Some time earlier, before Jason unfortunately getting shot by the man in a grey hood and wearing the glasses with blue shine. It was night time, and there were almost no people in the public areas of the campus of the Grant Academy. If one waited in an area that was crowded during day time long enough, they might encounter one or two students or staff that needed to do work in the night. But that was pretty much it, if some people were up and sneaking around in the campus, they would be having quite an easy time hiding from unwanted eyes.

There were teams of armed staff patrolling in some of the common areas, but the Grant Academy had a big campus, and the buildings of the three houses were also incredibly spacious, so the patrols were mostly just theater, and could be easily evaded if the sneakers paid enough attention.

Inside of the floating castle, two figures in hoods reached the warehouse where Martin House stored their collection of first and second tier enchanted artifacts. And if anyone was here to witness what was going on, they would see that these were the two investigative agents, invited by Principal Hawke himself.

“Alright, locks are your specialty.” the female agent said.

The male agent nodded, as his hands started emitting waves of shadowy energy. The shadow waves kept brushing on the door made of stone and metal, and some kind of pattern started lighting up on the door, in a manner similar to luminescent materials being exposed to black light, with the difference now with the patterns lighting up dark red.

When all of the patterns were revealed, the male agent simply ran his fingers through them, and with a quick clicking sound, the door opened.

The two agents carefully pushed the door open, to a width that was just enough for one person to go through. The female agent walked in first, after enshrouding herself with a concealing spell with the help of an enchanted bracelet.

“It’s clear here. There’s no other security spells.” after going behind the door for around half a minute, the female agent said: “Looks like they don’t even have light detection.”

“It’s the Martin House, they’re known for being filthy rich. Guess the first and second tier artifacts are just not worth the security measures.” the male agent came in and scoffed: “There might be some spells on the second floor though? My contact said she hid it on the second, among the second tier artifacts.”

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“Let me handle them.” the female agent said: “And you could use the time to reflect on the fact that this contact of yours is so cowardly and sloppy that she didn’t dare to meet up with us and deliver the artifact directly.”

“She only talks to me. And we’re not supposed to act independently, so there’s the bind isn’t it?” the male agent paid no attention to the jab: “This place is reliable enough. Just get rid of the security spells so we could be done with it.”

“Just did.” the female agent released a spell on the stairs leading to the second floor, revealing several energy threads floating in the air: “Just don’t touch these and you’ll be fine.”

“So basic. Even a civilian museum has better.” the male agent almost laughed out loud as he floated pass several of the energy threads.

“Guess your contact is at least smart enough to choose this place then.” the female agent conjured a ball of light to light up the dark room on the second floor: “Where did your contact say she put it.”

“The most inner corner. It’s a small silver box.” the male agent said.

The two agents floated to the most inner part of the room on the second floor.

“There’s no silver box here.” the female agent frowned at the male agent, “Where exactly?”

“She said it’s by the Morphing Lumen Crystal, and I won’t miss it.” the male agent stared at a crystal shard on a pedestal, which was glowing and constantly changing in color.

“Huh, so you’re telling me that your contact is a mage with an incredible grasp on concealing spells.” the female agent became agitated and ramped up her her sarcasm: “Because last time I checked, no concealing spells were active in this room, and we’re definitely missing it.”

“This is not possible.” the male agent looked at the table from all angles, and even checked the space below the table on which the crystal was placed: “What the fuck - ”

“So, someone took it.” the female agent said.

The male agent went silent for a short second, then he started silently chanting a special spell, then with a snap of his fingers, shadowy energy was released from his hands and flowed into the air around the corner where the Morphing Lumen Crystal was placed.

A faint shadow of a human shape formed around the corner, and both the agents could see the shadow doing some kind of grabbing action, taking something from the table. The male agent tried to maintain the shadow, but it still blew up and fell apart.

“Having performance issues?” the female agent asked with a mocking smile.

“No - whoever this person is - there’s a powerful anti spying spell protecting him, or her.” the man said with a heavy frown: “My spell was instantly thwarted. If I forced it, it would only alert whoever that placed the spell.”

“Guess we’ll need to do some investigative job after all.” the female agent sighed: “Looks like we’ll need to look at the sign in logs to this place. Hope they keep those here.”

“Hmm, yeah.” the male agent cast another spell on some other places of the room, and this time his spell worked, and the face and body of Cristian, the student counselor, were revealed by the spell, as clear as day: “I guess that narrowed it down - this is Cristian, the student counselor here.”

“Who would normally have no business here.” the female agent said: “It’s an okay lead. But I’d still prefer being handed the key directly. You should consider dropping the contact.”

“I’m not taking contact related advice from you.”