Artifact Shards are indeed gone. Was at 15. Noticed earlier in the day that my count had reset - but upon loading an old manual save they were back at 15. Restarting the game and trainer, now the shards are gone, and old saves no longer show any quantity either Artifact Shard Item is gone. Just a heads up.
In order to avoid headaches:
enable blacksmith upgrades>do your thing>save game>disable blacksmith upgrades>re-load save.
The blacksmith option breaks so many things in the game like in the Arena...do NOT use blacksmith option when entering the arena!!!! This will break a quest for you.