When A Mage Revolts

After the interrogation was over, Benjamin speedily rushed back to Ferelden.

The group that Mage Randall had turned over to them was called "Shadow" and had originated from Randt City. They were not in much contact with Benjamin. However, simply by the news gotten through the mage’s mouth, this organization should still be very big and powerful and had an immense influence not just in the city, but also throughout the whole of Ferelden. If not, they would not have had the idea of building an academy.

Because of that, Benjamin did not immediately rush to Randt City and grab the person responsible by the neck to ask if he wanted to die. He went first to the City of Rayleigh, and met up once with Mage Vinci.

"There isn’t much time, so I’ll just go straight to the point." Benjamin said with a grave expression, "The "Shadow" in Randt City is ready to build an academy for mages. You do know about that, right? I don’t want them to be successful in building it."

It was very obvious that his straightforwardness shocked Mage Vinci.

At a loss for words, he then came back to his senses and furrowed his eyebrows, advising: "Mage Benjamin, although you’ve built the first academy for mages, you can’t expect that your school to be the only school in the world, right? According to what I know, a lot of organizations in many places have similar intentions, how are you going to stop them all?"

"I have no interest in stopping the others. I only want to go against that bunch of fellows."

Saying thus, he roughly told Mage Vinci about the situation with the leaked secret. Hearing all that, Mage Vinci also had an alarmed expression, nodding solemnly.

"The recipe is leaked... This is a very serious matter, we definitely cannot let them get away with it."

Benjamin had described the leaked runic secret as a magical potion recipe, as Mage Vinci had always been an expert in this department. For potion mages such as them, if it was a secret recipe that had just come out in the latest research, they could not give it away easily, not even if the King himself wanted it. Not to mention if it got stolen!

Because of that, he immediately understood the gravity of the situation.

"Do you have proof? If you have proof, we can apply for the monarch and the local Mage Guild to conduct an arbitration. With your reputation, the punishment they’d get will be very severe."

Benjamin nodded, and felt out the piece of paper in his pockets before handing it to Vinci.

Only, after Vinci gave it a few looks, there was a reluctant expression on his face, as he said: "This piece of paper... The information on it is a bit lacking. Relying on this alone, they would have a lot of leeway to refute our claims. I’m afraid it will be difficult to get a conviction."

Hearing that, Benjamin rubbed his chin, nodding.

It was as he had expected...

He did not have hard evidence in his hands, and Mage Randall would definitely refuse to be their witness. The laws of every country before their eyes now were imperfect; to punish these people through the proper processes would be very difficult indeed.

And he had come here today, not to seek redress, but to borrow a bit of power outside of the law to achieve what the present law could not achieve now.

"Mage Vinci, you should also understand that if it isn’t because such a thing has happened, I would not, as always, have bothered myself with those messed up mage organizations." He spoke slowly, "And since they’ve really done it now, I wish to be able to borrow your influence in Ferelden, sir, to help me get something done."

Mage Vinci was stunned, and following that, fell into deep thought.

"This... is bad, isn’t it?"

"They stole research results, isn’t that worse?"

"En..."

Finally, Benjamin obtained the other party’s help, in exchange for some of the academy’s distribution rights over the production of magical potions.

"So what do you intend to do?" After the exchange was done, Mage Vinci’s mood seemed to be really good; and then he said, "To be honest, putting too much effort on taking revenge on other people is not productive. Once the recipe is leaked out, it’ll be very hard for you to seal it shut again, and the results of research worth a thousand pieces of gold will become worthless very quickly."

Benjamin nodded: "I understand."

"Then you..."

"Just wait and see." Benjamin let out a cold laugh.

Done with the meeting this time, he left the City of Rayleigh, and within a day, hurried over to Randt City—Although there was the formation of a plan in his heart already, he still needed to double-check the situation concerning the "Shadow".

In reality, no matter how big the mage organization was, not everyone would be involved in the important decision-making processes. Only a few leaders should be held responsible for a matter such as rune stealing, and Benjamin did not intend to vent his anger upon everyone.

Putting on a disguise and walking into Randt City, he found the headquarters of "Shadow" very soon through some inquiries.

The headquarters is an extremely big and spacious mansion that was situated in the middle of the city, having been renovated into a location for discussions and closing of deals. This was an organization with about a thousand or more mage members, and they possessed a certain number of subordinate mercenaries. In this district, they were already amongst the top dogs.

But... Benjamin was very clear that there should not be more than three hundred active members, if it really came down to it.

Walking nearby the headquarters, he did not hear a lot of words similar to "runes". The runic law of meditation should not have been widespread yet; at least, the majority of the people here had not heard about it.

After some thought, he walked in through the big gates.

"Greetings. May I ask… If there’s anything I can help you with?"

The mercenary standing at the door saw Benjamin, and was startled. A place such as this headquarters for a mages organization is usually used for the communications of their internal members, and, obviously received very few guests.

"Mage Vinci sent me here to see your leader. We have a huge business deal to discuss with him." Saying this, Benjamin took out Mage Vinci’s handwritten letter, and passed it to the mercenary to read.

The mercenary was a bit confused, but he still nodded his head and glanced through the letter before letting Benjamin in.

—In Ferelden, Mage Vinci’s name was, apparently, much more useful than director Benjamin’s.

Very quickly, Benjamin had walked into the guestroom, and waited for the people in charge to arrive. Of course, during this process, he did not forget to let the System sweep properly through the hidden documents in this building.

"The runic law of meditation seems to have been compiled into a book by them, and a lot of copies have been printed out." The System reported, "Like this guestroom that you are in now, under the table in front of you. There are a few copies..."

Benjamin let out a cold snort.

It had already come to this stage...

The people had not arrived yet, and so, Benjamin used the water elemental sensing technique to roughly read through and obtain the content of the books. It was more or less their research results, without any editing; even the organizing of it was horrible. He could not bear to finish reading it.

If they wanted to steal it, could they not have stolen it properly?

Benjamin could not help but spit in his heart.

It was very obvious that this organization had done their preparations. As long as they start their operations, they would be able to raise up, vigorously, a great tide of runic trends. Even if Benjamin killed the person in charge here, he still might not be able to stop all of this.

However... He was not prepared to stop this.

To forever be in a position where he had not failed, he would need to go with the flow of history and not fight against the stream. Since the opportunity before his eyes had been stolen, then, he would just steal it back.

Benjamin had a plan in his heart.