Chapter 357 – Summons
Given the attention he realized he was receiving from the noble families, Damion put a hold on his artifact upgrade business and officially returned to full time exploring. Since he did not need to pretend to be hidden away inside Leland’s workshop, Damion was able to make good time flying around and mapping the Yellow Zone borders.
Each time he passed near a city or town, he considered heading in and offering his services for a day, but in the end he decided against it. On the occasion someone asked him when he was going to start up again or if he could work on their artifact, Damion merely answered by telling them he had to find more of his secret ingredient that made the upgrades possible, and it was very hard to come by.
This lie, meant to alleviate the pressure of people wanting him to upgrade their artifacts, lead to a recurrence of adventurers setting out to explore. Some going so far as to back track Damion’s travels and dungeon explorations to try and figure out where he could have found this mysterious substance that could enhance artifacts.
As Damion continued to travel, he spotted a few Realm Breaches discovered by his auto-mapper. However, instead of venturing into the Red Zones where they lay, he forwarded their information to the Adventurer Association. He was trying to be a responsible expectant father and not take unnecessary risks. Since he had already found a labyrinth, which would enable to him to train in B Rank and even A Rank environments once high enough floors were opened. The question was, how long would it be before Mage Teft found a suitable area to build their new base.
“Mage Wells, do you have a moment?” a shout from the ground came as Damion was flying overhead.
Stopping midair, it took Damion a moment to locate who was shouting to him. Once he flew closer he noticed a middle-aged man with bright red hair and above his head was a label courtesy of True Sight, A Rank Fire mage. Damion flew down closer but kept to the air and maintained a respectable distance. Encountering someone in the wild was not common, especially not someone that could call him by name from a distance.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Damion asked the mage.
Phil was circling high above, despite the size of his Demonic Beast familiar, even to Damion’s enhanced eyesight, the bird was just a tiny dot in the sky. Still, the Blizzard King’s presence was a relief to Damion. He knew the bird would swoop down at the first sign of trouble. Not that he had much faith in taking on an A Rank mage, even with the two of them working together.
“Stephen Kaufmann, I was sent by the Mage Association to discuss your seizure of a Realm Breach. As I’m sure you are aware, Realm Breaches are extremely volatile and must be cleared regularly. If they aren’t you run the risk of causing a beast wave because of a dungeon break.”
“I appreciate your concern. I really do. However, my Realm Breach is secure, and it is actually quite easy to clear, so I don’t really need your assistance.”
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“I’m afraid you have misunderstood. The Mage Association has charged me with taking the Realm Breach and placing it inside a containment area in a City. They have even agreed to allow Saung to be the host. Rest assured, you will still be considered the owner of the Breach and be awarded with twenty percent of the spoils from people clearing the dungeon.”
“That is rather generous. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone will want to clear my Breach.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Breach I discovered is a Fire Cave.”
“You are joking,” the Fire mage said, as he rubbed an artifact on his finger.
True Sight was able to identify it for Damion, a lie detection ring. Not that he needed True Sight to be able to know that whomever the Mage Association sent would have a method to detect falsehoods. After all, it was the easiest thing in the world for Damion to simply say he had collapsed the dungeon or sold it. If they could not prove he was lying, they would have no further recourse.
“Not at all, here, this came from when I cleared the Breach,” Damion pulled out from the Magic System inventory the jar of flame liquid and tossed it to the Fire mage.
When the Fire mage caught the jar and then examined its contents, he nearly dropped it in shock.
“Are you crazy! You can’t just toss something like this at me,” Mage Kauffmann shouted.
“It is quite safe as long as no one ignites it by accident,” Damion said with an innocent smile.
“Alright. Fine. Since you have refused to relinquish control of the Realm Breach, you are hereby summoned to appear before the Mage Association for a hearing to determine if you have the ability to keep the Breach or not. Failure to convince the council will result in you being required to surrender the Realm Breach.”
As Mage Kauffmann spoke, he took out his tablet and sent a message. A moment later, Damion’s tablet chimed, and he guessed he had just received his official summons. The Fire mage then pulled out from a spatial artifact a two wheeled ground vehicle and was about to drive off before Damion shouted a question at him.
“How did you know I would be here today?”
“Your auto-mapper is a remarkable artifact,” Mage Kauffmann told him. “And once we figured out which one was yours we were able to anticipate your exploration of this area today.”
Damion knew it was possible for people to track him by watching his auto-mapper as it mapped new areas, but he figured it would have been a bit more difficult than Mage Kauffmann made it seem. Still, if he disabled the auto update feature on his tablet and only sent in his newly mapped areas occasionally, it would make tracking him nearly impossible. For now, the only precaution Damion took was to shut his auto-mapper down when he returned home every evening or when he went to Levande to visit his family.
“By the way!” Mage Kauffmann shouted as he was driving off, “Failure to show up at the appointed time will result in automatic forfeiture.”
Damion watched the Fire mage drive off towards a town that his map said was about twenty kilometers away. Most likely Mage Kauffmann took a Portal to the town and was going to get a Portal back to Argentum or wherever he was stationed.
After collecting his jar of flame water, he opened the summons message, Damion was amused to see that the time of his meeting was first thing tomorrow. No doubt whomever in the Association that was pitting themselves against him had arranged the time so that Damion would find it difficult to actually appear. He was in the middle of nowhere, after all, and while Mage Kauffmann might have a Portal back to the White Zone, they likely thought he would find it difficult.
Of course, they had no idea that Damion could simply Portal himself to Argentum for the meeting. He would love to rub it in their face that all their scheming was for naught, but he decided it would be best to keep things as low key as possible.