Birth Of The Crafts-God

The previous day...

Lucas and Kelvin were on their break period as they discussed in the lobby about the recent events. Having worked in the Seven Sparks Forge for some time now, Kelvin was glad he had applied for the job. However, the entire SS vestige saga raised some eyebrows, and Lucas' action in one segment was particularly glaring.

"Boss, why haven't you responded to the EVL?" Kelvin curiously asked.

Six days had gone by and Lucas had made responses to each of the agencies that targeted him, except the EVL. This baffled Kelvin, who had previously thought that the EVL's notice would be dealt with last as it was supposed to be the most difficult case. But from the looks of things, Lucas had no interest on it.

"EVL? Those guys? Why would I respond to them?" Lucas stared confusedly at Kelvin.

"But they are the symbol and authority of vestige-smiths, you know?" Kelvin retorted, while shocked at Lucas' words.

"The symbol? Are you sure about that?" Lucas questioned.

Kelvin froze as he didn't have a suitable answer. While the EVL was the public image of vestige-smiths, it was true that they weren't the organisation that held real power over vestige-smiths.

Lucas continued,

"I think I should remind you. There's a big difference between being an officially approved part and someone who just got recognised. Say for instance, there is a king with two sons. The older of the two was appointed to be the crown prince, but be had a fiery personality. The second prince dedicated himself to appealing to the public. At the end of everything, who do you think would become king?"

"The elder brother, who is the crown prince." Kelvin answered right away.

"Exactly. It doesn't matter whatever stunts the junior proves. The one who would become king is,
Experience tales at empire

the crown prince. The EVL is just like that, but even worse. They simply parade around with titles like 'verified agency for vestige-smiths' and so on. But in truth, they have no real power. For such an organisation, it's best to just ignore them since their responses don't mean much." Lucas explained.

Kelvin was stunned speechless, and for a second, he didn't know how to counter.

"Do you know why the EVL is able to maintain its unique status?" Lucas suddenly asked.

Once again confused, Kelvin stared at Lucas as he asked.

"Why?"

"It's because the top powers tolerate them. From what I know, the EVL was formed by a Tier 1 Grandmaster after many companies and industries have already settled down. Naturally, it would be difficult for the EVL to reign over these companies even with a Tier 1 Grandmaster backing it.

"But you see, unlike a company or all the other businesses in existence, the EVL doesn't carry out any market transactions. It was also focused more on supporting vestige-smiths in their growth. In summary, it was of no threat to the big companies and so, they let it be, respecting the organisation for its goals. However, if the EVL were to ever try to transition to a profit-making company or expand their power, they would be ganged up on by all the other major powers in the city. But since the EVL has no real power and isn't a threat to the companies, they tolerate it.

"What's more, the EVL's resources are open to every vestige-smith and it could be used in training one's vestige-smith or discovering new talents, for instance, with the exceptional basis exam. With so many benefits being offered, it was only natural for these top figures and companies in the vestige-smith industry to give the EVL some leeway.

"However, over time, this leeway was abused and exploited by the EVL to gain more advantages for themselves. This created the common misconception that the EVL is an organisation that lords over vestige-smiths, when in reality, it doesn't. It's simply a rip-off of the official Galactic Vestige League."

Lucas had learned about this a few days ago, while doing research on the EVL. After all, a great general once said, know thine enemies and the battle is half won.

"But how does that justify ignoring the EVL?" Kelvin asked.

"It doesn't." Lucas smirked.

"In fact, whether it does or not wouldn't even matter. In the end, there would be some people who would want to force a confrontation between me and the EVL. So in the end, I just decided not to be bothered."

"Wait, who would do such?" Kelvin abruptly asked with a surprised expression.

"The ones who got battered the most." Lucas smiled mysteriously.

"It's just about time for them to take action. They will probably try to generate slanderous discussions and activities, which would be enough grounds for the EVL to step in. Well, this is all I can say."

. . .

The present...

Lucas and Kelvin were preoccupied running the store due to the large number of customers present.

Ever since the popularity of the Seven Sparks Forge store had been on the rise, the number of visits they had was more than it had ever been before. Even Kelvin was finding it hard to attend to them all. As such, Lucas had to come out of the workstation and provide assistance whenever he was available to do so.

Although there were a couple of them that asked for new vestiges, the majority of the customer requests were still maintenance, with some of them asking for the advanced feature.

There were two kinds of maintenance [1], the basic maintenance and the advanced maintenance. Basic maintenance entailed simply fixing up the vestige and bringing it back to its original state. As for the advanced maintenance, it was to not only restore the vestige, but to make changes to it to either increase its durability or power.

Advanced maintenance was much harder to carry out because in most cases, the original stellar matrices and runes on the vestige would have to be cleaned off and replaced with new ones.

The stellar circuits and magic runes Lucas used on the SS vestiges had already been talked about by many. He has commonly used them for advanced maintenance as well, so it was inevitable that other freelancers would notice the difference. As such, many of them had come over to subscribe to the advanced maintenance.

Just as the duo were attending to the customers, a commotion broke out outside the store.