Four days after the previous meeting, just two short days before Max’s plan would go into action, Villin got pleasantly surprised. Apparently, Ruby had gotten lucky and found the location where the mission looking for people to defend during the annual auction was set. It was a solo mission and only Villin would participate, he quickly headed to the location and applied, since he fit the requirements set he would have to come back on the day of the auction, a few weeks from now.

“Alright, so, are we ready to make our move?” Villin asked Max as they were all situated in a deserted alleyway, situated close to their target’s classroom.

Max didn’t seem nervous at all, he checked the objects he had on him once more, took in a deep breath, and nodded, “After you.”

Since Max was ready, Villin and Amelia put on fox masks and walked out onto the road, leaving behind Max and Ruby.

The duo looked at the building about seventy meters in front of them and decided to attack from this distance, close enough that it wouldn’t be too surprising their spells would reach from this far but too far away for the teacher to swiftly catch them.

Villin looked at Amelia and pointed his wand forward, “Three, two, one, go!”

At the same time, two spells were shot out, an icy pike came from Villin’s wand while a purple streak came from Amelia’s. Both spells rushed towards the class and accurately hit the door. As soon as they did, flames engulfed the door for a few seconds before fading, clearly one of the defensive enchantments that were set off.

Villin kept his wand pointed forward and soon more icy pikes were shot forwards, he only sent out one every two seconds though as to not seem too powerful, Amelia was doing a similar thing. Multiple other enchantments were set off as temporary forcefields and special effects happened every couple of spells.

After twenty long seconds, the door opened and a young teacher rushed out. He had messy brown hair and clear blue eyes, he clearly seemed like he came from his bed. He was only wearing a basic white shirt and loose pants, not even wearing the robe that identified him as a teacher.

It only took a second for the teacher to spot them as Villin hadn’t paused and sent another icy pike straight at his face. The teacher only had to point the wand he had on him at all times slightly upwards for the icicle to explode, he seemed like he got upset though as he looked at Villin and Amelia with a huge frown.

As soon as they saw the hostility in his eyes, Villin and Amelia turned around and started running, Amelia sent another weak spell towards the teacher as she turned which he easily defended against, Villin also sent another icy pike back but he purposefully missed the teacher by a few dozen centimeters.

In response, the teacher cast a few quick spells and shot them forwards, intending to restrain the students but they had positioned themselves properly and disappeared into an alleyway before the spells reached, quickly followed by an angry teacher.

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As soon as they noticed the teacher chasing Villin and Amelia into a different alleyway, Max and Ruby quickly went onto the street and made their way to the classroom. Even though the teacher didn’t seem to have locked the door, it was closed up properly as Max realized alarms would be set off as soon as he put his hand on the door handle. Ruby stood by the side as he waited for Max to do his work, she would only need to have a decent look when Max thought he was ready to enter or whenever he needed her help.

Max took in a deep breath and softly touched some of the enchantments with his magic power, testing them out slightly, then he would touch certain sections with his wand and move the magic power slightly in a way that would dismantle the enchantment without causing it to go off.

In the beginning, things were going properly, since it was a teacher’s classroom Max expected there to be between three and five layers of enchantments and he had already dismantled four within a short dozen minutes without a problem, it got harder every layer though since you had to be careful you didn’t set off any of the previously dismantled enchantments when moving to a new one.

The fifth layer was a lot more complicated and took a dozen minutes to disable by itself. Seeing the spike in difficulty Max expected it to be the final defensive enchantment on the door but when he was about to open the door, Ruby stopped him, “Wait up, there is something else here.” she said as she pointed at a section of the door.

“What? I don’t see anything.” Max replied, confused.

“It’s a common method amongst runemasters, a way to hide our enchantments to keep others from copying them,” Ruby said slowly as she did her best to try and properly sense the hidden runes.

“Runemasters? Why would a runemaster bother working on a regular classroom?” Max asked, runemasters generally only enchanted truly important locations, not the classroom of a normal teacher.

Ruby frowned as she thought, “I’m not sure… but I do think I recognize this style of enchanting.”

Max stayed quiet as he waited for Ruby to finish having a feel of the hidden enchantment, “This- this enchantment was made by Cornelius! A runemaster that died some time ago.” Ruby said as she realized where she recognized the style from.

Max, who had heard of the boy, nodded and responded, “I see, I guess the teacher commissioned him to enchant the door and he agreed.” he said casually, even though it was a little troubling, he knew that if Ruby could recognize his style, she could probably find a way around it.

“Hmm, maybe…” Ruby commented suspiciously but she dropped the train of thought she was about to go on and began working on disabling Cornelius’s enchantment.

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“He’s falling behind, we should be careful since he’s physically not as fit as us, he’ll probably quit soon,” Villin remarked as he glanced behind him and pretended to barely avoid a spell that was being sent at him.

“Well, he has been following us for thirty minutes, this is already an ideal time, another twenty and we’ll be in the clear,” Amelia said as she also dodged a spell.

As if he could read their minds, the teacher that had been following them, let out a long string of curse words before turning back. 

“And there we go, time to fight I guess,” Villin said casually as he turned around and ran closer towards the teacher who was now heading back in the direction of his classroom, Amelia nodded as well and at the same time they sent out a spell, Villin sent out another ice pike and Amelia another purple streak.

As soon as he felt the surge of magic behind him, the teacher turned around in a flash and cast a basic defensive shield, just like earlier it blocked the spells but it slightly trembled this time, the spells the due had sent out were much stronger than the ones from a moment ago.

After he turned around, the two didn’t start running anymore either, they started splitting up, the person he thought was male moved to the left of him, and the female went to the right of him, they seemed to want to divert his attention as much as possible.

“Humph, if you brats think you can take on a teacher with the two of you, you are seriously underestimating you!” he bellowed, causing Villin to make a mental smirk as it seemed the teacher was prideful a good thing.

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“Finally, we’re through!” Max lamented as he properly stepped into the room. After the door came even more enchantments within the room, Max and Ruby actually had to work together to get through them all as quickly as they could. There were multiple other enchantments made by Cornelius as well.

The large classroom had the teacher’s desk, some closets, and a door leading to the living space, since they all had their own enchantments, the duo decided to go for the teacher’s desk first. 

Once the enchantments were broken, Max began looking through the desk, he found a number of different files that were useless to him and a few that held somewhat valuable information on students within the school. There was also a spell blueprint but nothing too major.

He was about to close the desk and turn to the closet when he noticed something, the inside of one of the drawers was less deep than the others. He realized this meant a fake bottom and after looking around for a bit he found a switch that unlocked it.

When they opened the fake bottom they found some letters in a foreign language which Ruby quickly stored. Additionally, there was also a button within the drawer that seemed to have a magical connection to one of the walls, after a short round of discussion, the duo decided to press it. When Max did, one of the walls slid to the side and a stairway leading down was revealed.