The Battle for the Fruits of Success

After the interrogation ended, Benjamin swiftly made his way to Frieden.

The organization Mage Landor had revealed was called "Shadow," and it was based in Lante City. Benjamin had barely dealt with it before. However, from the information he had pried out of the mage, the organization seemed quite powerful, wielding considerable influence within the city and throughout Frieden. Otherwise, they would never have entertained the idea of founding an academy.

For that reason, Benjamin did not head straight to Lante City, grab the person in charge by the collar, and ask whether he had a death wish. He first went to Riley City and met with Mage Finch.

"Time is short, so I'll get straight to the point." Benjamin spoke with a grave expression. "That 'Shadow' in Lante City is preparing to establish a mage academy. You know about it too, don't you? I want to make sure they can't."

Clearly, his bluntness caught Mage Finch off guard.

After being tongue-tied for a moment, he finally came back to himself and frowned as he advised, "Mage Benjamin, although you founded the first mage academy, you can't demand that yours be the only school in the world, can you? As far as I know, organizations in quite a few places have similar ideas. How can you stop them all?"

"I have no interest in stopping others. I only want to deal with that bunch."

As he spoke, he roughly explained the leak of the secret to Mage Finch. After hearing him out, Mage Finch also looked shocked and nodded solemnly.

"Leaking a formula... that's a very serious matter. We truly cannot let them get away with it."

Benjamin had described the leak of the runes as the leaking of a magic potion formula, and Mage Finch happened to work in