Cæ's eyes sharpened at her words.
He knew that she didn't issue warnings lightly.
"…What dangers?" his tone was serious.
She leaned forward, steepling her fingers as her expression grew more severe.
"We have received intelligence reports of pending attacks on your operations in the slums," she informed as she twirled her finger, causing several documents to extract themselves from the cabinets in her office and arrive on the table wordlessly.
"According to my sources and our intelligence operations, we have received word that several families have deployed their mages, disguised as residents of the slums and as members of the mafia to mount attacks on your operations," she informed him with a serious tone as he skimmed through the espionage reports that the Headmistress had provided him with. "We predict that you will face several ambushes and assaults, particularly the deeper and deeper you go into the slums."
Cæ's expression darkened. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the affluent families are deploying their mage capital to try and sabotage us and cause as much harm as they possibly can, after all…"
His gaze narrowed. "I have excluded upper-class students from the task force due to them not being trustworthy enough."
It became clear that the affluent families that had banded together to crush the Headmistress' plans were much more willing to use more violent techniques since their own descendents were not among the members of the task force.
Had Cæ allowed the affluent students into the task force, then at the very least, they wouldn't stage ambush assaults upon the task force operations, potentially injuring their own descendants.
However, he knew that he had ultimately made the right choice.
"Your operations would be jeopardized if they had agents within the task force than outside," the Headmistress remarked with a knowing expression. "You cannot succeed with a team that you can't trust, and their ability to sabotage your operations would be far greater than if they are forced to attack from the outside."
Cæ nodded. "However, what I'm not particularly fond of is the fact that we simply have no choice but to face these attacks. We can't possibly avoid them. What's even worse is that we also have to deal with the resistance from the Colohen Mafia."
Cæ hadn't forgotten that another interest group that was threatened by the Elendir Institute of Magic's Outer City Talent Acquisition Program was the Colohen Mafia, and one of the reasons that he was collaborating with the Headmistress was that this was a shared threat that even Trinity Housings faced.
The talent of the slums, up until now, had belonged to the Colohen Mafia, up until then. The youngsters of the slums, with nothing else to do, would join gangs and eventually worm their way into the mafia and offer them employment.
Although it was inefficient and flawed, those among the people who joined the gangs and the mafia who also had talent would be identified and trained, and thus, the mafia gained its own supply of mage capital from the slums in this manner.
The Elendir Institute of Magic threatened to disrupt and destroy this arrangement by capitalizing and monopolizing the talent within the Colohen Slums through its program, as Cæ had long known.
This meant that he faced two enemies.
The upper class families that had banded together to ensure that the people of the slums diid not get the opportunities to cultivate power and potentially form a class of mages that threatened their interests.
And the Colohen Mafia that did not relinquish the supply of magic talent that it got from the slums.
"…They're probably working together, aren't they?" Cæ's tone grew more grave as the full gravity of the challenges that he had to face was exposed.
The Headmistress nodded with a serious but confident expression.
"Astute as always, Mr. Cæ," she replied with an approving expression. "Indeed, the Colohen Mafia and the former aristocracy of this country, based in Colohen City, have joined hands, to a limited degree, to destroy the Outer City Talent Acquisition Program."
Cæ hesitated for a second. "…Can we even succeed with such stiff opposition?"
Headmistress Lenolia raised an eyebrow. "…Having second thoughts on this, Mr. Cæ?"
He stirred with an unpleasant expression. "No, but I'm just being a little realistic about our chances. Can the resources of the Elendir Institute of Magic stand up against the combined might of the Colohen Mafia and the affluent families based in this city?"
His tone was genuine.
Although he had a surprisingly adept political acumen and sense to understand the political intrigue that was unfolding behind the scenes, he didn't have the base of knowledge to evaluate whether or not they were equipped to deal with such tough opposition.
"Do not underestimate the Elendir Institute of Magic, Mr. Cæ," she remarked with a knowing expression. "We are not weak. We have some of the most powerful magic technology in the entire country being practiced within our campus. We have some of the finest magical capital in the form of some of the finest mages serving as our professors, and even cutting-edge artifacts and enchanted items."
Her tone was one of measured but earnest pride.
"In comparison to that…" a hint of contempt appeared in her eyes. "…the Colohen Mafia are simply primitive hoodlums running about the slums. That's not to say that they aren't powerful and dangerous. But we have clear and defined advantages over them. Additionally…"
She directed an expression of confidence to him. "I believe I have told you before, but this initiative has been approved by none other than the Mendel Administration. I have spoken to Prime Minister Mendel about this initiative briefly, and he has expressed his full support for it."
Cæ did a double-take as he stared at the Headmistress with a stunned expression. "You… have spoken to the Prime Minister?"
A hint of amusement appeared on her face. "Does that truly shock you, Mr. Cæ?"
He frowned as he fell into thought.
