The first deep mission into some of the most dangerous districts in the slums was a great success. Not only had the testing teams gotten their hands on six talented individuals from the district that fit the criteria they sought, but Trinity Housing had sold a great number of the housing units despite all the chaos that came with the battle between the two mage groups.
What was even more impressive was the fact that the security team of the Elendir Institute of Magic managed to kill the leader of the enemy magetant group.
This whopping success in the very first attempt into the deeper districts of the slums was extremely good as a precedent to continue with their expansion deeper into the slums with their talent acquisition to tap into districts with greater youth populations. Had the very first attempt to go deeper into the slums ended up with a failure, they would have had to seriously consider whether it was worth it to even venture deeper into the slums.
On the other hand, a great victory for their enemies at this juncture could have been truly pivotal, potentially forcing the Elendir Institute of Magic to limit itself to the forty-eight inner districts of Colohen City.
While it was hardly perfect, it was still better than having the Elendir Institute of Magic steal all their talent from across the entire district, depriving them of their only sources of new magelings to train and integrate into the Underworld.
Very few mages from the Elendir Institute of Magic would bother joining the Underworld, after all. Life as a legal mage was just better, more money, more power, more influence, and one wouldn't have to become hunted by the law.
The only people in the underworld were people who either made poor decisions or didn't have much of a choice or an opportunity. But the incentive structure didn't particularly incentivize legal mages to go into the underworld unless for very atypical reasons.
Thus, the battle for magic talent in the slums was an existential battle in some way or another.
And it was a battle that they weren't doing too great in.
Part of it was because the Colohen Mafia had clearly underestimated just how powerful the Elendir Institute of Magic was.
The quality of their magigear, the quality of their training, the quality of their mages, and the amount of magicapita that they were endowed with was just truly impressive and was one of the reasons that the forces of the Institute held strong.
It was to be expected from an institute that had been founded by all the power blocs and interest groups in the nation, giving them an almost unparalleled amount of funding and capital to begin with. Very naturally, this Institute was not going to be humble in its militaristic endowments, and that was something that the Colohen Mafia had simply dismissed as a variable.
This failure in intelligence was one of the reasons that the Elendir Institute of Magic had achieved a great initial performance, without suffering so much as a single loss while harvesting talent from the slums at a truly remarkable rate.
While six elite talents didn't seem as much considering everything that had gone into the operation, the fact of the matter was that elite talent was nothing short of a strategic resource of great value that greatly exceeded the value of the magicapita that went into the operation.
By the time they had concluded, the task force had covered two such districts with absolutely no losses and great victories, returning to the Elendir Institute of Magic with more than a dozen elite talents from that day alone, each to enter initiation and some training.
CLACK
The door to the Headmistress' office opened to reveal her spacious office, with a set of luxurious leather couches arranged about a small tea table right upon entry, with a myriad of shelves across the entire office.
The Headmistress' actual study was on the other end of the office at a large window behind her chair.
Her table was extravagantly large, with many items neatly organized across it.
She raised an eyebrow, placing her magiquill down as she gazed at Cæ standing at her doorway with a sincere smile.
"Brilliantly done, Mr. Cæ."
She gazed at his exhausted form with appreciation.
He had just returned from the task force operations, leaving him dead tired, and yet he had the presence of mind to know that he ought to speak with the Headmistress before he could crash in bed.
"Thank you, Headmistress," he remarked with a tired but formal tone.
"Please have a seat," she lightly gestured to the chair opposite her at the table. "I am aware you are quite exhausted from your operations all day, so I don't intend to take up too much of your time, rest assured."
That was good to know.
He slumped down upon the seat with a tired huff, simply gazing at the headmistress wordlessly.
She raised an eyebrow.
"You don't seem quite as happy as I would have imagined. You sold nearly a thousand Havens, did you not?"
He heaved a sigh. "I did. But I almost died doing it. I didn't expect to be targeted this aggressively. I thought you told me that I had some protection by virtue of Archmage Cantor."
"You do," she remarked. "It's the reason that you're still alive and haven't been assassinated while you traveled to Trinity Housings and back. They can't target you without some defense and deniability without incurring Archmage Cantor's wrath. That is why it is very unwise to simply assassinate you out of the blue while you're off your guard, which is why they haven't done it. However…"
She directed a pointed gaze at him. "Should you insist on partaking in the operations as a part of the security forces, then you're fair game to a certain extent. Since the Elendir Institute of Magic is intruding upon our enemy's territory and essentially conducting a military operation, there isn't as strong a reason for Archmage Cantor to move. His protection exists to ensure that the students are safe outside of the campus to a reasonable degree."
