Earlier while the commanders left the hall, they thought what commander Shaw said was true so they sent about ten soldiers to fetch the man and a meeting was called among the commanders. About 20 minutes later, the soldiers arrived with the man and his daughter by their side.
"We are sorry for disturbing you again, Mr. Jone." Commander Shaw said as he gestured for the soldiers to leave and for the man to sit.
"We have a few questions to ask though, you notice that when you gave us this information, we didn't ask any question because we were too carried away by the fact that you were tricked by a student from our academy, and after searching around the city and the academy, we found no student that match your description and we even contacted the border if they detect any portal opened around the city yesterday but we got No, as an answer." The old man among them was the one who spoke, and he continued. "So we have a few question for you now. Are you willing to answer us wholeheartedly?" He asked.
"Yes I will give the appropriately answer." Jone replied.
"Okay good, Shaw you can go on." The old man said as he sat down.
"My first question is, how much did you give the for the core." Commander Shaw asked.
"We gave him all the coin we've saved for the past eight months, which is two hundred and fifty coins." Alice replied, she could see that her father was hesitating, so she quickly answer in order for the commanders not to get suspicious. The commanders looked at Shaw who just had a smile on his face. The only one who looked unconcerned about the matter was commander Hood as he stared blankly into the air.
"So you gave him two hundred and fifty coins." Commander Shaw said.
"That's what he asked for." Alice replied as she could see what the commander was trying to say.
"Okay, let's leave that aside. What do you plan to do with the core if it was the original?" Shaw asked.
"To return it back to the academy and get our reward." Alice was the one answering questions as she could see her father was a little panicked but others didn't notice this.
"Oh, what a loyal citizen of this city." The old man commented.
"Did you get any details from the boy, like how he laid his hands on the core." Commander Shaw asked.
"Nope, he answers none of our questions." Alice replied.
"I'm sorry to say this, but after searching everywhere around the city and the academy, we found nothing so we assumed that you gave us fake information, maybe you were only hallucinating that the core should come to your shop, so for giving us fake information and stressing us commanders, you'll be punished for this, you can only escape this punishment with a valid evidence." Commander Shaw said as he sat down.
Jone was already shaking, he lost his money and now he gets punished for reporting to the academy.
"We have a valid evidence; why will you punish us." Alice yelled. And Commander Hood who hadn't said anything since the beginning of the meeting finally raised his head.
"You have an evidence?" Hood asked.
"Yes." Alice replied as she pulled her hands into the pouch by her side, then bringing out a small blue orb, she placed it on the table and placed a small rod beside it. "This is a surveillance crystal." She said.
'What is she doing? Why did she bring it along, they will know of what we did to the students earlier that day.' Jone was biting his lips, this is the reason why he didn't want to tell them that he had an evidence, because what he did to Timi and his group was also recorded in the crystal, everything will be revealed to them and he knew he would surely be punished for cheating their students. He shouldn't have put in his shop at all.
"So, there's was a surveillance crystal in your shop, that's interesting." Commander Hood said as he connects the rod with the crystal and activate it.
The orb is what is called a surveillance crystal, this can't be found among average citizen or shop owner, but it's common in big Hanse and academy, and here this man here has one in his shop. That was because he owned the largest shop in the street and high-level weapons up to level 5 can only be found in his shop, so he would surely apply some security measure.
The orb can be place anywhere, either in a room, shop and hall. It has two dull holes on it, one at the top while the second was at the bottom, there was T and B sign on each hole to know which one is top and which one is bottom.
Once the rod connects with the T sign, it will start recording anything on sight till the rod is removed; same thing goes for the bottom, once the rod connects, it will reveal what has been recorded from the start.
"Okay, let's see the mysterious boy." Commander Shaw commented as the crystal lit up blue and it started playing.
"So, you had some students in your shop before the event happens." Shaw said, he was the only one watching it among the commanders because the main interest of others was to see how it really happens, so they thought of everything that happens before that was wasting of time.
The bad thing about the surveillance orb is that, it can't be fast forwarded, all the record saved on it would be modified by date, since day 1 that the person started using it. But when it's opened to be watched, it will only open the last day of record, the event it recorded last will be played and start from the morning. It can't be fast forwarded or rewind, but it can be paused and someone can also select the date of the record they wish to watch which will be played from the beginning of the day to the end.
Now it was currently showing the last record it has and the other commanders thought it was a waste of time watching it as they looked away but commander Shaw didn't move his eyes from it as he didn't want to miss any details because he was the one who complained of the man not giving them evidence.
Commander Shaw look at Alice for a few minutes as it had gotten to the scene she entered when Timi and his group were pricing the gauntlet; now looking at it, she was biting her lips as she realized the grave mistake she had just made, looking towards her father, she could see that he had his head downward.
"I think you would like to watch this." Commander Shaw said calling other commanders. They started looking at the scene from where Alice entered and how the price of the gauntlet was increased. Even without watching it from the beginning, they knew what has happened there, they have seen how the price has increased and how Alice had dropped the beast core easily.
Normally, a level 5 weapon shouldn't have cost that much; at least in this city. They continue watching and as they did, they'll all look at both of them who held their head facing down. When it got to where Timi and his friends were going out of the shop, commander Hood saw the look on Timi's face and he had immediately paused it.
"Did you see something?" Shaw asked.
"The look on his face, but don't worry." Hood replied.
After the scene has pass, they could see the little drama Alice and her father displayed.
"So, you tricked those students doing as if you were another customer." Commander Shaw said, "I think you deserve what happened to you."
Now it was time for them to watch the main event.