Classroom of the Elite, I Can Add Points Infinitely Chapter 27

They also added a patch to the school rules, stating that any similar future incidents would be capped at this specific amount.

57. First Meeting with Chairman Sakayanagi

With a monthly exchange limit of 560,000 Private Points, over the course of three years—calculated as 36 months—that comes out to just over 20 million Private Points.

The school's intention was already quite clear.

It meant that while Aragaki Shun had proven his strength and the school was willing to let him exchange for a direct ticket to Class A, he shouldn't think about using this to interfere with the class competition among other first-year students.

Aragaki Shun could only sigh with slight helplessness: "The school administration doesn't even know how to make money when it's right in front of them. If I injected my one billion yen in royalties into the school's account, and they used it all for 20 million Private Point transfers, wouldn't the school suddenly have an extra billion yen in their budget?"

"Aragaki-kun, you speak of a billion yen as if it were nothing; you are certainly generous. However, you only talk about the extra budget for the school, yet you haven't mentioned how much effort it would take for the school to arrange the future for fifty extra graduates from this year's Class A!"

A gentle, unfamiliar voice suddenly echoed in the office. The boy turned his head and saw a man in his forties walking toward him.

The man greeted the two people present very politely, his face wearing a kind smile, looking just like an ordinary middle-aged man.

"Excuse me, you two. I saw the door was open, so I just walked in."

Aragaki Shun looked at the man he was meeting for the first time, though he was not exactly a stranger, and raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Chairman Sakayanagi, I didn't expect you to come and pay attention to such a trivial matter."

"Aragaki-kun is the first talent in the history of Kodo Ikusei to earn over ten million Private Points in the first month of school. I have long wanted to find an opportunity to have a good conversation with you, but I simply haven't had much free time until now."

Even though he had been played by Aragaki Shun, Kanzaki, and Koenji just a few days ago, Chairman Sakayanagi before him acted as if he didn't care at all. His attitude was exceptionally easygoing, just like an ordinary teacher looking after an outstanding student.

But Aragaki Shun naturally wouldn't take this at face value.

However, since the other party was putting on a friendly front, he saw no need to be cold. After exchanging some polite pleasantries in his usual manner, he asked with some curiosity:

"I wonder what advice the Chairman has for me?"

"It's not so much advice. It's just that your application to create a club, followed by the proposal to convert the royalties earned from club activities into Private Points, has caused the school quite a bit of trouble. I wasn't sure if you had any objections to the final result the school provided, so I thought I should come and explain it in person."

Chairman Sakayanagi studied Aragaki Shun carefully for a few seconds before turning his gaze to Kagurazaka Ayame. "Editor Kagurazaka, you are also welcome to visit our Kodo Ikusei Senior High School. Perhaps in the future, some of our graduates will go to work at your publishing house."

"You are too kind, Chairman Sakayanagi. Given the capabilities of Kodo Ikusei graduates, if anyone truly wants to work at our publishing house, our president will certainly make the most appropriate arrangements."

After exchanging a few more pleasantries with Chairman Sakayanagi, Kagurazaka Ayame realized that he still had things to discuss with Aragaki Shun. Plus, the time allotted by Kodo Ikusei was nearly up, so she gathered her documents and stood up.

"Since I have the manuscript for Aurora-sensei's new book, I must hurry back to arrange the publication."

"By the way, Eromanga-sensei contacted me earlier. She said that if Aurora-sensei's new book is coming out, she hopes to continue working as the illustrator. What are your thoughts on this, Aurora-sensei? Does the publishing house need to find you a new illustrator?"

When Kagurazaka Ayame mentioned that somewhat bold pen name, a certain improper married woman who was raising her daughter alone immediately popped into Aragaki Shun's mind.

But he remembered that the illustrations for the middle and later parts of his previous light novel were actually done by her daughter, Sagiri, right?

When she had sent over those illustrations—which were slightly different in detail from the usual ones—and asked if they were acceptable, he had been puzzled. The level of detail was the same as always, yet they suddenly felt less erotic than before.

It wasn't until he was invited to her home the next day that he was told these more innocent illustrations were actually an attempt by her daughter.

Recalling that shy, slender figure, Aragaki Shun nodded calmly to Kagurazaka Ayame. "My previous two collaborations with Eromanga-sensei were quite pleasant, so there is naturally no need to change illustrators for the new book. Please go ahead and discuss the terms of the collaboration with Eromanga-sensei later."

