Suppressing his urge to fight, Benjamin resumed testing the water ball's defensive capabilities.
He turned the water ball into a bubble and wrapped it around himself. Then he tried punching it.
Damn, that hurt!
Benjamin felt as if he'd punched a sheet of bulletproof glass. The bubble didn't budge. Forget breaking through it—it didn't even tremble or deform in the slightest. It felt just like a bubble made of bulletproof glass.
Remembering the battle between the Paladins and the elderly mage in the outer district, Benjamin figured that even if his bubble wasn't as powerful as the Water Barrier, it should still be able to withstand one strike from a blessed longsword.
Considering the water ball's offensive and defensive capabilities, he could already defeat a fully fledged Paladin without much effort.
The Water Element Crystal had given his strength a huge boost.
He'd been a little reluctant to use it at first, but now all he could think was that it had been worth it!
It wasn't just his magical abilities that had improved. Under the influence of the Triangle Glyph, his affinity for the element had also increased considerably. Even the water ball beside him, which he planned to use to form a new glyph, was absorbing water elements much faster.
At this rate, he'd be able to learn a new spell in just a few days.
It was a double blessing, and Benjamin was even more pleased.
Seriously, if he could get a few more Water Element Crystals, he'd be able to shoot straight to the top. Why bother meditating? It wasn't as if his method of cultivation had any bottlenecks anyway.
But that was just a pipe dream.
According to the two mages, Elemental Crystals were extremely rare. Unlike the spirit stones in those cultivation novels, they didn't come from mines that could be excavated. They appeared without any pattern, so finding one was entirely a matter of luck.
That meant he probably wouldn't get another one anytime soon.
He'd better focus on cultivating.
The road ahead still had to be walked one step at a time.
And so, after a huge leap in strength, Benjamin began that day's magical studies, calming his mind and meditating.
It had to be said that after the Triangle Glyph had been greatly enhanced, Benjamin had become better at gathering water elements, and his meditation had grown more efficient. He could now channel almost twice as many water elements into the Triangle Glyph in an hour as before.
If things kept going like this, wouldn't his meditation get faster and faster?
Wasn't this method of cultivation way too overpowered?
But after meditating all afternoon, he found the answer.
As he observed things throughout the afternoon, he realized that although his meditation had become more efficient, the Triangle Glyph had also developed a bigger appetite. It now needed more than twice as many water elements as before to grow stronger. Once everything balanced out, his rate of improvement hadn't increased. If anything, it had gradually slowed down.
As expected, there was no way a cultivation method could be that overpowered.
His dream of shooting straight to the top was now well and truly shattered.
He guessed that once he reached a certain level, the Triangle Glyph's demands would become enormous, but his meditation would also become far more efficient. Water Element Crystals would be meaningless to him by then; a single crystal might not even be worth an hour of meditation.
He knew there couldn't be anything that good. If someone got their hands on a pile of Elemental Crystals and then opened a Consciousness Space, wouldn't they become the best in the world overnight?
Balance was probably hard to break.
Water wore away stone, and a steady stream flowed far. That was the true path.
...Damn, he really had become a waterhead. He'd taken the path of water magic, and even his inner snark was getting more and more watery.
That was what he couldn't help thinking.
And so, Benjamin's two-point routine officially began.
The Church didn't give him any trouble, and neither did Michelle. Every morning, he went to military training; the rest of the time, he meditated at home. His plan to have Jeremy search for Annie's belongings was also underway. In between ordinary errands, he'd send Jeremy to investigate Michelle's hideouts and look for "the third tree in the old place."
Jeremy had checked two places so far, but hadn't found the "third tree." Benjamin wasn't in a hurry. The bishop had given him the locations of eight hideouts, so he could let Jeremy search at his own pace.
Military training was going well, too. Benjamin felt that he was in much better shape. Dean had also taught them a lot of practical fighting techniques, some of which were specifically designed for use with a pistol. Dean called them "Gun-Body Arts."
As part of their Gun-Body Arts practice, Dean had also started letting them handle guns—toy guns. Benjamin figured it wouldn't be long before Dean had them begin actual shooting practice.
He wasn't interested in shooting practice. He had a shooting interface, so he didn't need to train. But once they started practicing, he could sneak some bullets home to use. It'd be convenient, and as long as he didn't take too many, Dean probably wouldn't notice.
He didn't have a choice. He had only sixteen blessed bullets in total, and he couldn't bring himself to use them.
He'd also found time to finish reading the enchantment section in Introduction to Magic, but he had nowhere to practice. Enchanting required physical objects, but he couldn't practice in the real world in case the Purifier sensed him, and he couldn't bring physical objects into his Consciousness Space. So he'd have to put enchanting aside for now.
He hadn't tried to find out how to open the Treasure Vault, either. Obedience was a frightening thing. If he obeyed one of Michelle's orders, he'd start obeying a second. He planned to keep dragging things out with Michelle anyway. As long as the curse didn't take effect, he'd pretend it wasn't there.
If the curse did take effect... well, he'd agonize over it for a bit, then go back to pretending it wasn't there.
Wasn't it just a matter of whose will was stronger? Either way, he was determined to dig in his heels!
He wouldn't let Michelle push him around.
Benjamin figured that in a few days, Michelle would lose patience and come negotiate with him again, disrupting the peaceful routine he'd settled into. He hadn't figured out how to deal with that yet. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.
But to his surprise, it was Jeremy who broke the peace.
Something had happened to Jeremy.
"Master Benjamin, I'm sorry for the trouble. We don't know what happened to Jeremy, but he hasn't been seen since he left yesterday to run an errand for you. We haven't seen him all day. If there's anything you need, please tell me instead."
At noon that day, Benjamin had returned to his room after lunch and was about to begin meditating when the butler knocked, came in, and told him this.
Benjamin froze.
He suddenly remembered his last instruction to Jeremy, given a day earlier: go to the third of Michelle's former hideouts and see if there was a "third tree." If there was, dig up whatever was beneath it and bring it to Benjamin.
How could he have gone missing?
The third hideout was in the outer district. It wasn't somewhere deserted like the Prison Ruins, nor was it one of those notoriously dangerous places. It should've been relatively safe. And Jeremy had left during the day, to boot.
It seemed... something unusual had happened.
As he thought it over, several worrying possibilities flashed through Benjamin's mind.
Jeremy might have run into Michelle there and been captured. Or he might have encountered a mage like the one last time, or some other dangerous person, and been killed. There was one more possibility: he might have dug up Annie's belongings, only to be discovered by the Church and taken away to be brainwashed.
If it was the third possibility...
Benjamin shuddered.
"All right, I understand. Go take care of your own business. I'll be fine here," he said at once, giving the butler his instructions.
The butler nodded and left.
Benjamin, meanwhile, had to get ready to leave.
Whatever had happened, he had no choice but to go to the outer district. Jeremy was his manservant, and he'd gone missing while carrying out an errand for him. Benjamin couldn't hear the news, pretend nothing had happened, and stay home meditating.
If Jeremy really was in trouble, Benjamin had to save him. Otherwise, he'd feel guilty for the rest of his life.
Even if the Church really had taken him.
With a heavy heart, Benjamin left the house and set out for the outer district once again.
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