Chapter 515: The Stagnated Runes
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the great hall, Benjamin saw the surrendering General.
However, this was not the first time he had seen this man.
Benjamin had already observed once, in secret, all the Generals in Carretas that hold military authority. At that time, the remaining Generals had been controlled by the Church using crosses, and the General Hawk before his eyes was not an exception.
Although nothing could be seen from the outside, but he could clearly sense that, on the left arm of this General, was the brand of a cross.
Because of that, Benjamin’s expression darkened at that time.
"Be careful, Your Majesty." He did not consider the General’s face, and said directly, "This General has a cross carved on him by the Church already. Whatever we say now will be all clearly known to the Church."
However, the King did not look surprised at all.
"I know, the General has already told me." He waved his hand, and said with a solemn face, "But to help me regain my place, General Hawk is willing to sacrifice himself. He had already passed the army’s keepsake to me, and after this, he will go far from us and hide in the wilderness of the mountains, not to be involved any longer in our fight against the Church."
"Is that so..." Benjamin raised his eyebrow, giving the General a look.
To be honest, the techniques used by the Church to control people, he was not that clear about. But solely looking at this plan to hand over military authority, retreat and hide, there should be no problem.
"I am very sorry, General Hawk, that was impolite of me." He opened his mouth once again, speaking slowly, "But... You surrendering to the King... I’m afraid the Church will come to know of this matter through the cross. It would be a very difficult for you to retreat and hide away in the mountains."
General Hawk finally spoke, his voice extremely low: "I know. From the moment the priest casted a spell in my tent and carved this thing into my flesh and blood, I have been prepared to sacrifice myself to overthrow them. To die for His Majesty, this is where my honor lies."
Having listened to these words, Benjamin could not help but sigh. Were all these Generals made out of the same mold? Wanting to die just because they say so. Such simple minds.
"Your spirit, General, is really admirable."
He had not detected anything suspicious, and so he did not express any objections anymore.
Just like that, after Benjamin had entered, this General hurriedly left. Benjamin then started to tell the King the things he had learnt near Gealorre and the Icor army.
After listening, the King fell into deep thought.
"So that’s to say... Gealorre now should be quite chaotic." He said as such.
Benjamin nodded his head.
The King put his hand on the armrest and stood up, continuing to speak: "Then we should taking action during this opportunity! While Gealorre is facing rebellion everywhere, and the Church is unable to control the situation, we can directly strike them. With the people in the city who are loyal to me, working together from the inside and out, we can drive the Church out completely from my palace!"
"..."
Benjamin was at a loss for words for a moment.
"Your Majesty, do you know how many soldiers the Church has in hand now?"
"This... About seventy, eighty thousand."
Benjamin sighed again, and said: "Even if we add in the soldiers General Hawk has given to us, the number of their men are still twice as many as ours. More importantly, the number of priests that the Church has been smuggling into Carretas has reached a four digit figure now, I’m afraid."
—A thousand over spellcasters, this was not to be trifled with.
Hearing this, the King also did not have any ideas for the time being.
Although everything seemed to have a lot of hope after Long River Town had been conquered, and he had returned to the position where he was adored and respected, as before, commanding everything in the town... But in the end, they still had to face the hindrance that was before them, the Church.
Not to mention Icor’s great invading army.
"Then... What should we do?"
"We need to gather more power, and at the same time, try our best to weaken the Church’s power." Benjamin answered, "Don’t forget, Icor is going to attack, and will surely clash with the Church. We can wait until they have weakened each other before we strike."
The King, however, was somewhat dissatisfied, saying: "But if we wait until then, I’m afraid that half of the land of Carretas will have been conquered by Icor!"
"Then let them conquer. After getting the throne back, we can take them back, that’s all." Benjamin advised. "Your Majesty, our situation now is very delicate. If we take action rashly, it is very likely that everything we have worked so hard for would vanish like smoke in an instant."
"...Alright."
Finally, the King nodded his head, and said nothing anymore.
"Right." After some thought, Benjamin spoke again, "Amongst the places that have pledged their allegiance back to you, Your Majesty, is there any city that is easily defensible and difficult to attack? Long River Town is, after all, only a town. If the Church comes and launches a siege on us, it won’t be easy to defend this place."
The King shook his head, saying in a resentful tone: "For now, there are only some small villages, as for cities... The population there is more complex, how easy can it be to get them to submit to me?"
"If that’s the case, then we can only build up some fortifications around Long River Town." Benjamin nodded thoughtfully, and then said, "I have a lot of mage students here. If Your Majesty has the need, their simple magic can help out a lot."
Hearing that, his unhappy countenance finally brightened up a lot.
"Then please do."
Benjamin nodded.
After discussing for a while long about the building up of Long River Town, he bade farewell to the king and left the great hall, returning to the mages’ district in the town center. He would leave those messy affairs to the King; he had his own problems to deal with.
He returned to his new home in Long River Town.
Lying on the bed and closing his eyes, Benjamin once again entered the space of consciousness.
In the never ending darkness, three triangular runes, shining with blue light, were reflecting each other’s radiance; in the middle of the runes was a small bubble, floating lightly. Inside it contained an abundance of water elemental energy.
The distances between the three runes at that time were only about a meter or more left. It was considerably close.
However, looking at these three runes, Benjamin suddenly sighed.
"These runes... Have they not been getting closer these few days?" He suddenly spoke, talking to the two jumping smiley faces on the side.
The System gave a firm answer: "Yes, starting from a week ago, their distances from each other have been set. You have meditated a lot after that, but they have never gotten closer like before."
Benjamin furrowed his brows.
During the meditation these few days, he had still been able to feel his spiritual energy increasing slowly. However, these three runes did not seem to be growing stronger under the moisturizing of the water elemental energy. Benjamin’s three beginner-level magic also seemed to have levelled up to their maximum; there was no rise in the power.
—This was not an insignificant matter.
If the runes could not be strengthened, and the power of the magic remained the same, then Benjamin’s increase in power would gradually cease. However, to completely overthrow the Church, Benjamin was obviously still not strong enough, how could he stop at this?
He had to solve this problem.