Day after day, week after week, Villin was alone. It was to the point that he would somewhat look forward to when the scientist would come to get him, since, for the five minutes until they reached the experimentation room, Villin and Candil would talk for a bit.

Their relationship was quite complicated. Villin knew he was his enemy and he never mistook Candil as a friend, on the other hand, Candil also never thought about releasing Villin, he simply enjoyed the chat.

Still, while they talked, they acted like friends, Candil would tell Villin about some of the things that were happening outside and Villin would talk to him about the events, sharing his thoughts in all honesty.

Then, when, after five minutes, they reached the experimentation room, Villin’s expression would change, he would get fearful knowing that he would have to go through more experimentations, possibly dying. When he was on the chair, Candil would also always cast the spell so that Villin’s screams wouldn’t reach his ears.

Other than this odd dynamic, Villin spent his time working on his plan. It was taking more and more shape. Initially, when he first thought of it, the plan was pretty pathetic, very unlikely to work. But with time, it slowly began taking shape. He began splitting his time more, other then transfiguration and attempting to create wards, he would also train physically, and occasionally, he would sit in a corner doing another part of his plan.

Elinoire became white noise to him. Occasionally he would talk to her when he needed to find a solution to a problem but he might as well be talking to himself, even when she responded she wouldn’t say much, her gaze was almost always empty, only having very occasional bursts of clarity, and even then she wasn’t how she used to be.

This trend continued until it was the eleventh month. Even though Villin didn’t know it, nobody that came here had ever survived as long as himself and Elinoire. There was a reason for Elinoire’s survival, she was the daughter of the headmaster and got experimented on less severely than others.

But Villin was a different case. Candil was ecstatic about his survival. He was able to do the work that would usually need multiple high-quality test subjects.

Eleven full months had passed since Villin entered the cell and if one of his friends were to see him now, they might not even recognize him. 

His body was absolutely covered in scars. A few spots on his head had gone bald due to certain pills and he had a terrifying scar on the right side of his face. This happened a month ago. Candil extracted bone marrow from Villin’s cheekbone. 

It went as normal, the only difference was that an extra strap held Villin’s mouth closed, making sure he wouldn’t move during the procedure.

After this, Candil called on one of the guards that had a healing spell he had to test. The spell worked on magical beasts but hadn’t been tested on humans yet. 

Unexpectedly, the new healing spell went completely wrong, the wound on his cheek spread, and even with three people trying to heal him while his face was being eaten away, he was left with what looked like a large cut on the right side of his face.

Villin looked somewhat energetic as he looked around the cell. He quickly got up and checked the wards he had created.

At this point, the increased gravity didn’t bother him much anymore and he had made a lot of progress towards his escape. In fact, he guessed he only needed another month. The only step that wasn’t fully completed yet were the wards. There were two of them covering the cell, and they hadn’t been entirely finished yet. 

Looking at the ward only he could truly sense, Villin felt both excited and scared. If he succeeded he would be able to leave this place, if he failed he would never get a chance to escape again. 

No matter what, after this escape attempt they would know what he was capable of. If he failed he would be put in a cell with those most powerful prisoners, even though he was just a kid, there would be no way to escape out of that.

Now, a bit more than a month before he would try to escape, something unexpected happened. 

One of the experiments succeeded. Candil had managed to give him a proper pill that would permanently strengthen the organs.

“Good, good, just one step to go now!” he said excitedly before sending Villin back to his cell.

Villin was still at a loss as to what the purpose was of these experiments, over time he realized that Candil’s goal wasn’t to create pills that would work permanently. Even though this was the task Decorus had assigned him, he seemed to be using it to achieve something else, going around Decorus’s back.

As for the guards, they occasionally got certain benefits from Candil so they didn’t rat him out, letting him work as he pleased.

The following month, the treatments became a lot more gentle. Only small amounts of blood were drawn and the same went for bone marrow. As for pills, Villin felt that these were all just regular pills, those that were already tested by someone else before. At most he would get a headache or cramp. Something he didn’t care about in the least after regularly feeling like his body got torn apart.

It was very refreshing, Villin began feeling better, only realizing now he was sick and weakened before. He moved with more ease making him prepared for the escape, further raising his hopes for the plan.

The time for his escape kept crawling closer as Villin put the finishing touches on his wards. 

After thinking for a bit, Villin decided to escape in two days’ time. Later today he would have another experiment, this meant he would be slightly weakened tomorrow, in two days he would make his move.

Shortly after deciding this, Candil came to get him for another experiment, he was a bit earlier than expected.

Candil was also unusually quiet when walking towards the experimentation room, Villin could see him holding back a smile. Once they arrived and Villin was strapped in and muted, Candil spoke.

“I have good news for you Villin! We found you a donor amongst our prisoners!” he said excitedly “And it’s a powerful one too! A Kitsune! And a seven-tailed one at that!”

Hearing what Candil said, it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. His worries were ascertained when Candil opened one of the drawers and a heart flew out, it was pumping strongly.

“Shit.”

Villin recalled reading about Kitsunes in some of the books he read in The Academy. They were a sort of magical fox that could have up to nine tails. They could create ultra-realistic illusions in people’s dreams and could also fly and turn invisible.

They were one of the few creatures that only needed age to get the ability to turn human, once they were one-hundred years old they would have the ability to turn human, they could even choose and switch bodies at will.

Even though many tried to court or capture them to gain a bloodline, very few succeeded. After all, they could enter your dreams and create super-realistic situations to ascertain your true goals. They were also capable of driving one insane by directly attacking their mind. 

Even if, despite this, you caught one, they were extraordinarily stubborn creatures. They would refuse to morph into a human and make children with humans when caught. Thus far, there was no one that was known to have the Kitsune bloodline.

And so, he found the Scientist’s true reason. He wanted to create a bloodline using a transplant. Something that Decorus had tried before many times, with extremely limited success.

If Candil were to succeed in this and tell the headmaster directly, he would surely be rewarded massively, this was why he hadn’t told his direct superior of his plans, to claim credit in the case of success.

Villin really wanted to leave. A person needed a heart to live, performing a heart transplant with a magical creature was bound to fail. Even if Candil had been using much of the bone marrow and blood of both parties to make sure he knew how far apart they were from being a match. Then, he would use pills, these pills were made to slightly change ones blood and essence, but he made it seem like they were simply failed pills. 

Nearly half of the anguish Villin went through when it came to pills was exactly for this, they were pills that would change his body slightly, still, they hurt him a massive amount.

As for the other half, they actually were failed pills, he needed to give his superior some results, after all.

The two successful pills were of vital importance according to his calculations. With strengthened organs, Villin’s body would have a higher chance of taking the powerful Kitsune heart. He even gave him a month of relative rest to have him recover to full health. In this month, the Kitsune was being experimented on even more severely than before, weakening it before this operation.

As for the pill that increased the platelets in Villin’s body when hurt, this would probably also be necessary. In previous experiments, Decorus often found that the inserted organs would try to break out, wrecking the organs and skin. Alongside constant healing, the pill would also help.

And so, Candil prepared for the operation.