He vaguely remembered that Sagiri was only twelve years old this year.

However, in the ACG industry of this world, such young geniuses were a dime a dozen, and Aragaki Shun wasn't worried at all about her ability as an illustrator.

Since nearly half of the illustrations in the last book were completed by Sagiri without any issues, given Aragaki Shun's personality, if he could continue working with someone he knew, he naturally wouldn't go out of his way to contact an unknown illustrator.

"I understand. The publishing house will arrange all the work as soon as possible. If you have any free time, Aurora-sensei, we can also arrange a few promotional events for the new book. After all, your fans have always hoped you would hold more autograph sessions."

"We'll talk about that when the time comes. I have no intention of leaving the school for now."

He waved his hand to dismiss Kagurazaka Ayame, who was still harping on about him making a public appearance. Watching her walk out of the office with a look of resigned "I knew it," Aragaki Shun turned his gaze toward Chairman Sakayanagi, who was still smiling.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Chairman. May I ask what exactly you wanted to see me about?"

"Haha, no need to be so formal, young man. Didn't I say? I just came to ask if you had any objections to the result the school provided."

Aragaki Shun rolled his eyes internally. Knowing full well that the man wouldn't have come for such a trivial matter, he still had to play along.

"Are you referring to the cap on the royalty exchange? I understand that the school hopes for the four classes to compete around Class A and grow through that competition, which is why the Private Point system was established to isolate the influence of external funds."

"In fact, the school allowing me to exchange 560,000 Private Points per month is already beyond my initial expectations. I originally thought the school would only grant me more club activity funds as a reward after the club produced results."

If it were just a reward for club activity funds, it certainly wouldn't be as much as 560,000 per month.

Even though Kodo Ikusei Senior High School was notoriously wealthy, the monthly activity funds given to sports clubs were only around 100,000 to 200,000 Private Points, and cultural clubs received even less, with only a few tens of thousands allocated each month.

After achieving results in off-campus competitions, the school would reward them with a large sum of points, but such one-time rewards weren't something that could be obtained every month.

58. Rules Tailored Specifically for Aragaki Shun?

To be fair, Kodo Ikusei is truly wealthy when it comes to distributing Private Points to students.

This is reflected not only in the monthly living expenses distributed to students based on class points but also in the club activity funds and the way teachers frequently find excuses to give students rewards.

You have to realize that last week, during their first physical education class in Class B, the PE teacher used the pretext of a competition to reward the winners of various events with Private Points.

The problem, however, is that while Kodo Ikusei has many teachers, except for the 12 homeroom teachers whose treatment is tied to the classes they lead, the other teachers often teach multiple classes and don't need to show favoritism toward any specific one.

In other words, even if their Class B wins the class competition, theoretically, it has nothing to do with teachers other than their homeroom teacher. So, the fact that the PE teacher was paying out of his own pocket to give them bonuses is quite subtle.

Unless there is something to be gained, who in this school that champions meritocracy would do something that harms themselves to benefit others?

Therefore, Aragaki Shun guessed that these Private Points awarded by teachers should also be part of some hidden rule that the school tacitly approves or even supports. The teachers certainly aren't paying out of their own pockets; as long as the reason is appropriate, the school likely provides a certain amount of reimbursement.

With this clear, Aragaki Shun felt that since these were rewards tacitly approved by the school, it would be a waste not to take them. He decided to call on everyone in Class B during the homeroom meeting, encouraging them to seize any opportunity during class to try and get their various subject teachers to hand out rewards.

However, the bond between ordinary teachers and the class was ultimately not very deep. Aragaki Shun didn't expect to squeeze many Private Points out of them; at most, he hoped to use this method to boost the enthusiasm of Class B students during lessons and help them earn a little extra pocket money.

If he really wanted to "farm gold" from a teacher, he had a much more suitable candidate: Chie Hoshinomiya, the homeroom teacher whose career prospects were completely tied to Class B.

After all, wasn't she the one who couldn't wait to take the spot of Class A and go rub it in the face of the Class D homeroom teacher?

In that case, how could she have the nerve to sit back and reap the benefits without providing any support!

Faced with this interrogation from Aragaki Shun, Chie Hoshinomiya wore a look of helpless amusement.

