When A Mage Revolts

At that moment, Benjamin felt as though he had just seen a ghost.

He spun around violently, trying to catch a glimpse of what had just spoken to him. However, the moment he turned around, his body froze out of fear.

This... Where was this?

The second it had taken him to turn around was all it took for the surrounding environment to completely change. The pale walls that had line the entire Abandoned Valley of God had suddenly disappeared, now replaced with lush trees. The vast sea of treetops swayed gently in the light breeze, occasionally interrupted by the cheerful sound of chirping birds. The skies were no longer overcast; bright sunlight shone down so brightly that they now had to squint.

"F*ck..."

Benjamin could not help but say out loud.

He could vaguely tell that the shape of the mountain walls and rocks were the same as before, it was just that... like a sketch being colored in, the entire Abandoned Valley of Gods for some reason had become lively.

What happened?

"Miles, you..." He hurriedly turned his head, intending to tell Miles something, but his sentence got stuck in his throat.

He now saw that there was no one around him. Miles seemed to have vanished along with the dark and grey valley.

Benjamin was terrified.

He did not understand what was happening. Was this an illusion, or was he dreaming? He had instinctively turned around because of the creepy voice, but it seemed that in the millisecond it took him to do it, he had passed into another world.

"Hey, what is this about? Have I fallen into some strange illusion again?" He hurriedly called the System. "Are you still claiming that there’s no voice? There was clearly a voice, and that voice even spoke to me!"

The System did not reply.

Benjamin was startled.

He closed his eyes and tried to return to the space of consciousness, but when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that he was still in the Abandoned Valley of Gods; the familiar runes and the runic star chart were nowhere to be seen.

This time, Benjamin really felt a strong sense of danger.

He had lost the ability to access the tricks that he usually depended upon and he did not know where he was. He did not know what had happened in that split second... was he even still alive?

Then, the voice came from behind him once more.

"Young lad, do you want to learn magic too?"

Benjamin turned around and discovered that on the previously empty ground behind him, now stood an unfamiliar figure.

He looked to be about thirty plus years old, with longish black hair and an unshaven beard. He was squinting intensely at Benjamin and wearing strange robes made from the fur of beasts. Although it looked like it was supposed to be a magical robe, its workmanship and style were quite off-putting.

Benjamin gulped; he felt an indescribably strange sensation.

"...who are you?"

The other person, however, laughed as he replied, "Oh? You want to be a mage, yet you don’t even know who I am. Youngsters nowadays are really too much."

Benjamin’s face did not change; he only quietly took a few steps back to put some distance between himself and this peculiar fellow.

He did not know what was going on, but he could distinguish that the voice of this person and strange voice from earlier were one and the same.

Which meant that all this nonsense was this guy’s doing.

The mysterious man seemed to be quite taken aback at Benjamin’s alert demeanor. However, he quickly shook his head and casually said, "My name is Cain. I am the greatest mage in the world. Ring a bell?"

For a moment, Benjamin’s face contorted with confusion.

Had he really traveled into another world?

The Abandoned Valley of God was now lush and beautiful coupled with the sudden appearance of a middle-aged uncle who referred to himself as "Cain" ... He could not help but wonder, had he gone back to the very first Abandoned Valley of Gods?

Back to the time when the name "Abandoned Valley of Gods" had not even been coined yet.

This was unimaginable.

There was still a strong feeling of absurdity Benjamin’s heart. He felt weirded out when the strange voice had kept on prodding at him, but he had never imagined that the voice would eventually bring him traveling through time, back to the era when magic was only first appearing.

What was this? A parallel universe? A flashback of the past? Or had he really time traveled?

Furthermore... Why him?

Benjamin’s feelings at that time were extremely complicated; various thoughts flashed through his mind. Because of this, he kept silent and did not speak. Seeing this, the man who called himself Cain opened his mouth once more.

"What are you thinking about? Are you too excited? Stunned at my identity?"

Benjamin, however, lifted his gaze and tossed out a rather sudden question.

"Who am I?"

Hearing this, Cain was slightly startled and frowned disapprovingly.

"You don’t even know who you are?"

Without changing his expression, Benjamin merely shook his head.

Of course, he knew who he was, but he did not know the position he was in. Had he traveled through space and time, was he a man who had fallen out of thin air, or had he taken the perspective of a nameless pawn during this time to observe all that had happened in this valley many years ago from the sidelines?

The answer could solve many questions.

Nevertheless, Cain patted Benjamin’s shoulder.

"You poor child. You’d been separated from your tribe when you were young, both your parents are gone, and now you can’t even remember your own name." He said while shaking your head, "Since you’ve been raised by magical creatures all this time, let us call you Beast."

"..."

An orphan raised by magical creatures? What kind of a bloody setup was this?

Benjamin was momentarily speechless.

However, he still knew that everything before his eyes right now might not even be real. Perhaps they had triggered something after arriving in the Abandoned Valley of Gods, and because of that, he had fallen into Cain’s dreamlike illusion.

—This could all just be a scene that took place eons ago, a "replay" that would cause no changes to the future.

But, even if this was the case, Benjamin remained on guard.

Why had he lost contact with the space of consciousness and the System?

"Come with me, Beast." Cain beckoned at Benjamin with his hand, "The magical creatures of the west will return very soon. There are still three months left until the magic tide, if our tribe wishes to survive, then we must soldier on."

While speaking, he turned around and started walking off. Seeing this, Benjamin hesitated for a moment before obediently following.

"Master Cain..." After a moment’s deliberation, he suddenly spoke, "May I ask... Where is Abel?"

As the very sound of his name left his lips, he could sense Cain’s expression become extremely unnatural.