“You damn brats, let me show you what I do with disobedient students!” the teacher yelled out as he continued casting spells towards Villin and Amelia.

He couldn’t help but feel that this fight was too weird, he kept casting spells at the two unknown students and they seemed to almost hit every single time but they never quite landed, either they barely dodged out of the way or their defensive spell could barely defend against it.

Villin gasped loudly, as if out of breath, but still responded, “Come on sir! It was just a prank, why don’t you let us go?!”

The sense of alarm within his voice was feigned properly and the teacher would’ve been fooled if he didn’t suddenly realize something.

“Hold up, you two were the ones that attacked me when I tried to leave…”

It took a moment for the realization to properly reach his mind, first, for a moment, he was confused as he thought of why they would do such a thing, then, he looked alarmed. Finally, he looked Villin and Amelia in the eyes with an expression that was a weird mix between surprise and rage. “YOU! You two are trying to enter my office!”

Even though rage was expected if a teacher found out students were trying to break in, when he heard the shake in the teacher’s voice it betrayed a hint of fear he was feeling. This wasn’t a natural reaction and just when Villin was trying to figure out the feeling, the level at which the teacher had been casting increased drastically.

The teacher stopped speaking and flicked his wand in a peculiar motion, as soon as he did, a line of fire came out of it, appearing in front of Amelia’s face a moment later, before she even realized it.

Amelia barely had the time to realize she was about to die when a large green vine pulled her leg causing her to be pulled down, barely dodging the line of fire.

“Careful, this guy isn’t normal,” Villin said calmly as he looked at the surprised teacher who had completely expected to kill Amelia with that spell.

The only reason Villin managed to save Amelia in time this time around was because of what happened with Cornelius in Atlantis, he no longer dared to underestimate anyone and had taken a few precautions during the battle. The fines had been resting just underneath the surface, ready to move.

Amelia rapidly got up from her awkward position before having to depend at a twisting red streak, she didn’t hold back and cast a powerful shielding spell but when it was hit it shook violently, barely holding back the projectile.

The teacher was about to cast another spell at Amelia but Villin moved first, a dozen vines moved out of the ground around the teacher and sped towards him, their tips sharp and twisting, it was meant to pierce right into the teacher.

Since he was trying to kill them, Villin had no intention to hold back.

It only took a moment for the teacher to realize they had been holding back severely as well but he was capable of dealing with the vines, as they approached, the teacher grabbed a vial from a hidden vial within his sleeve. He threw it onto the ground and its contents were exposed to the air about a seconds before a dozen vines were to pierce through the teacher.

As soon as the contents of the vial touched the air, they caught fire, then, the air itself caught fire. Within but a few instants, the fire had spread through the air and was about to engulf the teacher and the vines but just before it did, Villin could see the teacher had another vial in his hand and he was swallowing the contents.

At the same time, Villin and Amelia turned back and ran, chased by the rapidly expanding flames that lit up their surroundings, luckily the flames stopped spreading a few seconds later, then, they disappeared completely.

All that was left was a broken glass vial lying on the ground. The road they were walking on didn’t seem charred at all but there was a burnt scarf where the teacher previously stood.

Alarmed, Villin and Amelia quickly grouped up, “We have to go, he might be going back to his class!” Villin said alarmed, Amelia nodded and they quickly began sprinting back.

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

“What is this place?” Max asked as he made sure there were no more enchantments or magic arrays stopping them from going down the secret staircase.

Ruby thought for a few moments before responding, “For all we know, this could be normal and all teachers have this, or it's an escape route in case of an attack, let’s have a look.”

Her words made sense and calmed Max somewhat, he nodded and they began going down the dark stairwell, it quickly became clear there were no more defenses either, they didn’t inspect intruders to get this far and if they did, some more of the same defenses wouldn’t stop them.

Carefully, the duo went down and before they knew it, they were twenty meters under The Academy. It was then that the stairs stopped and they found a door on the left side. Max carefully walked up and prepared to open it while Ruby grabbed her wand and pointed it at the door, ready to respond to any unexpected threats.

Max gulped once before counting down to open the door “Three… Two… One… CREAK”

As Max threw open the door he threw himself to the ground, having expected some sort of trap to be sneakily connected to it.

