“One thousand gold crowns per term? At half again that in yearly interest? Even if you manage to gain your license, an Apprentice still couldn’t afford to repay me the monthly interest.”
Did the math for this above statement to be true the monthly interest would have to be about 3.4%.
And Azalea said in a previous post you have to take four class each term and it requires 9 terms to become a master.
So with the above loan structure Sebastian would owe 18,631gold coins in total and with interest an additional 633 coins each month.
Why can’t Oliver just tell people this is why he is sponsoring Sebastian. Like that is so much money and by the time that Sebastian would theoretically be able to pay it off he would no longer be in a position where you need to care about money.
So why can’t Oliver just say he wanted to scam this gifted thaumaturge and got defensive because Sebastian is literally a cash cow.
Also, the reason I chose the master certificate is because it’s pretty obvious that Sebastian would be able to get a master certificate with his skill and it’s not worth it to pay it back with only an apprentice certificate so might as well just wait.
But as to why he didn’t use that as the reason, I think it’s because he’s trying to maintain an image of a philanthropist. Putting a random 20 year old in crippling debt would tarnish that. Simply sponsoring a talented student fits better.
no longer be in a position where you need to care about money
That’s never going to happen with that debt if it accumulates over the full 9 terms. A Master makes 2000-3000 gold per year. Just the interest alone would take more than 3 times that much to cover.
You have to compound the interest, because then the loan is not really predatory and inescapable. Also I think it is worse, to look like you are trying to bone someone you are sponsoring. Also for a normal student I think that would be impossible to escape, but I think for someone with Sebastian’s skills they could escape it. Because they are already close to the lower thaum threshold for masters. So I assume he will be able to create a lot higher value work than any standard master could create by the time he finishes his degree.
Also Titus already knows he is not a perfect philanthropist, which is evident from the side series.
That wasn’t Oliver’s original intention though. He was only forced to play into that because he accidentally admitted that it was him who the officer saw in chapter 1. That would have probably happened no matter what reason he claimed for sponsoring Sebastien. It would have looked even worse if it appeared as if he had put someone he was infatuated with in huge debt so they couldn’t escape him. I doubt Thaddeus would have asked Sebastien first if he should deal with Dryden if he heard.
I mean, the other piece of the context is the societal standard of what sponsorship agreements look like is generally much more predatory. The sponsors that require years of committed service with no way out are both getting a higher return on any successful thaumaturges and have much greater abilities to restrict their autonomy and force them into situations they don’t want.
Difficult to call this an indenture-type sponsorship as well; what would Dryden need a thaumaturge for? He now must answer uncomfortable questions about what sort of businesses he runs. Easier to just, on the spur of the moment, imply an attraction caused him to become Sebastien’s patron.