The Hainalson Family head was not particularly surprised by Russell's advancement... after all, the child had not stayed in his meditation room the entire time.
The first time he ran out to find Carpenter, an Advanced Apprentice-level family elder guarding the place had already noticed him.
After all, anyone of some standing within the family had been paying close attention to the siblings because of recent events. The moment that elder realized he could not make out Russell's condition, he understood what had happened.
Besides, it was no secret that Carpenter and Russell had recently been mysteriously working on the little secret manual they had discovered.
The Hainalson Family head had even intended to find a suitable opportunity to have a proper talk with Russell, to see whether the family could trade the resources originally intended to send him into the Black Mystery Tower for that secret.
The family would never demand that its members contribute their intelligence and talent for free... only fools believed a smart person's abilities could be used just once.
One free contribution meant a lifetime of being taken for granted—that was reality.
And it would make even more people lose trust in the family, wanting only to keep everything secret.
Of course, the Hainalson Family head did not deny that there would always be benefits capable of crossing the bottom line of human nature. He himself could not guarantee that he would never do something excessive... but an apprentice was not worth going that far for.
So they had been waiting for Carpenter to appear.
If even someone with Carpenter's aptitude could advance, then things would become harder to judge... the family could only offer those resources, but the discovery itself would be enough to shake the entire magical world.
At that point, they could