"Because little Colmar's understanding of the edge wasn't comprehensive enough."
The teacher did not ignore the young wizard's remark and answered Zheng Qing's complaint very seriously: "—The edge is a very broad concept. Generally speaking, everything outside the core and the mainstream should count as the edge. Under this view, the edge seems limited to peripheral or borderline areas.
"If society were a circle, that definition would not be wrong.
"But in actual observation, we find that social structures are not always symmetrical and elegant. Many times, they take the shape of an olive or a cone. Under such forms, every endpoint belongs to the edge outside the 'mainstream.'
"At that point, we can roughly arrive at a new conclusion—everything that does not belong to the 'majority' belongs to the edge. To verify the reliability of this theory, we can try deriving it through other general principles.
"For example, the concept of yin and yang. The yin and yang poles can transform into one another. In a sense, they possess more 'commonality' with each other than with the rest of the whole, and that commonality can be summarized as 'edginess.'
"To give a very simple example, the fishman named Iseni from Linzhong Lake is an outsider at First University. Likewise, Councilwoman Su from the Two-Dimensional Evolution Laboratory is also an outsider at First University."
"How is she an outsider?!" Zheng Qing looked utterly dumbfounded as he instinctively objected.
"Because she is not one of the 'majority,' either."
The teacher chuckled. "—Like the new model I just mentioned, society is olive-shaped. The edge can be the endpoint at the bottom, or the endpoint at the top. Both are small clusters 'rejected by the mainstream'... A lone shadow on a cold river, drinking alone beneath the moon; the obscurity of those at