Benjamin was stunned after he heard what the System said.
It was not that he was so shocked, but it was that the System’s words stirred up a specific detail in his memory.
When Grant was preparing to use the divine arts to converge the holy light, Benjamin was distracted by the magical disturbance around him. The situation was too hectic for Benjamin to notice it then, but now that he thought about it...
That disturbance was too similar to the ripple he feels when magic is casted.
"According to the data I’ve collected and analysed, Grant’s ripples from the divine arts are basically the same with your ripples when you casted the Waterball Spell. Both aim to move the scattered elements for manipulation," the System said. It did not forget to pick on Benjamin as it continued, "Of course, his ripples were at least 100 times stronger than yours, that’s for sure."
Benjamin was already immune to the ridicule from the System. After all, if this discovery was true, it would mean the world to him. Thus, he asked the System again, "Are you sure?"
Annoyed, the System spat, "Of course! When have my research results been wrong?"
"…."
When he heard this answer, he felt less convinced.
After some thought, he decided it would be better if he tested this theory.
If the divine arts and magic are fundamentally the same, it would mean that he could learn both. On top of that, all the theories in divine arts could also be replicated and used in magic.
Undoubtedly, the divine arts were much more advanced than magic. He could borrow the theories of the divine arts and apply them on his magical training! That would be much better than him wallowing in frustration trying to learn it by himself.
At last, he saw a path before him again.
Of course, all of this could only be true if magic and divine arts were indeed the same. If the System's hypothesis was faulty, then all these thoughts would still be wasted.
After coming to this conclusion, Benjamin got out of bed and walked towards the door.
"Where are you going?" The System asked.
"To see Grant. He has learned divine arts for so long, surely he would have a lot of materials about the divine arts, I should get some to read," Benjamin replied.
Of course, he was not stupid enough to go and learn about the divine arts through the church, as that would be an unnecessary move that would bear no results. Grant was his brother by blood, and they even stayed under one roof, which made it very convenient.
He refused to delay this matter anymore. Anyway, he could not afford to do so. Since he already has a plan, he might as well just act on it now.
Under the guidance of the System, Benjamin arrived at the door of Grant's room.
On second thought, he decided that he should knock. If he sneaked into the room, what would happen if he was caught? He might as well just take them from Grant properly! Besides, Grant was a naive person, Benjamin would be able to get the items by giving some lame excuse, right?
Grant probably still felt guilty towards him after the castle incident.
No one opened the door.
Benjamin hesitated, but knocked again. Still, no one answered.
Benjamin raised his eyebrows. If that’s the case, then no one can blame him for entering.
He held the doorknob and gently turned it. He felt a rush of delight when he found out that the door was unlocked, and he carefully twisted the knob and tried to open the door without making a sound.
Snores were heard from the room.
When Benjamin walked into the room, he saw Grant lying under thick covers on the bed. He was fast asleep like a dead pig. Benjamin wished that he could laugh out loud at the sight. God was indeed by his side!
He crept to the bedside and whispered, "Grant, Grant, are you asleep?"
A loud snore answered the question.
Benjamin immediately felt relaxed. He walked to Grant’s table and flipped the stacks of books on top of it.
Just as Benjamin joyfully took the book in his arms, a soft coughing sound came from behind.
Benjamin froze and his blood ran cold.
He turned around immediately, but there was no one there. Grant was still sound asleep on the bed, his face buried between his covers and pillows. His snores were continuous and he showed no signs of waking.
When Benjamin saw this, he did not feel relieved. Instead, he became more afraid.
Fuck, there was something supernatural going on here, where did the cough come from when there was no one here?
Grant obviously did not cough in his dreams, because when Benjamin heard the cough, Grant’s snores were not interrupted - it was impossible for Grant to snore and cough simultaneously, right?
Shit, someone else was in this room!
Was it Michelle? Maybe she hid in the manor, and used some skills to hide her tracks? Or…. was it the church?
Each guess he made was more terrifying than the last.
Just as Benjamin was tortured with confusion and fear, he heard another cough - a soft, clearly repressed cough, from underneath Grant’s blanket.
"...."
In a second, Benjamin finally understood. He was relieved. Here he was, wondering what it was! It scared the living lights out of him, when it was just…. Just….
Well, he really did underestimate his little brother.
Benjamin tried to reel in the despicable smile he had on his face as he walked over to the bed and whispered to Grant, "Grant, I couldn’t sleep, so I’ll borrow this book from you, alright?"
Grant’s snores paused for a second before it returned to normal, as if he really was asleep and dead to the world.
Benjamin smirked and strolled out of Grant’s bedroom. He was even considerate enough to close the door behind him.
"What happened? Why did you do that? Why did I not understand anything I just saw?" The System jumped out and asked dumbly.
"Ah, stop pretending. I saved almost 1TB of action movies in your hard drive, stop trying to look pure and innocent," Speechless, Benjamin retorted.