This didn’t happen though and, instead, a large open room was revealed.

The room was absolutely massive and full of stuff. There were hundreds of drawers and closets hiding all kinds of goods. There were a few tables, some of them having glass jars with herbs inside or small vials with unknown liquids. One side of the room had glass cabinets inside of which they could see large glass bottles with similarly unknown liquids.

“What the…” Max exclaimed as he stepped inside. The door they came in through was one of eight, spread across the outer edge of the room. The room itself was split into two massive sections by a wall going through most of the middle, when Max went around he saw what was on the other half of the room. Massive black cauldrons, large workstations with flames in various colors that didn’t go out. Books holding recipes to who-knows-what.

Ruby looked at these items with a stunned expression and then moved to open one closet after another, other than instruments and normal living items all they could find were herbs, the lack of any kind of metal or part of beasts erased the last doubt out of Ruby’s mind, “This, these are potioneering stations. This teacher… is a traitor of the continent, he works for the east.” Ruby said these words calmly and carefully, trying to think of other explanations but she couldn’t. If there were materials coming from some sorts of magical beasts here she may still hold a smidge of an idea that this teacher may just be experimenting with a new method of pill-creation and the bottles and vials were reactants used in the process, but it was well-known that potions only used herbs.

Max had reached the same conclusion but was scared to even think of it “There are over twenty workstations here… just how many people are betraying the continent?” he asked as a chill went up his spine. Neither of these two knew that Villin and Amelia were also traitors to the continent, just that it was to the western side and they hadn’t had contact with the person that taught them in years.

“What should we do?” Max asked helplessly as he looked around him.

Before Ruby could give a suggestion though, the two heard footsteps coming from the open door they went through, there was someone going down the stairwell.

They both pulled their wands and looked at the open door, prepared to cast their strongest spells at the figure, then, he appeared.

“Max, Ruby, you two are okay?” Villin asked in a somewhat confused manner as he came through the door, soon followed by Amelia.

Before Max and Ruby could ask what he was talking about, Villin and Amelia looked around the room, they already realized what was going on when they saw the vials and glass bottles, they had had time to think about what was going on with the teacher while running here, and due to the vials thrown and drunk the chance of him working for the east had already come up.

Villin looked at the stations and the massive amounts of unchecked closets and drawers and noted, “I think we should be safe, he won't come back.”

Amelia nodded but the other two were confused.

“What do you mean, why won’t he come back?” Max asked in a confused manner.

“Because he left before us and would’ve made it here first. He’s probably in the middle of getting his allies and escaping. I’m guessing he moved like this because he thought Amelia and I may be teachers when he realized we had been severely holding back. This would mean he was exposed.”

Even though this somewhat explained what had happened on the side of Amelia and Villin, Max was holding his head in his hands as if his worldview had shattered, “So, he’s a traitor? There are over two dozen traitors here? In the grade?”

Villin nodded as he looked at the twenty fully-functional workstations, he then turned to Amelia.

“Let’s take everything to the core tower before The Academy realized the teacher left and why.” naturally Amelia nodded as she was eager to see how potioneering worked as well. Max looked at Villin with a stunned expression and Ruby remained neutral.

“Do you think you can erase the traces of us being here after we take what we need?” Villin asked Ruby and she nodded as well, “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as long as you don’t mind the place getting destroyed that is.”

Hearing this Villin nodded, “Thanks, let’s move quickly.”

Max shook his head as he looked at Villin “Hold up now, you aren’t planning to report this to The Academy?” he asked, still confused as hell.

“No… Are you?”

Hearing Villin’s cold voice Max shook his head, then he paused, “But… why?”

Villin smiled slightly as he looked at Max, “Max, you are set up to become the first true core member. Let’s do this and then I’ll show you the core tower, you’ll get it then.”

Max took in a couple of deep breaths as he calmed himself, “Okay then, let’s carry things, I guess.” he said with an awkward expression.

Villin nodded upon seeing his expression and they quickly began searching, they soon found a drawer holding a dozen interspatial bags filled with rare ingredients, this would make transportation a lot easier.