Commission(III)

A few minutes later, although the movie still had some scenes left before it would end, Young Lord Cedric was already fuming with anger. He even started yelling at the screen in a loud voice when another passionate scene was shown on the screen.

"That fucking Judas! How dare he kiss Chloe in such a passionate manner in this movie! Even if it was part of the movie's setup, I can't forgive those who sully my Chloe's precious lips with their dirty lips! Fucking hell! That bastard was even using his tongue in this scene! Even I haven't gotten to kiss her in such a manner. Yet this bastard...! I better not run into him or I am definitely going to kill him the next time we meet!"

After loudly cursing for a few more minutes, it did not appear that Young Lord Cedric was going to stop any time soon.

At some point—

"Shut up, you ungrateful brat! I had sternly warned you not to date that wench, but you didn't listen to me!" A feminine and mature voice suddenly echoed throughout the entire first floor of the mansion.

'Oh? So the mother was upstairs all this time? Was she paying attention to what was happening here?'

Maximus silently wondered. His interest was piqued when he heard the voice echoing through the building. Maximus noticed that it seemed to be projected with the help of either a Runic Artifact or Runic Force that enhanced her voice.

At this point, he was hoping for someone to take his place and tell the fool to concentrate on what matters the most. Therefore, upon hearing this feminine voice, he was starting to feel hope that he would be leaving this place very soon.

"But mom, I already told you that I like her very much! Why can't you approve of her?! She is the only one for me and I love her! You can't stop me from dating her!" Young Lord Cedric paused the movie and responded to the owner of the feminine voice, which seemed to truly be that of his mother.

"So what if you like her or even love her?! Do you think she appreciates you as much as you love her? You spent all your allowances buying her expensive clothes and accessories whenever you get the chance, but look at how she is passionately kissing that guy in the movie you're watching right now! Do you still think she likes you after seeing that with your own eyes?!"

"What?! Mom, you're also watching the movie?! How is that possible?! This is currently being played directly from my storage drive, so how can you see it when it is not played on the TV's movie channel?! Don't tell me…!"

"You stupid brat! Do you think I can't watch it in my room just because you decide to watch it downstairs? Or did you forget that all the TVs were connected?! Also, with how popular that movie has become, do you think I haven't already seen it?!"

"Mom, you're too much! You're even intruding on my privacy now! How can you do this to me— to your own son?!"

"Hmph! So what?! I am your mother, that's how! Until you become fully mature and could afford to be independent, I can do whatever I want! We only came to Mystic Runic City for that Runic Construct that had been going around and your Runic Path creation! Yet, you only care about watching a movie with that little conniving wench in it?! How disgraceful! Cedric, your father and I are highly disappointed in you, in case you didn't realize it yet! How did we even have a useless and tactless son like you, who only cares about chasing skirts?! In terms of temperament, your siblings are much better than you!"

"Tsk!"

Young Lord Cedric clicked his tongue in response to this statement. He was immediately annoyed when he heard his mother mention his siblings.

Moments later, their conversation came to an end with Young Lord Cedric going back to continue watching the movie again.

Sitting there for quite some time and not being able to begin what he had set out to do, Maximus was having a hard time controlling himself from lashing out at Young Lord Cedric. Even worse, the self-righteous mother started counseling her idiotic son regarding the matter of love while he had to remain there listening to them. They even went as far as ignoring his existence altogether as they chattered on without a care. Not to mention that they were too loud, distracting his thoughts as he was multitasking to save time while he sat there.

Do they think he had nothing better to do? He only came here to help them, but they treated him like he was not worth mentioning in front of them.

Furthermore, Maximus was very certain that the mother had definitely recognized his presence in the room, but she didn't say anything to goad her son into focusing on the matter at hand before continuing his movie. Instead, she prattled on about this and that but still didn't dissuade the son from watching the movie despite her words that made it seem as though she hated the female lead of the movie.

Does she want her son to give up pursuing that female actress, hence why she didn't bother to dissuade her son from watching the movie in the first place?

