Jack did not answer Benjamin. Instead, he took a step back, his spine striking the metal wall.
He stared fixedly at the being before him, every muscle in his body drawn taut.
"What exactly are you plotting?"
Benjamin tilted his head, looking almost innocent. "Plotting? I told you, I sincerely want to take you as my disciple."
"What exactly are you?" Jack asked in a low voice.
"A wizard." When Benjamin spoke those words, his tone carried an almost instinctive pride. "One who pries power loose with knowledge, one who pursues knowledge. Your civilization once had people like that too, but they were interrupted by that disaster. Kid, the intelligence you've displayed makes me think you're qualified to be my disciple."
Benjamin was not lying. Although Jack had not displayed much talent for research, his intelligence in other respects was certainly not lacking. Jack sneered.
This guy had been putting on an act from the very beginning, manipulating him like a chess piece, and now he was talking about taking him as a disciple?
"Are you trying to turn me into one of those twisted monsters too?" Jack forced the words through clenched teeth, his gaze sweeping over the corpses of the old men he had killed on the ground.
"No." Benjamin shook his head. "You are also a human subspecies. Your bodily structure is close enough to the standard humans of Wizard Civilization. Simply put, you don't need to become a monster. Wizard Civilization's treatment of human subspecies is not fundamentally different from how you treat your own kind."
Jack sneered. "Become your disciple, become your puppet, and then let you occupy this world?"
Benjamin looked at him and suddenly smiled.
There was a hint of disdain in that smile. "We do intend to occupy this world, but this