A hurt expression of sadness appeared on Seliphaz's face at his sorrowful words. "What do you mean you aren't anybody outside of work? Everybody has a personal life. Don't you want to start a family and settle down?"
Cæ shook his head.
"I once harbored that dream, and then it was shattered."
His tone contained an edge of sorrow.
"Now, however…" his eyes glinted with severe determination. "I have another ambition. One that I will fulfill no matter what."
Those words reminded Seliphaz of his graduation speech.
He had mentioned something similar back then as well.
"Can I…" She hesitated for a moment before mustering the determination to continue. "Can I ask what happened?"
RUMBLE…
Lightning ominously struck as the storm began ramping up.
Tension hung in the air as Cæ slowly diverted his gaze towards Seliphaz with a serious expression.
"…I had someone," his voice was faint as his hazy eyes grew lost in nostalgia. "And then she passed away in an accident. The same accident that gave me these scars and this eye."
His tone grew chillingly intense.
"It destroyed my life and everything I had ever worked for, leaving me with nothing a second time."
Seliphaz's heart sank as she regretted her decision to so callously broach such an incredibly severe topic. She felt deeply guilty that she had made him recall and recount what was surely the worst period in his life.
"…I'm sorry for your loss."
Her tone was sincerely empathetic and sorrowful.
Cæ stared at her for a moment before heaving a soft sigh.
"There's no need to apologize," he remarked with a light tone as the intensity of his demeanor reduced. "You couldn't have known. Not to mention, you deserve to know more about me and my past since we are literal partners in business. Understanding who your partner is is a vital part of business, and in that regard…"
He directed a pointed gaze at her. "You have been very remiss. You randomly accepted my business offer after listening to it for less than an hour. I cannot begin to describe how utterly poor a decision that is. You should have at least done your research into me and my background. You should at least have looked into Feidin and sought to contact him independently after I made the offer, just to have him corroborate my business plan and whatnot."
She winced as a flustered smile emerged on her face, scratching her head sheepishly. "Now that you mention it, I was far too lax and easy to hook. Haha…"
Cæ heaved a sigh. "You need to get an agent who will handle your interactions with others because you're far too lacking in too many ways. You're gullible and naive, and you succumb to social anxiety. You need someone you trust who can handle business for you. If I had been a scammer, you would have been in deep trouble for trusting me, you understand that, right?"
This time, her smile was more confident, strangely enough.
"But you weren't a bad man."
Her tone was earnest.
"Trusting you that day was the best decision I ever made," she insisted with growing enthusiasm. "I am so happy that I got to join Trinity Housings and develop the Haven product. I am so happy that I got to know you and Feidin and the others at Trinity Housings!"
The urge to reprimand her for her naivete died in his throat, seeing her enthusiasm. He simply shook his head and heaved a resigned sigh. "Next time, be careful. Or hire an agent you trust."
"Why don't you be my agent?" she asked with a sincere tone. " After all…"
A warm smile emerged on her face. "…I trust you."
Cæ simply gazed at her with a deep look as a wry smile cracked at the edge of his mouth uncharacteristically.
"Sure. Just give me a call if you ever need help with anything."
"I'll hold to that, ok?"
"Sure."
"No takebacks, ok?"
"Hah, sure."
The two of them bantered about a bit as Cæ found himself enjoying the time he spent with her. For one, she was very different from him, but that simply played into the conversational dynamics as Cæ's cool composure evened out Seliphaz's pronounced emotional expression.
Additionally, they had many things to talk about outside of Trinity Housing. After all, they were still mages, even if Seliphaz graduated from the magicademy already.
"Have you decided what you're going to major in?" she asked with a curious expression. "After all, the Senior Program is only twenty days away from starting, you know?"
Cæ heaved a sigh. "I know. I haven't really given deep thought, certainly not as much as I should have."
The Senior Program had a greater wealth of choice in the possible paths that apprentice mages like himself could choose. He would need to pick and choose far more electives than he had mandatory programs, unlike the apprentice program, which was entirely mandatory.
This was an extremely important choice that he would need to make, and he hadn't been able to get the time to think about it as deeply as he needed to.
It wasn't entirely his fault, of course.
The fact of the matter was that he was simply too busy with other matters to have time for such considerations. After all, not only was he fully concerned with Trinity Housings sales, he was also consumed with the Outer City Talent Acquisition Program, of which he headed day in and day out.
Both of these matters fully consumed all of his time.
"You should give it more thought," Seliphaz chided him. "However, I would have thought that in your case, the answer was obvious, no?"
