When A Mage Revolts

Thankfully, the entire process didn’t take too long, or Benjamin wasn’t sure what he would have done.

As the Spiritual Energy emitting from the girl gradually receded, she opened her eyes, as did the sparrow in her hands. The psychic powers present during the entire taming process seemed to accelerate the spirit’s consumption of the sparrow’s life force. It had lost its beautiful feathers and its flesh, all that was left was skin and bones. Veins lined its bare skin, and its appearance was quite frightful.

The "Spirit Sparrow" slowly arose within the girl’s hands, its eyes gleaming bright scarlet.

Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows and retreated a few steps back, with the boy in tow.

"This..."

The girl finally regained herself and excitement lined her features. She shouted eagerly, almost jumping in joy, "I...I did it!"

"You did it?" asked Benjamin, heaving a sigh of relief.

The girl nodded her head and pushed her palms upwards, letting the Spirit Sparrow take flight.

Dark particles gathered below it to form black shadows beneath its ribs, which then took the shape of a pair of pitch-black wings. The sparrow flapped its pitch-black wings and flew around the girl in six circles, before finally perching itself on her shoulder. It caressed its head against nook of her shoulder, a picture of obedience.

Although...rather than it looking like affection, it seemed slightly horrific instead.

"Can you order it around? What can it do? What are the limits of its power?" Benjamin couldn’t help but feel excited too, asking a few questions in a row.

The girl scratched her head and answered, "I’m not entirely sure yet. But...I can make it fight for me, like say shooting shadow darts or the like."

Benjamin thought about that time a bird turned into an undead creature before him, and nodded his head reflexively.

"Come on, give it a go." He casted an Ice Wall in front of him and beckoned at the girl, "I want to see for myself just how powerful this thing is."

"Ah...okay then."

The girl nodded her head. As if it could read her thoughts, the sparrow suddenly flew into the sky before shooting a few shadow darts from its mouth at Benjamin’s Ice Wall. The darts made a few dents in the wall before disappearing entirely.

The System simultaneously made records of what had happened.

"Honestly speaking...its power is so-so." The System continued, tone slightly condescending, "The power of each dart is about the same as low-level magic. If you’re planning on using this to defend against the Church, I think you’ll need at least a few million of them."

Despite hearing the System’s report, Benjamin did not lose hope.

Within the abyss definitely existed more than a few million spirits. Although they would lose their strange illusion abilities after being tamed, but wielders of psychic powers would be able to control them at will, which was the essential part of taming them.

"With your current level of power, how many spirits like this can you control?" asked Benjamin.

"Control? I..." The girl scratched at her head and spoke with a troubled tone, "After taming it, it left an imprint on my Spiritual Energy. I don’t think I can control another ancestral spirit anymore."

Hearing the girl’s words, disappointment lined Benjamin’s features.

"Do you mean that one wielder of psychic power can only tame one spirit? Can you even call that taming? Why does it sound so similar to signing a contract instead?"

"I’m...not too sure either."

"Forget it."

Benjamin could only shake his head in vain.

From the looks of it, the plan of depending on an army of spirits to eradicate the Church has been shattered. The spirits could only provide their wielders with simple magic spells after taming, but actually making an impact in aiding them would be difficult.

However...

"This thing could possibly continue to grow stronger, right?" Benjamin had felt the dark elements being absorbed into the Spirit Sparrow, and so decided to ask, just to make sure.

Hearing Benjamin’s question, the girl closed her eyes to focus on communicating with the spirit sparrow. After a brief moment, she opened her eyes and nodded her head vigorously.

"Yes it can! It told me that as time passes, it would be more powerful!"

"Then...it could still be of some use."

Benjamin nodded his head.

A pet that can grow is the best kind of pet. Although this spirit sparrow was born of mediocre circumstances, but as long as it kept absorbing dark particles, it was entirely possible for it to grow into a big and strong lich.

Did Benjamin...just open a new branch in the system of psychic powers?

Originally, Benjamin had thought of psychic powers as something weaker than magic. It lacked the ability to directly attack, and could only unleash its special abilities under special circumstances. But if this "spirit familiar" aspect were added to the abilities of psychic powers, the wielders of psychic powers would be more powerful than before.

It was obvious that the foreign cult’s "ancestral spirit taming" process was different from what he has researched here. It could be because of the difference in the source of the spirits, or it could be because of the difference in taming processes...Whatever it was, they didn’t make it possible for everyone to have a spirit familiar, which could be entirely possible on Benjamin’s side.

With a wave of his hand, Benjamin left the siblings with a promise that he would capture more spirits for them and allowed them to bring the spirit sparrow back to the Academy for research. The Academy was already training wielders of psychic powers, so the possibility of the formation of a strong troop of these wielders was good.

Benjamin breathed a heavy sigh of relief and returned to his Director’s room.

The threat of the Church’s attack was still the most important problem at hand.

"A few port cities in the Kingdom of Helius are experiencing different levels of disturbances and riots. We’ve also heard rumors about cultists." The person-in-charge of the Black Operations at the Academy continued his report, "Furthermore, the Church has dispatched more people away from the borders, where there is little troops dispatched now."

Benjamin nodded his head in answer.

Has the Church really decided to call off their attacks?

...That’s not possible, and entirely too suspicious.

Call it a gut feeling if you will, but Benjamin thinks that they would never give up the key to entering the elemental plane. It was the foundation of the Church’s inheritance, and was even more important the Grant’s position as Pope. Even if Grant didn’t want to deploy his troops, the priests around him would probably pressure him into doing so anyways.

After all, once they’ve gotten a hold of the key, even if Grant were dead, they would still be able to create an even stronger Pope.

After mulling his thoughts over, Benjamin went to get Miles from the Potions Department.

"Apologies for interrupting your research, but I have an important favor to ask of you." Benjamin continued, "The Kingdom of Helius has suddenly given up on their plans of attack. From the surface, it seems as if it is because of the invasion of a foreign cult, but..."

Miles extracted the needle from his arm and was brimming with happiness at the prospect of leaving this place. "But you do not think so?"

Benjamin nodded his head solemnly.

"Can you help me find out the truth?"