When A Mage Revolts

Benjamin shook his head aggressively.

"What do you think? I went through all those villages and gathered all of you here to fight the Church, not abandon you after something small goes awry."

The disciples looked at each other after hearing this and seemed to be more at ease.

Meanwhile, Benjamin started thinking of a solution.

There were a few ways Benjamin thought of to get out of their predicament. The first one was to hide – to hide non-stop and remain as quiet as a church mouse. There were plenty of hiding spots in the area and there was no way that the Church would be able to discover them all.

But, this would lead them nowhere. Besides, who knew how much time they would even waste creeping about.

But the alternative was even worse – trying to break out via brute force. Needless to say, this option would cause them a great number of casualties and just seemed plain stupid in Benjamin’s head. He was here to gain more followers, not lose them.

The third option was also the most difficult one; it was to dig a tunnel out. But… Benjamin did not know how long they had to dig to get out of this vast area.

Since the Church might be able to detect magical waves nearby, only Benjamin could use magic to dig, the others that wanted to help had to do so with their bare hands.

Benjamin shuddered at the thought of how inefficient they would be.

"Why not look for help in the grass plains?" Tony suggested, "They have about a few hundred mages there. With that many people, escaping via brute force would not be hard."

Benjamin thought about it for a while before nodding.

"Indeed, the ones guarding the grass plains can help us…"

The main issue now was the disciples. Benjamin and the veterans might be able to break free but what about them? They could never escape.

Thus, they had to come up with a complete solution.

After thinking for about half an hour, he finally came up with a basic structure. He discussed it thoroughly with the veteran mages before locking in their choice.

They had decided to use the mages on the grass plains to distract the Church.

With this, he took up the communicating wood.

After Benjamin left the grass plains, he had contacted the mages there several times. The guarding mages said that the grass plains were doing fine and all was going well - apparently their disciples have also increased to over two hundred recruits as well. Before this, Benjamin had only given them orders to expand their group and nurture the disciples.

But now, he had a new order for them.

"Leave the disciples at the grass plains, with one or two mages to chaperone them. The rest of you go get ready to leave the grass plains. And please call Miles out, we could use him…"

To prevent the weak magical waves emanated from the wood from being detected, Benjamin even hid at a separate location to use it. After sending his message, he kept it and returned to the group.

"All done?"

The mages him returning and asked nervously.

Benjamin nodded.

"Right. Now the only thing left to do is wait." He lowered his head and looked at the floor, "But... just in case, let’s start digging."

And so, in the secluded path, Benjamin and company hid under the cover of the dense undergrowth and started digging diligently.

Meanwhile, a few hundred kilometres away....

"How troublesome, only he is capable of giving such orders."

Inside a tent in the grass plains, Miles rubbed his forehead after hearing Varys tell him the news. He wasn’t really in the mood for all these tedious tasks.

"Stop complaining. The King is trapped there too, think of it as you are saving the King." Varys shook his head and said.

Miles shrugged helplessly and did not reply.

Within an hour, the mages had set out from the grass plains.

"We have to be careful." On the way, Frank whispered to the group," We can’t let the Church notice our us. If they do, we will become their main target."

"Rest assured, the Church will not notice us." Varys replied, "Right now, all their efforts are focused on finding Teacher Benjamin - they do not have time for us."

Frank heard this and nodded his head, realizing the truth in the statement.

After half a day, they had arrived at the centre region of Carretas. They disguised themselves as merchants to Amber.

"We’ve arrived... this is the place."

The fake merchant convoy stopped, and Varys looked at the city gates.

The outer gates of Amber were guarded heavily just like before, with inspections on everyone entering or leaving. The soldiers would spot bad disguises and immediately call them out.

"Still so tight eh." Frank sighed," The Church is probably afraid of our disguising skills."

Varys frowned back, "There’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s just hope we’re successful."

There were a lot of people queueing to be inspected before they could enter the city. The mages acted like normal merchants and patiently waited in line with everyone else.

After ten minutes, there were only about fifty people in front of the mages. But suddenly, they heard cries coming from inside Amber.

"Oh No! There’s a fire! Somebody help!"

Outside the city gates, the mages were not clear about what was going on, but they soon saw thick black smoke rise into the air. They could also see embers through the city gate and could hear the chaos of the crowd from inside the city.

The mages looked at each other and braced themselves.

So, it begins…

When the commotion started, the guards turned around to look at what was going on. The other people in the queue also all backed off, not knowing what was happening inside the city.

"What happened?"

"It can’t be...there’s a fire in the city? How could this be…"

The people outside started speculating, but their discussions were quickly cut short.

The fire was spreading quickly and after a while, the houses on the streets near the city gate were all on fire. The thick smoke alone was suffocating.

With this, the people could no longer just stand idly by. Many of them backed off instinctively, just in case the fire was to spread anymore.

But, some of them were not so cowardly.

"Quick! Let’s go put out the fire!"

Varys and a group of mages, with buckets in their hands from who knows where, then rushed heroically into Amber city.