Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing quickly shook his head free of those ominous thoughts and focused back on Shi Tian's explanation.

"Now that we are done with the roles that overlap with what you did as a superior core court judge we can move to the palace court-specific roles.

As I mentioned earlier you will be receiving 40 million high-grade spirit stones every year in the fulfillment of your duties as an outer palace court judge.

As such one of your new roles and duties as a palace court judge will be the issuing, grading, and approval of contracts and commissions.

Due to the few cases in the palace courts, palace judges will be in charge of their own cases the moment they're allotted to them. You will be given 100 cases every month, though that figure isn't exactly fixed, in addition, the impromptu cases will be considered in end month tabulation.

The moment those 100 cases are assigned to you, the order in which you focus on them, your schedule, and your follow-up on them, will all be up to you. 

You will have full autonomy on the cases, among which deciding on which cases you will give to your inquisitors, which cases will be contracted or commissioned is all up to you including who will get the contract, the duration of the contract, and the payment terms after even what you decide as payment will be up to you since you will be the one in charge of paying them.."

Yang Qing flinched in pain when he heard the last part.

"However, even though the payment will be up to you, the payment standard of the Order has to be maintained. 

Any case involving a palace realm expert has an upfront fee of 45,000 high-grade spirit stones and the maximum payout you can give on a commission involving someone of this level is 750,000 high-grade spirit stones. 

As you well know but just in case you don't, you can only pay out 750,000 high-grade spirit stones if, during the course of the investigation, someone at the late stages of the palace realm is proven to have involvement in the matter you're investigating, either directly or indirectly.

I took the liberty of making a copy for you. Here," Shi Tian said as he handed Yang Qing another scroll.

"In here you'll find a rough estimate and direction on how to payout your commissions and what parameters to look at and the rough payment associated with those parameters. However, at the end of the day, the amount you decide on will be up to you, however, you will need to make a detailed note of your judgment, which will be used by the auditor assigned to you.

Also, in there you will also find the name of the external logistics department employee assigned to you," added Shi Tian.

Yang Qing scrolled down to the bottom of the scroll and saw the name 'Lu Mei, outer palace court logistics'

"When we are done here, you can go meet with her to familiarize yourself since you will be working in close contact, especially when the remuneration packages aren't spirit stones but something else, she will be the person in charge of all the conversion and disbursement," said Shi Tian.

"Let's move on. Other than contract and commissions, there are other duties that you will need to do that don't exactly fall under the purview of what a judge does.." said Shi Tian as he took a well-measured pause to draw Yang Qing's attention, which seemed to have worked perfectly. 

"Some of those duties are; 

Serving as a witness to various auction houses during their events. It goes without saying that those houses will be at rank 3. 

The Order loans out its services for a fee to these auction houses, to have the judges serve as authenticators. All the goods being auctioned at that particular moment will have been checked by our appraisers, so you don't have to do anything other than sit there, as a show of face.

For your services you will receive 50% of the fee the Order charges and any amount you may be given by the proprietors of the auction houses will be all yours..."

"Seriously?!!!" Yang Qing inadvertently yelled the question out loud from excitement and agitation about the money he could make.

"Yes, 50% of the fee will be yours, and any other thing you may get in the conduct of your duties will be yours to keep," said Shi Tian with an amused smile at the rapid changes happening to Yang Qing.

Yang Qing's mind immediately wandered to all sorts of scenarios in which he ended up gaining all sorts of weird treasures from these auction houses and the 50% fee.

"50%....."

A calmness returned to Yang Qing as his excited expression suddenly turned serious.

"Administrator Shi Tian, it's not that I'm greedy or anything, but is there a way the split percentage can be changed? Or is it stuck in a 50-50 split?" asked Yang Qing.

His greedy side had surfaced along with the vindictive side that he had against the Order gaining one over him all the time.

"Well, it's not exactly fixed. In a sense, you could get 100% of the commission but for that to happen, the Order will not provide its appraisal services for free and or negotiate for the commission.

In simpler terms if you manage to find auction houses that want to hire your services directly, you're free to take them, the Order won't stop you but it has its own risks, one of which is you will have to do the appraisal yourself and any issues that arise from it, will be solved by you alone," said Shi Tian.

On hearing the response, Yang Qing slumped back into his seat with a defeated expression.

He knew enough about treasures to not get scammed, well six out of ten times because he has ended up with some duds from the open markets. However, the skill he had was only enough to label him an okay appraiser. There was a lot he didn't know.