"…Headmistress," Cæ acknowledged her with an unfriendly expression.
He simply stood at the entrance of her office with frosty eyes glinting with a hint of distrust.
Headmistress Lenolia heaved an expectant sigh. "I am aware that you are not pleased by the way things have unfolded with our last correspondence. However, I can assure you that it will be worth your time."
His eyes lit up as he finally relented, entering the building and taking his seat on the cushy leather seats opposite her across her table, never once breaking eye contact with her.
"How can I help you, Headmistress?"
She smiled knowingly. "You truly are fit to be a businessman. Most students don't enter this office with the intention of extracting every ounce of value from their relationship with me."
He shrugged lightly, not even denying the accusation.
She was spot on.
While his feelings of displeasure were real, he loved the magicapita funding that he had gotten from the institute even more.
"Let me begin by congratulating you for graduating from the Apprentice Program at first rank in just a single year," she began with a hint of admiration in her tone. "Very rare do we find such raw, natural talent for magic. It is truly heartbreakingly unfortunate that you have not gained the opportunity to join our institute when you were sixteen."
Cæ simply regarded her with feigned melancholy.
In reality, he was rather glad that he didn't take the test when he was sixteen.
Because he was relatively certain that he didn't have any magical talent.
Showing up at the age of twenty-three, bagging rank two would raise too many alarm bells, and people would have very quickly tied it to his Acquired Savant Syndrome. It would change the landscape of the research into the nature of magical talent, and he would have been reduced to a guinea pig for research in this highly coveted field of research.
"Thank you," he replied.
"I look forward to your time in our institute in the Senior Program," she continued, "and I look forward to the changes that you will bring about to the Elendir Institute of Magic. The reason that I have called you today is related to the changes that you have already facilitated thus far."
Cæ raised an eyebrow with a wary expression. "You mean…?"
"The Outer City Talent Acquisition Program," she replied calmly. "That is the reason that I have called you here today. In order to test the people of the slums for magical aptitude, the student council will soon begin planning for the implementation of this program. I want you…"
She leaned forward, "…to lead the implementation of this program."
Cæ's eyes narrowed. "…What?"
"Unfortunately, the Student Council is ill-equipped to deal with the slums," she remarked. I want you to help with the process of planning and implementing the contradiction because of your intimate familiarity with the slums. As much as I trust the competent students of the Student Council, this alone is a little above their pay grade."
Cæ understood her reasoning.
While he respected the people of the Student Council, it was entirely true that the slums were an entirely different world from anything that they were accustomed to. They didn't have even the wildest fathoming of what the slums were like and how they ought to go about it.
Of course, he also didn't understand why her first instinct was to go to him of all people. There were plenty of other options at her disposal. There were scholars and experts on the slums who had dedicated their lives to studying the slums. And while Cæ had more practical knowledge, insights, and wisdom regarding the slums, they probably had much more theoretical knowledge.
"I do not need bookish experts on this matter," she remarked, anticipating his thoughts. "This is a very practical operation in the field. I need practical knowledge and expertise on the matter leading this operation. Additionally…"
Her eyes darkened.
"I can't trust external elements at this juncture."
Her tone was solemn.
A faint hint of tension hung in the air.
Cæ simply gazed at her with a serious expression as he understood the subtext implicit in her words. "Hiring external elements to influence the campaign will give an opportunity to the recalcitrant affluent families."
She nodded at him with a hint of appreciation. "Correct. The unveiling of the Outer City Talent Acquisition Program has already made the rounds in several circles. It even got its own article in the newspapers and has gotten its own airtime on television."
Cæ's expression flashed with a hint of surprise. "Really? I never noticed."
Then again, he was, in many ways, disconnected from the media environment and the latest happenings. That tended to happen when one had lived most of one's life in that manner.
"It has made enough of a positive first impression among several circles and the public such that it would be quite the bad optics for the families to push against it openly or go as far as fire me to get it done," she remarked. "However, that doesn't mean that they don't have other ways of fighting back against it. One of the things that they can do is…"
Her expression grew serious, "…simply sabotage the entire plan to turn it into a fiasco."
Cæ stirred with knowing eyes.
He, too, had considered this possibility. It didn't take a genius to figure that the affluent families would not simply lie down and take this move without any pushback.
They were immensely powerful and had a lot of opportunities at their disposal.
"However, they won't be able to entirely destroy the program without a substantial expenditure of magicapita," Cæ remarked with a thoughtful tone, "I don't know how far they will be willing to go for their goal."
She shook her head. "You don't understand; they do not need to completely destroy and sabotage the program's operations. They merely need to sabotage it enough to give them the political capital to push back against it and pressure me into rolling the program back."
