Chapter 89
Christina's social circle was an anomaly. It was a tight-knit group containing two genuine aristocratic prodigies and two commoners, yet they were completely immune to the Cold War tearing the rest of the lecture hall apart.
It was precisely why Rimuru remembered them so well.
"Christina?" Rimuru hesitated for a fraction of a second before calling on her. Seeing the deep conflict swirling in her eyes, his voice softened into its usual, gentle cadence. "Do you have a question?"
"Professor..." Christina bit her lower lip, hesitating.
She turned her head, casting a long, complex look at the "Aristocrat" side of the room. Sitting there was a boy with stark, gray-white hair who was frantically shaking his head at her. Rimuru recognized him too. Amoston, a young genius from a prestigious German lineage, burdened with the somewhat overly-dramatic moniker: The Eagle Destined for the Azure Skies.
Seeing Amoston shake his head, Christina's brows knit together. She pressed her lips tight, gathered her courage, and turned back to face the podium.
"Professor. I want to ask... for a magus, is inheriting a Magic Crest truly the only path forward?"
Her voice trembled slightly, echoing loudly in the silent hall.
"For commoners like us, stray magi with no pedigree, do we really..."
"Do we really have no future?"
The moment the words left her mouth, Amoston's cold face twisted with a complicated, pained expression.
The entire lecture hall plunged into absolute, suffocating silence.
"Tch..."
Rimuru stood frozen behind the podium for a long moment. Finally, he let out a soft, helpless chuckle.
"That question... is quite difficult. And rather heavy for a Wednesday afternoon, isn't it?"
…
Rimuru didn't answer the question immediately. Instead, he gently asked Christina to explain whyshe was asking it.
The story was complicated, but not entirely uncommon. Christina was a "stray" magus, a commoner, but she did possess a Magic Crest inherited from her deceased father. The problem was that her father had been a third-rate hack. His Crest contained nothing but half-baked, utterly useless spells.
To her aristocratic friends, Amoston and the others, this was a tragedy. They saw Christina's raw, innate talent being suffocated by a garbage Crest.
So, they devised a plan. They suggested pooling their families' resources to find a declining, heirless magus lineage and effectively "buy" their Magic Crest for Christina to inherit.
But to Christina, her father's pathetic Crest was his final legacy. She refused to abandon it.
The real breaking point occurred two days ago. Amoston had blindsided her, announcing that he and the other aristocrat in their group had already negotiated the rights to a high-tier Crest for her.
In the magus world, a quality Magic Crest was the culmination of generations of research, wealth, and Mystery. It was the Holy Grail of inheritance. Even for a dying family, countless geniuses would wage literal wars for the right to inherit their Crest. The political and financial capital Amoston had burned to secure that right for a commoner must have been astronomical.
And yet, the group fractured. Amoston couldn't fathom why Christina would throw away her future over sentimental attachment to a useless heirloom. Mona, Christina's commoner best friend, couldn't fathom why Amoston was trying to forcefully overwrite Christina's identity with a foreign lineage.
The irreconcilable clash of worldviews had shattered their little utopia. Caught in the center of the crossfire, overwhelmed by guilt and conflicting desires, Christina had turned to the one person she trusted above all others. Her idol. Professor Tempest.
As Christina finished her story, the atmosphere in the lecture hall shifted violently.
Scores of eyes bored into her. Envy. Jealousy. Incomprehension. And the vast majority of those glaring stares were coming from the commonerside of the aisle.
Rimuru found it bitterly ironic.
The commoners acted like they despised the aristocrats and their elitist circles. But fundamentally, they worshipped the power that aristocracy represented. And who could blame them? In an era where Mystery was decaying, a Magic Crest wasn't just a spellbook; it was a stabilized anchor to the arcane. It definitively dictated the absolute ceiling and the baseline floor of a magus's potential.
"So, what you're saying is... my answer here will directly influence the decision you make," Rimuru said, looking into Christina's tense, anxious eyes. He smiled softly. "That really is a difficult position you've put me in. Because judging by how you phrased your question... you already know what you want the answer to be."
"You aren't actually torn about whether to accept the new Crest or not. What you're asking about is... resentment. The agonizing resentment that a stray magus without a proper inheritance is inherently branded a failure, doomed to mediocrity."
Rimuru gestured for her to sit down. He walked back to the center of the podium, letting out a small, dramatic sigh before chuckling.
"Alright. Let's tackle the core question first."
"Do stray magi truly have no future? If you want my objective answer, it's... quite the opposite."
Rimuru leaned against the podium, looking out over the sea of students.
"A long time ago, someone told me a very blunt, very irritating phrase."
"'Why should your single lifetime of effort be enough to surpass the accumulated wealth and labor of ten generations?'"
"It sounds like a cynical joke, but in the magus world, it is the absolute, unvarnished truth. The Mystery required for our craft is bleeding out of this world. The only way to harness true power is through generational accumulation. A family hoarding Mystery over centuries will always possess a denser, heavier arsenal than someone starting from scratch."
"If a magus with no Crest, or a very young one, deludes themselves into thinking they can stand toe-to-toe with a lineage that has been refining their craft for ten or twenty generations? Their only hope is to bet entirely on the future."
Rimuru let the silence hang for a moment.
"So, unfortunately, if we look at this strictly through the lens of traditional Magecraft and the preservation of Mystery... the answer is yes."
"It's not that stray magi have no future. It's that the future is the only thing they have."
He paused, his eyes sweeping over the right side of the aisle. He saw the crestfallen, bitter looks settling over the commoner students' faces.
Suddenly, Rimuru smiled. He stood up straight, his voice ringing out, clear and commanding.
"Alright. That was the official, textbook answer from the perspective of a traditional magus. Now. Let me give you my perspective."
"Because if I stopped there, Miss Christina would be incredibly disappointed, and she'd rightly accuse me of dodging the real issue."
Rimuru casually snapped his textbook shut and tossed it onto the desk. He stretched his arms lazily.
"The true essence of your question isn't about whether a future exists. It's asking: How does a stray magus carve out a future for themselves?"
"Am I right?"
….
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