276 A Guaranteed Triumph

After that little incident, Baiyi's life returned to its tranquil and smooth normality.

However, unexpectedly, the students had become more eager in their studies, showing significant improvements in the homework they turned in. Was it because of Vidomina's earnest demonstration that day?

To have any of their small requests granted — surely that must be very enticing for them, right? They could ask for a holiday from school, or to exempt themselves from doing a day's assignment.

Unfortunately, Baiyi had not seen an assignment good enough to win that ultimate prize. On the plus side, none of the girls earned the "Feather Duster" grade again!

Baiyi's legal suit to contest the patent was accepted by the Sorcerer Association, in a breeze. Soon, the notice of a hearing was sent to him; it was to take place a week from that day. Three vice presidents and an envoy of representatives from other organizations will be present to act as judge and the jury for the case.

Rumors suggested that most of them supported Baiyi and accepted his concrete evidence, so the result would likely be one that benefited him.

As Baiyi made plans, he counted the days. According to his estimations, by the time the hearing was over, Aya should already be at Arfin City. By then, it should be around early December, and as Grace Day was to take place on December 5th, Baiyi really had to start planning his escape.

The day of the hearing arrived.

As it was not a public event, Baiyi did not bring his students with him this time.

For their lessons, Baiyi had instructed the Scholar to possess the hammerhead shark plushie and act as his substitute teacher. This time, he had to make a reassuring announcement to his students before his departure: "Don't worry; this time, Sharkie… no, I mean Professor S, has undergone intensive tweaking and reprogramming. It's not gonna act like it did last time!"

Immediately after Baiyi made the announcement, the Scholar-plushie soared up and hovered above his head, then it said in a neutral, and almost-mechanical, tone, "Hello everyone. Good to see you."

The voice upgrade was a last minute addition which Baiyi made to the plushie; it was made to ensure a better teaching experience. Of course, to prevent anyone from guessing who was controlling the plushie, Baiyi had made the voice synthesized.

"Huh?! Sharkie can talk now?!" Little Mia cried out in amazement.

"It's 'Professor S' during class," Baiyi patted her head, correcting her. Although the name sounded a little similar to a certain bald teacher who sits on a wheelchair, it was still better than one addressing their teacher as 'Sharkie', right?

"Alright, I'm leaving!" Baiyi said as he pushed open the door. Outside, Undine's coach was already parked by the street, waiting for him.

As two of the important eyewitnesses involved in this case, Undine and the Earl were permitted to join Baiyi.

On their way there, Baiyi once again briefed the two on important matters, such as the testimony and words they needed to say. He laid out every detail meticulously, even though he had already been through this yesterday. Honestly, he was not conducting the revision session for Undine, whom he knew was smart enough; it was the Earl that worried him. The entire issue happened because of the Earl's own screw-ups, after all.

"Now, finally, about my proposal. Have you reached a consensus on that?" Baiyi ended his briefing with a rather sudden change of topic.

After the accident, Baiyi had increased the price of his formations to 300 gold coins per set. He was unyieldingly persistent, despite Undine's pleas; even when she almost agreed to strip in front of him, he still would not back down. In the end, the fighter-turned-businesswoman had to convene with her other partners on the issue.

"Hmph! Of course, they agree to your deal! As if you'd expected something else!" Undine snapped, looking like she had been forced to strip nonetheless. "You may have increased your price, but it is still leagues better than the blood-sucking amount they asked from us."

"Smart choice," Baiyi replied calmly. He had predicted the merchants' agreement, frankly, because the price that the Sorcerers Association extolled was preposterous, and that was saying it mildly. 5,000 gold coins compared to Baiyi's 300! Even if Baiyi hiked his price, it would not be as terrible as the Association's price.

He needed some extra money for his very own academy, after all. The more money the better.

Baiyi had decided to arrange his current funds the night before; so far, he had: gifts of all kinds, the rewards from the Church, the Emperor's rewards, and the money from his 200 sets of formations; after adding all of that up, Baiyi only had six million gold coins on hand. Even if he added the money he spent on daily cost, he still would not have enough to start an academy.

According to the Apprentice, the cost of building the complexes in Celestial Fortress Academy, including the maintenance cost the complexes had accumulated till date, cost about 80 million gold coins altogether. Then, the cost of running the place was about 10 million gold coins…

The reason why the Academy could still keep going was because of the students' payment and other forms of payments, which offset the cost. Sometimes, when the students were slightly more than expected, the Academy could earn some extra income. The Academy also earned income when its students who were adventuring outside returns and pays a commission from their income. However, Baiyi knew that the return on investment for an academy would be painstakingly slow.