She was the Headmistress of one of the thirteen prime universities of the Elendir Institute of Magic.
She was also one of only almost two hundred master mages in the entire country, an extremely valued class of mages.
It was no wonder that she was able to speak with the Prime Minister if she wanted.
"More importantly," she continued. "We have the support of the current administration, which is in preparation for the election year next year. They have subsidized and approved the initiative, which has strengthened our security and our intelligence. It's why we have been able to avoid any mishaps until now."
Cæ understood what she was trying to convey. "So, I suppose your side is not alone against the combined power blocs of the Colohen Mafia and the affluent class."
She nodded. "We are well-prepared, I have been preparing for this day since I learned of your admission in our magicademy and have conceived of this plan in more abstract forms for even longer. I have made plenty of preparations for virtually anything that could happen, and so far, everything has fallen within my expectations."
She was trying to imbue greater confidence and certainty in him.
And he had to admit, although it was just words, she was quite convincing and successful in restoring his confidence.
He cared more about the fact that he benefited from the program directly than the actual program itself. However, he appreciated the slum acquisition talent initiative that she had made for the nation.
"Well, I don't intend to fail regardless," Cæ remarked. "I was just voicing my thoughts out loud. This opportunity is too precious for me to fail."
Headmistress Lenolia nodded with approval. "That's good. You can entrust the agents of the magicademy that I have put at your disposal. They are highly trained and very competent. They will ensure that the worst doesn't unfold upon the advent of an attack."
Frankly, Cæ would have been much more afraid if he hadn't gotten all these excellent personnel from the Elendir Institute of Magic to partake in his operations. While the Elendir Institute of Magic had the finest of students as far as their magic aptitude went, they were still novices who had yet to graduate from the senior program.
"They do inspire confidence in me," Cæ confirmed. "Rest assured, I do not intend to waste these precious agents that you have assigned to my task force."
"Good," she nodded with approval in her eyes. "Make sure that you do justice to both the ventures that you are heading. I have followed the journey of Trinity Housings from its very inception, and I am quite impressed at the kind of success that you have achieved this early in its life. That is quite remarkable and quite promising and shows that you are indeed a competent business leader, which gives me confidence in your success."
"Thank you, Headmistress."
It wasn't too long before Cæ departed from her office after bidding her goodbye and accepting her well-wishes, closing the doors behind him.
The atmosphere grew heavy as Headmistress Lenolia heaved a sigh, leaning back as her eyes grew cloudy with thought.
"He's remarkable." A distorted male voice appeared from a disguised and secured comms artifact. "I can see why you wish to make him a member of Twilight. He has magic potential, is intelligent, and is capable of good leadership at his age."
A faint tension hung in the air as she directed a glance at the comms artifact.
"He's not nearly as susceptible to my attempts to influence him," she remarked. "Although I was a little hasty, he has expressed an unexpected caution and resistance to the ideas that I have tried to inculcate in him, considering how inclined to them he should be. After all…"
Her gaze grew more serious.
"What person from the slums doesn't hate the most former aristocracy in this nation that has forsaken them?"
She didn't quite understand why Cæ was resistant to her attempts to nudge him closer and closer to equitism and towards Twilight.
On his very first day, a student of the upper class had attempted to murder him, and he had suffered abuse, contempt, and derision from many of the students for at least half a year before it finally became cool to like him among the juvenile adolescents of the Apprentice Program.
This sort of conditioning and set of experiences, by her estimation, should have been more than enough to get Cæ to hate the affluent upper class, comprised of former nobility.
She couldn't have imagined that Cæ already hated not just them but the entire world order with a ferocious intensity, a hatred he buried deep within his heart, never allowing it to surface, lest someone discover it.
"Regardless, influencing him and inculcating him with equitism will require more long-term manipulation and brainwashing of a much more subtle and indirect kind, if it even succeeds at all," she remarked, heaving a sigh. "He's almost twenty-five. He's not nearly as young and impressionable as I would have liked."
The distorted male voice snorted. "Forget about him. He's just one fish, so focus on younger freshmen as you have done this entire time."
She nodded. "Not to mention…"
Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. "We will be getting a large influx of talented students from the talent acquisition program who are perfectly inclined towards hating the rich."
This was the true reason behind the slum talent acquisition program.
Twilight didn't possess the raw resources to conduct mass magic aptitude tests to identify dispersed talent across the vast slums. It was also too conspicuous for an organization that was still being hunted down by the government and political establishment to this day.
Thus, her solution had been simple.
Use the Elendir Institute of Magic as a conduit under the guise of equitism to identify potential initiates, introduce them into the Elendir Institute of Magic, and then inculcate and initiate them into Twilight and train them into powerful agents that would further Twilight's agenda and strengthen its magical power.
"Tomorrow…" she continued with a faintly dangerous tone. "The next phase of our plans will commence."