The beginning and the middle of Frank's magical engineering class couldn't be any different.
Before, Frank would focus most of his wit on openly provoking Theo. In his view, he was likely putting down a pest that only defiled the fame of the crafting department.
But now?
"If you draw the connections like this," Theo scribbled a small picture on a piece of parchment while leaned over Frank's lectern, "a single signal could power all of the resistors. If only we could get some sort of cycling mechanism, though…"
Theo's original knowledge included hardly any details about magic engineering. And if it was anything like alchemy, then it was one hell of a massive, deep, and complex field of study.
And that's exactly where Frank came in.
"Cycling mechanism?"
He asked, looking up from the lectern, his eyes blind to all the shock-frozen students of the class.
'Just how did he go from pissing on him so much to now enthusiastically focusing on a new idea together?'
This one question seemed to permeate through everyone's heads.
"Right now, we are pushing the power in a circle, from one resistor to the other. That means, if the energy will continuously push through the loop, the resistors might struggle to tap into it. If we had some sort of relays, automatic switches…!"
Theo struggled to even word the concept in his head out.
"Relays? I have those!"
Frank's eyes lit up as he hurried to the back of his class before shuffling through the insides of a huge chest. And as he returned, he carried a small, wrapped-candy-like device.
"Something like this?" he asked, presenting the item to Theo's hands. "Only once the right output fills up will the left one allow the energy to pass."
"Yeah, that's perfect!" Theo enthusiastically nodded his head. "Look, if we add the resistor to the right output of a dedicated relay, then we can ensure the whole thing only works when all parts of it work!"
The difference was enormous.
In the original design, there was a separate circuit for each of the resistors, feeding the huge amount of mana at all times to keep the crystals shining.
Now, however, there was only one circuit, with as many relays as there were resistors. And in this circuit, the second resistor would only start gathering energy once the first one would light up.
By the time all of the resistors would light up, the energy usage would decrease because the whole circuit would be already full of it. And whenever any of the resistors would eat through bits of the fuel, the energy within the circuit would be in abundance to refill it.
"Heavens divine…" Frank muttered as he stared at the finished blueprint.
He then took a step back, as if to gain a better perspective of it.
"If this thing works the way it should…" Frank whispered.
At this point, he couldn't care less about his prestige as a star magic engineering teacher. He could care less about his lesson that, by design, was supposed to help Theo learn how to properly conduct lessons.
With such a great discovery, all that he could care about was testing the theory out to prove it in practice!
"If this thing works, do you have any idea just how much money this will save?" Frank mumbled under his nose, his eyes slightly absent while fully locked in on the piece of parchment.
"But that's, I'm afraid, where you have to step in," Theo said with a cordial smile. "I don't have the know-how or any practical means to get it done, so I hope I can entrust it to you," he said before giving the man a slight bow. "With that said, I'm fully aware of the value behind this solution, and I shall leave it to you too to have that sorted out. Is that okay?"
With the brightest of smiles, Theo stared at his older colleague as he suddenly woke up from the passion-induced rush.
"Right, the achievement points…" he muttered, suddenly recalling who he was discussing the project with. And as Frank realized this, so did he remember the fact that it was all happening in the class, with every last student staring at the scene with varying degrees of shock and surprise painted on them.
In other words, now that Theo left it to Frank to deal with everything — or rather, did so in public — it would be unbecoming for Frank to leave him with nothing! Not when by doing so, he would have to suffer through a potent hit to his reputation!
"What might be your expectation?"
With the man instantly growing cautious, Theo… smiled again.
"Ah, I've merely provided the idea, so either a fair share of the academic credit or a penny on every case of putting this design to use."
Even if Theo were to leave…
'A bit of a passive income could never hurt, even if I'm about to leave this place soon.'
Still, even with Theo forcing Frank to give him his fair share… the man didn't seem to be all that angry or annoyed by how he allowed his passions to get the better of him.
After all, no matter what scraps Theo would get, this blueprint would print some ungodly amounts of money.
Frank said it himself, halfway between insulting Theo and describing the current progress of the installation of those lamps across the academy.
'And now, even the city has asked us to install them all over!'
Such was the statement the man made.
In other words, it was a tap into the government's spending. And no matter the area or place, when the guy on the big throne, be it president or king, opened his coffers, entire noble lineages would grow out from the spending.
And with the cost of the devices decreasing by a massive margin and the energy usage getting limited to but a fraction of its former levels, not only would the steep initial cost decrease by a huge chunk but so would the upkeep.
Such was the worth of this single blueprint, the idea contained within.
And now that the throne was paying to install those devices all over the city's streets, one could tap into a near-endless river of gold!
In the face of such unfathomable profits…
Frank wasn't dumb. He wouldn't become the star teacher of magic engineering otherwise.
And just like Theo did before proposing the new design, he too could connect those dots and count the numbers.
"I will be sure to have your contributions compensated in full, fair degree!" Frank cupped his hands together before bowing a little bit, a strand of saliva already trickling down the corner of his mouth.
Just the thought of the mountains of gold that could be earned through the crown grant for this project was enough to make him literally salivate!
'With all that gold… just how many other projects will I be able to push through?!' his face appeared to scream, his passion re-lit like the addiction of an old junkie after taking the first hit in years.
"And with that, kids," Frank turned over Theo's arm to the rest of the class. "As you've all heard, we've got some work to do. Soon, I will distribute pointed assignments so that you can all score some nice contributions in the craze that's about to start. For now, though," he took a breath before clearing his throat.
"Class dismissed!"