Regardless of the case, Maximus didn't care, or rather, it didn't concern him. He only had one job, and that was all that mattered to him. As for anything else besides that, he didn't need to care about them as they would only serve as distractions to his constant thinking mind that was devising methods to actualize his new Runic Path inspiration once this was over.

As he couldn't tolerate the absurd and ludicrous situation anymore, Maximus, who had been sitting on the couch opposite Young Lord Cedric's couch spoke out when the mother and son finished their meaningless conversation.

"I have somewhere to be, so if the Young Lord does not require my assistance anymore, then I would like to take my leave now if you'll excuse me." Maximus said that, but he had already stood up, as he was really about to leave if he were to receive the other party's approval.

"What do you mean by that statement? And where do you think you're going? When did I say that I no longer required your assistance?" The young man turned to face him with an unpleasant frown on his face, and as if he thought of something, he scoffed and said: "Are you really the one recommended by that Donatello guy? You don't look that professional, much less a rune expert. You're nothing but a kid that—

"Is that so?" Maximus interrupted, and then he calmly spoke: "I am indeed the rune expert sent by Donatello. Now then, are you ready to begin your engraving and imprinting process? I came over today specifically to help you with that, after all. Since I am pressed for time, can we get it over with as quickly as possible?"

'This arrogant bastard dared to ignore my words and even interrupted my speech…' Cedric cursed inwardly when he didn't get the reaction he expected from Maximus. He aimed those disparaging words at him because he heard that Maximus was a massive pushover who would let anything slide if you pressured him just a little bit. However, that doesn't seem to be the case right now. He seemed to have gotten the wrong intelligence from the looks of it.

"Whatever, I don't expect much from you, anyway. I was initially planning on dealing with it myself, but my parents wanted me to get some assistance so I reluctantly sought out assistance." He said, and then furrowed his eyebrows before continuing: "Even then, I didn't expect Donatello to recommend the trash that almost caused the failure of Oliver's Runic Path back then."

Maximus's eyebrows raised slightly in surprise when he heard the last part of his sentence.

'Oliver? Is he talking about the fire kid from last time's commission? Donatello also mentioned this name when I talked to him a while ago. So it turns out this brat knew the fire kid? No wonder, this kid was talking in a condescending tone just like that fire kid after I had kindly helped him out that time.' Maximus realized this fact and could guess this Young Lord Cedric's intention based on the hints in his words that suggest he doesn't trust him to be of assistance.

A moment later—

'Hahaha!'

Maximus suddenly burst into cold laughter inwardly as he found the current situation quite ludicrous: 'Do you think I am a pushover you could take advantage of whenever you want? If that's what you think, then I'll prove you wrong today, pompous brat! You better hope that there are no faults with your Runic Constructs like that fire kid's Runic Constructs. Otherwise… Hehehe…'

A year ago, when he took on the commission from that Oliver, who was from another prominent family, he found out after analyzing Oliver's commissioned Runic Constructs that there were a few things encoded wrongly.

Even though it wasn't apparent without careful inspection and he would be in no danger right away, even after the engraving and imprinting process, it would eventually cause some future problems and even damage to his Soul Vessel the more he used his Runic Path.

At that time, he would also risk the chance of losing control of his Runic Path. In the event that he failed to gain control or remedy the problem, he would implode and die a tragic death. The outcome would be similar to the tragic incident of Mister Cones.

As Maximus was someone who hated leaving things in their minimum or faulty state, he took it upon himself to fix the wrong encoded foundational runes without affecting the entire rune structure of the constructs. He only faced a slight difficulty in doing so.

Since he was only meant to assist Oliver, and he wasn't tasked to fix problems with the Runic Constructs, he decided to fix them whimsically without receiving any payment from Oliver.

However, instead of thanking him for his kind gesture after he told Oliver about what happened, the ignorant fool was ungrateful. He claimed that Maximus had not helped, but instead, messed with his Runic Constructs. He also claimed that if anything were to happen to him during the engraving and imprint process, he would sue him.

Though nothing happened to him throughout the engraving and imprinting process, the ungrateful Oliver refused to give him his assistance fee saying that he didn't do his job properly as he tempered with his well-crafted Runic Constructs, which would potentially result in future problems for him.