Cæ's eyes grew hazy with thought as he realized that she was right.
They simply needed to gain the political capital needed to prevent the program from reaching fruition by pressuring the Headmistress to completely scrap the program.
"As long as they can make for a serious fiasco, they can even hold you accountable," Cæ realized, "then they can rally the board of directors to get you fired and replace you with a puppet or at least one who is willing to bend to their whims."
She nodded with approval at his thoughtful insights. "Of course, it isn't that easy to get me fired, Mr. Cæ. My position can only be filled by another master mage, of which we don't have an endless supply.
There weren't more than several dozen master mages in the entire nation.
That fact caused him to school his conduct before her. His prior dealings with her and the secret that only the two of them shared had subconsciously caused him to act more informal around her as if they were even remotely of similar standing.
"I do not wish to hire a consultancy group or even individual consultants or other scholars with the necessary expertise on the matter because they will very likely be compromised in some way," Headmistress Lenolia shook her head. "The anti-slum faction, if we can call it that, has many means to compromise any external third party that we try to bring in at this juncture. With a variety of methods of leaning from the carrot to the stick, or even the threat of it, they can effortlessly sabotage the Outer City Talent Acquisition Program. In fact…"
She waved her hand, causing a thick document to extract itself from a pile of files and float over to him.
She did it without a magic circle or incantation.
The file descended before him slowly.
"This…?" Cæ raised an eyebrow.
"A list of students who might be compromised due to their family and background," she remarked. "You may read it if you accept my offer. But, to be completely transparent with you this time, you may very well face sabotage from the students on the student council due to their inclinations to sabotage the mission."
"That…" Cæ's tone grew grave. "I don't know if I can work with that."
Those conditions were too hard to lead an operation to success through, as far as he was concerned. It wasn't just the affluent students that concerned him. There were other, even greater concerns along those lines.
"The affluent families are stakeholders of the Elendir Institute of Magic and are on the board of directors," Cæ remarked with a severe expression. "I have heard that they don't have any hard power in the magicademy, but they surely have some soft power that would allow them to sabotage the operations in other ways."
She nodded straightforwardly. "They most certainly do. Rest assured that you are not alone. I wield even greater influence in this magicademy by virtue of my direct authority. There are also factions that are much more open-minded and even directly supportive of this initiative and experiment, thanks to your positive example. Specifically…"
Her tone grew more confident, "The Mendel Administration is in support of this initiative. The current mayor of Colohen City has personally called me and has informed me that he is delighted by the Outer City Talent Acquisition Program. With his and the current administration's support, the affluent families truly cannot force me to sabotage this plan as easily."
Cæ's eyes widened at her words. "The mayor himself…?"
She nodded with affirmation, allowing him to digest the information.
It was only then that Cæ realized the sheer scale of what he was already involved with and potentially even more involved with should he have accepted her offer. The thought of getting involved with something that was this large was, admittedly, a little unnerving.
And yet, his ultimate ambition eclipsed the entire world.
His goal was to destroy the world order and build a better one.
How could he possibly achieve something as impossibly ambitious as that if he was too scared to take on a project that had gained some degree of note, merely reaching the mayor of a city in Elendir?
Of course, while he didn't intend to let fear stop him, he also didn't intend to simply leap headfirst into this project because of that rationale either.
"Taking on a project that could easily fail in many different ways, with consequences of failure being potentially very high…" Cæ turned to her with a pointed gaze, "Will require great reason and incentives."
His expression hardened with seriousness.
"What are you offering in return?"
She smiled with an amused expression as she shifted a tuft of her purple hair behind her ear. "I suspected that you would say something like that. Thankfully, I have a feeling that you will appreciate what I have to offer."
With a twirl of a finger, another document appeared before him.
Cæ raised an eyebrow as he studied the document, opening it with a curious expression.
[Trinity Housing - Elendir Institute of Magic Partnership Agreement]
Cæ's eyes widened with a surprised expression. "A partnership agreement with my company and the Institute…?"
"For the facilitation of the secure distribution of your goods and services across the entirety of the slums," she answered him, saving him the time of skimming through the file. "I am aware that you do not intend to sell your haven product to the entirety of the slums, limiting yourself only to forty-eight different districts across the entirety of the city."
Cæ frowned. "Well, yes, I do not intend to mess with the gangs of the slums, even if I am a mage, and I certainly don't wish to pick a fight with the Underworld when they knock at my door, asking for 'protection fees' or other nonsense."
She smiled with certainty as her green eyes flickered with confidence.
"That is what I'm here to offer you protection from with this agreement. Just hear me out…"