Chapter 436: Hiding in the Mountains
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After a few days, Benjamin brought the mages to the mountains in the northwest of Carretas.
In these few days, the ebb and flow in the nation had changed. To find Benjamin, the Church had even, by using the king’s authority, announced an arrest warrant, turning Benjamin and all the mages under him who had shown themselves into fugitives. Of course, their excuse was very simple— having secret communications with the Kingdom of Helius, intentionally subverting the government. It was a blatant copy of the arrest warrant issued in Icor.
Right then, their portraits and names were practically hung in every town in Carretas. An arrest warrant of such importance had never been seen before by the people.
However, the arrest warrant did not relate Benjamin to ‘The Free Mage’. It was possible that doing this would reveal their intentions too much, and the Church also did not want to help Benjamin advertise for free.
But in reality, without any dissemination, ‘The Free Mage’ had already become the hottest topic in Carretas at that time.
Although it was already banned by the officials, but amongst the people, there were already many who followed the instructions given and had produced the most basic beginner-level magic. The Church had started trying to control public opinion, and spread that there were false rumors in the content, but the people themselves had seen with their own eyes the little flames they had summoned themselves. This sort of persuasion was like no other.
And because of that, in spite of the Church’s diligent efforts at controlling public opinion, but through the people’s word of mouth, the popularity of ‘The Free Mage’ continuously increased.
Benjamin was very clear that this period of increasing popularity would last for two months.
The Church could not do much; the law fails where there are too many violators. Right now, almost everyone was passing around Freedom of Promoting Magic; the Church had tried capturing one or two people as an example, but the effect was not significant, and they could not capture everyone.
Because of that, even though Benjamin did not know what the Church was up to now, there was no question that the anger of those people were definitely being vented in his direction.
It was good that he had run fast.
Of course, running deep into the mountains was not just to temporarily hide from the danger. Carretas’s situation could still changing; it was better for Benjamin to start taking action when the first batch of people with magical talent had become mages and had revealed themselves.
During such a dangerous and empty period of time, Benjamin kept thinking and finally, he still decided to use it to find the mages who had hidden into the mountains.
In the realm of Carretas, the places one could hide in were not few; the vast grassy plains on the borders, the marshes in the south, the range of mountains in the northwest... He had already been to the vast grass plains and had not seen any mages. The marshes were also not convenient to live in. In the end, Benjamin chose this mountain range called Candela.
It could be felt that the Candela Mountains and the mountains to the west of the Kingdom of Helius were somewhat similar; the terrains were complicated and magical creatures abound. It was famous in the country for being dangerous mountainous land. There had even been rumors of some cannibalistic tribes, only that the area was not as big as the Kingdom of Helius. However, Benjamin had dealt with even the gigantic pestilence; how would he be afraid of the danger in the mountains?
Regardless of how dangerous the magical beasts are, they were still safer than the Church.
At the same time, thinking about the Academy of Silence which was hidden in the western mountains, Benjamin felt that the probability of Carretas’ mages hiding in the Cadela Mountains was very high.
If he could convince them to join him, Benjamin’s team would be strengthened at a very fast pace, and might even... be able to provide the power needed to fight the Church directly, and there would be no need to hide about like this now.
Thus, Benjamin brought a group of over a hundred from a valley into the mountains, valiantly and spiritedly.
"Teacher, these are the things we had collected from all over the country. I have already organized them, you can take a look."
On the way, Varys used magic to drag a huge box and suddenly came to Benjamin’s side. While speaking, he handed over a small book on which was a detailed list of everything.
Benjamin could not help but raise his eyebrows.
Where did this haul come from?
He looked onto the book; they were mostly donated gold and jewels... It looked like, while they were spreading knowledge about magic amongst the people, they had also gained the people’s favor and love. Some people, after getting Freedom of Promoting Magic for free, had even sponsored a bit of money for their work.
Other than that, there were also some miscellaneous things. What surprised Benjamin was that there were even two elemental crystals, donated as some sort of mineral material to them.
And also... A magic crystal ball.
"Let me see that crystal ball."
Seeing that, Benjamin’s heart moved, and he spoke thus.
Varys was also not surprised as he had probably expected Benjamin to notice it. Therefore, he opened the big box and took out the crystal ball which was in there.
The crystal ball, about the size of a human head, was round and smooth; its spherical shape glowed deeply under the sun, and was made from an unknown material; it was extremely heavy. Benjamin could not even move it with just one hand.
Of course, the most important was the weak magic oscillation he could feel from within the crystal ball.
This was a magical instrument!
Varys introduced it: "This thing was given to us by a family when we were wandering in a small town in the south. They also did not know what it was, they only knew that this was something passed down to them by their ancestors and was related to magic."
…...ancestral crystal ball?
Holding it, Benjamin examined it once more. Its workmanship was certainly different from that of modern magical instruments, and should be about the same as the Illusion Mirror, both relics of the previous era.
Speaking of which, the strange valuables in Benjamin’s hands now were no longer few. After killing the Bishop last time, the cup they had called "Holy Thing" was also obtained by him. Only, after examining the cup for half a day, he had not found the way to activate it. Even though he had called upon some mages who were well versed with the powers of light particles, there was no way to summon the wall of light or beam of light whatsoever like the Bishop had.
Because of that, such a seemingly powerful thing had only been paced in Benjamin’s bag to gather dust.
After thinking so much, in the end, Benjamin’s sight was still set back on the crystal ball.
What effect did it have?
Following the most typical starting up method, Benjamin focused his mental concentration on it.
Weng!
The crystal ball in his hand suddenly vibrated and emitted a strange buzzing noise, white light shining from within. After that, the crystal ball that had been so heavy changed, in an instant, to become as light as a feather, and did not feel the least bit heavy.
Benjamin felt very amazed, but also somewhat doubtful.
Crystal ball... Was it not supposed to help with spiritual energy or to strengthen spell casting? But after Benjamin had started it up, he had not felt any response to his spiritual energy.
Was it only to become light?
Touching the crystal ball in his hands, there was no weight to it but it was as hard as a rock. This feeling was rather strange. With this feeling, Benjamin suddenly felt like doing something, and as though learning how to twirl a basketball, he gave this extremely light crystal ball a soft turn on the top of his finger.
With a swipe, the crystal ball was somewhat out of control and was immediately flew out from his hands, flying straight into the thickets in front!
Following instantly after was the loud sound of a boom.
For a moment the ground moved and the mountains shook. Everyone was shocked and stopped in their footsteps to steady themselves, almost falling into a mess. The other mages came back to their senses and looked at Benjamin dumbfoundedly, not knowing what sort of alarming incident he had caused again.
Benjamin himself was confused.
They could see, in the thick bushes before them, a huge, deep pit had been smashed in by the crystal ball. The pit seemed to be almost ten meters wide; the ground was cracked like a spider’s web, and the cracks had even stretched out under their feet. If one was not careful, one might even step into it.
And in the middle of the pit, the crystal ball had landed perfectly, no longer vibrating; the white light inside had dimmed.
Benjamin, stunned for a moment, suddenly summoned water vapor and dragged the crystal ball from the deep pit, back into his hands.
Thinking for a moment, he once again focused his spiritual energy onto it.
A buzz.
Looking at the crystal ball that had once again lit up in his hands, Benjamin was somewhat dumbfounded.
He roughly knew what this toy was for now.
This was not the kind of crystal ball that helped with spell casting. This fucking crystal ball was used to smash people.