He raised his eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you're a combat whiz," she replied with a knowing expression. "In just a year, you became extraordinarily proficient at magic. You even beat the Silian Sylvester, who is hailed as a magical prodigy and had been practicing magic from the age of fourteen."
Cæ fell into thought. "…Certainly, I don't intend to neglect my combat magic. Combat magic is very important in this world and is the most profitable and valued class of magic. Neglecting my talent in this field would be beyond foolish."
Not to mention, in the distant future, when he finally accrued the magicapita and other forms of power needed to achieve his ultimate ambition of destroying the current world order, he would need to have combat magic to protect himself from the countless forces that would seek to destroy him no matter the means.
"However, combat isn't my only focus," Cæ remarked with eyes that twinkled with an ember of passion. "I want to learn other fields of magic. I want to master enchantments, I want to learn how to artifice, I want to learn divination, I want to learn exorcism, I want to learn healing, I even want to learn alchemy."
Seliphaz's eyes widened with visible surprise. "How in the world are you going to focus on mastering so many fields of magic?!"
A genuine smile of passion uncharacteristically appeared on his face.
It was unlike anything she had seen from him in the time that she had known him and worked alongside him.
"I love magic," Cæ remarked. "I want to master everything it has to offer. Not to mention, I think it will be very important to my actual ambition."
The sheer difficulty that came with wanting to destroy the world order and build a better one in its place was so high that he truly would need everything he could possibly get his hands on to even possibly be able to achieve his goals.
Seliphaz just stared at him with a stunned expression. "So, you're truly going to opt to go for as many diverse electives as you possibly can?"
Cæ stirred with thought at the question. "…I don't know if I can truly opt for literally each and every single elective that the Elendir Institute of Magic has to offer. There are limited electives, after all, far fewer available slots than the number of available fields of magic that I could choose to learn."
Magic was an extraordinarily diverse field of magic with many branches and fields, each of which contained further sub-specialized fields. It was impossible to set foot in each direction as a senior student, so he would need to compromise and pick the top few magical fields he was interested in.
"I think I will definitely start off with combat magic being my number one pick," Cæ remarked. "After that, the fields I mentioned earlier, such as enchantment, artificing, and divination, are definitely at the top of my list. Enchantments and artificing are the basis of modern magitechnology, and so it's very important for me to understand these fields. Divination is very important to me as a businessman because information is power. There are powerful imperatives in other fields as well, so I intend to dip my feet in all of them."
Seliphaz frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea, Cæ. Specialization is very valued in the job market. Nobody is looking for somebody who knows the basics of a bunch of fields but can't really do anything in any of them."
Cæ shook his head. "You're not wrong. But I'm not looking for a job, remember? I'm a businessman. And in the world of business, the jack of all trades beats the master of one."
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs were people with a diverse skillset and a diverse set of experience in their career, exposed to diverse environments and fields. These were people who leveraged this diversity and used their creativity to come up with a business that often relied on their diversity to solve incredible problems.
It was very rarely the hyper-specialized Phd who started a business that made billions.
No, it was people who were jacks of all trades with a messily diverse set of experiences and competencies who created some of the most successful businesses in the world.
This was why Cæ didn't want to hyper-specialize in any one particular field.
If he wanted to accrue as much magicapita as possible, he would need to commence the most successful businesses, and having a broad mastery of fields was statistically most conducive to this goal.
Additionally, another secret reason he wanted to diversify his magical mastery was due to his pure magic. His pure magic vastly lowered the barrier of entry for all fields since he didn't need to master runes, which took years, to master a field.
He could master magic with just exposure alone, as long as his imagination could replicate what he saw in his memories, he could simply reconstruct magic as long as he could perceive it and understand it.
This meant that he could make astronomical progress jumping into each field in the blink of an eye, entirely unhindered by diminishing returns. That was why he was eager to master many fields of magic, in addition to facilitating incredible business success.
Of course, on an emotional level, he hadn't lied about his passion for magic.
Ever since he learned about the fundamental principle of magic, he had gained a profound and deep passion for magic that was unlike anything else in his life prior. It was one of the few things that gave him some true joy in his otherwise severe and driven life.
"Well, those are my plans for the future insofar as magic is concerned," he remarked as his attention returned to Seliphaz. "What about you?"
She stirred. "What about me?"
"I mean, you're only twenty-six, right?" Cæ raised an eyebrow. "Surely you have some plans for the future insofar as pursuing your magicademics. Do you harbor the ambition of becoming a master mage?"
Seliphaz's expression grew complicated. "I would like to become a master mage, but frankly, I'm not sure if I can. The time it takes to go from being a senior to a master is a very long time. However, I do intend to pursue my magicademics. I've just been having a little trouble figuring out how to proceed from this point forward..."