[Literary duels, huh...]
As everyone took their seats, the Platinum Holy Hall was filled to capacity, and the host in charge of this expo stepped onto the stage, accompanied by three judges responsible for evaluating the results.
There were only two possible scores: pass or fail.
The host happened to be an old acquaintance of Lin Suo, Lord Odyssey Ares, the current vice president of the Truth Academy.
The judges were from an internal institution under the Supreme Council—Libra Court—which possesses dual functions of arrest and judgement, similar to a combination of the police and the court, but only effective for internal order.
The video evidence Lin Suo submitted when pioneering land was reviewed by this organization.
Overseen by the Supreme Council.
Three judges from the Second Tier of legends.
All were members of the direct lineage of the Truth Council, extraordinary in origin.
After a brief opening, the last seats of the Tenth Research Institute began to display this year’s research achievements in sequence.
The first item was "Mass Production Technology for Alchemy Potions", a project that had been established for many years but faced opposition from numerous Magic Potion Masters.
They believed that the top-quality magic potions required meticulous crafting by Wizards.
What difference is there between an assembly line factory and ordinary mundane items?
As a result, this project was repeatedly discontinued and re-established.
For now, it was only feasible for assembly line production of low-level magic potions, while advanced magic potions still required manual work.
The research funding provided each year was naturally the responsibility of the nobility, as such projects were popular amongst them.
The reporting process was divided into three stages.
Explain the theory and compare to last year’s results—demonstrate actual achievements and commence trial runs—envisage the future, and begin making promises.
Throughout the process, Lin Suo noticed that compared to last year’s results, the upper limit of alchemy potions on the production line increased by only 3%, and the output of low-level magic potions increased by 10%.
Even such a modest improvement was deemed sufficient to pass.
The investing noble consortium also showed satisfied smiles.
[How can this be satisfactory? I don’t get it.]
Looking at the data and theories from previous years in his hand, Lin Suo realized that changing just one link in the production line each year could bring about substantial improvements.
They’ve really kept a lot of tricks up their sleeve!
Those research scholars were too cunning, craftily deceiving.
As report after report was presented, the passable products mostly had a few tricks held back, while those that didn’t pass, as seen from records of previous years, had almost all their hidden content exposed.
They failed to achieve new progress, so they were judged as failing.
Nick Raffles saw Lin Suo flipping through data from past years and showed a knowing smile. Who says young people aren’t savvy? He’d quickly detected the trickery inside.
Indeed, a prodigy who entered the First Research Institute in his fifties.
It’s good to be young...
Soon it was the turn of the Chief of the Second Research Institute, an Elf elder with white skin, likely a venerable scholar from the High Elf Clan.
His project was the research on the Elf Mother Tree.
Seemingly, he had improved the issue of low fertility rates, increasing the birth rate by about 50%—a substantial achievement for the Elf Clan.
It also had considerable implications when applied to humans.
When the old scholar stepped down, he looked towards Lin Suo with a proud expression, as if saying to the young man, "Do you see? This is the research capability of the older generation."
Lin Suo just smiled, and after the judges finished their comments, he stepped up as well.
The main event was finally here; he had drawn quite a bit of attention over the past year.
"Greetings to the esteemed seniors, I am Rhein, the founder of Electromagnetic System Witchcraft. Over the past year, I have experienced..."
After a soul-stirring segment of soliciting sympathy, Lin Suo presented his research achievement.
"The limit of the Electromagnetic System has been raised from the Seventh Ring to the Eighth Ring. This is my newly researched spell ’Eighth Ring: Magnetic Storm Spatial Vortex,’ a high-impact, range-based Witchcraft!"
No sooner had he finished speaking than the entire audience was astonished.
To this day, the development of new Witchcraft spells in Wizard civilization has become increasingly difficult, and Lin Suo has capitalized on the fresh wave of benefits brought by the Electromagnetic System. No one else had made the same progress in their research.
Therefore, such a Witchcraft achievement was theoretically qualifying.
But soon, dissenting voices arose.
"It’s said that the Electromagnetic Laboratory’s annual funding amounts to a whole billion—more than some of the older seniors—and all that for just one Eighth Ring spell? Doesn’t live up to the name."
"It’s rumored they even purchased Legendary materials from the Space Magic. No way to equate that with an Eighth Ring spell."
"Moreover, they’ve bought a vast number of auxiliary Magic Potions used in training—who knows if they’ve been pocketed."
"The young man’s integrity is insufficient; tasked with overseeing such a large laboratory and embezzling public funds for personal gain—this is unacceptable."
The criticism erupted as expected, with some arranged by Colonel Sir and others by envious individuals. There are only so many spots, one for each carrot in the pit.
The rise of Lin Suo naturally encroached on many people’s interests.
For instance, those from other research institutes, or even people within the First Research Institute.
Nobody finds the research funding too much.
In the face of verbal attacks, the judges remained silent, instead looking to see how Lin Suo would defend himself?
Only Odyssey Ares frowned, discontented with such a climate.
Lin Suo, of course, was not intimidated and spoke aloud confidently.
"Since there are doubts among the distinguished guests, naturally, I have additional achievements to present: the perpetual Witchcraft ’Seventh Ring: Soul Electromagnetic Field’ and the training aid spell ’Eighth Ring: High-Energy Absorption Stance.’
"The value of the perpetual Witchcraft need not be elaborated upon, and the High-Energy Absorption Stance, with its embedded Witchcraft Rune Array, can be installed in Meditation Rooms."
"It accelerates the gathering speed of a specific energy type and enriches the concentration of the same type of energy in the environment. Depending on one’s will, it can be selected, providing an efficiency boost of 20% compared to the current most outstanding training fields."