When Villin opened his eyes, he could see the bright eyes of Candil in front of him, the scientist was shaking, for the previous couple of minutes he had been waiting to see what would happen.

This was different from what he heard from his colleagues. Villin’s body wasn’t getting ripped apart even though he did seem to be in anguish. He wasn’t sure yet if it was due to the pills Villin had taken or something else.

“And? What happened? Do you have any abilities now?” the scientist asked, releasing the spell that would keep Villin silent.

Villin looked exhausted but he soon replied, “It was in my mind, attacking me. There was some sort of beast but I somehow managed to kill it I think. If I would’ve let it, it would’ve taken over my body I’m sure!”

As this was the first time Villin lied to Candil in nearly a year, the man didn’t expect it and simply continued asking questions.

Overall, Villin was telling the truth, only leaving out a few important details. To make it more believable he even told the scientist of one of his secrets. Stating that he had created mental walls back in The Academy and he used that mana to attack the beast and kill it.

After taking a bunch of notes, the scientist seemed to be deep in thought. “Alright, since you have the heart of a Kitsune, at least some of its abilities should be partially available to you. Starting next week we will be training, trying to unlock those abilities from your battle. I must admit it is unfortunate the beast’s soul has died though, it would’ve been able to strengthen your abilities.”

After this, Villin was led back to his cell.

When the guards left, Villin was finally able to relax again. The kitsune he had become one with let him know it would take some time for her to get used to his body and, especially, his mind.

This was unfortunate but it wasn’t as if Villin had prepared his plan with a bloodline in mind. He believed he could escape as it was.

The plan he made earlier was still in effect. If his guesses were right, the two enchanters and a couple of guards should come to search his cell again the following day, this would be the time he would strike.

Now, it was time to properly set everything up.

Villin walked over to a corner of the room that was out of sight and he sat on the floor. He put one of his hands on the ground before him. When he used transfiguration to simply feel what was beneath him, he didn’t feel anything, but that was how he had prepared it. Using transfiguration, the ground shifted and a secret compartment was revealed.

The secret compartment itself was enchanted, this made it much harder for people to sense it existed using transfiguration.

Inside of the compartment were a bunch of earthen objects. They were circular disks that were about half a meter in diameter. Villin could see the subtle glow of the enchantments as the objects seemed to be waiting to be activated. Villin smiled slightly, they wouldn’t have to take long.

They were pretty thin and there were a total of fifty of them.

Villin quickly took them out and began putting them in their places. There were a total of forty statues standing against the walls, Villin put a disk behind the head of each of them. Then he chose three specific statues and put a bunch more on them.

With the disks in place, Villin sat down again and put his hand on the floor.

Since Elinoire became demented, he didn’t have a transfiguration teacher, this meant that he was forced to experiment and find his own way to improve in the art.

One time he was practicing transfiguration, he had an idea. The thing was that to transfigure you first had to bring your magical power into the area you wish to transfigure, you would also be able to tell the surroundings of this affected area.

At first, Villin thought of using this to get the layout of this research base, this would help with the escape immensely. And so, he tried leading his magical power further and further from the cell.

This worked for a bit but he soon ran out of magical power, it wasn’t easy to sustain the magical link through matter.

Then he recalled his mental walls. He once had a similar problem there. He sent his magical power into his mind and tried blocking it off, but it was very hard to control. Then, he made these magical ‘creases’ making places where magical power would automatically stay and gravitate towards.

Villin got the idea of trying to do this in the earth, creating an underground, magical crease, making it bigger bit by bit.

After working on this for about a month, he succeeded, and slowly but surely his magical power traveled further and further, allowing him to get a better grasp of the facility.

He got pretty far, he knew the basic layout at this point, but there were limits to where he could go. For one, there was a ward surrounding the facility that would detect any disturbances, this was generally meant to detect intruders but it worked both ways. Another thing that sometimes blocked his senses were magic arrays or enchanted object. If they remained in a certain location for a long time, their magical power would begin to seep into the earth below, Villin always made sure not to get close to it.

When having magic power underground, he couldn’t properly make out what was happening above his magical energy, but he often had an idea. With living things, he would generally feel a shade above the location. Over time he noticed certain patterns, he had a general idea of the guard routes for one, he also knew the location of other cells. He couldn’t feel if the things within were human or not though.

Since he had a general idea where he should be, Villin looked at the shade he figured would be the scientist. The scientist was moving out of his living quarters and seemed to be hurriedly heading towards the north. Soon, he moved over an area that had multiple magic arrays above it, causing Villin to lose him, but he had seen enough.

The movements were unusual for Candil and Villin had a good idea of why he would go somewhere unusual. He should be going to notify the headmaster of his achievements, after all, what he had done was no small feat.

Villin wasn’t worried the headmaster would come though. He was sure that she was a very busy person that wouldn’t be available too much. It was most likely Candil would simply have to report the situation and then she might give him an order or reward.

Villin decided to head to the north where Candil had just gone. He already thought previously it was the most likely exit and this was reaffirmed now. He just had to hope it wasn’t just a teleportation array to Decorus.

After getting up from the ground, Villin walked over to Elinoire who was staring at the door “Hey Elin! So, we’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’ll try to take you with me but you’ll have to follow me, alright? Also, I made a new friend. I now have a Kitsune heart and she is familiarizing herself with the new body. She’s seen a lot of pain just like we have but she seems nice at first sight, I’m sure you two will get along!” Villin talked all excitedly to the numb Elinoire.

Over time, Villin began talking to Elinoire in a different way, giving her a nickname and always pretending things were all right. He didn’t do this for her but for himself instead. When he talked like that he felt just a little bit lighter, as if, perhaps, things would be okay.

And today even more so than usual.

For tomorrow, he would try to finally leave this damn place.

‘No, we will leave this place.’

As he thought this, he looked down at his chest, there was a fresh scar there that had only appeared today. No matter what happened, at least he wouldn’t be completely alone again, he would have someone with him even through the toughest of times.

With this in mind, Villin spent the rest of the day training his body. When escaping, speed would be extremely important. Each of the guards was very powerful, if Villin could defeat one he would already be extremely content, speed would be of major importance in the upcoming escape.

And so he did, and before he even realized it, the following day had come.

Then, as planned, a few people began making their way towards his cell. He could feel four in total. Two people were coming from the guards’ living area and two others from a location he couldn’t feel, which made sense considering the people were enchanters.

It was finally time, he could finally try to properly escape!