When A Mage Revolts

The structure of the academy’s business was coming up very soon in the schedule; Benjamin gave Varys and his men the go ahead to start working on this matter. However, he had not forgotten what the initial purpose of this was.

As time passed, there was finally a response from the Kingdom of Helius.

"The Church has ordered a strict restriction of people entering and leaving the country." The spies reported through the wood transmission piece, "This has led to the dissatisfaction of some, but basically it is still under control, it hasn’t created a huge backlash."

"Good. You guys, continue your investigations. When there’s a situation, report back to me."

After responding, Benjamin kept the wood piece away, nodding.

Actually, after the Church had tightened the security checks on people going in and out of the country, in the end, there were still merchants sneaking out from the Kingdom of Helius and visiting them at the academy. If one had money, one could make the devil push a milestone; a simple restriction decree like that would not be able to control these rich people.

From another perspective, this meant that the Church was not yet provoked enough, and they were still going about their business in a proper manner.

Benjamin really wanted to go over now and ask the Fulner family if they had a way to force Grant into panicking, so that Grant would start making some rash decisions. The goal of those people was to cause an internal ruckus in the Church, and now it looked like it was not enough to rely on just the paper statement of the Academy of Magic.

He was afraid, they had to come up with some hot gossip now...

Just as he was pondering, the Fulner family had covertly sent over a secret letter.

"We are extremely grateful to the statement you released, sir. All thanks to you, the calm surface of the lake is once again rippling. There is an undercurrent of unrest inside the Church now, and we have prepared our final trump card. Once we play it, we will be able to break the calm on this surface, and cause the sinful one to fall from the skies, descending into an endless abyss."

After he had finished reading, Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows.

The final trump card...

The Fulner family did not make it clear in the letter, forcing him to be somewhat concerned. To overthrow an officially installed pope was not an easy task; although Grant had many flaws, there had never been a successful instance of such a mission.

What trump card did they have?

Out of curiosity, Benjamin posed the question in his reply letter. However, he did not have high hopes; the Fulner family was very likely to seal their lips shut to keep the secret, and Benjamin would understand it too.

To be honest, he did not need to worry about the issues in the Kingdom of Helius anymore. Even if the Fulner family failed, the impact on the Academy of Magic would be insignificant. Furthermore, the plan had developed to this stage, so there was nothing Benjamin could do anymore.

But... He could not help but still feel somewhat wary.

If the Fulner family really succeeded, what would the Kingdom of Helius turn into? What would happen to Grant?

In all fairness, Benjamin did not wish death upon Grant. He had more hope that it would turn out to be an ending like the ones in kung fu novels, such as "deprived of his power", and "kneeling before the graves of his parents in regret".

But if the Fulner family joined forces with the opposition in Helius to drag him down, Grant’s fate would not be a good one. It would be considered a relief if he ended up just dead.

Benjamin even felt that it was possible for the Fulner family to seize power, and then turn their backs on him to become the main force ruling the Church. Changes had happened so many times already; Benjamin did not dare to underestimate a force that seemed, from every angle, to be lowly and harmless.

The peaceful surface of water could also turn violent and rough, with just a toss of a pebble.

It was better to just wait...

Benjamin gave a sigh, and burnt the secret letter before going about his usual business in the academy. He had secret spies in the Kingdom of Helius now, so if things happened, he would know about them immediately.

And so, he began to delve into the establishment of the academy’s business with Varys.

Not long after this project started, there were already twenty one merchants who had officially joined. People from every country and area had also heard of this matter, but they were basically just observing for now. Also, Benjamin and the big businesses still maintained their friendly relations, and so, they did not come over to cause trouble due to the competition.

Of course, the real perception of those big businesses so far was probably that they did not see the Academy of Magic as a competitor in business at all, and did not feel that the academy’s business would pose any sort of threat, so they did not take action at all.

"Every industry has its rules. Do they think that they can snatch a slice of the cake out of our hands by inviting a bunch of plebians to help them out, under the nicely put term of ‘cooperation’? How about he just focus on his school and avoid losing even his family property."

This was the personal assessment the spies gathered from a certain big time merchant about the academy’s business.

Benjamin laughed the notion off.

He would not say whether the assessment was true or false, but it was enough to see how the outside world disregarded Benjamin’s actions. In this world, it was already common to have regular chain shops, but the formation of a cooperation franchise had not yet been done. Everyone had the idea that if you opened a business, you should be using your own brand; to put up another person’s brand would be tantamount to working for them.

It was apparent that this world had yet to experience the marketing of those "Cooperate with XXX, be your own boss, be successful and earn lots of money" advertisements, and did not understand how the impact of a formation of the cooperation franchise was many times that of a regular chain shop system.

So far, the merchants that had joined the academy’s business were already all over the country; the main cities of every country were involved. They would use their respective manpower and capital to set up branch shops of the academy’s business. The academy did not even need to worry. If Benjamin were to set up shops himself, one by one, he would be doing that for god knows how many years.

And, after the shops were set up, the losses would all be borne by those shop owners; Benjamin only needed to be responsible for the supply of goods, and occasionally provide some assistance on technical issues.

And so, Benjamin busied himself with this matter; from setting the terms and conditions of the cooperation negotiations, to spreading the news everywhere, helping to design a unified theme for the storefront renovations, and finally, paying attention to the developments in the Kingdom of Helius. His life was extremely productive now.

However, something that he had not expected was how, after a period of time, the Fulner family had written back to tell him about their "trump card".

"Sir, do you remember, back when you were slandered to be Grant, the young man who was tied up with you at the stake? He was a young lad we had found in a farm in the territory. Both his parents had died, and he was unable to earn his living when he was younger. It is all due to the financial aid of the Fulner family that he could live and grow. Because of that, he was willing to sacrifice himself and bear the heavy burden of tempting the sinful one, and finally confessed the crime he had committed with Grant."

"Although he has, unfortunately, perished in fire, and he has not been successful in getting rid of Grant... However, only we, the Fulner family know, that he actually has a younger brother who looks like him, and is also faithful and loyal to us."