Chapter 298 — Attraction
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
Gao Yang thought about it, then shook his head. "Never mind. I can't explain it to you."
Amber's eyes went wide, and she was just about to retort when, before she could open her mouth, Betty's crisp voice rang out from beyond the study door. "My lord! Master Camille and Mr. Santis are here to see you!"
"Oh?" Gao Yang was a little surprised that two people with so little to do with each other would come together. He walked toward his desk. "Let them in."
Amber pursed her lips and obediently took her place at Gao Yang's side. A few seconds later the study door opened and Camille and Santis came in.
A few minutes later, having heard what the two had come for, Gao Yang could not keep an expression of interest off his face. "You mean to start with the capital's mage circles and draw in a batch of talent? Through Santis's network of connections?"
"My lord, that… hardly counts as a network of connections," Santis said at once, a little nervous. "The gatherings of those great mages—those are what you would call a network. What I know are… at most the private gatherings of a few small mages who have not done well for themselves, and I do not even know many people…"
Gao Yang waved a hand. "No matter. As I said just now, our target was never those great mages to begin with—so long as they are educated people, that is enough. But to be frank, I have thought before of recruiting talent from the prosperous regions of the kingdom… including the capital's mage circles. I have entertained the notion."
Camille: "You have recruited before? Without success?"
Gao Yang nodded. "That is right. Though at the time I did not have Santis's connections to draw on, I offered very high terms. Yet nearly a year has passed, and not a single person has shown any interest in Cecil Territory's overtures. You should know why."
"A borderland, desolate and bitterly cold, and right up against the Gondor wasteland—no one would think there is any future in serving here as a 'magical advisor,'" Santis said, instantly grasping the reason, his voice turning bitter. "The people of the capital do not know the true situation here. They judge only by imagination. To them, Cecil Territory holds no attraction. However high the pay, capital mages will not lightly leave the center of the kingdom… After all, to the vast majority of mages, the capital means the center of knowledge and the channel for advancement. However wretched their lot, they are unwilling to leave."
The reputation of the founding hero was lofty, but mages were a pragmatic lot. They saw no hope in going to the Southern Region, and so the founding hero's renown was not enough to sway them—even though Gao Yang had at the same time offered very high terms, he was not so generous as to disregard cost.
"Mr. Santis, do you think that with your influence, you could persuade your friends to leave a 'magical center' like the capital and come to Cecil Territory to be pioneers?"
Santis hesitated at once, and began unconsciously tugging at the button on his chest. "I…"
He wanted to say with confidence that he could, but he had only to suppose it for a moment to realize that he had no such confidence.
Leaving the capital was not so easy. Even if he went in person to plead with his friends, with his "reputation" in the capital's mage circles, he feared he could not persuade a single one.
He had no friends whose friendship ran deep enough that a few words would bring them to break new ground at his side. If he had, he would not have been squeezed out by the capital's mage circles into the Southern Region aid corps in the first place.
The young arcanist's face fell, and the courage and enthusiasm he had finally summoned took a heavy blow. But just then, Camille suddenly spoke. "My lord, Cecil Territory holds no attraction for those capital mages, and so they are unwilling to come—is that right?"
"That is right," Gao Yang nodded. "To draw talent in, Cecil Territory must have enough attraction."