Thus, establishing an academy that would rival or even surpass Celestial Fortress would require mountains of money. Baiyi could not possibly get all that from the Duke; that would be too inappropriate because as the principal of this school, he, too, would have to contribute monetarily. He also entertained the idea of selling his obsidian armor set, which would solve his funding issue on a large scale.

However, an obsidian armor set was priceless; it was too rare to be sold off this lightly. Therefore, Baiyi decided that he would only do that as a last resort.

This was why today's hearing was even more important than ever. It would determine if his important source of income would remain available to him.

Fortunately, the proceedings went smoothly. The opposition's eyewitness — the man who had been messing with the Earl earlier — did not present an exceptional argument. He could not fight against the mountain of clear evidence provided by Baiyi's side.

Hence, as the hearing continued, the man eventually gave up on his attempts to secure exclusive copyright of that magical technique. Instead, he excused himself for his actions, claiming that he did not steal the technique, neither did he plagiarize his work — probably an attempt to bring the case to the resolution that Baiyi wanted.

Just like that, by conceding, the opposition lost the case. Baiyi did not even need to wait for decisions to be made by the representatives and the sorcerers' higher-ups to know the outcome. It has been sealed.

Even if they were to use their plagiarized runes to compete with Baiyi on the market, they still would not be able to beat him, purely because Baiyi's price was much more affordable — even if he hiked them up. As for functionality — well, Baiyi did not believe that their design could possibly outperform his, anyway. As for the opposition using their social connections — well, Baiyi did not see the Southern Duke doing anything throughout the hearing, so he was sure that his letter had done its job perfectly. Most importantly, no matter how influential the Southern Duke was, Attie's clansmen would still only listen to Baiyi's command; they had taken control of one of the important stops in the route!

If the opposition had decided to play dirty with their price, they would not succeed. Baiyi already had a countermeasure for that. He had long since planted a bug in his end terminal portal. Whenever it is activated, the formations would emit disrupting signals which would hijack every other bootleg; thus, their gliders would automatically become lost.

The bottom line was — 'Why would a loser even try?' Baiyi had to admit that he did not really understand their intention. Had they intended to show that they had gotten some big names behind them? If so, it was quite unfortunate that they decided to pick an opponent like Baiyi.

The boring hearing, whose result seemed all but concluded, finally entered its last hour. Baiyi was so bored, he just delegated the clearing up to Undine. After all, it had long since reached the point where just about anyone could win this case as long as they were talking on Baiyi's behalf.

It was at this time that the opposition played their last hand. "According to my sources, three great masters specialized in the subject of formations, who all hailed from the Doors of Conundrum, had also tried investigating the formation. They are all above Legendary-level, yet with their knowledge and their abilities, they still could not decode the formation… Your Honor, from what I have gathered, this Hope is only Master-level, right? So, I believe I have a reasonable standing to doubt the veracity of his so-called proof…"

'Seriously? One last ditch effort before death?' Baiyi laughed to himself, beckoning Undine to sit down.

He produced an empty parchment. Before everyone, he reproduced the same formation using his mana within seconds, then he hurled the parchment right onto the trouble-making manager's face.

With a loud "slaaap!", the court went quiet; the opposition had nothing else to say. The hearing was concluded, and it was announced that the result would be out in three days.

After the hearing was adjourned, Vice President Grant met with Baiyi and candidly congratulated him.

Grant's congratulations also meant that Baiyi was not wrong to think that his own side was favored.

The two men chatted a little before Grant said, "We'll double-down our efforts to tackle plagiarism cases like these in the future. Don't you worry."

"I greatly appreciate it," Baiyi thanked him in a roundabout way. "I didn't expect it to go so smoothly."

"To be honest, I went to conduct an investigation of my own secretly," the Vice President said with a hushed voice. "This had nothing to do with the Southern Duke, but his people… They wanted some money from this. They might even have bribed our people… We'll be investigating this further."

"I see." Baiyi nodded. No wonder the opposition had been sloppy. Their backup was not strong to begin with.

"Oh, another thing. Regarding what the opposition said afterward, close to the end of the session, what do you think, Master Hope?"

Baiyi pondered carefully. "You mean… the doubt he expressed about my capability?" he asked.

"Yes. Although I do not doubt your power, I noticed that there are quite a few idiots who have the galls to doubt real power," the Vice President said.