It's Your Mother

Just as Benjamin began to feel a bit creeped out by those eyes, the owner of the eyes on the other side of the iron door suddenly spoke:

"Don't make a sound. Jessica was just sent away by me, but she'll be back soon. I can't stay here long."

It was a gentle woman's voice. Benjamin found it somewhat familiar, yet he couldn't quite place who it was.

"Who is this?"

He asked the system in his mind.

"It's your mother," the system replied.

"..."

Under the system's "friendly" reminder, Benjamin finally remembered. The owner of this voice was Mary, who had spoken once before in the living room—Claude's wife, the Old Madam's daughter-in-law, and Benjamin's biological mother.

His mother had sent away the guarding maid to visit him in secret.

According to the simplified memory provided by the system, Mary was a virtuous wife and a good mother, and her temper was famously gentle throughout the Royal Capital. From childhood to adulthood, Benjamin had never seen her lose her temper, nor had he seen anyone who didn't get along with her—except, of course, for the Old Madam.

Even though the Old Madam disliked Mary and often caused trouble for her, Mary never truly fought back, instead silently enduring all of the Old Madam's bitterness and spite. One could say she was a model daughter-in-law for this era.

When facing Benjamin, Mary never became disappointed or cold just because he was a waste. She treated Benjamin and Grant equally and took care of them both very thoughtfully. This was already quite rare; one had to know that even with two similar children, favoritism was common, let alone in Benjamin's family situation.

Thinking of this, Benjamin didn't hesitate any longer and immediately started acting pitiful:

"Mother, you finally came."

Although he didn't say any complaining words, the miserable tone and weak voice were enough to show just how pathetic he was.

Hopefully, this would trigger his mother's endless sympathy.

"Yes, your father just left the house, so I had the chance to come here and find you. Come, you must be starving. I had the cook make a few extra pieces of bread, and I brought them for you. Eat something to pad your stomach and get through this." Sure enough, Mary did not disappoint Benjamin's expectations. As she spoke, she pushed a small paper parcel through the small opening in the door.

Benjamin grew excited instantly. He took the parcel and opened it with trembling hands. Two soft, warm pieces of bread lay quietly inside, emitting a faint scent of wheat mixed with the aroma of milk.

Ah, food!

Benjamin shed tears of joy on the spot.

There is nothing better than a mother in this world; a child with a mother is like a treasure.

Although he wanted to immediately devour the bread in his hands, he suppressed his hunger and looked gratefully at the pair of blue eyes at the small opening, saying, "Thank you, I was about to starve to death."

Mary smiled on the other side of the door and continued: "Don't worry. Tomorrow, when your father's anger has subsided a bit, I will plead with him, and he should let you out. Rest assured, your father certainly won't keep you locked up here for too long."

Hearing this, Benjamin felt reassured. If he were locked up here for too long, it would significantly impact his plans to study magic. Only by getting out early could he continue to have Jeremy dig up Annie's belongings for him.

He didn't want to stay in this place for too long either. Resting for a while was fine, but it would be boring if it lasted too long. Just like now, even though he had been locked in for less than two hours, he was already starting to get sick of the potatoes.

If he stayed for a few more days, would his head start sprouting?

"Alright, Jessica will be back if I stay any longer. I have to go. Be careful and don't let them discover that someone has been here." The eyes at the small opening moved away for a moment, seemingly observing the situation outside. Soon, Mary returned and said this to Benjamin.

"Okay, goodbye, Mother," Benjamin replied, full of sincere gratitude.

"Goodbye, dear."

Accompanied by the sound of light footsteps, Mary closed the small opening of the iron door and left the basement. After watching Mary leave, Benjamin immediately began to enjoy the bread in his hands.

The portion of bread wasn't small, but Benjamin was so hungry that no amount would have been too much. Before long, only the empty paper parcel and a few crumbs remained in his hands. He rubbed his stomach contentedly and let out a satisfied burp.

He crumpled the paper parcel into a ball and hid it deep within the sea of potatoes to avoid being discovered.

Then, having eaten his fill, he lay lazily in the pile of potatoes, closed his eyes, and sank into the depths of his consciousness.

He didn't intend to waste time sitting idly in the basement. Since there was nothing else to do, he might as well study his consciousness space and that blue "Triangle Glyph" properly. Not having a teacher didn't mean he couldn't be self-taught.

In fact, wasn't the process of him comprehending magic just self-teaching?

Of course, Benjamin had considered whether to practice the only magic he had learned—the Water Ball Spell. According to most novels, the simplest way to train a special ability was to use it repeatedly. However, his current location was so close to the Grand Cathedral that, as Michelle had said, the "Purifiers" could sense magic within a certain range. If he alerted the people from The Church, wouldn't he be dead?

If he wanted to practice magic, he could only do it within his consciousness space.

He had used the Water Ball Spell once in his consciousness space before, and Michelle, who was standing right next to him, hadn't sensed a thing. Surely the cathedral, several streets away, wouldn't have any reaction.

Consciousness space... it really was a marvelous existence.

