Chapter 283: Changes

After Oliver, Blake, and Klaus left, the new Principal and Head Instructors were announced. They were all from Capital City, making some people speculate about the Emperor having a hand in the stepping down of the previous Principal. 

All this though had nothing to do with Grey, he was currently cooked up in his Teacher's valley. Once he was done with his research, he planned to immediately leave the Academy. The only thing that made him feel a little down was that he hadn't completely learned about the basics of being a forgemaster. 

'Guess, I'll have to buy books concerning it and learn for myself.' thought Grey. 

Five days later. 

Grey was about to come out of his Teacher's valley when Void suddenly told him to wait. 

'What's it?' He asked curiously. He was already at the tunnel, a few more steps and he would come out of the place. 

'There are people outside, they seem to be searching for something.' Void replied. 

'Are they coming towards the rock?' asked Grey. 

'No, I don't think they know what this rock is, but from how they are searching, it looks like they are searching for a hidden passage or something.' Void continued monitoring the people outside. 

Grey's senses weren't as sharp as Void's, so he couldn't sense past the array his Teacher placed on the rock. He waited patiently with Void constantly giving updates. The people outside checked everything outside, including the rock, but didn't find any clues to where any hidden passages were. After they stayed for almost ten minutes, they finally left. 

Grey sent Void outside to eavesdrop on their conversations while they were still there, and according to him, the people knew about his Teacher's hidden passage, but they didn't know the exact location of it. The reason they stayed for almost ten minutes was that they were discussing with the Instructor who took them here. 

'Why are they searching so desperately for Teacher? Could it be that the resignation of Klaus' dad had something to do with him?' thought Grey. 

While he was thinking about this, Void told him a piece of news that worried him, the people were looking for him as well, they said Grey always came towards this part of the forest and would stay for hours without leaving. There was one time the Instructor came in a few minutes after Grey entered the forest, but he was nowhere to be seen, it was like he disappeared into thin air.

The Instructor said if they could find Grey, then they might be able to locate the hidden passage since he felt Grey knew about it. The Instructor also said he saw Grey heading into the forest some days ago, but he didn't see him come out even till now.

'This is bad, I can't stay here for too long, or else I might be in danger. I may not know what is going on, but it definitely has something to do with Teacher, which has rubbed off on me.' Grey fell into deep thoughts. 

This discovery made him feel threatened, it had only been five days since Klaus' father left the position, yet the Academy was no longer safe for him, a student. 

'What do we do now?' Void asked after coming back to the tunnel. He could tell the issue wasn't as simple as it seems, there's a chance of them being captured if found.

'It's still too early for us to leave. I'm confident that no one would be able to get into the valley without my help. Since Teacher is gone and Instructor Blake and the Principal are also gone, I'm the only one who can come in here and go as I please.' Grey said while rubbing his chin. 

'Okay, I have no problems with staying here.' Void shrugged.

'I'll need your help to navigate through the forest unnoticed, I'm out of wood, and I need to get more from that Hugh guy.' said Grey. 

Void nodded before vanishing and appearing outside once again, he scouted the entire area, as well as outside the forest to know where the people were positioned. He came back thirty minutes later with more bad news for Grey. 

'There's no way you can use the same route we used in coming here. People are positioned in every corner of the Academy, it will be hard to pass through them without being seen.' Void reported his findings to Grey which placed him in more thoughts.

'We'll take the longer route then, it's only an added four hours.' Grey quickly came to a decision. 

This time, he would take as much wood as possible from Hugh, he was already very close to successfully making it, if he could get a few more array lines right, then he would be done with his project. The reason it's taking so long was that instead of using the one from the previous wooden object, he started making his own arrays because those ones always blew up even after he made some changes. 

Since he started using his own set of arrays, the wooden objects rarely blew up, only that he hadn't been able to get what he wanted.

Grey went out after getting a go-ahead from Void, with Void's help, he managed to come out from the forest from another side. He saw some people who were traveling towards Lunar City and joined them. 

They soon got to the city before Grey separated from the group, they encountered something he had never seen before at the city gate, the guards were now collecting entry fees from each person coming into the city.

'Hmm, it has only been a few days since the handover, yet they've already started taking fees?' Grey thought after entering the city. 

When in the city, he heard about the different changes that had not only started taking place in the city but the Academy as well. Most of the remaining Instructors were dropped, and in the past two days, more than half of the older students have left the Academy. 

This outcome was in no way what the Emperor or the Crowned Prince hoped for. But this also showed how much the students liked the previous Principal and Instructors.