Chương 220: The Leak

"Have we found the source of the information leak yet?" Balin Fontane asked Elder Wilfred Fontane. Wilfred was the Fontane elder that oversaw the family's artifact crafting operations, primarily their spatial artifact creation. For the last few weeks, a rumor had been spreading through the ranks of noble and commoner families in Argentum; the Fontane Family had advanced spatial artifacts and kept the secret to themselves.

"I have painstakingly backtracked the rumors. Despite attempts to conceal their involvement, the Teft family are the ones who initially started to spread them."

"The Teft family?" asked Olivia Fontane, narrowing her eyes in thought.

"Is this Helga's doing?" As the eldest of the Fontane family and the mother of the patriarch Balin Fontane, Olivia was considered the grand matriarch. Despite her advanced age, she was still a powerhouse of the family, having achieved peak A Rank in her prime. After hearing that Dean Teft had achieved S Rank she had gone into a rage. A minor talent from a commoner family had managed to do what had eluded her.

The proud woman she was, having lifted the Fontane family from the level of commoners to nobles before Teft had been born, Olivia had gone into a fit of rage for almost a week.

"Not as far as we can tell," Wilfred told his aunt.

"The rumors started several weeks after Dean Teft's breakthrough. Aside from an excursion to the Pirak Mountains shortly after her breakthrough, she had not left the school or communicated with anyone outside Silver Spire since her breakthrough up to this week, where she has gone to Green Zones to test children."

"The reason for her excursion?" Balin asked.

"To collect her wayward disciple," answered Wilfred.

"The little bastard that killed my grandsons left the safety of the academy and we did nothing about it?" Olivia snarled.

"The Mage Association is very interested in him and reports from inside the school indicate he may soon be approaching B Rank. To take revenge for my idiot sons, when they were the ones who tried to kill him, would spell disaster for our family." The elder matriarch snorted in disgust at her son. To her it was hypocrisy to not avenge the death of their family members, even if they were wrong, no one had the right to kill her family.

"What was Mage Wells doing outside of Silver Spire?" Balin asked Wilfred, ignoring his mother's disdain.

"The boy went for a stroll on his Ice Sword. Flew all the way to the Pirak Mountains and lucked onto a C Rank Stable Breach."

"Talented and lucky. An annoying combination," Balin remarked.

"Has Julie had any success in approaching him to try and get our spatial artifacts back?"

"Julie has not been successful. She has several classes with him, but given her temperament…"

"Understandable," Balin told him.

"Your granddaughter at least controls herself better than my boys did." Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"There is a chance she may be able to collect one in the next week or so. Wells will be on the school's wilderness survival excursion for the next two weeks. Julie has sent word that he supposedly left one of the spatial artifacts in his dormitory."

"Make sure she is careful. Theft at Silver Spire is not tolerated. If she is caught we will not be able to help her."

"I have already warned her," Wilfred informed Balin.

"Back to the matter at hand, the leak of our spatial artifact breakthrough. If it was not Dean Teft, then who in the Teft family was it?"

"I traced the rumors to Helena Teft at Teft Artifacts and Adventurer Supplies."

"Helga's niece," Olivia interjected.

"And interestingly enough, Mage Wells paid a visit to Teft Artifacts and Adventurer Supplies just a few days before the rumors began."

"Lucas and Tray's spatial artifacts were old artifacts. I did not entrust the boys with any of the new ones. So, it can't be that Wells shared anything with the Tefts. Have you learned anything from our spies in the Teft family?"

"Only that Wells brought in some Demonic Beast carcasses and bought a couple of artifacts."

"If the boy could not have known… then I suppose he is not involved in this matter. The Teft family must have seen something suspicious from one of our family members. Which of our members that have the new artifacts have been to a Teft controlled shop? Perhaps one of them took too much out of a spatial artifact to be possible recently and that tipped the Tefts off."

"No. I've backtracked all our members for several months. No one has done business with the Tefts at all," Wilfred said.

"Then how did they find out!" Balin shouted.

"Did they just guess? Find me answers!" Helga Teft arrived at her first Green Zone primary school not long after Damion had finished her class that morning. As Dean, it was her job to test all the students in schools, a task that would take a considerable amount of time. Most Green Zone cities had several schools, and she could only go to one a day. After finishing the testing of the first school, Helga settled in for the afternoon to watch the start of Damion's survival excursion.

The school used a multitude of drones to monitor the students during the excursion. Partly to grade their performance, but mostly to know who to place blame on if a student decided to kill another student. Of course, the students were not told of the surveillance. They were only told of their trackers and that the trackers would register their points when they killed a Ferocious Beast or Demonic Beast.

They were also told the trackers were so that staff could locate them should they get in over their heads, but not that the trackers allowed a reconnaissance drone to follow them around. The test area was completely surrounded by mountains forming an intermontane plateau, but the high walls of the mountains made the area look more like an impact crater. From the mountains ran several small streams, a few of which converged into creeks and rivers.

Those waterways snaked their way through the heavily forested area, forming small lakes and ponds that the most dangerous of the Ferocious Beasts claimed as their territory. Helga watched as the final term students, one by one, were sent into the testing region. Each one appeared in the forested region in a relatively safe location. Professor Klein was intentionally spreading the students out around the region. The goal was to make them survive on their own.

Some students had forged alliances to work together before the excursion, this ensured that the only way they actually could, was by surviving long enough to find their allies. By jumping his portal around to areas he knew Ferocious Beasts seldom went it ensured each student would be on their own, but also start in a fairly safe place. However, when it came time for Damion to step through, the portal shifted to high in the sky. The drones picked up Damion's location instantly when he emerged from the portal.

But unlike all the other students, who appeared in the forest, he appeared about 500 meters above the middle of the zone.

"That son of a bitch," Helga cursed Professor Klein when she saw Damion appear in midair and start falling.