The System was quiet, then it emitted a mechanical sound that resembled a creepy and filthy snicker.
So, although there was a ‘hiccup’, Benjamin still got the things he wanted and went safely back into his room. He crawled back to his bed and tucked the Holy Bible - Mage Version away, then flipped open Divine Arts 101.
In contrast to the mages’ brochure for revolution, the DIvine Arts 101 was meticulously edited. It was more systematic, and had an abundance of content. The introduction cut straight into the nature of the divine arts. Divine arts utilizes spiritual energy to communicate with the holy light scattered in the environment, and used god’s power as a medium to cast unimaginable divine spells.
This was similar with Benjamin’s understanding of magic - substitute ‘holy light’ with ‘water particles’, and ‘god’s power’ to ‘nature’s power’, and it would be exactly the same. This basically proved the System’s reasoning of ‘Divine Arts is Magic’.
Benjamin continued reading. The book listed out the qualities for a person to be able to learn divine arts. Benjamin could not help but recall that the System once told him that he was found through tests to have zero talents in the divine arts.
If divine arts was magic, why then would he have the talent to learn magic?
In the book, it was written that in order for a person to learn divine arts, the individual must possess these 2 qualities: strong spiritual energy and high affinity to the holy light. If the spiritual energy was weak, the divine arts will fail easily; if the affinity to the holy light was low, then it would be difficult for the individual to gather the holy light. Neither of the elements can be absent.
If he were to translate that to magic, it would probably mean the need for spiritual energy and affinity to the water element.
After he questioned the System, Benjamin found out that he was extremely weak in both qualities during the initial test. That was why he was judged to have no talent in the divine arts. However, magic needed spiritual energy too, and if he had low spiritual energy, how did he manage to learn magic in the first place?
"Hmm…. that was probably why you could not seem to learn these spells no matter how hard you try," the System suddenly said.
It did not take long for it to dawn on Benjamin. No wonder he could not seem to succeed in summoning the water barrier. His spiritual energy was weak! When it came to the affinity to water, if he compared himself to what was described in the book, he probably did not do good in that department too.
This result did not delight Benjamin whatsoever. This meant that Benjamin would never be able to learn magic like those who were gifted.
He glanced at the space of his consciousness and the symbol within. He understood now that it was useless for him to ask Michelle about magic. He could only make his own path, and fully explore this dark technology.
Thankfully, as Benjamin read on, Divine Arts 101 introduced a special scenario. In this case, even if the individual did not have a good spiritual energy and affinity, he/she could still learn the divine arts and could even achieve a very high standard.
In the book, this was called ‘Unlocking the Zone of Prayer and Condensing the Crest of Holy Light’.
Benjamin’s eyes widened. At last.
After he scanned the next few lines of the introduction, he was sure that the ‘Zone of Prayer’ was the space of his consciousness, and the ‘Crest of Holy Light’ was the magical emblem.
The book did not give much explanation about this. It only said that this method was extremely risky as it was easy to be attacked by evil forces and become paralysed when one was unlocking the Zone of Prayer. Besides, not many people actually knew how to unlock the Zone, and the ones who actually did it came to it by coincidence. Historically, only a few people were successful in this endeavour.
Benjamin recalled his experience, and had an urge to clarify that losing one’s mind is not related to evil forces at all. It only meant that one was lost in some space in the consciousness and unable to escape.
However, after it talked about the cons of this method, it followed with the pros. The Zone of Prayer could store the floating holy lights. The release of the divine arts takes an extremely short time, some can even cast spells using only their minds. With the Crest of the Holy Light, the divine arts will be much stronger and easier to control than usual. Furthermore, if you have the Zone of Prayer, you do not need to train your spiritual energy the hard way. You would not even face a limit, you just need to strengthen the Crest within.
After all this, the book also stated that the 4th Pope used this method to train himself. He was also the Pope who completed the unification of the Kingdom of Helius, the ‘Son of God’ who truly led the church to its peak.
Benjamin would be lying if he were to say that he was not excited. This paragraph basically told him that the path he was on would lead him somewhere good. As long as he put in effort, he would be a great person in this generation.
Not only was he excited, he was grateful too.
After all, according to the book, only 1 in a million people was able to unlock the Space.
He really needed to thank the System. If it did not put the spell on loop, he would not be able to get into the space of his consciousness completely by accident, and he would also not be able to get out of the Space.
Benjamin had a lot of hope for his future now. He held the book and continued reading.
However, when he came to the training part of the chapter, his elated heart plummeted to the floor. It was as if a bucket of cold water was poured down his face.
On the book, it was written: A person can only condense a maximum of 3 Crests of Holy Lights. Each Crest represents a type of divine spell, which means that the people who use this method to train could only learn a maximum of 3 spells throughout their life. The failure rate would increase drastically if they casted other divine spells.