Chương 284: New Opportunities

"Your son's name," Leland said calmly, taking out his tablet.

"Adam Barthle."

"Well, Mage Barthle, I see here, your son requested the optimization of an E Rank weapon artifact which was completed, and he picked it up yesterday. What seems to be the trouble?"

"What's the trouble? The artifact is ruined. I demand compensation!"

"Very well. Such a serious charge requires the investigation by the Justiciar Order. I have alerted them and a Justiciar should be here momentarily."

"I don't want to wait for them. Turn over the person who did the work. I will take them to the Crimson Order myself."

"Really now? You demand justice, but do not seek to follow the proper process," Flannery said as he sized the Fire mage up.

"You must be from elsewhere, the people of Saung cherish the law." Flannery's words seemed to diminish Mage Barthle's standing in the eyes of the onlookers. Most of the onlookers were there specifically for having their artifacts upgraded. Some were eager to see if they were dodging a bullet by Mage Barthle calling Damion out, but most were finding the situation ridiculous since they had already seen the quality of the upgrades.

"Alright, what is going on here?" Justiciar Mathis said, pushing his way into Leland's shop.

"This mage has questioned the quality of the work of our shop," Leland said.

"Not the quality of your work, the quality of the person doing the so-called optimization. Some upstart still wet behind the ears kid."

"Really now, calling the youngest B Rank mage in history an upstart," Flannery's words elicited a collective gasp from the audience. Damion had made no secret of who he was, but he also did not advertise it. Anyone could look up his record through the Adventurer Association and see he was a B Rank mage, but most people coming into the shop thought of him as more of Leland's or Flannery's apprentice.

"Oh, good to see you again Damion," Justiciar Mathis nodded to Damion who was still just watching the events unfold from a corner.

"Justiciar, it has been a while," Damion returned the greeting.

"Mage Barthle, please clearly state your claim," the Justiciar said, turning to the Fire Mage.

"The artifact my son brought here to be optimized was utterly ruined."

"Mage Wells, your defense."

"Every artifact I work on is optimized and enhanced which results in the artifact rising by one Rank. All of my work is reviewed by either Mage Leland or Mage Flannery prior to the client picking up their artifact and them accepting payment. It is all right here in the service contract." Damion quickly sent Justiciar Mathis Adam Barthle's service contract showing the artifact when it was brought in and the artifact when he picked it up as well as Leland and Flannery's notes on the improvements made.

"This is very detailed. Two confirmations of the work having been successfully completed and your son's own signature of having accepted the artifact to complete the contract. What do you have to say?" This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Damion thought Mage Barthle might back down, given both Leland and Flannery had reviewed the artifact and documented it as being successfully upgraded. However, the mage did not, in fact he seemed determined to dig himself into a hole.

"My son is not an artificer. He would have no idea of any flaw hidden under the surface of the artifact. The artifact malfunctioned today and is now damaged beyond repair."

"Two master artificers in good standing with this city, the Adventurer Association and the Mage Association have attested that the artifact was in perfect condition in your son's service contract."

"They will clearly stand behind their own business. They would not admit to letting something defective be sold through their store."

"Very well. Please produce the artifact," Justiciar Mathis said calmly.

"It destroyed itself," Mage Barthle hastily said. He quickly realized his mistake and wanted to backtrack, but Justiciar Mathis pushed forward with his questioning.

"The artifact had no mana manipulation glyphs to be able to attack. Only enchantments for strength and sharpness. Those enchantments would not cause an artifact to be destroyed even if it malfunctioned. Where is the artifact now?"

"I threw it out," Mage Barthle claimed. Everyone in the crowd let out a snicker at the idea. Who would throw out an artifact when it would be a key piece of evidence in any legal matter against the artificer. To those gathered, it was clear that Mage Barthle had come to the store hoping somehow threaten Mage Wells into working solely for him and his family. The problem was, Mage Barthle had rushed at the opportunity to acquire a young and talented artificer without researching about the store.

If he had, then he would have seen two A Rank mages at the establishment and known he could never force them to comply. Nor had he even done research on the young mage he wanted to entrap. If Mage Barthle had realized that Damion was a B Rank mage himself, he never would have tried to accuse him of faulty artifact manufacturing.

"Come along Mage Barthle. We will be conducting a thorough search of your properties for the artifact in question. But even without it to counter your accusation, your story does not add up and you will be held liable for your false charges.

"Mage Wells, would you like to come along to witness the search and offer suggestions on the offenders punishment?"

"I trust the Justiciar to handle the matter fairly. Besides, I think I will be quite busy here today, Justiciar Moretti," Damion replied.

"Very well. I may be back later myself. I am interested to see if you might be able to help me with some of my own artifacts."

"I look forward to the opportunity." Justiciar Mathis left with Mage Barthle in tow and once he was gone everyone else rushed to get to Damion to place their order first.

"Easy now everyone," Damion told them, trying to get the crowd to calm down.

"There is no need to rush. Just form a line and I will examine your artifacts one at a time." As much as Damion appreciated the sudden influx of customers, he had a real problem on his hands. The more people that wanted his services, the more people he needed to deal with individually. Even if it only took the Magic System a few seconds to analyze and upgrade an artifact, it took several minutes per customer for him to go through the motions of examining their artifact and them reviewing the service contract.

By the end of the day, even though he really did not do anything, Damion was exhausted. There were just too many people that wanted to engage his services. He needed a way to limit how many people he could see a day. Even if he could see an unlimited number of people a day, it really would not be wise to, sooner or later someone was going to question how he could optimize all those artifacts in one day. Now that his abilities were known, at least among the Saung adventurers, he did not need to advertise anymore.

What he needed was a waitlist and the Adventurer Association had the perfect method for setting that up. After upgrading the batch of artifacts he received for the night and calculating that today he would earn another 13, 000 or so credits, Damion connected to the Adventurer Association and placed a mission. His mission was simple, a limited number of slots for artifact upgrades every day for the next week. If people wanted him to upgrade their artifacts, they would need to accept the mission before anyone else.

There was no cost to the mission, it was merely a way for Damion to limit the number of people demanding his services. After posting the mission, Damion paid a fee to the Association to send an alert about his mission to all the adventurers of Saung. Hopefully, everyone would check their mission alerts when they woke up before coming to Leland's shop first thing in the morning. Just as he was shutting off his tablet and about to head to bed, Damion received a message forwarded from his other adventurer identity.