Chapter 344 – 100
“I see your point. However, I really don’t want to spend my days slaving away for others,” Damion told Leland, Flannery and Manager Halsey. “The only reason I was upgrading artifacts, was to make money. I’m good on money for the time being.”
“Boy, are you trying to be difficult?” Leland said. “Those people out there will be angry enough boycott my store if you don’t provide them services. Some might even be stupid enough to try and trash the place.”
“I really don’t understand why they would do such a thing. If they want me to provide my services, harming my friends will have the opposite effect.”
“People don’t always think logically when faced with the loss of what they deem is theirs,” said Manager Halsey.
“Why don’t you agree to do a few artifacts each week?” Leland asked. He was aware it was easy for Damion to upgrade the artifacts, but he was also aware the young man did not want others to know how easy it was for him.
“I suppose that could work,” said Damion, after a moment of thought. “I’ll do 100 artifacts a week. First come first served. Leland, you and Flannery will need to work out how to do the appraisals and take payment upfront. I’ll work in the little room upstairs.”
“Excellent!” Leland exclaimed. He was quite happy to not have to tall all the eager people outside no.
“Just make sure the people understand that they will be without their artifact all week. I am a busy person and will work on them when I have the time.”
“Not a problem. Not a problem. I’ll go out and make the announcement. Amos, get me some numbered cards. I want to hand them to the first hundred today. We’ll figure out something better for next week. Hopefully the crowd will disperse with the announcement.”
“If they don’t, you can be sure I will disperse them,” Manager Halsey said confidently.
Damion did not pay attention to the proceedings. He went back upstairs and waited out of sight. Who know how people would react if they saw him in the store while Leland was outside making the announcement. Would they demand to speak with him? Demand he do their artifact first? Or perhaps more artifacts than 100 a week?
A few hours went by while Damion was upstairs passing the time by studying all the magic seals he knew. He was able to understand them more and more, but he was still not able to find the answer to his mastery of Nashto quest.
Leland came up to Damion’s room while juggling two spatial stretching boxes. In one were all the artifacts to be upgraded. In the other the magic cores in payment. The artificer set down the boxes before turning to Damion.
“I modified your sale agreement slightly, since we are taking payment upfront. I also added a small commission for my shop.”
“That is fine,” Damion told him. He did not expect Leland to be his butler, nor for him to work for free, it was just that the thought of dealing with large amounts of people, each demanding something special, to be tiresome. “Can you process some Demonic Beasts for me?”
“Sure, our processing room is in the basement, it’s a bit more secure and easier to maintain down there.”
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“Great, let’s head down there and then I will get to work on upgrading these artifacts.”
Leland led the way to his shop’s processing room. When he got there he was a bit surprised at the scale. It was not inferior to the processing room in Teft Artifacts and Adventurer Supplies in Argentum.
“Alright, what do you have for me?” Leland asked eagerly. He had heard rumors of Damion bringing mountains of Demonic Beast carcasses to other artifact shops for processing. He was eager to finally have his turn.
“Just a few Donetto Stone Bulls.”
“A few Stone Bulls? Did you go back into the Crimson Waste?”
“No, I encountered a herd of them in the wild.”
“And you went and killed a few. No problem,” Leland said feeling a bit disappointed that Damion did not have an enormous haul for him. “How many are we talking about and are there any parts you want to keep?”
“47 E Ranks, I just want the cores and the meat. Phil eats his weight daily, so I need to stock up on food.”
“47!” Leland was a bit shocked. He had expected a half dozen at the most. Not nearly four dozen. “Alright, bring them out, I’ll give you a good price.”
*Ding*
[Spell Silver Tongue mastery increased to D Rank]
*Ding*
{Quest Completed}
[Quest: Increase a Magic Spell in Rank – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 500 Store Credit.]
Damion was a bit surprised when he got the Magic System notification. Silver Tongue and the other passives he acquired from the System were not easy to Rank up. The resistances he partially understood, to increase them he likely needed to train in extreme environments to boost those spells. However, Silver Tongue seemed to depend on his making deals. Still, it was only just now reaching D Rank.
Once Damion had his 47 E Rank cores from the Donetto Stone Bulls he headed back to his small room on the second floor. It was time to upgrade the artifacts and to convert this abundance of cores to credits.
‘System, upgrade all these artifacts by one Rank.’
{Affirmative.}
{Cost to upgrade 100 artifacts will be 6,049 credits.}
‘Go ahead.’
{Processing…}
{Upgrades complete.}
Damion smiled as he watched all the artifacts glow for a brief moment as they were upgraded. He quickly stored the boxes of cores in the Magic System Inventory, ready to reap his rewards.
‘System, convert the three new boxes of cores to credits.’
{Affirmative.}
{Calculating conversion of 876 cores to credits…}
{Cores converted to 416,850 credits.}
Even after deducting the cost of the upgrades, he still gained over 400,000 credits. He had now crossed over having 2,000,000 credits in the bank. Once again a step forward towards his goal. Even with the boost today, it was still slow progress.
If he wanted to earn 100,000,000 quickly he needed to either dedicate himself to upgrading artifacts or get lucky and find a dungeon he can clear by himself over and over. Which meant relying on luck. Unfortunately, his luck had been too good lately. He ended up finding eight A Rank dungeons. Which was the find of a lifetime, but he could not clear those dungeons on his own.
Taking out his payment card, Damion checked his funds. The 8 Aether coin reward had already been given to him as James Picard and he had transferred those funds directly to his main card. How many cores could he buy with 8 Aether? If he spent all of it on C Rank cores, that could potentially net him 40,000,000 credits. However, if he could buy S Rank cores, he could potentially gain 80,000,000.
Doing trades would put him considerably closer to his goal. However, that amount of funds would probably come in handy when he and Mage Teft actually started building a school and a city. Such funds would be a drop in the bucket of what would be needed to get everything off the ground.
Sighing, Damion put his payment card away and pulled up his status in the Magic System.
[Magic System]
[System Level: 3]
[User: Damion Wells]
[Age: 19]
[Magic Talent: EX]
[Magic Affinity: Ice EX, Water E, Poison D, Spatial A, Fire A, Earth A, Shadow A, Holy C]
[Mana: 5,808/4,998] (10%) - 5,808
[Magic Power: 10,629] (10%) - 11,691
[Mana Recovery: 212 P/S] (10%) - 233
[Strength: 121]
[Dexterity: 126] (10%) - 138
[Vitality: 298]
[Intelligence: 148]
[Experience: 11,300/20,000]
[Store Credits: 2,255,487]