When A Mage Revolts

Upon witnessing this, Benjamin wore a surprised look on his face as well.

—During the first academy opening ceremony, a priest attacked the hall with the use of a self-destructive, divine technique of sorts, it was rather troublesome for them to deal with. At the time, a light elemental rune could be seen in the eyes of that priest.

As time passed, he never imagined that he would witness this kind of scene again.

And so, as he gestured for the rest to stand back, Benjamin turned to the experimenting mage and asked, "Are you alright? Are you awake? Do you feel any strange spiritual energy coursing in you?"

The mage stood frozen, took a moment to react to the question before slowly opening his mouth.

"I’m...fine."

He shook his head, and said.

Benjamin inspected the mage’s appearance closer, there didn’t seem to be anything off. The mage was conscious and self-aware, with no spiritual energy from the elemental plane emitted. Given this, he breathed a sigh of relief.

But… since no one’s harmed, would it be fair to say this experiment was considered a success?

As a matter of fact, judging the other surrounding mages’ expressions, the potential danger of it never crossed their minds. Instead, their faces seemed keen to try it themselves, glints of eagerness filled their eyes.

—They may have found a way to utilize runes to learn more about magic!

This counted towards advancing their sought-after goal for the past six months.

"Try casting some spells," and so, Benjamin said in anticipation.

The mage nodded. As a test subject and volunteer, stress piled onto his shoulders. At this instant, he was similar to a child bestowed with a task to move mountains, in need of a self-growing process.

He extended his hand, then took in a deep breath. Following the diffusing magical energy waves along with the gentle pulses of the runes in his irises, a water sphere arose in silence from his palm.

"You… no longer need to chant the spells?" Someone asked.

The mage briefly furrowed his brows, then nodded.

The entire lab roared in excitement.

Everyone gathered around him, their hands held research logs, all sorts of questions spewed from their lips. Without a doubt, this mage had broken through his previous limit, and ascended to a whole other level. For this way of breaking limits, comes with a potential for inordinate changes.

—Utilizing runes and backfired effects of magic.

Several mages began to chant spells, in an attempt to test this method for themselves. Shortly, the magical energy waves became concentrated in the lab, then beams of light came one after the other, like several electrical sparks kept flashing before one’s eyes.

"I… I did it."

"As long as I shut my eyes, I can feel a rune floating about in pitch black darkness… This is an effective way, we can now imprint runes into our spirits."

"It’s true… my spiritual energy emitted a wave, it’s expanding now!"

The mages who gathered here, each of their spiritual energy had been stagnant for more than decades without a sliver of growth. As such, when they suddenly discovered a way to break their limits, they were more thrilled than a traveler finding an oasis in the middle of a desert.

They had read countless tomes about magic, researched thousands of unfathomable ways. Despite this, no matter how much they picked up from past breakthroughs, those findings could only lead them one step closer, yet also remain forever in that one step. It was the latest point of discovery for a long time regarding the core structures of magic. When the next direction of a breakthrough came into question, no one had an answer for it.

When they studied runes, their initial goal had always been branching off to new paths from this endpoint. They exhausted various ideas, in hopes of utilizing runes in their own body. Some engraved runes on themselves, some consumed runes, some repeatedly drawn runes in their minds for a thousand times… a few perished in the process.

None would have imagined that the latest method to be this easy, and defied conventional logic.

"Director, how did you figure it out?"

"Just… randomly thought about it."

Benjamin wrapped around his head, and replied as so. He didn’t do anything really. In the process of his attempt at solidifying runes, he figured out how to replicate it in reality. Regarding the backfire effects of magic, it had never even crossed his mind, it then resulted in the most crucial step in the process.

This was most certainly unintentional.

As of now, the mages successfully infused runes into their spiritual energy, this alone was considered a phenomenal breakthrough in the world of magic. Although Benjamin still held many questions within him— what kind of changes a mage goes through upon infusing a rune in them? What prerequisites does one need to pull this off? Would there be any side effects?

Though undoubtedly so, this world’s aged concept of magical structures will likely go through a complete revamp.

About ten minutes later, all of the mages in the lab shone glints of runes in their eyes. Upon completion of the process, some used water spheres as vessels, there were also some who used flames, stones… even gales. Not everyone shared the same paths in magic, for even wind which bore little to no shapes to mold of, can be compressed into a thin line of wind which then used to draw an invisible rune.

Following this, all of them conducted a series of tests while Benjamin observed them from the side.

"Their affinities to one of their elements were amplified, along with strengthened spiritual energy." The System monitored them through the collection of data, then reported each analysis to Benjamin, "Whether it is fire or water elemental runes, these could amplify control over their compatible elements."

Benjamin nodded in agreement, said, "If that’s the case… did they become mages specialized in one element?"

The System then replied, "No, the fusion between them and runes is not as complex as you would think. As such, they’re much more fortunate than you are. They could still use other kinds of spells, only their effectiveness are severely declined."

"Alright then…"

Though the process was similar, these people did not enter the space of consciousness, so it was still a huge difference compared to Benjamin’s situation.

Based on what he observed so far, they still had the ability to cast many spells, unlike Benjamin who could only cast three. Their control over magic had increased as well, but they were nowhere close to Benjamin who can cast spells whenever he wills it.

Overall, the runes had not entirely reformed their casting techniques, their initial potential remained as they opened up a new possibility to take a step further.

As for how to take the next step beyond…

"All of you should disregard pre-existing laws and logic." Benjamin then said, "If you seek to make sense of all this, you should constantly seek out to absorb free-floating elements into the runes, strengthening your runes with the elements."

The mages were astonished as they listened.

"Director… you seem to be rather familiar with this matter."

Benjamin merely grinned.

Was there even a need to ask? He had always thought deeply about this after all, why wouldn’t he understand it?