Three hours had passed in wat time, professor Crumb explained a myriad of things. In front of each of the four students was a stack of papers explaining the background and importance of everyone who was supposed to be at the party.

In total around a hundred guests would be expected. Fifty runemasters, thirty dates, and twenty promising youths.

Other than these, there were a few other officials of high importance, this included the heads of the red tower, the green tower, and the black tower.

Professor Crumb had no idea what the towers stood but they always sent one of their heads to join this event. A member of the high-council would also be there.

But in total there were records of three-hundred people in front of each of the students. This was because the people that would come were different each year, about half of the one-hundred known runemasters would always come but their dates were often different.

Once more Hawk was the odd one out. The other three realized how important it was to know the names and general backgrounds of the guests. After all, if they made friends with the right people, their situation could change overnight. But as for Hawk, there were too many damn papers to remember. And who cared if he knew these people already, he could just ask their names couldn’t he?

Nonetheless, he didn’t disrupt the others who were studying. Ruby and Villin had no problem remembering everything. Villin didn’t need to properly integrate what he read into his head so his photographic memory took care of most of the information. Of course, there were some guests he read up on properly, mostly the truly powerful and influential runemasters as well as each of the high-councilmembers.

Kayley had a bit more trouble than the two of them but diligently studied each of the papers. She didn’t have a photographic memory but was still pretty smart, she would probably get through it all in another three hours.

“You two come with me for a second, let the two of them study for a bit longer.” professor Crumb said as he took Villin and Ruby with him out of the room.

Once they were standing in the hallway, the professor took two bundled up robes out of his own robe, it seemed to have an interspacial pocket as well.

He then gave it to both of them. The robes looked identical to the regular school-uniforms they were currently wearing, but both of them grabbed it carefully.

Villin was the first to take his wand and insert some magical power into the robe, he felt as if he had flipped a switch and the robed turned into a beautiful silver. Unlike the robe the professor was currently wearing, there were no runes on these yet, they would have to enchant the robes themselves.

“I only managed to get the necessary materials a couple of weeks ago, luckily there were enough materials to make two robes. I suggest you spend today enchanting the robes. Remember, even though the functionality is the most important, visuals are a big thing as well, I suggest you make it look nice and not just put runes all over the robe.”

The two of them nodded when hearing the professor’s advice.

“Also, when we are outside of The Academy call me Theodore. We are both runemasters and as such we are equals, don’t call me professor or anything of the like.”

Once more the two students agreed, they knew how social games worked and wouldn’t make this kind of mistake.

After seeing both of them had understood, the professor led them further into the ginormous tower. After walking for twenty meters, he pointed to a spot on the ground to the right. Said spot had runes clearly surrounding it, giving off a magical glow “The entire tower is filled with short-range teleportation arrays to make getting around quicker. I’ll explain how to properly use them some other time, for now, let’s walk.”

And so they continued on, in thirty minutes of walking and going down multiple stairs they didn’t meet anyone, they did see a dozen-or-so door with names on them, most of which they recognized from earlier. As for the short-range teleportation arrays, they really were all over the place.

After walking for this period of time they arrived at a door ‘Basic Runic Experimentation: Test Room 13’. When the two of them walked inside they were in a large white room with all sorts of equipment hanging on the wall. Villin saw all sorts of different pens and chalk of different colors. Other than this there were a bunch of old weapons such as swords, as well as armor. And then there were also items Villin didn’t recognize.

“For today work on your robes diligently, if you want to chat, there will be time at the gathering, right now it is time to work,” Villin responded by putting the robe on the ground and taking out the pen he had gotten from professor Crumb just a short while ago. He also took out a notepad and began writing in it, trying to find how he could best enhance this robe without making it look visually lacking within a day.

Seeing him beginning his work, Ruby quickly followed, she didn’t take notes though, and immediately began putting runes onto the robe.

Professor Crumb nodded as he looked at the two of them before leaving and closing the door.

Villin and Ruby didn’t say a single word to each other as they were working. If it wasn’t for the occasional magic backlash causing a small explosion or a yelp in surprise they would’ve probably forgotten they weren’t alone.

Both of them had their own technique. Ruby immediately began enchanting, when something went wrong, she simply went a single step back and tried a different rune to make her idea work, if this didn’t go she went back one more step and so on.

As for Villin, he didn’t immediately begin enchanting, he first thought of the theory and planned out the runes he would use. When one of his runes went wrong, he immediately went back to the notepad and began replanning entire sections.

Both of the techniques were vastly different but neither could be called superior, they both did their own thing.

When they had been working for fourteen hours, they both went to sleep at nearly the same time. Enchanting was exhausting, especially if you had to make the enchantments yourself and connect them together.

When they finished, they both had very different designs as well.

Villin’s robe, remained mostly unchanged. He had only affected the area slightly below the neck. Dense lines of runes mixed with each other in an odd fashion. It was as if two long lines of runes were turning around each other. This went on until it got to the shoulders where it made two spirals.

Villin decided to go for quality, it was a very precise piece of work that was very hard to make, the downside was that most of his robe remained empty.

Ruby took a different path. The runes on her robe were a lot less dense, way more spread out. She managed to enchant from the beginning of her ribs up to her neck. She clearly focused a lot on how it looked, the robe was very aesthetically pleasing. There were a lot of twirls and magic arrays moving to become a string of enchantments.

Seeing her robe, Villin had to admit he had lost this time around, her robe looked more impressive even if the runes were more spread out compared to his own. Overall her robe still had nearly thirty percent more runes compared to his own.

Nonetheless, he was somewhat satisfied with his own work. And now, it would truly be time to meet some other runemasters.