In the following period of time, the situation didn’t change. Day after day, the same situation unfolded.

After waking up in the morning, Villin would train his body and work on transfiguration.

After this came breakfast with Silver, they would talk a bit during this time but no real progress was made. When the conversation didn’t concern magic, Villin would generally pull back.

After breakfast came his runic studies. Nearly half of the day was devoted to this art where Villin would practice enchantments, magic arrays, and wards.

Back in the prison cell, Villin managed to make a semi-true ward. One of the big points of a ward was having each individual rune attract its own magic power from the surroundings. Villin didn’t know how to do this so instead, he incorporated an enchantment to do this into the ward. 

Because of this, the ward was weaker and less stable. Now that he had the book back, he could properly learn how to make a true ward without making these sacrifices.

This would continue on until dinner. After dinner, he spent some more time going over various school books he had gotten. One of the new main subjects of this year was math, luckily though, Villin knew this subject well enough thanks to his time on earth.

Together with this, he would also spend time practicing and modifying various spells. He got a better grasp of some of the spells he hadn’t used in a long time again. He also made some derivatory spells but none truly outstanding. The only true progress was with ‘Vinea Tenura’ since he was the most familiar with this spell and the nodes it consisted of, Villin managed to boost the strength of the vines somewhat.

Then finally, Villin would spend time inside of his mental space, working on his mental defenses with the Kitsune.

The relationship between the Kitsune and Villin was odd. She would tirelessly work on the mind and hardly ever commented on what Villin did outside of it. It didn’t take long for Villin to realize, Kitsunes weren’t truly creatures that belonged in the physical realm. Their consciousness would generally be in their own minds, this was why their bodies slept for nine months a year.

Now that she was capable of spending the entirety of her existence within the mind without having to care about the body she was in, the Kitsune was actually quite happy. As long as Villin wasn’t in true danger, she didn’t feel the need to interfere. She was content with being a simple spectator in his life.

Still, she did help him occasionally. When it had been over two months since they escaped the Decorus experimentation base, she finally began getting used to the physical body somewhat. He could feel a change occur to him. Even without transfiguration or any magic at all, he was able to figure out where exactly Silver was within the house.

A Kitsune had strong control over matters of the mind, they would mess with people’s dreams and could cause them to cause insane. The first step to getting these powers generally came with a Kitsune’s third tail. They would be able to sense people’s minds around them. Matter and magic didn’t seem to matter here, Villin could feel Silver’s mind through the walls.

Even though he couldn’t read thoughts or anything, it was proof the mental abilities of the Kitsune were becoming more potent within himself. And since the Kitsune he merged with was a seven-tailed one, he might be able to do much, much more than simply feel someone’s existence soon.

It was because of this, Villin kept the existence of the Kitsune a complete secret. As far as he knew The Academy didn’t know about it yet or they should’ve asked. And he would rather keep it a secret as long as possible. Mental abilities could become very powerful, but with the right equipment and spells, you could counter them. It was thanks to this Decorus managed to capture a powerful Kitsune in the first place.

Even though this was kept a secret, he didn’t feel the need to hide his proper improvements in the field of magic. A couple of visitors came to Silver’s house and even though none of them actually got to see Villin, rumors soon began spreading.

The rumors stated that Villin was skilled in transfiguration and he was even capable of creating true wards. The only reason Villin knew of these rumors was that Ruby mentioned them to him, that being said he didn’t care about it.

As for when the guests came, even though Villin told himself there was no need to care about it; he still felt himself go on extreme alert whenever someone other than Silver was inside of the house and didn’t leave his room during these times.

Despite this, things were pretty decent during this period of time. Villin got into magic more and more and Silver thought he was in a good condition considering things.

It was thanks to this that she contacted The Academy. They told her to contact them if Silver thought he would be fit to rejoin The Academy the following year. In this case, they would send a small group of examiners. The examiners would test his skill in magic and make sure he was fit to rejoin the school.

When Silver told Villin about this, he didn’t react much to it. He still wasn’t sure what it was he was supposed to do now. He found a routine here but he recalled the words of Elder Tian who told him to try and move slightly out of his comfort zone without forcing himself too much. He decided to just let things come at him, and so he waited.

One week before the new school year was supposed to start, they got a knock on the door.

Since Villin knew the people from The Academy were set to arrive at this time, he didn’t retreat to his room as he would do with other guests.

Still, he felt nervous, the bad kind of nervous. He could hear Silver talk with the guests at the door, even though Villin would be able to sense them using transfiguration, he chose not to in order to avoid misunderstandings since they were probably strong enough to sense someone spying on them in that manner.

He was, however, capable of knowing how many there were since he could feel their minds.

There seemed to be three in total. Villin found this an acceptable amount. If they were to have bad intentions, Villin was confident he would be able to take down two of them using a surprise attack and utilizing one of the half-true wards he created inside of the house. Silver should then be able to take care of the last person.

“Be careful of your thoughts Villin, your bloodthirst is spilling.”

Hearing the Kitsune’s warning, Villin retracted his mental power. Bloodthirst is nothing more than a weak, pure, mental attack. It was something that could easily be faked but that could also very easily be accidentally created by those with a powerful mental space.

Villin cleared his mind as he reminded himself that these people weren’t enemies. Soon, Silver finished talking to the group and so, they entered the living room.

Soon, three gazes were pointed towards Villin. There were two women and one man. Villin recognized one of the women once tested him in the advanced tournament of The Academy. If he recalled right she was called miss Valentine, back then she was very professional.

Even though the second woman was unknown to him, Villin also recognized the man that came with him. A large man packed with muscles that seemed more like a warrior than he did a magus. It was nobody else but Pompei, a man that once taught Villin ‘Combat Classes’. He had learned much from his classes and so he was somewhat grateful towards this teacher.

With two of the people here familiar to him in a positive way, some of Villin’s stress dissipated slightly. He managed to relax his eyebrows somewhat.

The trio looked at him properly, they noted his clothes seemed to be very thin. He was wearing a thin black shirt with short sleeves, this revealed many of the scars on his arms. Instead of the oh-so-popular jeans, he was wearing pants made out of a sort of cloth that was most closely compared to a black kind of satin. A soft, thin material.

The lack of socks was also noted, but this was something that they had been told about. Villin’s face looked fine but with their level of strength they could faintly sense the illusion cast over it, this was also not a surprise to them.

After both parties looked at each other, miss Valentine took a step forward and addressed Villin, “Villin, we have come today to see whether you are fit to rejoin The Academy. And if so, if you will have to spend another year in the second grade or if you can move on to the third. We will be giving you five different tests, we will spectate how you attempt to pass each of them. If we say you succeed in each of the tests, you will be allowed back to The Academy for this following year.”