Benjamin's preparations took about a week.
The mages successfully arrived in various cities, disguised as hunters, farmers, traders... and quietly spread throughout Carites. One week may not be enough time to become a know-it-all, but at least you can integrate into local life and gradually become familiar with everything in the city without being noticed by the church.
News has also been transmitted from various places using magic props, so far everything is going smoothly, and Benjamin is relieved.
At this step, what he was most afraid of was that his mages would accidentally reveal some clues and be discovered by the church. If something like this really happened, even if all of them were not exposed, at least several mages would be "lost contact".
However, the church at the moment is probably not thinking about this.
Although no news had spread, Miles had just informed that seven or eight priest leaders had been assassinated by him. There is some unrest within the church now, and the king also said that he has seen the bishop's face look much more ugly in the past few days.
In this regard, Benjamin said: "Why only seven or eight? No, do you know how many people I killed in succession when I was in Freden?"
"… You rock."
Miles was speechless.
In any case, the successive deaths of such priests still put considerable pressure on the church. I heard that the church had begun to suspect that Benjamin had come to Carites, so they set up traps specifically targeting him in the remaining strongholds. Unfortunately, it was not Benjamin who carried out the assassination this time.
Therefore, the traps they set were of no use at all. Miles killed several more people, leaving the church in a fog, not knowing who was targeting them.
However, the entire assassination operation ended there. The church's vigilance further increased, and Miles also said that if he continued to act, the church might find clues and implicate the king, so he chose to give up.
Benjamin is still very satisfied with this result.
The church's attention was attracted, and his priests panicked. Only then did Benjamin find the opportunity to take root in Carites and survive the most difficult initial period.
And after that, it’s up to them.
"Declaration of Free Magic" 2.0 has been preliminarily written and officially put into printing. This version of the manifesto is almost completely different from the previous version. If you don’t look carefully, it looks like a comic book. Most of the entire booklet is composed of pictures, accompanied by brief text explanations. The basic meditation methods are expressed in a form similar to an internal energy atlas.
As for the spells, Frank's research encountered some difficulties. In the end, using the hieroglyphic expression method, he only described six spells, one each for light, darkness, water, earth, fire, and wind, and the rest of the spells were written in the usual way.
but…
Yes, they included divine magic and called it light magic.
Excluding the graphic expression of Manifesto 2.0, this is probably the biggest difference between the two versions.
In essence, the two are the same thing, but the division of factions and the opposition between the two for so many years have ultimately led to the impression that magic and magic are irreconcilable. Benjamin didn't expect to dispel the impression, but he didn't mind muddying the waters even more.
—He was very much looking forward to seeing the wonderful expressions on the faces of the people in the church when they saw this part.
Of course, adding light magic into the mix isn't just for the purpose of pissing off the church. The church has always regarded their "divine magic" as a treasure. They always say things like "you must have devout faith", "go through the sanctification of the holy light", "only those with pure hearts can use it", and make the magic magic invisible. Very mysterious to create their authority.
And what Benjamin wants is to tear off the mask of gods and ghosts from the face of the church!
It doesn't require any devout faith, and it has nothing to do with inner purity. As long as you have a little talent, you can use the simplest flash technique - what is called "Holy Light Shining" in the church.
Benjamin wants to prove to the world that magic is nothing special, and divine magic is nothing great. It is just one of human talents.
This makes Manifesto 2.0 have another subversive meaning besides popularizing magic.
After the entire booklet was compiled, Benjamin also took great care in printing it. This is no different than before, when the printing volume was in huge demand. At first, Benjamin hoped to print 100,000 copies, but due to various problems such as technology and funding, they still set the number at 10,000.
—Printing a hundred thousand copies, no matter how careful they are when contacting the printing workshop, the church will probably notice something is wrong.
In this way, they used various pseudonyms and identities to contact more than 30 printing workshops across the country. In the end, they printed a new version of the "Declaration of Free Magic" with a total volume of 10,000 copies. During this period, the king provided them with financial support, and Benjamin and the others did the rest of the work, which was quite a lot of hard work.
The whole process took about another week. During this week, Benjamin also traveled throughout Carrites and confirmed the situation in each city before starting to customize the next distribution plan.
They decided to start with the tavern.
Pubs are the most common place for ordinary people to socialize. In that environment, strangers can chat casually without looking suspicious. And people who often go to pubs are also open-minded and have a strong ability to accept new things.
"Hey bro, do you want to be a mage?"
"What... me, me? Can I be a mage too?"
"Don't say I lied to you. Take this book back and read it. If you practice for a few days, you might actually become a mage. However, even if you don't have the talent in this area, you can just take it back and give it to your children to try!"
"Really or not...how much does this book cost?"
"It doesn't cost money. Believe it or not, just take it. You can take it back to pad the corner of the table, or you can watch it and play with it when you're bored. Maybe there will be surprises."
"That's so good, don't lie to me..."
After Freden's struggle experience, each of Benjamin's mages was trained like an Amway employee, extremely sophisticated. Coupled with the mystery of magic and the mentality of ordinary people that "if you don't need money, just take it", this behavior of handing out pamphlets is still quite popular.
Nine out of ten people will accept it, and after the other one accepts it, he will say again: "Give me a few more copies."
Magic is a superior supernatural power that these people have little reason to reject. The church's brainwashing work has just begun, and the believers they have cultivated obviously will not go to pubs.
However, there may also be spies from the church in the tavern. Therefore, the mages moved very carefully, almost changing places after issuing one copy, and changing their clothes after issuing ten copies, to avoid the church sending people to arrest them after finding out.
In fact, the church discovered this phenomenon very quickly.
"Lord Bishop, tonight, there are a few unidentified guys distributing this thing to ordinary people in the Hearth Tavern south of Glory. It feels very suspicious."
In the palace, a spy dressed as a fisherman bowed deeply and handed a new version of the "Declaration of the Free Mage" into the hands of the bishop opposite.
The unfamiliar bishop frowned, took the pamphlet, and after just one glance, his face became a little ugly.
"Declaration of the Free Mage... That guy really came to Carites!"
He immediately opened the book and looked inside. The more he looked, the darker his expression became.
And when he saw the light magic part.
Hiss!
At that moment, his expression became extremely wonderful. It was as if someone poured a pot of urine into his wine glass, and with a strong force of his hands holding the book, he tore the entire book in half.
"Sinner! You can even say such things, this unforgivable sinner!"
The spy was also startled by the angry look of the bishop.
"Lord, Lord Bishop?"
The bishop took a deep breath, came back to his senses, and said in a very gloomy voice: "Inform your companions to investigate the people who distributed this stuff in the tavern and find out their leaders and their lair. You must be careful and don't rush to take action. We can’t let them notice all this.”
The spy heard this and nodded immediately.
"Yes, Lord Bishop."
Just like that, the spies left quickly. The bishop looked at the manual that was torn in half on the ground, still showing an angry look, and summoned a ball of golden flames. He didn't stop reluctantly until the manual was burned to no ashes.