Chapter 203: Back To The Academy

One day passed and finally, Villin returned to The Academy, after going through the Atlantian teleportation array, he found himself standing in the teleportation array situated back at A1.

Villin felt somewhat stunned at the change in scenery. The buildings here felt much sharper and the sun was much brighter. The lack of the dome was rather odd. Even though he was only in Atlantis for slightly over a month, he had gotten used to being there and preparing for the attack. 

Now that he was back here though, Villin felt rather good. As he was walking towards Athena's Forge he felt the atmosphere was a little different though. Occasionally groups of students in armor would be moving around together and individuals seemed hurried, slightly worried even.

It seemed that during his absence things went as he expected, more attacks should've happened and things were more chaotic.

When Villin arrived outside of Athena's Forge, he noticed something as well. There were two more wards placed outside. They were clearly fake wards but it was still a great defensive measure. And even though Athena's Forge appeared unguarded, Villin could feel someone look at him as soon as he came within a hundred meters of the building.

When he looked at the location he felt the gaze come from, he found himself looking at the second floor's wall. It seemed that they managed to find and cast an advanced illusion spell.

Nobody came out though as Villin soon walked through the door of Athena's Forge unimpeded.

Inside, things had become even livelier than before. People were training and talking all around, as we went floor by floor he noticed people working hard on their specific subjects. He even noticed one of the previously spare rooms was being used for transfiguration and some students were busy morphing a piece of rock.

He passed by everyone and went straight to the top floor before sitting down in his study.

When he was there, he let out a deep breath, he took off the medal he had still been wearing and studied it thoroughly, he tried to morph it using transfiguration but was unsuccessful, he ended up putting it in his drawer.

After this, he grabbed a cup of water and pointed at it, as he focused the water began rising slightly, after a bit a small ball of water was floating a good meter above the cup.

It wasn't easy to do though and Villin quickly put the water back in the cup before he lost control.

Bending water and transfiguring earth was quite different, Villin had noted. Earth was hard and the movements you made with it were rigid but strong. You would force the earth to go to a certain place by pushing it.

Water was different, it was soft and versatile. You couldn't force water as you did earth, you had to guide it, pull softly to make it go where you want to.

They both felt incredibly different to control, but when it came to the spells used to do so, they had a lot of nodes in common, it would surely be great for his research of the web.

As he was pondering this, someone knocked on his door, using transfiguration Villin could feel it was Amelia, "Come in!"

The door opened, revealing Amelia who quickly entered and closed the door behind her, "Villin! You're back!" she exclaimed.

"Oh really, I hadn't realized." Villin joked as she took a seat.

Villin didn't bother with useless sentimentals though and quickly continued speaking, "What's the current situation?"

Amelia was caught slightly off-guard since she expected to have some small talk with Villin first but quickly composed herself, "Things have been going splendidly, the resourced the guild has have increased greatly since a number of students have succeeded in stealing the riches of other guilds and they have all been offering the guild half, it seems to have become an unspoken agreement.

"Transfiguration has picked up in popularity amongst the members as a bunch have learned the art at this point. Due to our attacks and attacks made by different guilds, the outside has become more chaotic and we've had a large number of customers buying enchanted gear from us."

Amelia thought for a few moments before hesitantly mentioning the next point, "There is also something that we didn't expect though that have somewhat changed things…"

Villin raised an eyebrow as he thought of what it could be, "Oh?"

"Well… nobody knows Athena's Forge is behind the majority of the attacks. Thus far, none of our members have spoken despite the fact that there is a serious bounty on information about us. We've also managed to extract all students successfully before they got caught."

Hearing this, Villin felt confused as well, it was hard to believe all of the members could resist the temptation of the offered rewards, then again, Villin knew they made the right call.

After a bit, he responded, "All right then, it's nothing but a good thing. What about the secret mission I gave you?" he then asked Amelia.

Once this mission was mentioned, Amelia subconsciously spread out her magic power around her to make sure nobody was listening in.

Before Villin went to Atlantis, he got a large portion of the items that came from the Decorus research station where he was imprisoned. When he looked at all of the objects in the list, he noticed there was something he could do.

He used the teleportation array to go to the tower in K12 and had the tower rise above ground, then he came back and let Amelia know of the plan as well as the exact location of the tower. He did tell her not to go to K11 though. He hadn't made a deal with the queen ant and didn't want Amelia to find out he was planning to make one with her since fighting the ants would be good training for her as well if she thought it was real. She had been sent there for a different reason entirely.

After thinking for a few moments Amelia responded, "The equipment has been set up and three stations could be created. The bit of equipment we were missing can also be used in pill-making so nobody batted an eye when I bought it."

Villin nodded, telling himself to check it out later.

"That's good. I have to say, I am rather looking forward to doing it again." Villin lamented.

"Yeah," came the response from Amelia as she thought of a period in the past, "Could you believe that just a few years ago, we were thinking of becoming great 'Cut and Crease' players?"

When Amelia said this, Villin was caught off guard, but soon a soft smile appeared on his face, "Oh my, how long it has been, fancy a round?"

He looked Amelia in the eyes and then at the same moment, they jumped back from each other and all of the paper within the room swiftly moved to one of the competitors. Villin ended up controlling sixty pieces of paper while Amelia had fifty in total.

They were no standing four meters away from each other and dozens of pieces of paper were folding in a multitude of ways. Even without enchantments, they both had no problem controlling this number of paper using only their magic power.

Both of them breathed calmy until suddenly, Amelia attacked. A dozen pieces of paper had formed into spikes and shot right at him only to be blocked by a few pieces of paper that had been folded several times. 

Both sides played the game for over an hour before it finally finished. Amelia was left standing with two mostly-intact pieces of paper but there was a sharp paper spike just on her neck, it was Villin's last piece, he ended up winning by the slightest amount.

He had to admit it had been quite enjoyable playing this game again after years had passed but it was time to get to business again, they had just destroyed a couple of important reports so enough damage had been done.

"Let's check on your task and then I'll go fetch Fang," Villin noted after catching his breath and both of them walked towards the teleportation array within the tower before teleporting to the new tower Villin made.

Firstly, Villin used transfiguration so the tower went completely underground again and then the two of them moved to the lowest floor, it was there that Amelia had completed her task.

When Villin arrived on the bottom floor he was content. One side of the room had all kinds of herbs, many of them enchanted to avoid them spoiling. On the other side were three workstations. They had all kinds of scientific equipment and Villin looked at it contently, "it's the exact same as the ones professor Messen had." he commented as he had a closer look at the equipment. It was indeed the equipment required to create gene solutions.