In the end, however, they reached an agreement: once the month concluded and the restrictions of the Behavioral Standards Exam were fully lifted, she would deposit her share of the class funds into the Class B account as proof that she was standing together with all the students of Class B.

This agreement was the greatest achievement Aragaki Shun could extract from the teacher channel.

If he wanted to continue seeking more Private Points while no other special exams existed this month, he naturally had to set his sights on the clubs heavily supported by the school.

However, he had only been confident that he could obtain a fixed amount of Private Points each month after founding his own club; he hadn't expected the sum to be particularly large.

If they strictly followed the school's inertia, for a newly established literature club—even if he added the names of a dozen Class B students and used his off-campus works as credentials—the monthly club activity funding plus school rewards would likely only amount to one or two hundred thousand points.

The fact that the school was now allowing him to directly convert his royalties, even with a monthly cap of 560,000, was honestly quite surprising.

After all, there was no precedent for this at Kodo Ikusei Senior High School. This wasn't just a matter of the first-year exams; even if Chairman Sakayanagi was restricted from interfering in the competition of this year's freshmen, he certainly still had a say in such matters.

He had been prepared from the start for the idea of converting royalties to fail completely.

Initially, he had only thought that by aiming high, he might achieve a middle ground; even if he couldn't get many Private Points from the club, having an off-campus channel was still a good thing.

But looking at it now, Chairman Sakayanagi hadn't set up any obstacles for him regarding this matter, and had instead provided some convenience?

Otherwise, there would have been no need for the man to specifically come and chat with him at this time.

Aragaki Shun looked at the kind-faced middle-aged man before him, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind in an instant as he pondered what the man's intentions were.

"If it were for the sake of fairness in class competition, the school should not have agreed to let you convert royalties into Private Points."

Chairman Sakayanagi was a shrewd man who could see through Aragaki Shun's undisguised confusion at a glance, so he spoke slowly and methodically about the school's considerations.

"But collective fairness does not mean fairness to the individual. Although the school advocates for competition as a class unit, it has never intended to erase the infinite potential that an individual student might possess. This is also the reason why the school offers the path of transferring classes for twenty million points."

"That Student Aragaki was able to achieve this level of success is a testament to your extraordinary talent, and the school should not stifle it without reason."

Having said this, a look of distress couldn't help but appear on Chairman Sakayanagi's face.

Who could have imagined that such a figure would exist among the freshmen of Kodo Ikusei Senior High School?

He was only a teenager, yet he had already earned at least one billion yen in royalties through three years of writing. How was he supposed to make the millions of office workers in Sakurajima, who earned an average annual income of only four million yen, feel?

A person like this shouldn't be "smurfing" in the circle of high school students at all. Even if you threw him into the outside world right now, he would still be able to attain a status higher than the vast majority of people on earth.

Under normal circumstances, the school's top management should be overjoyed to have such talent in any high school. Even if Kodo Ikusei Senior High School was a bit special, it shouldn't be so twisted as to push away its own talent.

It was just that Aragaki Shun's ability to make money was simply too exaggerated for a high school student. If they really let him convert royalties into Private Points without any constraints, then the four classes of this year might as well stop competing!

Ending a competition that was supposed to last three years less than a month after school started—was that really appropriate?

"In the end, we directors could only work through the night to patch the loopholes in the school's rules, limiting the Private Points a student can earn individually through clubs to 560,000 per month."

How should he put it? Under normal circumstances, this rule would never be triggered.

After all, there were only 160 freshmen in each grade at Kodo Ikusei Senior High School. If an ordinary student didn't have off-campus achievements as proof, the school would basically never go out of its way to help them contact external money-making channels.

In other words, the prerequisite for triggering this rule was that someone among the freshmen already held a high status in society during middle school, capable of making certain external organizations contact Kodo Ikusei Senior High School specifically for them.

Such geniuses were rare in society to begin with, and people with this kind of ability could go to any school without it making a difference. The Chairman didn't believe that Kodo Ikusei Senior High School could easily recruit such people.

Therefore, in his eyes, this rule could be said to have been set specifically for Aragaki Shun.

59. The Behavioral Standards Exam Nearing Its End

Chairman Sakayanagi seemed to have come over specifically for a casual chat.

