The meeting grew silent as each of them gazed at Mr. Sorwel with a curious gaze. His attention, however, remained fixed on Cæ. He stroked his salt-pepper beard with a knowing expression as he sized Cæ up, before elaborating on his evaluation.

"I have gone through the data that the administration has provided to me on your magical prowess. It is indeed impressive, but unfortunately, it doesn't cleanly fit into one of the four roles I have mentioned before. You're a dynamic combatant with a flexible combat style, and from what I understand, your diversity in magic will only continue increasing as you have chosen to develop a foundation in a large variety of skills, yes?"

Cæ nodded. "I intend to become more of a jack-of-all-trades rather than a master of one."

The other nine members of the team gazed at him like he had suggested that the moons were made of cheese.

Of course, Cæ was accustomed to the reaction.

Virtually every person that he had told that he was choosing to spread himself thin and refusing to specialize in any one field as a mage looked at him like he had lost his mind. It was indeed something that was very unusual among mages, for spreading oneself thin across a variety of unrelated fields did not lend oneself very well in the magical labor market.

He simply ignored them.

"In which case," Mr. Sorwel continued unperturbed, "you would not do well in a hyper-specific role. At the same time, your magical prowess is too great to ignore. Thus, I have decided to relegate you to the role of the all-rounder. Your role is to adapt your participation in the match depending on your opponents and their team. Some teams will adopt a more aggressive and offensive approach, directing more manpower to capturing their opponent's flag, as opposed to defending their own flag. Other teams will adopt a more cautious and defensive strategy, protecting their flag with a great many resources while relying on only a handful of students to capture their opponents' flag. You will need to analyze this and adjust accordingly. Of course…"

His eyes grew more serious.

"This will only be the case if you're actually going to become a team leader, as Virlyd will be. If not, you will have to adhere to the leader's commands."

"Hah?" Miranda's tone was one of scorn as her hostile purple eyes turned towards him with an unpleasant glint to them. "This slum mongrel leading us? Don't even jest about it."

"Actually…" Cæ's tone was strong as his stormy, gray eyes shifted towards her. "…I intend to become the leader of this team if I lose to Vilryd."

Miranda glared at him. "There's no way we would agree to that. You can't possibly do a good job of leading us. I won't accept somebody incompetent leading this team."

"I agree with the sentiment," Kyrell Singe scoffed lightly as the chains wrapping around his body jingled. "If you think that we will just lend ourselves to you, then you're deeply mistaken."

It appeared that they disliked him the most out of the nine.

"You seem to be very confident of my lack of competence," Cæ remarked with a steely tone. "I believe that I likely have the most experience with leadership out of anybody here. I not only founded my own company and brought it to great success within a year, but I also led the Talent Acquisition Program with great success and brought our magicademy around one hundred elite-level talents. Do you deny these feats or question my leadership of them?"

Everybody knew of the latter, of course. The Slum Talent Acquisition Program would have been the hottest topic in the magicademy if not for the Magic Contest, which was even more exciting for the students. But that didn't mean that people had forgotten the controversy and the spicy legal and political battles that had been fought surrounding the issue.

They also hadn't forgotten the students from the slums who were now among them in the Apprentice Program.

Cæ had indeed gained a lot of fame and notoriety from the Program, even if most of it was surrounded by his combat prowess displayed in the Slum Wars.

Miranda and Kyrell remained silent, even if their expressions were anything but pleasant. But the fact that they didn't mindlessly bite his head off, trying to discredit what was clearly an accolade of leadership that would look great on a resume, gave Cæ some hope.

If he was going to become the leader of the team, he needed to earn the respect of his team.

It didn't matter if they didn't like him, although it would be ideal if they liked him personally.

The most important part, however, was earning respect and voluntary acquiescence.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This was what he had learned leading Trinity Housings and the Program.

A leader needed to command respect.

And it could not be accomplished by using a degree of force. For instance, just the fact that he was the sole member of the Student Council there made it easier for him to get assigned as the leader of the team. The Student Council had the ultimate power over deciding who they would field as a team and who the leader was, so it would be easy for him to get assigned as leader regardless of what the nine of them before him thought.

But that was suboptimal from the perspective of leadership.

It would only reduce the respect they had for him and would earn him their resentment and perhaps even hatred.

This would impede teamwork too much and would reflect badly on him in the Magic Contest, which defeated the whole purpose of even trying to go for the Magic Contest in the first place.

As much as he disliked Miranda's prejudiced view of his background and her use of antagonistic insults for people residing in the slums, he needed to maintain his composure and earn her respect, even if he hated the idea of it on an emotional level.