It spoke to the sheer importance of the elite talents of the country as strategic assets.
If one theoretically could kill all students while they were defenseless, then one could get rid of an entire generation of mages, including half of all seniors, ninety percent of master mages, and almost all archmages of the country.
That was why there was a strategic deterrence in the form of definitive and aggressive retaliation from the archmage himself, but that obvious didn't extend as much into areas where the students themselves put themselves in harm's way.
If they got drunk and got into a deadly fight that resulted in their death, then the archmage certainly wasn't going to move in that event; that was purely the responsibility of the student.
In Cæ's case, he was going out of his way to actively partake not only in the operation itself but also in the security team.
The archmage's protection didn't really protect him in those circumstances.
"You don't need to partake in the security team, you are aware of this, correct?" she raised an eyebrow as she peered at him with a raised eyebrow. "I do not quite understand why you have chosen to go this route."
Cæ shrugged. "We could always use more mages, and I wanted to get some real-life magic combat experience."
She gazed at him with an unimpressed expression. "That doesn't quite justify throwing yourself into a caliber of battle and magetants that you should not otherwise be qualified to handle. Although, admittedly, your performance in this regard has truly been remarkable. Do you intend to become a magetant?"
Magetants, or combat mages, were one of the most sought-after magic occupations in the magicapita sector. After all, military power was the most fundamental form of power that was at the foundation of all other forms of power.
Magetants were one of the most well-paid and one of the most prominent occupations of magic.
"It certainly is one of the fields of magic I intend to master," Cæ replied. "Combat magic is very important to all mages, even to those who don't become magetants. And it is important to my goals as well."
His goal to tear down the existing world order and build a better one was hardly going to go unchallenged and unresisted. The sheer amount of pressure that he would be facing was so intense that he simply couldn't do without the ability to defend himself.
That was why, among other reasons, he had chosen to expose himself to harsh magic combat despite being a relative novice apprentice mage. What would have been nothing short of suicidal for virtually any other apprentice mage turned out to be just great for Cæ.
While magic combat was very different from regular combat, there were some things that were transferable. Cæ's flight or fight reaction didn't leave him frozen or slow to react, he was able to smoothly fight without too many lags, inefficiencies, and indecision of other novices.
A lifetime of conflict had made him more suited to getting rapidly accustomed to magical combat.
Another reason was his disguised pure magic that allowed him to have an extremely high magic casting speed, allowing him to get rid of the suboptimalities in his combat with this gift of his, still disguised by conventional magic.
He still made sure only to use magic that he had learned and to use magic circles and incantations before he cast magic to have perfect facades while using pure magic with great speed, allowing him to overwhelm his opponents even with nerfed pure magic.
All in all, it had worked out quite great in his favor.
She heaved a sigh. "If you insist on being part of the security team, you will be targeted, remember that."
Cæ nodded calmly. "It's unfortunate, but it is a consequence I'm willing to deal with."
"Then, with that out of the way, I would like for you to increase your ranks," she continued. "The success of the talent acquisition operations is great enough that I'm willing to fund more teams going into more districts to extract more targets with the methods that you have created."
Her tone was uncharacteristically eager.
She was clearly moved by how many talents the slums talent acquisition program had begun getting for the Elendir Institute of Magic.
Cæ raised an eyebrow. "That won't be easy, Headmistress. Not at this stage."
"You will have all the funding you need, and I will extend the protection that we are offering to your company for all operations in the Colohen Slums, for extended periods of time," she remarked with a firm tone. "We can't allow this opportunity to be squandered."
Cæ heaved a tired sigh.
Yet, he couldn't let go of such a juicy offer.
"Deal," he remarked. "We will have to amend the contract a bit, but I will accept that offer gladly."
She nodded. "The new academic year begins in less than two weeks; I want to get as many students from slums as possible, and increase the quality of our talents by a great degree. We should be able to nail a superior performance in the apprentice section of the magic contest a little over next year."
It became clear that the Headmistress was going all out with the slums talent acquisition program, putting even greater pressure on Cæ to succeed, not just for the program's sake but for his own company's sake that was thriving thanks to the deals he had made and the ends that he went to secure it an advantage.
Although only two weeks were left for the talent acquisition program to conclude and the next academic year to start, the amount of pressure only kept mounting, demanding perfection from him.
And yet, he had no intention of cracking.
"I will succeed," Cæ's tone was determined. "I have no intention of failing at this stage."