The following contains spoilers for Episode 4 of The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule The World, “The Boy Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Releases His Secret Power!,” now available to watch on Crunchyroll.
Ray White first entered Arnold Academy with two goals in mind: to enjoy life as an ordinary teenager that he could not experience before and to identify who the Empire’s spy was that had infiltrated the Kingdom’s academy. However, a different and more dangerous threat other than the spy had been hiding in Arnold Academy for years, endangering Ray’s new way of life, his friends and all the other students of the sorcerer academy.
With the betrayal of a trusted teacher weighing on his heart, Ray was forced to reveal the identity he had tried to keep hidden for as long as possible to save his companions from the evil clutches of the heinous group, Eugenics. But who exactly is this group and what connection did they have to Professor Helena Grady?
Eugenics and Their Engram Research
Engram is the study of how the brain is directly related to sorcery as the source of the code needed to perform their world’s magic, led by Ray’s mentor and mother figure, top sorcery researcher Lydia Ainsworth. However, rather than conducting their study using sorcery to analyze the brain carefully while ensuring the person’s safety, the group Eugenics took on a more sinister approach, choosing to directly cut up and dissect sorcerers’ brains to conduct their studies.
To conduct their research, members of Eugenics had no qualms with kidnapping and murdering innocent sorcerers as materials for their studies and committing crimes against human nature for the sake of their goal. With an unknown number of members, the group was only rumored until they started to contact several prominent sorcerers, including Lydia Ainsworth, in an attempt to recruit them as part of their researchers — which she quickly rejected due to their delusional goals and inhumane actions.
Professor Helena Grady
Ray was first introduced to Professor Helena Grady on his first day of school at Arnold Academy. As the teacher in charge of his class and the only other person aside from Amelia Rose to not discriminate against his ordinary status at the time, Helena Grady, otherwise known as Professor Gray, was reputed to be a competent, considerate and compassionate professor who had an unfortunate history of students dropping out from the academy in the anime.
Professor Gray had been teaching at the academy for several years; however, she spent most of her time working toward her goal of becoming a magic researcher and told Ray that she felt guilty for neglecting the students that had potential until they were expelled from the school. With the desire to properly watch over Ray to make up for her misdemeanors, as the only ordinary in a school full of noble supremacists, she told Ray to go to her if he ever had troubles at the academy, gaining his respect as a teacher.
Sadly, the respect that Ray had for Gray was revealed to be based on lies in Episode 4, “The Boy Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Releases His Secret Power!,” when Helena Grady revealed herself to be the suspicious robed figure that could be seen during Ray’s battles, and a member of Eugenics. This robed figure had been the culprit for the resurrection of the monster that Ray and his friends barely managed to defeat during the practical exercise in the Kafka Forest, as well as the person who incited Albert Alium in his hatred for Ray until he lost control of his emotions during their duel.
While some fans may have connected the links between the dark robe that professor Gray always wore and the hooded figure that would always be hiding while watching Ray and his friends, the characters, including Ray, had no idea of her hidden identity until the moment she trapped them in a powerful barrier. Finally confessing to being a member of Eugenics, Professor Gray’s plan to capture Ray, Alium and their friends to use as research materials and rise in the ranks revealed the insidious and inhumane nature that she had hidden so carefully behind the mask of a kind teacher.
Aside from Ray and his companions, Professor Gray had also been the culprit for the expelled students that she told Ray about, as well as several students that would go missing every year during the practical exercises in Kafka Forest, just like the attack on Ray. This confession, however, only served to cause Ray to feel more disappointed in the teacher he had trusted and respected as the resolve to fight against her and stop her inhumane actions grew.
Not the Only Identity Revealed
Although Professor Gray’s true identity as a member of Eugenics that had been kidnapping students to be used as research materials was a shocking betrayal for Ray, his own identity that he eventually revealed was a bombshell that none of the other characters could have anticipated — even with Amelia’s suspicions that Ray was no ordinary person.
Forced to choose between letting professor Gray take him and the others away as experiment materials or finally relieving Amelia of her curiosity and revealing his powers and identity as the Iceblade Sorcerer, Ray chose the latter to save his friends and cornered Gray in the forest. Helena Grady’s image only crumbled further when she displayed her cowardly and manipulative nature in front of the Iceblade sorcerer, suggesting joining Eugenics at a leadership position in exchange for letting her go — only to attack him as soon as he seemed to let his guard down.
While Ray and his friends have only encountered one person from the infamous group Eugenics so far, Professor Gray’s actions and attitude toward sacrificing innocent students and sorcerers for the sake of her research acted as an example of the type of people in the group, and a fierce first impression. The professor’s research result, the ‘Dark Triad System,’ that she injected herself with when she realized she was cornered also acted as a warning to just how dangerous Eugenics was, as Gray transformed into The Iceblade Sorcerer’s version of Ryuk from Death Note.
Episode 4 may have ended on a cliffhanger, with fans waiting in anticipation for the battle between the drugged professor Gray and Ray with his powers unsealed, but it also revealed the secret member of Eugenics that had been hiding inside Arnold Academy, kidnapping and threatening the safety of the students for so many years. While it is not clear if Helena Grady is a spy from the Empire or not, just being a member of Eugenics is enough to call her one of the biggest threats against Arnold Academy that Ray has to battle for the sake of protecting his friends and new life.
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