Hilbert had no idea what uniquely peculiar new assistant Rute had chosen, but he quickly realized one thing: the other female Mage was no pushover either.
Once Rojas had confirmed that although Coyle was full of wicked schemes, he was not so despicable as to offer their group of women up as tributes to those with greater power, and merely regarded them as opponents, she straightened up.
She did not care about competing with others. Even though Coyle would never go easy on them because they were women... even on the surface, when Coyle fought her, he only treated her as an opponent.
Although Rojas disliked Coyle's calculating nature, she was very satisfied with his attitude.
People from Mage families really were completely different from those born into noble families.
In the eyes of most people from Mage families, anyone competing with them for benefits, no matter who they were, was a competitor. They would not consider things like gender.
Even those who lusted after beauty treated female Mages about the same as other male Mages when facing women of comparable ability whom they could not easily suppress.
Power was the prerequisite for earning their respect, and it was something carved into their bones from childhood.
But Mages from noble families, perhaps because they had known from childhood that even the women in their families with Mage talent existed for political marriages, were always very polite toward women, yet carried an air of condescension.
After all, everyone understood what so-called political marriages really meant: women were also treated as a kind of commodity.
The education they received from childhood also made them understand what their futures would look like.
Even if they were as capable as their husbands, or even stronger in most cases, they still had to bend their