t so confident in his ability to read people that he could say she definitely wasn’t lying. However, he was sure she was against the Demon King, and so providing information that was false, at least if it would hinder defeating the Demon King, wouldn’t be in her interests. That was what William decided, so she had probably told the truth, and almost definitely told things that would be most beneficial to defeating the Demon King. That said, it wasn’t like there had been a lengthy discussion. Hopefully, William could meet with her again to discuss the Demon King’s weaknesses. Though, that might as well be left to someone in a later generation.
Pretty much everything William was doing had some relation to the Demon King, because since he knew about the future issues, such as the declining percentage of wizards born, William felt responsible. Thus, he had been working on his contacts, including those in Liaoyang and other countries, working to find those who felt the same way as him. Those who would work toward the future, even though the absolute earliest anything would happen was a hundred years away. Of course, there were a few in Ostana as well, such as Lila, Gerald, and Marius. William couldn’t say he had managed to get those connections on his own, of course. Various people had helped him. Many of those he was in contact with, William had never met. Instead, his parents Marius, Zhan Shengrui, and a few others were very instrumental in the process. Some of those others were also reincarnated individuals.
The search for reincarnated individuals had brought in many more people than William had expected, though it still wasn’t a large amount. However, they kept showing up, maybe one or two a year. This was just people who spoke English. Theoretically, there were many more. However, they were all in a certain age range. Specifically, all had been born after the last Demon King War. This somewhat helped a theory William had. Obviously, reincarnation was real, having personally experienced it, so he could hypothesize some things, and make some observations.
The first observation was that, among reincarnated individuals he’d, William seemed to have retained the most of his memories. Many of them were a little or a lot fuzzy, but still capable of recognizing and somewhat speaking English, at the very least.
Since they had all been born after the Demon King war, it would be strange to believe it was unrelated. Thus, William came up with his theory, although it was basically completely untestable. Since the Demon King had destroyed many souls, some had needed to come from another world (or worlds) instead of being naturally born in this world. This could be because there were a fixed number of souls, but William thought it was more likely something else. After all, if there were a fixed number of souls, no populations anywhere could increase. Though, certainly, it was possible that it might be fixed over a large scale, with a certain number having always existed, William thought another explanation was more likely. At least, it was an explanation he preferred.
Worlds probably had a certain amount of souls they could produce over time. This was enough to keep up with any kind of population growth, since deaths would also occur allowing souls to be reincarnated. Normally, they would likely stay within the same world, and their memories would also be lost. Even if they swapped between worlds, the lost memories would be the standard. However, in a case of emergency, such as the Demon King destroying a few million souls, it was likely that souls had to be transferred more forcefully, thus not forgetting all of their memories. That was the explanation William had come up with, though he had no way to verify this. Certainly, nothing he was willing or capable of doing, anyway.