Cæ thoroughly and scrupulously revisited all of their plans and made sure that somewhat rushed plans were thoroughly hammered into the heads of all the students of the task force. By the time he had fully covered all the protocols and all the status reports on all their final preparations, the task force meeting had finally come to an end.
"…And with that," Cæ continued, heaving a soft huff. "Our final preparatory general meeting on the matter will end from this point forth. We will ensure that we stick to the established protocols religiously when the time comes. That brings us to an end to the meeting."
Cæ stood up, leaving his chair as he shifted the board to the side and arranged some of the confidential reports stacked in their respective files, before turning to Sorenon among the departing crowds of students.
"Let me know when you get an update for the final preparations," Cæ told him with a pointed tone. "We can't actually commence our operations until those actually happen."
"I will," Sorenon promised earnestly. "I already have an automatic system in place that will alert us to the notification when it happens."
"Good," Cæ heaved a sigh as the two of them were the final students to leave their task force headquarters. "Just make sure to keep a physical eye on it as well."
"Sure thing, boss."
"Don't call me that."
"Sure thing, boss."
Cæ heaved a resigned sigh as he closed the large, extravagant doors to the task force headquarters, ensuring it was locked shut. The door had an auto-lock function and required an authentic Institute-issued ID card that had the right security clearances. Cæ religiously ensured that it was locked each time he left the place, especially if he left last.
"You're so excessively cautious, big bro," Sorenon heaved a sigh, shifting his glasses as he watched Cæ meticulously ensure that the door was absolutely impregnable. "Why are you so invested in the security of the program anyway?"
Cæ huffed with light disapproval at the question. "It's concerning that the vice-director whom I appointed asked that question."
Sorenon scoffed. "I know why it's important, but you seem almost personally invested in this program."
That's because he was.
"I take my duties very seriously," he instead replied. "I don't want to venture that I have been entrusted with and have accepted leadership over those who fail under my leadership. It's as simple as that."
"Hmmm… that is fair, I suppose," Sorenon shrugged lightly. "Are you free now?"
Cæ shook his head, walking away from the door after he was fully satisfied that it was secure. "Sorry. I'm busy."
Sorenon frowned as he watched Cæ walk away. "Oh, come on! You're always busy."
Cæ huffed lightly.
"Welcome to being an adult. Enjoy your adolescence while it lasts; it won't last forever."
After leaving the youngster with some wise slop, he walked away, heading towards a place he had come to visit quite often in the past month, once he had become the leader of the Outer District Talent Acquisition Program.
The Headmistress' Office.
Since their partnership had expanded, they had interacted more often, exchanging information. Cæ would inform about the plans and strategies that they had made and the things that he would need for the preparation to proceed smoothly, while she would share intel that she had gotten on the attempts of the upper-class noble families of Colohen City to attempt to infiltrate and eventually sabotage the operations.
STEP
He found himself standing before the extravagant doors to her office as his hand reached out to knock on the door, only for it to open before it could even reach.
CLACK
The two doors to her large, ostentatious office were filled with shelves of books across much of the spacious office, carpeted by a large fur and leather carpet. A collection of sofas sitting opposite each other in her office, across a tea table, sat neatly at the very center of her spacious office.
On the very other end of the office was her study, comprised of a large luxurious table with a neat array of documentaries and several other items on the table carefully organized atop it.
His eyes shifted to the waiting headmistress, smiling at him with her customary perfunctory smile, her purple-white hair draping down neatly behind her while a dark witch's hat rested atop her head gently, complementing the baggy cloaky raiment she wore, glistening with encrypted runes beyond his fathom, while it brimmed with power.
"Mr. Cæ."
Her tone was measuredly formal as she gazed at him with expectant eyes. "I'm pleased to be able to speak with you one last time before the operations commence tomorrow."
Cæ nodded with a serious expression. "We have finally reached the stage of being able to realize all the preparations that we have made in the past month. Almost all the preparations are complete, and the very final supplies are expected to come by tonight. By tomorrow morning, we should have everything that we need."
She nodded with a knowing expression. "So I have heard. You have done well to plot out a cogent, effective, and practical plan and strategy in what is otherwise an unreasonably short timeframe. Your preparations have been deft, even if I have leveraged my power to hasten them and ensure that they unfold in time. All in all, your leadership of the task force has been beyond satisfactory up until this point, but the most important parameter of them all is…"
Her tone grew more serious. "…whether they succeed or not."
Cæ nodded with a solemn expression. "I do not intend to fail, for my own sake and for the sake of the Elendir Institute of Magic."
