"...whatever he wants?"

"Yes, but in the pursuit of the greatest good! What will help the ones around him?"

"Doing whatever he's best at?"

"A good first pass! But if he is best at jewelry, and the city has a dozen silversmiths, and he is only a little worse at, uh, cobbling, but there is more call for shoes than cobblers to be had, might he do better to serve that need?"

"...probably?"

"Well. Evidence shows it to be thus, anyway. One should find a balance between what he has the most skill at, and what he is better than others at. And even if I turn out to be some sorcerous wunderkind, it seems unlikely that it will be most useful for me to plumb those depths, instead of simply having enough knowledge to use it as a lever to maximize the reach of the other things I know that are known by no one else on this planet! There are so many things, and not enough hours in the day!"

He inhales; he got a bit manic there. "Anyway. Taharqi, I think that given everything I know about you, if there is any component to sorcery based in intellectual or personal merit, you could be my equal or better in that field. And I do not know about you, but the concept of having a sorcerous vizier to my technological revolution fills me with the most inappropriate glee. ...besides, synthetic blood is easy to make."

"I do not actually know where the blood comes in, the Staff was talking about crystal foci and it seemed like the effects he was describing did not involve any kinds of sacrifice? But perhaps it is only the higher sorceries that require it, or perhaps the school of sorcery I have heard stories about is not the only one."

"I'm sure he'd be happy to infodump about it given the slightest provocation."