Chapter 693: Spying on the Church
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Benjamin was slightly embarrassed, but still ignored the System’s irrelevant words and asked in a serious tone, "Then...how am I going to get rid of the Spiritual Energy fragment in the King’s brain?"
The System lazily answered, "That is up to you to figure out."
"What do you mean?"
"The elemental plane and the real-world overlap, in a certain sense. Casting magic here will affect the actual world, just like when you first made it hail in the City of Snow." The System continued with a pleasant tone, "The Spiritual Energy fragment left by that priest has a structure that was formed from mimicking the elemental plane, so there could be a connection."
After hearing the System’s words, Benjamin stroke his chin in thought.
It kind of makes sense.
Benjamin looked at the vast plain of blue in front of him; occasionally a rune would float by, but other than that, nothing else was out of the ordinary. Apparently, the coordinates of both the elemental plane and the real world overlapped, so in front of him right now was the King, sleeping soundly, although Benjamin could not see it. Also, he could alter the real-world with his actions in the elemental plane.
However, this was a problem. How was Benjamin going to only dispel of the Spiritual Energy fragment without affecting the King and the other people in the actual world?
The hazards that existed in this plane were just too strong, nobody knew what would happen if Benjamin were to cast an incantation or summon a rune in this plane.
"Hey, can’t you think of a more reliable way to resolve this problem?" And so, Benjamin could only ask the System for help as he shouted, "You were the one that wanted to bring me here despite my objections. I even absorbed all those water elements for you."
"I never said I had a plan for all this, just do what you feel is right."
"I can’t do that. What if something bad were to happen?" Benjamin has had to deal with one too many deadly consequences in the past and no longer wanted to rush into things headfirst anymore.
"Then... why don’t you try what the two kids taught you?"
...Psychic powers?
Benjamin mulled it over, considering the dangers of it. He had not polished his Spiritual Energy enough yet, so using psychic powers should not really work. But he was in the elemental plane, what if he caused some weird chain reaction was to happen? Wouldn’t that make things worse?
"Would I be assimilated into this plane?" asked Benjamin.
"Honestly, I don’t fully understand your status yet, so anything is possible." The System continued, "However... the chance of that happening is quite small. Would you not cross a road just because there was a thousand-in-one chance that you could be hit by a car?"
Benjamin realized the System’s logic and was unable to rebuke it.
After thinking about it for a while, Benjamin decided to give it a try. But before he could, he ordered the System to complete another task – to use the elemental plane’s all-knowing perspective to spy on the church’s secrets and then report back to him.
"Hmm, let me see... Oh! How interesting." The System’s voice was lazy at first but suddenly brightened up as it said, "You guys better be careful, there are a dozen or so of the Church’s spies among all the newly-appointed teachers to the academy. Isn’t the interviewer too lax?"
Benjamin’s was shocked, "Tell me their names."
"Sure. But, who told you lot to be so careless?"
"..."
The System’s focus has always been all over the place, never grounded to a single thing. Everything that came out of its mouth was also in bits and pieces, Benjamin could only try his best to put it all together.
He had no other choice anyway. Whatever that is seen here is apparently not recorded in the System’s database. Therefore, after leaving the elemental plane, the System would not have any memory of anything that had happened in the elemental plane, so it was up to Benjamin to remember everything that the System says now.
It was not that much of a hassle though, as the System had already gathered more than enough information for Benjamin.
Not only did it obtain the names of the Church’s spies, but it had also obtained the blueprints for a few Magical Instruments too, including something called the "Cross of Silence", which was a Magical Instrument capable of creating a huge barrier and the object that Benjamin had imagined – the Cannon of Holy Light. He was not wrong; the Church really was producing these things.
Although Benjamin could not really make heads or tails of the messy blueprints, he knew one thing - that these were all war machines with massive destructive abilities. Under the control of the right priests, these machines would be able to automatically absorb all the light elements across the land to fire a Grenade of Holy Light, which was more powerful than high-level magic, every ten minutes.
Benjamin was so shocked about the discovery that he used his skills usually reserved for memorizing classroom texts to memorize the blueprints.
Other than the Cannon of Holy Light, the other smaller Magical Instruments weren’t too interesting. According to the System’s report, the Church had plans to develop more than twenty versions of portable crosses. Benjamin knew that he would not be able to memorize everything.
He had no choice but to only remember the essentials.
"...Oh yeah, you should give the St Peter’s Cathedral a few glances too." Benjamin continued as he was busy memorizing everything, "That place is huge, so I feel like it hides more secrets. Ancient secrets."
"You have so many requests..."
Although the System complained, it still did as it was told.
After a moment, its voice appeared from the silence again, "That place has a lot of underground rooms. Some of those rooms contain weird crosses, some contain weird coffins... I even saw a broken sword that was being worshipped, must be the holy sword of legend. But honestly speaking, there were a lot of things that I didn’t understand, so I don’t think there’s a point in telling you."
"Well... was there anything that had to do with runes?"
"I didn’t find anything in the cathedral’s scriptures. However, there was one room in the cathedral that my all-seeing perspective could not access."
This time, Benjamin was shocked.
"How is that possible? Isn’t your all-seeing perspective supposed to be omniscient?"
"It’s just using the elemental plane’s advantage," said the System, "That room... I don’t know how to describe it, but it seemed to be connected to the elemental plane, so I have no power over it."
Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows after hearing this.
Directly connected from the real world to the elemental plane? Benjamin has never considered something so impossible, so seeing it in the cathedral was even more unbelievable.
How did they do it?
Although Benjamin could not figure out what had happened, he has just realized how many things the Church has been hiding.
He could only continue remembering the blueprints, names, and maps that the System reported to him. The shock he had experienced that day when he had come out of Havenwright only to see Grant’s attacking stance paled in comparison to how he was feeling right now.
As he was just about done, the System announced some more bad news.
"The space fluctuations that happened because of the split are ending soon, so hurry up because we’ll be getting kicked out of here any minute now."
Benjamin could not help but feel a sense of disappointment. With a deep breath, he started preparing himself to dispel the Spiritual Energy fragment in the King’s brain.