After fully expressing the school's considerations, the middle-aged man, who had maintained a gentle smile throughout the conversation as if he were just an ordinary elder, offered a few more words of detailed concern about Aragaki Shun's life at Kodo Ikusei before finally leaving the office in a leisurely manner.

Once everything was over, Aragaki Shun headed to the student council with a subtle expression. Led by a certain upperclassman with a bun hairstyle, he found the club activity room that the school had helped arrange.

Whether it was because the school was truly wealthy or because the Chairman had given him special treatment, he didn't know, but the activity room the bun-haired upperclassman showed him was not only exceptionally spacious, but it was also specifically equipped with a bookshelf, several desks and corresponding chairs, and even a sofa and office computer had been arranged.

Everything a cultural club needed for daily life was basically provided here.

If it weren't for the fact that the room had been neglected for so long, leaving the floor covered in dust that needed cleaning, he could have moved his things in and started using it on the spot without any issues.

However, cleaning was just a minor matter. Aragaki Shun decisively called Kanzaki Ryuji and asked him to bring a group of Class B students who hadn't joined other clubs to help him make up the numbers for his newly founded club.

"So, you called us over, and it turns out we're just here to do manual labor for you?"

Kanzaki Ryuji looked at his "bad friend," who only thought of him whenever there was manual labor to be done, with full resentment. He really had the urge to just quit right then and there.

"I think that besides the classroom, Class B needs an extra base of operations. Look at this club activity room I just applied for—how is it? Spacious enough, right!"

Aragaki Shun looked with satisfaction at the activity room, which didn't even feel crowded with more than half of the class walking in.

But precisely because of the vast space in this room, if he had to clean it by himself, he feared it would take quite a long time.

Now that more than half of the class had come, the cleaning problem would naturally be solved easily.

"But do we really have so many people in our class who haven't joined a club? I thought a dozen or so would be about it?"

Aragaki Shun was somewhat confused by this number of people.

After all, most of the students in his class were considered good children in the eyes of teachers and parents. Under the influence of Ichinose Honami, they were generally helpful and sociable, and such high school students would normally be expected to actively participate in club activities.

He hadn't specifically opposed them joining clubs within the class; in fact, he had even encouraged them to develop their own hobbies. So, with club recruitment having started a week ago, why were there still so many members of the Going-Home Club in Class B?

"That's not the case."

Ichinose Honami, who was busy wiping down desks and chairs with her head down, suddenly spoke up. "Actually, most of the students in the class have already chosen their clubs. We just heard that Aragaki-kun applied to the school to start a club, so we came to join in the fun."

"I see, that explains it." Aragaki Shun nodded, and it made sense now. "In that case, those in the class who haven't joined a club yet can come to me to get a club registration form. You can come here to read books whenever you're bored in the future."

"If you don't like reading, you can just be a Ghost Member and collect some club activity funds; that's fine too."

"Your club actually has activity funds?"

Kanzaki Ryuji exclaimed in surprise. He was aware that the school allowed Aragaki Shun to convert his royalties into Private Points, so he was shocked that the school would still issue club activity funds to him under such circumstances.

"According to Chairman Sakayanagi, the royalties are something I earned through my own talent, so allowing me to convert them into Private Points is at most a reward for my achievements. Therefore, the club activity funds that every normal club receives are still issued, since this club isn't just me alone."

With a monthly royalty conversion limit of 560,000 points, Aragaki Shun didn't really care about these club activity funds.

"For every additional person who joins the club, the school issues an extra 5,000 Private Points each month. Whoever wants to join, go ahead and fill out a club registration form. Getting a little extra living allowance every month is never a bad thing."

Five thousand Private Points a month wasn't even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth in Aragaki Shun's eyes.

However, the royalty conversion came at the cost of his private funds from the outside world, whereas these 5,000 Private Points, however small, were benefits issued by the school.

Free things are worth taking!

Not only did he want to take them himself, but he also wanted to encourage his classmates to take them as well.

It was just a pity that if one joined multiple clubs at Kodo Ikusei Senior High School, the school would only issue one set of club activity funds. Otherwise, he would have had everyone in the class join to occupy the slots.

"Five thousand Private Points is indeed not much, but the fact that the Chairman agreed to your royalty conversion is already absurd enough. Be content."

Kanzaki muttered as he took the club application form and signed his name on it without hesitation.

"Chairman Sakayanagi, huh..."