When Villin got to the guild tower his mood immediately improved. Rein was standing on a stone ladder, he seemed to be working on enchanting the walls of the tower a bit higher up. This wasn’t too much of a surprise, after all, he was the one that asked Rein to work on putting some of the enchantments on the outer walls.

What was a surprise though were the spectators. There were five second-grade students standing by the side looking at Rein’s work. When Villin got closer he managed to see their guild emblems as well. Three of them came from guilds focused on enchanting. One student was a part of ‘Today’s Oddities’ and the final student was part of one of the school-led combat guilds.

As soon as he began approaching the tower, two people came out of the entrance. There were, of course, Kayley and Amelia.

As soon as Rein noticed him he carefully fixed the enchantment he was working on before making his way over. He knew Villin would be connecting all of his enchantments together, adding quite a bit to it and he didn’t want to ruin the entire thing by rushing one of the enchantments.

Soon after, the four of them made their way inside and found a private place to speak.

Villin spoke freely and honestly to these four people, explaining everything that happened properly. Other than the short conversation with Granolf Mafoli he told them about everything that happened when he was gone.

Both Rein and Amelia were extremely surprised by the turn of events. It was somewhat terrifying to think that Villin had been captured and almost absorbed by cannibals, but each of them were smart enough not to dwell on that for too long.

“So in conclusion, we are now over four-hundred thousand magic crystals richer. We will also be expecting a bunch of Blue-Mythril equipment, enough to properly guard three people. Lastly, a few smithing and pill-making stations will be coming out way.”

Amelia was the first to react “How do you mean we? You went through all of that and got the well-deserved rewards, those crystals aren’t ours.”

Before the others had the time to agree Villin responded “Most of that money will be going toward ‘Athena’s Forge’, each of you is the head of one of the compartments, and so each of you will be given a part of this money to improve each field we specialize in.” Villin finished shutting the others down.

“Now, Amelia, Rein, what has the situation been in the time we have been gone?” Villin’s question got them back on track and soon they began to update him. The biggest news in this time was of course the disappearance of himself, Ruby, and Elinoire. As for Elinoire, Villin was sure she hadn’t been there, but she was probably fine, after all, if she weren’t, The Academy would surely make a big deal out of it.

Rein reported he had finished about a third of the required enchantments both in the interior and exterior. Villin would be waiting until he finished completely before working on it himself, he wanted to make sure the basic enchantments were all in their proper place before working on it as a whole.

It turned out both of the newspapers made quite a big deal out of Athena’s forge though. It was the largest building in the guild hall and cost quite a bit to build initially. Then after this one of the members began enchanting the entirety of the outer wall. Both papers also featured interviews with various well-known enchanters in the grade. Overall, their opinions aligned, the enchantments were extremely proper, there were no mistakes that they could spot.

In response to this, a few people came to the tower to request joining, all of them were turned down by Amelia. Amelia’s words were the same for all of them. Until the guild leader returns we are closed.

Apparently, rumors started flying around about the so-called guild leader. ‘Today’s Oddities’ came out with an article claiming they had a reliable source that told them the guild leader was Elinoire Decorus. ‘A Magus’ Aid’ speculated the guild leader had to be one of four people, Elinoire and Villin were two of those discussed.

Other than this, all other matters were rather small. The new guild attracted quite a bit of attention and that was no doubt a good thing at this point in time. After thinking for a bit, Villin gave everyone their orders.

“Amelia, you’ve become the most familiar with the various guilds here thus far. I want you to tell them that we will be hiring talented enchanters to help us in enchanting various objects. They are not obliged to join the guild, it is a job like any other. Instead of individuals, it would be ideal if you asked the guilds as a whole.” Villin paused for a moment as he thought out his plan further.

“Kayley, you should contact those information guilds. The Black Swans that are led by Ruby might always look for proof but I don’t believe the others are the same. Out of all of us, you are the only one that has been mostly low-key. In this period Rein has been working from the outside and Amelia has been appealing to guests. If you take away the guild emblem you probably won’t be recognized. Try to begin a rumor of how the guild leader of ‘Athena’s Forge’ won a tournament for talented youth. Exaggerate it as much as possible and make multiple slightly different versions of the story, if only the details are disputed the rumor itself will gain more credibility.”

Soon after Villin finished giving his commands, the two of them left to work on their tasks. Rein also left to continue his work, leaving Villin on his own. It didn’t take long for Villin to begin delving into his own mind. He recalled the situation that happened with the cannibals, his life was saved since he managed to improvise and create a mental shield. He recalled the idea he had at this point. 

Currently, if he wanted to defend his mind he had to use his magic power and create a dense wall all over, controlling it entirely. This was similar to placing troops there. The troops would need food, orders from above and they would need to be switched out regularly. What Villin thought of back when he was captured was to create an area around his mind where his magic power would naturally gravitate toward. He was practically trying to create a castle wall around his mind, if he had this castle wall most of his defenses would passively be there, he would only need to have a few troops to have a defense equally as good as the lines of troops he had before.

He could also keep developing this area and make it bigger. All he would have to do was connects some of the nodes he didn’t use to the areas he wanted the defenses. These nodes would create magic power by themselves only requiring minimal maintenance from Villin himself. All he had to make sure of was that the ‘structures’ were intact and in the right locations.

And so, he began creating his own little fortress. He decided to begin by simply making defenses around the web itself, then move on to the part where his emotions were, this was where the cannibals attacked, and finally, he would try to protect the outer layer where his memories were.

Obviously, each of these layers were important but the inner ones were easier to protect and currently, Villin had enough time to work on protecting them one-by-one.