CH498

“Uh, so what the hell was that?” Skoe was the first to ask, giving voice to what the rest of them wanted to know with Thera also casting her eyes to Ben, more than willing to trust him at the time but wanting an explanation now given that she’d just very publicly committed a crime.

“Nobody worry, Myriad’s aware of what happened but long story short that guy has someone chained up in his basement to turn into potions. Given that that’s, you know, bad, I just stepped in to stop it.”

Both Thera and Sachel’s eyes took a much harder look upon hearing that, with the first having to be justifiably worried about that sort of thing growing up thanks to her unique spirit heritage while the second was well aware of her own race’s history of being hunted, making that more than enough explanation for most of them, even if that only created more questions for the others.

“How could you possibly know that?” Ralia asked, giving him a confused look.

“In case you forgot, I have this handy dandy mind-reading skill as a perk for believing in Myriad. I’d personally recommend it if you feel like converting.”

“Don’t you need to touch someone to use that?”

Ah, yeah, guess I have been at least a little successful keeping that a secret in town. At least until now, that is.

“I awakened it and increased the range,” He admitted with a shrug. “Do me a favour and keep that to yourself.”

“Wait, so you just casually read people’s minds?” Skoe recoiled, getting a blank stare in return.

“Yeah, it’s part of my skill so I need to practice and as long as I’m just doing it to passing strangers then it typically doesn’t matter. People usually aren’t thinking anything interesting enough for it to matter if some guy knows what’s going on in their heads. Would you rather I didn’t and some guy got turned into juice?”

“That’s not the point.”

“I know it’s not, but it’s too handy of a skill to not try and raise and if I find out you’re going to spread this around Stonewall and cost me any business then we really will be having problems,” Ben spoke firmly, making the implied threat clear as the other backed down.

And that’s an issue squashed before it could become a problem too. Okay, think that’s all set.

“Anyway, that’s done now so can we hurry up and get on our way?” He asked them, forcefully changing the subject. “We don’t want to be late, do we?”

He didn’t give them time to answer, instead moving to lead the way and forcing the rest to follow as he went on, heading to the giant colosseum at the heart of the city.

It was crowded when they got there, unsurprising given what was happening, but what was more shocking was both the number of people he recognized as well as the amount who recognized him in return as eyes turned his way and small whispers went up, with the size of the crowd making even more sense as something clicked. It was full of people he’d helped awaken.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

After the first wave, he’d directly helped raise the level of over a thousand mages and of them, not all of them were directly tied to a nation that was saddled with an invasion point, meaning there were plenty in the world who needed to find the place they’d be of most use for what was to come.