When A Mage Revolts

The chatter continued for about fifteen minutes, and in that time, Benjamin could not make sense of the situation and was unable to even interrupt. He could only hold his forehead and stand silently by the side.

But.....

With the sudden appearance of twenty plus mages in this village, it was not just a natural thing. There was even a secret passage from the smithy to here, and an underground base with a storage area.

Even though Benjamin was flustered, he still managed to come up with a conclusion.

These people were from an organization.

Of course, from the way they interacted and the content of their conversation, they were a relaxed group. Their current situation was just like running into your neighbor at the market and making small talk. The content of conversation was not related to magic at all, most of them were like "How are you recently", "The price of wheat has risen again", "Who argued with whom". The plainness was scary.

Were they really a group of mages?

When mages gathered, they should be wearing robes and looking mysterious. Each of them should keep their distance, be respectful, and have discussions about difficult problems on magic right?

Benjamin resisted the urge to insult them and sighed.

"Well... let me introduce you all to a new friend." Finally, after the chatter was about to end, the female boss clapped her hands and looked at Benjamin, asking, "You are a mage as well right?"

"..."

Benjamin wiped his sweat and answered: "Yes, I am a mage."

Suddenly, the twenty plus people started clapping loudly as if to welcome his arrival.

... Not knowing why, it felt like déjà vu team building activities to Benjamin. Following this, would they end up playing weird icebreaking games?

Before the situation could turn even more bizarre, Benjamin opened his mouth and asked: "I have a question, how did you all find out I was a mage?"

Hearing this, the female boss shook her head.

"We didn’t know that you are a mage. At first, we thought you were from the Church." Hearing this, she continued to explain," You first came to my shop, you looked around strangely and did not even buy anything, as if you were investigating something. I was suspicious already, and after a while, you went to the old blacksmith’s shop. On this street, the only shop owners that are mages were me and the old blacksmith, and you did the same thing in his shop as well. I secretly told the old blacksmith, and he was so sure that you were from the Church."

"..."

So, this was the reason why the blacksmith suddenly attacked him for no reason at all?

Benjamin did not have the energy to insult them.

He never thought that by snooping around the two shops while secretly investigating the motions at the gate, he would be suspected as a member of the Church.

Alright... he had to admit, his actions in the stores were strange. Maybe from the perspective of a normal person, Benjamin was weird. But the mages wanted to avoid the Church and must be sensitive to the point where they have to think of all possibilities.

"Don’t be angry, the blacksmith did all these to protect us." In the crowd, a young girl said, "He was dead set in his ways and wanted to knock you up and tie you up. But you managed to dodge his blow, which made him even angrier. If you really were from the Church, we would all be doomed."

Benjamin shook his head helplessly.

He was not really mad at the blacksmith. He ended up causing trouble and affecting his business. With all these, they should be even.

"Then why did you change your mind and think I am not from the Church? Why did you bring me here?" After some thought, he asked.

"That’s simple, you were chased to the streets and the people at the gates already saw you. If you really from the Church, the bishop at the gate probably would not stand idly by, right?" The lady boss laughed while explaining.

A middle-aged man added:" As to why we brought you here. It’s secluded here, and we can make sure where you came from. If you are not a mage, it would be easy for us to get rid of you."

Saying this, everyone laughed, as if he did not just say "get rid of you", but "pee in your wine" that sort of joke.

Benjamin was speechless.

From their natural response and the easy attitude of the man, he had a feeling that these gang of people had already gotten rid of many.

This simple yet cruel gang, how did they end up becoming like this?

It was obvious, this bunch of people were not joking. After laughing, they looked at Benjamin with some killer intent. They wanted to make sure that Benjamin was really a mage. Thus, helplessly, Benjamin had to show his Icebreaking Spell to prove that he was really a mage.

After demonstrating his Icebreaking Spell, their kind gazes returned. At this moment, they only started to really accept Benjamin instead of the wary politeness before.

Afterwards, they started to introduce themselves to Benjamin.

They could not really be counted as a squad or organization, according to them, this gang has only existed for about a year. A year ago, they all lived all over the kingdom and carried on with their usual lives as a blacksmith, a tailor, chef, and even a clown in a circus... They have all been mages for only a short amount of time, at most three years, and the shortest time was a few months, a new addition.

They all learned magic randomly: Some of them ended up receiving a magic totem, thinking that it was some weird novel, hey ended up becoming a mage just by reading it; some of them encountered other mages who passed by and gave them some instructions; some were self-taught -- one day their talent just magically appeared, they are the ones that should have natural talent...

From one perspective, they were all not formally trained "mages", most of them were just apprentices or novice casters. They were not all that knowledgeable with magic, it was just by chance they discovered that they had the "demonic power" the Church had said. They were afraid, but they had to continue to live so they thought of ways.

After becoming mages, they wanted to escape the pursuing Church, thus they left everything behind and came here. They wanted to escape the kingdom, but they ended up being inhibited by this damned gate.

Amongst them, some of them have tried to force their way through, but died. The remaining were afraid but not willing to give up, so they stayed in Crewe to wait for the right moment. With this, they slowly grew in numbers, forming this weird assembly where all of them worked together to think of a way to go through the gate.

"Well.....was there a person who made it through before?" Hearing of this, Benjamin thought for a while and asked.

He knew all twenty plus of them were blocked by the gate, and almost up to a year, he had a bad feeling.

Was this gate that formidable?

Hearing this, the young girl shook her head.

"There was once a mage skilled with wind-type magic, and wanted to use levitation to fly over, but while flying over halfway, he was cleansed." She said this with regret, "Before this, there were people that tried other ways than the gate, and wanted to go through the mountains, but there were many magical beasts in those mountains, and even circling griffins on the peaks. At that time, only those who knew how to fly barely escaped, the others all died there and ended up as magical beast fodder."

...Griffins?

Hearing this, Benjamin was surprised.

The mountains nearby had this kind of stuff?

What a headache...

The borders of the Kingdom of Helius was harder to traverse than he thought.

If he flew through the mountains, he would be pecked endlessly by griffins; if he flew through the gate, he would be shot down by the Church; digging an underground passage would probably take more than five years. Unless... he had to stay in Crewe, set up shop like these mages, living a simple life?

Despair.

"Well... you all can’t pass the gate, why still stay in this place?" Thinking of this, he asked helplessly.

"Who says we can’t pass." The lady boss suddenly replied emotionally," Andrew has been researching on a way to deceive the cross, if those crosses can’t identify us as mages, we can all walk through the gate in broad daylight!"