When the duo got back to the second grade halls, Villin finally managed to escape his thoughts, and so just before splitting up with the professor, he had one more question to ask.

“Professor, things such as the puppet we discussed, can I use them in public, or is it best to keep their existence a secret?”

When Villin said that the professor almost facepalmed “I forgot to give you this. Use the full extent of your skills, if you don’t you won’t be able to progress as fast as you should be able to.” with these words the professor made a wooden book appear from thin air. Villin took it in his hand and read the title.

‘Runic Technique: Hide’

A few minutes later, once the professor explained the use of the book he said he had to report to the headmaster. He also reminded Villin to give the required papers to each of his teachers so he won’t get in trouble when he skips class to work on his runes.

As for the technique he was given, it was something that was apparently extremely commonly used by all runemasters. It’s a special technique that can be used while creating runes that will hide them from sight. The more complex the rune combinations the harder it would be to use but generally, it was a helpful technique.

He recalled the glasses they were wearing at the tournament, he couldn’t see the runes on the object, it seems it was exactly because of this technique.

Thus he immediately decided to use this technique in all future projects he worked on, it was the most basic of precautions he felt he had to take.

As for the other technique, he was promised that would allow his magical strings to be sturdier, the professor would give that in their next class the following week. Apparently, he still had to make a trade to get it.

For now, he simply headed back to the dormitories. He had been gone for quite a while and the classes had been over for a good while as well.

When he came into his room, his three companions were standing together, Elinoire wasn’t in.

“Hey guys, missed me?”

Upon hearing his voice Kayley and Rein walked to the side allowing Villin to see what they were looking at.

On the desk were two newspapers. Today’s edition from ‘Todays Oddities’ and ‘A Magus’ Aid’.

The headlines immediately alarmed him. On ‘Todays Oddities’ the headline was ‘Elinoire Decorus’s traitorous bodyguard Villin Grey!’

On ‘A Magus’ Aid’ the headline was ‘The Green Princess’ New Roommates’.

“Shit.”

After cursing once Villin quietly read the two articles. The article from ‘A Magus’ Aid’ only stated the facts they had gathered. It stated that four students moved in with Elinoire Decorus. It also mentioned their fight against ‘The Shielding Lions’ and how strong they were. Lastly, they added a part of the statement Villin gave when ‘The Black Swans’ asked him about his connection to Elinoire. They did state he might’ve been lying though.

Overall, even though this paper might sprout some rumor, Villin didn’t mind it too much, everything said was the truth and the writer was very professional in clearing up what was fact and what wasn’t fact.

The article from ‘Todays Oddities’ wasn’t quite as good. The article started off talking about the fight they had against ‘The Shielding Lions’ stating the lions had attacked them because the group were traitors of the school, only coming back as the princess’ bodyguards. Apparently ‘The Shielding Lions’ had a good reputation overall and were known for trying to be fair.

After this, it mentioned how they were all brought into the same room to make sure they can protect her properly, and lastly, it mentioned something more alarming. It was clearly an alinea that was added last-minute but the information it held was important.

It stated that, in the middle of the night, Villin Grey fought the Cassio brothers to protect the princess’ honor because they said something negative about Decorus.

Seeing the bullshit this paper was posting Villin was surprisingly calm. “All this tells us is that ‘Todays Oddities’ puts out crap that doesn’t get fact-checked. Other students are likely to know this as well. Even if there will be people that will believe the paper we will be able to change this perspective if given a bit of time.”

Hearing Villin’s words the others calmed down a little. Villin was by far the one that would be affected most by this. He was the only one mentioned by name. Villin was also surprised to find Vinea Tenura was the spell of the day in ‘A Magus’ Aid’, he had a good guess where they got their information from.

Nonetheless, he didn’t let this bother him as he told his roommates where he had been. Even though professor Crumb told him he wasn’t supposed to tell everyone about the white tower it was clear that it was supposed to be an open secret, telling his three closest companions shouldn’t be any problem.

Once he ended his explanation of the place and its uses the others were stumped, Rein was the first to respond, “That’s amazing, must be incredible to be able to go there whenever you want!”

Villin smiled as he thought of this as well, he wasn’t sure how many runemasters there were but even if there were only a couple available at any given time, interacting with them could help him greatly. The problem he had right now was that he didn’t have much to trade with, there was a rule stating you can’t retrade information traded with you without making some sort of vast improvement on it, hence he wanted to keep the puppets between himself and professor Crumb for the time being.

He felt that once he knew more runes and techniques, the possibilities would be truly great. It could become his signature skill in a way. No matter what, he still had to experiment a bit, once he could trade a bit with other runemasters he would probably have a better idea of what kind of information got exchanged.

“I’m going to go talk to Ruby Von Hauser. I think right now the best thing I can do is make news that overshadows what happened yesterday, instead of being seen as Elinoire’s bodyguard perhaps I can change this to being the second second-grade guild founder.”