The flattery was good, but Patriarch Calcetti didn't let the flattery get to him.
He snorted and said, "Don't mind yourself with how I glow. Just focus on how you're going to make your son take first place in his sect examination. It is either that or prepare your buttocks for your punishment."
Augustus bowed and said, "The patriarch is wise."
Then he winked at the people beside him. They saw the signal, so they decided to echo what Augustus just said.
Some started with a shout, "The patriarch is wise."
Another person added sincerely, "It is foolish of Augustus to have made such a mistake. Fortunately, we have someone as wise and merciful as you to recover the situation and help him learn what he did wrong."
"That's true. This is why the patriarch is so important to us. We can make mistakes here and there, but we will have a wise man to correct us."
"Without the patriarch, where would we be?"
Soon the whole room was complimenting Patriarch Calcetti. They were all saying how great he was. It made Calcetti's food mood return. He was smiling and glowing like a happy lightning bug.
If the flattery had come from one person, Calcetti would have easily resisted it. But the flattery came from so many people. It was too much for him to resist.
What's more, the compliments are true, and the flattery isn't embellished. He thinks that he is truly smart and that they need him. Now that they have admitted it, he couldn't very well deny it, could he?"
So he sighed and said, "You all do have a point. It is normal for you kids to make mistakes, and it is my job to correct you when you do."
Then he looked at Augustus and said, "Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on you. After all, compared to me, you still have so much to learn and the time to learn."
Augustus stood up and bowed, saying, "Thank you, patriarch. I admit that I made a mistake, and I am grateful that you will forgive me for it. I promise never to repeat such a mistake ever again."
Patriarch Calcetti grinned and asked, "Who says that I've forgiven you about not giving Arthur the surname of the family?"
Augustus became speechless. He wasn't the only one who was caught off guard by the question.
But he still managed to speak. He said, "But I thought that…"
Patriarch Calcetti interrupted him, "You thought what? Tell me, what did you think? That I would forgive you after I let your flattery go to my head?"
Augustus shook his head and denied it. He said, "I thought you would be lenient with my punishment."
He stopped pursuing the goal of being completely let off the hook. At this point, he will be glad if the difficulty of his punishment is reduced.
Patriarch Calcetti nodded and said, "That's acceptable. I did say that maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on you. How about this? I won't give you the 100 lashes that I initially planned for your buttocks. I will only give you one. But it must be in public. I want to use you as a scapegoat to send a message."
"To show just how generous I am. I am willing to give you another option. You can either make your son become first briefly or make him perform better than all the other true children in his set. If you fail, you will get the public lashing."
Then he asked Augustus with a grin on his face, "What do you think of my generosity?"
Augustus produced a fake smile and said, "Patriarch is truly generous. Your generosity is as high as a mountain. It is as wide as a sea. It is…"
Patriarch Calcetti cut him off with his hand raised and said, "Enough of your flattery. It only partially worked the first time. This time it might backfire."
Augustus sat back down with that fake smile while Patriarch Calcetti continued to smirk at the sight of his uneasiness.
The room was calm, but it was the opposite of what was going on outside. A lot of people were riled up because of Arthur Red Mane's performance in the third test.
19,246 points is a lot of points. It was especially glaring when the second highest score for the second test only earned 929 performance points.
According to historical performance, 929 points is a lot for one test. Usually, it is rare for people to earn 500 performance points in a single test. Someone almost earned twice as much of that. Yet they could only be second best for the test. It was astounding.
Many people found the score of 19,246 to be unbelievable. But unlike the previous times when they could claim that he was cheating, they couldn't claim that this time around because there are a lot of people who saw how he earned his score.
Many people bore witness to the process of his test. There were about a thousand of them, which isn't a lot compared to the crowd of ten million people who came to witness the sect examination.
But the information about Arthur was like a communicable disease. It spread quickly from one person to the other. Soon everyone knew what Arthur Red Mane looked like and how fierce he was.
They also learned that he was a bastard of the Dyson family. They learned that he was so fierce that he beat up even his family member for standing up against him.
That was where the normal information about him ended. The rest of the information about him became wildly distorted and exaggerated.
By the time his information reached Arthur, people were saying that he fought a dragon, and some even said he had the power to split the seas. When he heard this, he chuckled.
He laughed for a while and said, "At least they are not saying that I cheated anymore."