Although he didn't know how Michelle and the others learned magic, his intuition told Benjamin that they didn't have such a marvelous space, nor did they have visualized magic symbols like the blue glyph. The process of them becoming mages was likely completely different from his.

By stumbling into this, he seemed to have embarked on an unusual path.

This made Benjamin even more curious about his consciousness space. Therefore, at this moment, with nothing else to do while locked in the basement, he entered his consciousness space once again.

In the vast consciousness space, everything remained the same. The pitch-black, boundless environment, the pale blue Triangle Glyph... the entire space seemed to have been set in stone the moment it formed; no matter how time passed, it never changed in the slightest.

What had changed was Benjamin.

After learning the Water Element Sensing Method when he met the assassin, he could perceive that he was more sensitive to water elements. Therefore, the water elements wandering in this space were much clearer to his eyes. After thinking for a while, he left the consciousness space and returned to reality to observe the water elements in the real world.

According to his observations, the water elements in his consciousness space were much denser than those in reality.

Then, he returned to the consciousness space. After a brief pause, he suddenly turned his back to the blue glyph and sprinted toward the boundless darkness of the consciousness space. As the blue light receded behind him, he could clearly feel the water elements around him decreasing rapidly, much like a blue-to-black gradient fabric.

Soon, there was nothing left around him, only pitch-black darkness.

Although this darkness didn't make Benjamin feel uneasy, it actually gave him a strange sense of familiarity.

He didn't stop running. Although his hypothesis about the water elements had been verified, he had developed another curiosity: did this consciousness space have a boundary? If he kept running like this, what would happen? What kind of secrets were hidden in this deep darkness?

Exploring the unknown was a human instinct, whether it was exploring the vast space outward or the deep inner self inward. People always wanted to know what existed in places they had never been.

Therefore, he continued to run toward the darker depths.

Then, he ran like an idiot.

"What the hell, what kind of place is this?"

After an incredibly long marathon, Benjamin finally had to stop, leaning on his knees, gasping for air, staring blankly at the endless darkness ahead.

He had originally thought that there was no physical exhaustion in the consciousness space. It was normal to think that way; physical strength was a tangible thing, so how could the spirit have physical stamina? But to his surprise, he was wrong.

He should have trusted Marx. Matter was the foundation of the spirit, and when the spirit was heavily consumed or even overdrawn, it would also drag down the matter.

In this vast, boundless consciousness space, he had run for who knew how long and covered who knew how many kilometers, yet he never saw a boundary. Everything around him remained unchanged, leaving only darkness, darkness, and more darkness...

By the time his hands and feet were sore and his limbs were numb, he still didn't see any sign of an end.

Thus, he had to stop, exhausted to the point of collapse.

"Human consciousness is inherently boundless. You are basically wasting your energy trying to find an end here," the system suddenly popped up again, its toneless mechanical voice echoing eerily in the darkness.

"I was just curious," Benjamin replied.

"You were just bored," the mechanical voice added some unnecessary inflection.

"..." Benjamin couldn't think of a way to refute that.

He had indeed just eaten his fill, and he really had nothing to do.

In the end, Benjamin gave up on the idea of continuing to explore the consciousness space. He returned to reality and then re-entered the consciousness space, where his position returned to the side of the blue glyph. The blue light shone, and the water elements around him became abundant once again.

All that effort from running had been in vain, and he felt a bit of a heartache.

However, his attention soon shifted.

He was still a relatively optimistic person; since one exploration yielded no results, he would move on to the next:

He reached out, aimed at the blue glyph, and chanted the incantation for the Water Ball Spell once again. Accompanied by the vibration of the glyph and the gathering of water elements, a water ball formed in his palm. He didn't hesitate; with a thought, he dissipated the water ball, and then he chanted the incantation again...

Time and time again, he repeatedly used the Water Ball Spell in his consciousness space. Pale blue ripples spread out like waves, drawing in water elements, causing them to aggregate and disperse like tides in the darkness.

Soon, he felt that the water elements in the consciousness space had become much thinner, but he didn't stop using the Water Ball Spell; instead, he accelerated his movements.

When he chanted the incantation for the forty-fifth time, he discovered that no water ball appeared in his palm. Not only that, but accompanied by a sudden onset of a headache, he was suddenly pushed out of his consciousness space.

For the first time, he returned to reality involuntarily.

Although his head throbbed with wave after wave of pain, Benjamin could not hide the joy in his tone:

"I know now!"

"...You know what?" After a moment of silence, the system spoke somewhat reluctantly. "Although I don't really want to respond to you, I'll begrudgingly play along."

Benjamin didn't care about the system's sarcasm at all. He was immersed in the excitement of his discovery, as happy as a child learning to walk for the first time, as jubilant as a student seeing a score of 61 after failing a retake for the third time.

He shouted in his heart:

"I know the cultivation method for mages!"

I've been thinking about when it's best to update lately... I tried updating at midnight before, thinking it would stay on the update list all night and more people would see it, but it didn't seem to help (so tired)... Now I update at noon, but others say updating at night is better. I wonder what time you all are used to reading?