When A Mage Revolts

This was a suspicious phenomenon. The rune, which was floating in mid-air, had grown to the size of a human head, and had absorbed the entire soul of a person. Benjamin had laid down the order for it to return, however it had remained suspended with no indication of it returning.

It was as if it possessed a mind of its own.

When Benjamin first drew the rune, he had used a simple "Elemental Order – Affinity" rune. Even the water elements used were of a small amount. Looking at it now however, it looked nothing like an elemental order anymore, instead closely resembling the runes from the Pure Blue World.

"Will this thing hurt anyone? Does it still contain Spencer’s consciousness?" asked Benjamin wearily.

"Probably…not." The System hesitated momentarily before it continued, "I did not sense any hostility when I scanned the rune. It is now akin to a new-born life."

Benjamin raised his eyebrows.

New-born life?

Benjamin thought of the runes of the Pure Blue World, which possessed minds of their own. Could it be that because Spencer’s Spiritual Energy was formed from the mimicry of runes, when the affinity was triggered, the rune had identified him as an equal? At the same time, did a rune which was simply drawn by Benjamin morph into something akin to the creatures of the elemental planes due to absorbing the Spiritual Energy of an entire person?

But...weren’t those creatures from a different dimension? Is it really possible for them to exist in this world?

Benjamin’s heart was filled with questions.

Benjamin tentatively raised his hand to touch the rune, but his fingers went through it as if it were air. This thing did not have a physical form, which was unlike the runes of Pure Blue World that were cool to the touch.

However, Benjamin did feel a wave of magical power within it.

The surrounding water elements had already long clustered around the rune. Some disappeared after being absorbed into the rune, but more were just surrounding the rune, accumulating together. It looked like the prelude to a casting of a high level spell.

What is going on? Is the rune going to conjure a blizzard?

It was obvious that everything happening around the rune were just actions without goals. With an incomplete will conducting the moves, it was no wonder the entire process looked slightly messy. The elements were just clustered around the rune; with nobody telling them what to do, they were just like robots with no software installed.

"Is it…possible for us to control it?"

Although he still could not wrap his head around what the rune was exactly, Benjamin knew for sure that it would not harm him. It could even have an unexpected use – at least it was possible to speed up the clustering of the elements. This was exactly why he raised his question.

"I don’t know. This is still what you did after all, so you should think of a plan," answered the System.

And so, Benjamin started testing.

He attempted to communicate with the rune by using Spiritual Energy. The previous way used to control the rune was no longer useful since the rune now possessed a consciousness of its own, therefore Benjamin could only try his best to show his hospitality.

After but a brief moment, a ray of Spiritual Energy Disturbance emitted from the rune.

Benjamin’s eyes lit up immediately.

"What…what did it say to me?" asked Benjamin hastily in his mind.

The Spiritual Energy Disturbance was quite weak and had dissipated in the blink of an eye. But from within the disturbance, Benjamin had felt an emotion, but could not pinpoint as to what emotion it was exactly.

The System’s main body is also from the elemental planes, maybe it could translate the disturbance.

"How can it say anything to you?" retorted the System huffily, "although that worshipper’s Spiritual Energy was amazingly immense to human beings, it was far from enough for it. It is like a baby with a birth defect, it would probably remain mentally handicapped for the rest of its life. It would never be able to express anything properly."

"..."

Benjamin gazed at the "mentally handicapped" rune, not knowing what to do with it.

Communication was no longer possible, but he could not leave it here either. Benjamin was afraid that leaving it here would cause the imperial garden to experience a series of changes in its elements that would be out of control. Who knows what would happen in the end?

The best choice would be for him to bring it back to the academy for proper research.

Benjamin decided on conjuring a water bubble after mulling his choices over. He enclosed the rune within the water bubble and changed its properties to an anti-magic water bubble as an attempt to cut off the rune’s connections with the external surroundings.

However, when he activated the anti-magic properties of the bubble, he felt his Spiritual Energy being drained out of his body with a speed that could drain him completely devoid of energy within seconds. Benjamin immediately dissolved the water bubble in shock.

"How troublesome…"

He shot a glare at the rune, his eyebrows furrowing.

An anti-magic water bubble would of course affect the rune negatively, but the amount of Spiritual Energy that was needed to contain it was past the limit of a human being. It was not possible to move the rune using the water bubble at all.

Maybe…he should be looking at the whole situation differently?

Benjamin drew another Affinity Rune in mid-air again.

Ding!

A small sound was heard at the moment the rune took shape. At that moment, the huge rune started vibrating, before it disappeared just to reappear next to the newly-drawn rune.

"Was it a success?"

Benjamin breathed a sigh of relief.

Although this rune had a natural defect, it seemed to possess a unique attraction to runes of the same type. Benjamin repeated his action again and realized that as long as the next rune was drawn within 100 meters of the huge rune, it would automatically teleport next to the new rune without much effort on Benjamin’s part.

Unfortunately, he could not find any other way to elicit a reaction from the rune.

Be it attacking the rune with spells upon spells or using other types of runes to test it, no matter what Benjamin did, the rune would only remain in its spot, absorbing the water elements from its surroundings like second nature like a magnet that would never run out of magnetism.

It was quite an exasperating feeling.

With his hands tied, Benjamin could only lead it to somewhere outside the city before he returned to the palace to check on all the officials and palace help that had fainted.

Although Spencer said that he had lifted the spells on them, but who could say so for sure? Benjamin let the System do detailed checks on the unusual Spiritual Energy residue on everyone. After making sure that everyone was alright, they instead found a large fragment of the Spiritual Energy in the King’s brain.

From the image shown by the System, it was something similar to a curse but was made purely out of Spiritual Energy. It looked like a small worm, which was quite disgusting.

Benjamin’s heart fell heavily.

Spencer was lying.

He tried releasing his own Spiritual Energy to disperse of the Energy Parasite in the King’s brain, but it was obvious that Benjamin’s control of his Spiritual Energy was not as refined as Spencer’s. Wave after wave of magic disturbance did nothing in moving the fragment.

"Quick! Think of something!" exclaimed Benjamin at the System

"What could I possibly do?"

"Decode Spencer’s Spiritual Energy? Create a special energy disturbance? Anything, really. Aren’t you supposed to be a peerless super AI? Don’t tell me you’re having trouble dealing with this small energy fragment?"

Benjamin’s mood was foul. If he does not dispose of this parasite, if another foreign worshipper were to arrive, the King could then fall under another person’s control again.

Spencer’s death was just much too sudden. If not, he would have been able to properly identify just what magic Spencer was using.

"I can try, but don’t get your hopes up," answered the System.

While the System did its trials, Benjamin himself conjured an Elemental Order – Heal just to see if it would work. Unfortunately, the elements only healed physiological wounds and illnesses but the energy fragment was still embedded.

Suddenly, a drizzle began. All the people who had fainted gradually awakened.

"What, what happened? Sir Benjamin?" The King looked at Benjamin as he asked, his face was one of confusion.