The master mage frowned as creases crumpled the smooth skin of his face.
His elegant demeanor grew muddled with visible confusion as his face scrunched up, his eyebrows furrowed, while his eyes sharpened, peering deep into Cæ's eyes with askance
"Why do you seek to understand the heart healing industry? What can you possibly hope to gain from learning about this? You mentioned something about a business, and I am truly confused."
"It is indeed related to my commercial prospects," Cæ replied with a knowing gaze. "I was just wishing to understand the heart healing sector from the perspective of a former medical healer."
Before the master mage obtained the rank of a master mage, he was a healer-surgeon in the industry, only commencing his research career after becoming a master mage and having the necessary clout needed to become a professor at the Elendir Institute of Magic in exchange for borrowing research facilities.
While there were perhaps more pertinent people to speak to, it was easier to access a professor in the Elendir Institute of Magic.
"…Well, what do you want to know, exactly?" the master mage raised an eyebrow.
"…one of my friends recently experienced damage to his heart," Cæ replied. "A lot of my subordinates did, actually. They have been experiencing great difficulty in finding a senior heart surgeon, unfortunately. It appears that despite a great availability of supply in pure heart healer surgeons, or so I read, there are still not enough to meet the demand due to a stunningly low number of heart surgeries performed each day. This mismatch between the demand and supply got me thinking…"
The professor snorted. "Got you thinking what? Can you form a commercial venture around it? Forget about it, it's impossible. And the reason for it is simple."
He leaned forward on his table with steepled fingers.
"Healing surgery around vital organs is highly skill-intensive, especially for more serious wounds. The industry, for good reason, does not allow apprentice healers to touch something as delicate as a damaged heart by themselves. They are only qualified to work on the epicardium; anything deeper than that is beyond them," the master mage explained. "You need senior healers to work on deeper parts of the heart, and with increasing severity, you need masters like me or perhaps even a healing archmage, although even the richest of patients struggle to earn this boon. In other words, we simply lack skilled supply in high-quality healing mages."
He gazed deep into Cæ's gray eyes with a sharp glint in his deep blue eyes.
Cæ fell into thought.
"Absence of skilled supply…"
That did indeed seem like an insurmountable problem.
Cæ wasn't even sure whether this was a problem that could be overcome, one that was shackled by such heavy constraints that surely no amount of innovation could possibly surmount it.
"This issue also extends to surgeries on the brain and the spinal cord," the master mage added. "It is a known shortcoming of the fields of critical surgeries. We simply lack the skilled labor needed to attend to the countless patients who need us. On top of that, it is also the reason that healer surgeons in these fields take as long as they do with each surgery."
Cæ fell into thought as he considered the magnitude of the problem.
"I will need to do more reading," he realized. "I know far too little, I think."
"If you want to learn more, you're better off speaking to an actual surgeon in these fields," the professor suggested. "I haven't been in the industry in the past five years since I became a master. I always treated it as merely a stepping stone since nobody would take a senior mage's research all that seriously, and getting good grants was almost impossible."
Cæ turned to him with a knowing expression. "I would imagine most people simply don't believe that a senior mage can discover the secret to immortality."
"And they're not wrong," the master mage huffed lightly, turning back to Cæ with a strange expression. "Tell me, young lad, why did you join my healing course? It seems clear to me that you have no intention of learning healing magic seriously. You seem to have joined for combat magic, but also whatever you meant by 'potential business.' This course is rigorous and exhaustive; is it really worth wasting my time as a teacher if you don't intend to make use of most of the knowledge I will be imparting?"
Cæ heaved a sigh, shaking his head. "What makes you think I won't be making use of the knowledge you will be teaching, Master?"
"You are not interested in becoming a career healer?"
"No."
"Do you intend to tangentially pursue a specialization that has some use of healing magic?"
"No."
"Well." The master mage grew exasperated. "Then you don't have any intention of making use of healing magic knowledge."
Cæ shook his head.
"There are many ways to use knowledge beyond just directly specializing in the field of science the knowledge is in," Cæ replied. "I am confident I can make use of the knowledge you have imparted to me beyond just the narrow application of healing."
The master mage gazed at Cæ with a skeptical expression. "Well, if you truly insist, then so be it. For now, if you have any other questions or doubts that I can tackle, then let me know; otherwise, I must prepare for my next class."
Cæ nodded lightly. "For now, I have gained satisfactory answers. I will do as you have recommended and do more research into the matter. Thank you for your time, Master Zymshire. I look forward to learning about healing magic in your course."
Cæ bade the esteemed professor goodbye as he returned to the senior program, glancing at his watch.
"I still have some time before the next class."
He simply took the opportunity to walk across the splendid estate of the campus, engrossed in thought as he pondered what he had learned. He hadn't imagined that he would be digging into the medical and healthcare industry in Elendir when looking for potential markets to tap into for his second business.