"Good," she began with a knowing tone, as she pulled out a set of documents from the shelf beside her, placing them on the table.
Cæ raised an eyebrow. "This is…?"
"A list of bribery and blackmail attempts that many of the upper-class families with greater influence and stake in the Elendir Institute of Magic have made on the families of the students in your task force in the time that your planning and preparations began," she calmly explained. "These are all the attempts made that we have stopped, one way or another."
Cæ's eyes widened with a stunned expression as he slowly picked up the documents, skimming through the various intel and black ops reports with several redacted details beyond his security clearance within the Elendir Institute of Magic.
Each of them was detected ahead of time with a special surveillance division that the Headmistress had prepared in anticipation of the moves of her opponents.
The crafty woman had been planning for this for at least a year and had made sure to have thorough measures and solutions put in place for a over a year just to ensure that she would be able to deal with any of the dirty attempts that her opponents would predictably make to stop her initiatives from succeeding.
Cæ's hand froze as he came across Sorenon's family; his innocent and entirely normal parents and older sister were featured in covert images in the profiles of the reports.
"Rest assured, not a single one of the attempts has succeeded," she assured him. "Not for a long time, either."
Those words rang ominously in his ears.
"What… what do you mean by that?" his eyes sharpened with severity.
She eyed him knowingly with her elder gaze. "My enemies have taken the threat of the Outer District Talent Acquisition Program very seriously. They can't tolerate the enfranchisement of the people of the slums and will do everything in their power to ensure that the people of the slums remain in their dreadful lives forever."
Cæ narrowed his eyes.
Her words truly reduced his opinion of the upper-class families that were fighting back against simply offering the people of the slums an opportunity for greatness. He hated those who sought to reinforce the order of the world, and among the very top of the list of the parties who did just that were undoubtedly the richest and most powerful families in the entire world.
And yet, he was also keenly aware that Headmistress Lenolia was trying to manipulate him subtly.
Why had she gone out of her way to show him redacted and clearly confidential instances of the upper-class families that clearly painted them negatively?
This was especially a pertinent question to ask when the instances were already handled and completely managed. There really was no real utility for him to know about these after the fact, outside of simply reinforcing what he knew.
'She's trying to cultivate a negative opinion of her family and plant the notion that they are against my interests as a person from the slums.'
He had to admit that her attempts were quite successful, but the fact that she was trying to manipulate him made him quite wary of his interactions with her.
He hadn't forgotten that she was part of a political movement, the Equitist Movement.
There was a very high chance that she was attempting to groom him into joining her political movement by engaging with him in extended conversations over a period of time.
After all, someone in her position didn't really need to interact with him on a regular basis at all.
She was one of thirteen Headmistresses and Headmasters of the Elendir Institute of Magic and a master mage in her own right. This meant that she really was in a whole other league compared to a measly apprentice graduate of her very institute.
She didn't need to interact with him on a regular basis, and it was not an exaggeration to say that he wasn't even worth her time. Despite all the time that he had spent with her, Cæ hadn't forgotten that they were not equals by any means.
And yet, that only made him more certain of her intentions.
The Equitist Movement wasn't a popular movement at the grassroots levels. It was vaguely populist with its support among the proletariat, but it was despised by the capital class, the class that wielded all the power and influence on the legislation that got passed.
She needed more political capital and support.
And who better to try and indoctrinate and ideologically capture than a young but extremely promising genius in magicapita, with a grizzled life up until that point and the fierce determination to aim for the stars?
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Cæ was destined for success.
He could imagine that she was absolutely certain about his successful promotion to the senior rank and pegged him for someone who had a substantial chance of reaching the master rank realistically later in his life.
He could understand why she sought someone who could potentially take over her position in the equitist movement.
"You are perceptive, Mr. Cæ."
Her eyes glowed with a magic circle as she peered into the depths of his eyes.
Chills crawled across his skin as he realized that she was using her divination magic against him.
The Headmistress was known as the Heart Seer in her heyday as a Martial Master specialized in combat divination, regarded as a national asset of the entire nation. That reality reminded him of the sheer power differential between them and the grace that she had shown her, even if she had not so honest motivations.
She leaned back, heaving a soft sigh as the atmosphere lightened. It had become entirely clear that if she wanted to manipulate and indoctrinate Cæ into her political ideology, she would need to be even more subtle.
"Let us move on to more relevant matters, Mr. Cæ." Her tone grew more serious. "Like, for example, the dangers that you will face once your operations commence."