If he couldn't do even that much, then he could forget about his lofty ambitions.

"Huff…" he heaved a deep breath. "Then, allow me to propose this to resolve the matter regarding leadership. Let us conduct a mock Capture The Flag field between the two of us as team leaders. You can also have Kyrell on your side."

"…What?" Miranda sharpened his gaze. "A mock Capture The Flag game?"

Cæ nodded. "We will make do with the team members here and the trainers for a total of twenty members. Ah…"

He paused, turning to the leader of the training team, Mr. Sorwel.

"You're too strong, so you and another member will have to sit out, leaving us with a total of eighteen members."

Mr. Sorwel's unchanging expression cracked as a small smile emerged on his face.

"Interesting proposal. It's a shame I can't participate, but I look forward to it nonetheless."

The other nine members of the student team looked intrigued by Cæ's suggestion while Miranda and Kyrell stared at him with knitted eyes.

The former folded her arms as she gazed straight at Cæ with purple eyes filled with a hint of apprehension. "You're challenging me to a battle for leadership?"

"A mock Capture The Flag match," Cæ reaffirmed. "Whoever wins will be crowned leader."

He turned towards Kyrell with a steely gaze.

"If you want a separate match, we could arrange that, but I don't want to let this leadership matter get delayed for too long. So I suggest that the two of you work on the same team against me. We each get nine players on our team, just one short of what it will be in the Magic Contest. If you truly believe that your leadership is superior to mine, then you may put your money where your mouth is."

"…" Kyrell gazed at Cæ with sharpened black eyes through his messy bangs. "Fine. I accept your offer."

The air grew a little heavy as Cæ's spontaneous idea earned Kyrell's willingness.

Cæ turned towards Miranda, whose expression grew more complicated. "What do you say?"

"…Alright then," she acquiesced with a frosty tone. "I accept your challenge. If I win, however, you can't use your position in the Student Council to try and swindle me and claim leadership anyway."

"You have my word," Cæ replied, turning to Mr. Sorwel. "Please file a report to the Student Council of this little duel and wager, just so that there is no possible way for me to try and go back on my word."

Mr. Sorwel smiled once more with a hint of respect in his older eyes.

"Very well."

"Thank you," Cæ turned back to Miranda with a firm gaze. "In turn, I expect you to yield fully and wholly to my claim for leadership on this team if I win, alright?"

"Of course," she replied with a stern tone. "I am of the Walyn Family. I would never go back on my word."

Cæ nodded, turning to the rest of them. "What about all of you? Do you have any objections to my claim for leadership should I win this match? Is there anybody else who challenges my qualifications for this role if I win?"

None of them, not even Dranst, spoke up.

"Then…" his gaze turned back to Miranda. "It is finalized."

"What about the details?" she raised an eyebrow. "How will the teams be decided? When and where will it be held?"

"We can choose the teams right away," Cæ replied with a composed tone. "I'll start since Kyrell is already on your team, and then we can go from there. As for where, we can do it here, or in any one of the general-purpose fields in the large campus of the Elendir Institute of Magic, or in a rented field. You can take your pick."

"Let's limit it to the institute; we can go with one of their fields," she replied. "Let's go with a forest environment."

"Alright," Cæ agreed. "Then, for timing, we can go with two days from now. I don't want to delay our proper training with this little match-up too much."

"…Fine," she acquiesced sternly. "Don't forget your words when you lose."

"Right back at you," Cæ retorted calmly. "Now, it's time to select teams."

He turned to the training team, scanning their members, relying on his intuition to figure out who to trust.

"You," his eyes rested on a young woman, one of the youngest on the team. "I choose you."

She had a serious expression with several scars across her pale face, while her light orange hair was tied up in a bun.

She simply stepped forward wordlessly, standing behind Cæ.

"I choose… you." Miranda chose one of the training team herself.

They both knew that the training team was bound to be much stronger than any of the students, so they both intended to pick as many from the training team as they could.

It wasn't long before all eight of the training members had been evenly divided between the two teams at what was largely random.

"One more thing," Cæ remarked, turning to the trainers. "Please do not deploy your experience to aid either Miranda or me during this process. The point is to test our leadership, which will be skewed if we leverage your experience in the game."

The trainers simply nodded while Miranda didn't bring up any objection, even if she looked displeased. She couldn't reject the advice, for it would make her look like she wasn't confident of leading a team unless hand-held through the process.

"Now then…" Cæ turned to Miranda with a knowing gaze. "Time to pick from among the students. I will go first."

He didn't even think about it.

"I choose you, Serulia." He gazed at her with a knowing expression.

She smiled at him with a hint of delight in her light blue eyes."

"With pleasure."

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