“From today onwards, Athena’s Forge will have a completely independent group focused on espionage and information gathering. If you have information to be sold you can also contact them. A basement has been made over the last few days and this is where the group will be residing. They are under the full control of Ruby Von Hauser, a talented runemage that’ll be joining the upper echelons.”

After finishing his speech towards the tower, Ruby walked up to the small transfigured stage and looked out at all of the enchanters, pill-makers, and fighters around. It truly was an impressive force.

Behind her stood a dozen individuals, the members of ‘The Black Swans’. Originally ‘The Black Swans’ had four core members aside from Ruby but since she grew so fast and made it to the fourth grade in such a short period of time, only two remained now. These were Hawk, a boy with silver hair and a very outgoing personality, and Sara, a girl with pink ponytails who acted very childish and playful.

Hawk seemed excited as he stared at the requirements transfigured into the wall. Even though ‘The Black Swans’ had figured out that ‘Athena’s Forge’ was the cause of the constant attacks on various guilds, Ruby had told them not to sell the information. Hawk found it awesome that they would be joining this type of guild as he was quite a big fan of a few light-hearted battles.

Sara, on the other hand, was a little skeptical. She didn’t show it though as she kept a playful smile on her lips. Unlike Hawk, she was actually a smart and calculative person, her playfulness was a guise made not just for her own entertainment but also to have her enemies underestimate her.

She wasn’t quite happy that they were joining ‘Athena’s Forge’ as they had managed properly beforehand and even if it was called an independent force, she didn’t doubt that ‘Athena’s Forge’ would be setting certain restrictions on them when the time came.

Both of them stayed silent though as Ruby walked up the platform and spoke to the guild.

“My name is Ruby Von Hauser. Seeing how as most of those here are the offspring of minor noble families I am sure you recognize the name. But, I am not my father. I do not share his allies and as such I do not wish to inherit his enemies either. I assure you all that what happens inside of ‘Athena’s Forge’ will not be brought to my father’s attention.” then she looked at a dozen-or-so members in particular. “I am my own person as are you. Our parents’ grievances are theirs to deal with, there is no reason for us to follow them down. Thank you.”

And just like that she got off the stage.

The members of Athena’s Forge were left looking at each other slightly confused, she hadn’t said anything that mattered to most of them.

But, there were a few in the crowd that were staring at Ruby as she got off the stage, trying to read her.

Villin simply nodded as he didn’t think too much about Ruby’s words. She had bloodlines of a Xiexhi and a Sphinx, there were very few capable of reading people as well as she could

She probably sensed certain individuals had malicious intent towards her, this was unsurprising since her father was a high elder, one of the most influential people on the continent. Certain noble families allied with him and others despised him, it was important she set herself apart from him early so people would have an easier time letting go of this resentment caused by family.

Kayley made another small speech talking about the general improvement of the guild, she also named some of the people that managed to complete one of the challenges, and soon the atmosphere improved. The people of ‘Athena’s Forge’ and ‘The Black Swans’ mingled for a few hours until the unofficial gathering ended, then the people of the information-gathering guild went to the underground floor that had been constructed. Ruby would be plenty busy as she had a bunch of enchantments to lay in order to improve her work.

Soon the evening arrived and Villin was in his study working on a small disk. Back in Atlantis, Villin was near the corpses of dozens of magical creatures, back then he had thought of using the supreme dark arts technique he knew to store a section of their webs but he didn’t have anything to store it in. He only realized this problem now and so he was making some lightweight disks that were easy to carry around, they were enchanted in a way that a web should be able to be preserved for a length of time, then he could later transfer it to wherever he actually wanted to use it.

He was casually working on this when he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Villin said as he put the disk he was working on in a drawer as he looked at the door.

“Hey there boss,” Kayley joked casually as she entered the room before taking a seat in front of Villin, “Your request was given to one of the more influential teachers and they promised to relay it to the headmaster.” she continued as she looked around the room.

“I see,” Villin said as he squinted slightly at Kayley, “But you didn’t come see me to say that, did you?”

As expected, Kayley shook her head, she then looked at Villin with a more professional gaze. She reached into her spatial bag and took out a few notebooks before placing them onto the study table.

When Villin opened them and began reading, he focused entirely, the pages he was supposed to read numbered about a dozen but they were full of formulas, many of which were invented by either Villin or Kayley.

“This… it’s about the teleportation spell we all got, ‘Lanuae Magicae’?” Villin asked as he looked up at Kayley. It was very hard to figure out what kind of spell or nodes a paper mentioned if you didn’t have the spell blueprint to compare it to.

Kayley nodded though, confirming his suspicion, “Indeed. I have been trying to cast it for a long time and I am sure you have been as well but its difficulty increases tremendously when trying to cast with all of the three derivative nodes.

“I tried to compare these nodes with other ones in a variety of spells. If the properties I recorded are correct, it is impossible to cast a spell using these three nodes in tandem, they contradict each other. The spell The Academy taught us is fake, it’s impossible to learn no matter how skilled you are.” she finished as she highlighted a few of the lines on one of the pages she showed Villin.

Villin remained silent as he looked through the formulas again, this time he would pause regularly, seemingly doing small experiments within his web, after going through the majority of steps once, two hours had passed, he hadn’t found any flaws.

Kayley noticed Villin became noticeably colder, “Tch, so they even give their geniuses fake spell blueprints now do they?” he asked rhetorically. He thought of the problem for a bit but got annoyed when he realized he couldn’t do anything to The Academy, they were too powerful and important in the development of his guild.

After a bit, his mood seemed to improve, the coldness he emitted went away as the mischievousness of a Kitsune showed up, “What about, we do the same to them as they did to us?” Villin asked Kayley, who only got more confused.

Villin got a wide smile on his face though as he wrote some formulas and principles on paper that he and Kayley used. Kayley then looked at them and even though there were no specifics, she understood what he meant, “But, what kind of magic has that kind of appeal that they would focus on it so much?”

Villin’s smile didn’t fade as a small droplet of water floated in front of his face, “Let’s get them close enough to where they think they can fix it if they put enough manpower on it, but far enough away that this distance will never fully disappear.”

Kayley nodded after thinking for a few more moments. “If you put down a sufficient amount of information and truths behind each of the required nodes, I’m sure I can find a way to get it done,” she said confidently and the two of them began secretly scheming against The Academy together.

---------------------

“It saddens me to see so many have died. The death of Julius, in particular, is great, he was the greatest commander and keeper of secrets I could’ve asked for.”

“Sir Valia was great, but the loss of the key is even greater, he turned traitor and assumed you were dead. We cannot have another person running around with a key, it could be catastrophic!”

“Quiet Von Hauser! Do not speak out of line! Julius was no traitor, after believing I died, he tried to, and succeeded in finding an inheritor before his own death, just as I had commanded. Still, since I do live, we will indeed need to find and kill this inheritor, whomever they are.”