But it made sense.
Commercial ventures always begin with identifying a market.
More importantly, it began with identifying demand.
With Trinity Housing, he identified demand for housing units in the Colohen Slums.
In this particular case, he identified demand for heart healing that was being sorely under-fulfilled by the supplier market due to the high barrier of skill and the absence of the needed senior heart healers.
Developing a heart problem was more common than the number of people who developed the high skill level needed to heal heart problems, it appeared.
According to Master Zymshire, this problem extended to multiple other fields of critical invasive surgery.
This represented an even greater amount of demand.
If Cæ tapped into this uncontested demand, then he was bound to have a lot of potential for success.
"I feel bad to say this, but Master Mordir's attack came at the perfect time."
Despite his friends getting hurt and suffering even after, it opened his eyes to a problem that he didn't even know existed.
His eyes sharpened.
That wasn't entirely true.
He knew that the medical industry was broken when Lilia could have been saved, but wasn't, because of money.
His gray eyes sharpened with intensity at the very memory of it.
"I ought to burn down the entire sector."
Every time he thought about her and what happened to her, the burning anger and hatred buried deep within his heart bubbled to the surface, boiling over. This was especially the case when the wound flesh was fresh after learning the true identity of the culprit and being reminded of it each time he saw an automobile from the company.
"Ah, I didn't expect to run into you here."
A familiar voice broke him out of his reverie as his attention returned to his immediate environment. He found himself in one of the many gardens near the front gate of the magicademy, illuminated by the bright light of the morning Sun.
It was a soothing and refreshing atmosphere, giving the entire place.
Before him was none other than Melia, smiling at him with delight.
She looked different.
Her demeanor and body language had become a little more relaxed.
Her personal style had changed a bit from what felt like a suffocating and rigid orthodox formal style to a more playful and personal style.
She had cut her hair short to about shoulder length.
Her skirt wasn't below the knee as it had been before.
Despite the fact that she had been through extremely traumatic events lately, she looked better than she had been when she was still under the thumb of her family.
"How have you been?" Cæ asked with an uncharacteristically gentle tone.
"…Better than I expected," she managed to squeeze out with a complicated expression. "I do feel like a weight has been lifted off me. But at the same time…"
She heaved a shaky breath.
"It has been overwhelming."
Cæ regarded her with a knowing look. "I can imagine."
"I have enjoyed learning more about divination in my free time," she remarked. "I want to become like Headmistress Lenolia one day."
A small smile momentarily cracked at the edge of his mouth.
"That's a good goal. I saw her in action the other day, as you know. I can assure you that reaching that level of power is going to be extremely difficult."
In general, reaching the master rank was difficult even for elite talent like himself and her.
She nodded with a determined expression. "I know. Unfortunately, my elemental affinity is darkness and death…"
Her expression grew gloomy. "I don't have any light elemental affinity that is generally associated with divination."
Cæ glanced at her black hair and dark eyes, feeling that the elements suited her.
Elemental affinity was an important parameter that determined what fields of magic were most optimal for a person.
Cæ's polyelemental affinity was, of course, one of the reasons that he was considered a big deal. With an affinity for all six elements, he had no barrier to entry for any field and had the opportunity to learn things that other mages couldn't.
"Don't feel bad about that," Cæ remarked. "Funnily enough, the master mage that Headmistress Lenolia killed was all of the same affinities."
Those words made her even more gloomy.
"But that doesn't mean that he was weak by any means," Cæ quickly added. "You probably can't be exactly like Headmistress Lenolia, but you shouldn't be exactly like her. Nobody can be exactly like another person. You should focus on being you and making use of the gifts that you have been given. Darkness and death have great power. And if you can harness them, then you will be a formidable mage. They will also help you with the challenges awaiting you after you leave the Elendir Institute of Magic."
Those words made her wince.
"…Yes."
"You might want to consider becoming a covert assassin," Cæ remarked with a serious tone.
She stared at him with a dubious expression. "I'm not cut out for killing people."
Cæ eyed her with a knowing gaze before shaking his head.
"I'm afraid you're wrong about that."
Her eyes widened at those words as she stopped in her tracks while Cæ continued walking forward lightly.
"What do you mean by that?" Her tone was unsettled.
The air tingled with a hint of tension.
STEP
Cæ stopped, turning around and gazing at her with a calm intensity in the depths of his stormy gray eyes.
"…Exactly what I said."
His tone was chilling.
He gazed deep into the alarm in her dark eyes.
"You have what it takes to become a killer."
She simply stared at him with widened eyes.
"…How can you possibly know that?"
Cæ shrugged before continuing his walk.
"Pattern recognition, I suppose."
That remark only caused many more questions to flood her mind as she followed after him, seeking answers.