Birth Of The Crafts-God

"Until next week."

After the briefing completed, Böjer smiled and announced the end of the short meeting.

The members of the coalition were all busy people and making time out for this meeting required them to dump off some events on their schedule. But even then, those activities couldn't be put off for long, neither could the meeting take too much time. This could be seen from the fact that both Rajhan Khan and the leader of the Demolition Knights weren't present. In fact, apart from Böjer and Nolan who were present in the flesh, Emery had only attended this meeting via a holographic projection.

Holographic technology wasn't anything complicated or complex in modern society as the technology advancements of the federation was far ahead of Earth's. Even though the Kellan solar system was a backwater region, they still had access to this technology. Nonetheless, it wasn't commonly used.

The reason was simple —preference and efficiency. For most people, they could communicate all the necessary information they wanted to through a text or an audio message thanks to their communicators. Unless it was a formal meeting or discussion, holographic projections, or holographs, were rarely used.

It was just like how on Earth, voice calls and text messages were still more prevalent and commonly used than video calls, in terms of everyday communication.

Just as the meeting came to a close, Emery's eyes widened in shock.

"What the hell did you just say?!!"

Böjer and Nolan frowned at his behaviour.

"What is wrong with y-"

Böjer questioned Emery for his reaction, but before he could even complete his question, Emery's projection abruptly disappeared.

Both Böjer and Nolan were stunned, however, it took them only a second to recover and understand the situation.

Emery had travelled out of the city for a business trip in one of the other fifteen districts of Baylands city-state. He managed to find time from his busy schedule and attended the meeting via a holographic projection. Nonetheless, his attention would still be split as his physical presence was elsewhere. That was probably what had just happened a few seconds ago.

"What could be the cause of his sudden outburst?" Böjer frowned, finding Emery's behaviour to be strange.

"It's probably related to his business. I heard that the Versailles Group's regional headquarters over here are making preparations for a new assembly plant." Nolan explained.

As someone into the vestige-smith industry, Nolan was privy to industry topics and discussions. Also, the Arkhen Corporation had a few inter-citystate business alliances, especially since not all parts used in their products were in-house goods but gotten from other companies. Thanks to his position, Nolan was able to develop connections with forced outside the city-state and receive certain news.

Although the explanation made sense, for some reason, Böjer couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong.

. . .

Baylands city-state consisted of twenty districts with five districts —West Wing, Eastern Crown, South Mountains, Northwave and Central Prefecture— forming Baylands City. The city was located at the extreme west of the city-state, bordering the Wastelands.

Heading eastwards, one would arrive at safer locations far away from any desolate beast domain, known as the safe zone. The grey zone, Alleva district, was the dividing line between the lands neighbouring desolate beast domains, also called the desolate territories, and the safe zone.

In other words, between Baylands City and Alleva district was the area known as desolate territories, where one could still find some desolate beast domains, albeit effectively harmless ones.

Maldoso district was one of the districts located in the desolate territories. It was located southeast of Baylands City's South Mountains district, albeit separated by a large expanse of land and a huge lake.

Being located at such a unique area, Maldoso district took advantage of its setting. With Baylands City's West Wing district already handling the vestige demand, Maldoso district became a production hub for various industries of the city-state. It focused more on consumer-based products and everyday-use items. For instance, the Ross family's Esko Technology, a company that designed and manufactured household products and technology, was based here.

Sourcing raw materials from Baylands City, a large water source close by, and a neighbouring mountainous region with a few large mines, it made sense why Maldoso district became a production hub.

Currently, Emery had arrived in this district for over over day now for a project planned by the Versailles Group's main headquarters in Paros city-state. The plan was to construct a new assembly plant in Baylands city-state. Although it was not a processor factory, the plant would focus on manufacturing and assembling vital equipment required to produce stellar processors. This was a move aimed to take advantage of Baylands city-state's wealth of resources to increase the company's profits.

If this was successful, the value of the Baylands city-state regional headquarters would rise, and as the incumbent president, Emery would benefit a lot from this. With an assembly plant for materials, it wouldn't be a problem to push for the construction of a processor plant after he got the secrets of the SS stellar processors. As such, he didn't mind physically missing out on the coalition's meeting.

However, just as the meeting had drawn to a close, his secretary had informed him of a devastating news.

A young lady stood in front of an agitated Emery, shivering a bit after his outburst.

"Th-the news from the info department just came in. The Silverine Factory, the Silverine Factory announced a partnership with the Seven Stars Springs Dealership."

Emery was visibly flustered by this news after all, it implied that the situation has turned for the worse.

The Legacy Crafts dealership founded by Novanio Tech had cooperated with the Seven Sparks Forge store to sell a variety of vestiges, including wearables and communicators. This was because, compared to weapon-type vestiges, technology-based vestiges had a larger market. However, such vestiges required a very valuable component —a stellar processor.

Despite this obvious fact, the production of stellar processors was a complex and challenging process, which took time. Furthermore, not many vestige-smiths knew how to make one. Even for a qualified vestige-smith, to produce a stellar processor manually could take between two weeks to three months, depending on the required functions and capabilities.

The Seven Sparks Forge store was able to produce tech-type vestiges through a different partnership between the Forge and Novanio Tech, with the latter supplying the former with stellar processors. The Seven Sparks Forge store would then modify these processors in a unique way and hand them over to the Legacy dealership, which assembled the different components to form a communicator or a wearable vestige.

After the event that saw the owner of the SS Forge store 'exiled', the deal had broken. The city lost its supply of SS vestiges which saddened a lot of enthusiasts and freelancers, but it also affected the populace as there was now a loss of technological advancement. SS vestige communicators were sold at absurd prices, not just because of their superior performance but also their rarity.

Even though the two giants of the chip industry, Novanio Tech and the Versailles Group, had tried to reverse-engineer the SS processors and figure out the secrets of the modification, they were unable to.

When Lucas returned, in the eyes of these two chip giants, he had returned with an incredible secret. However, Lucas' new identity made it difficult for them to try and force this secret out of him. For the Novanio Tech company, the situation was even worse as their previous relationship had ended horribly do there was no way Lucas would look their way.

In other words, the Versailles Group had a chance.

They could replicate the same arrangements as in the past, but ensure that they didn't make the same mistakes as Novanio Tech did. After all, only three stellar processor companies existed in Baylands city-state, and the last company —the Silverine Factory— was far behind in terms of technology and production capability compared to the other two.

It seemed like Lucas' only option was to partner with the Versailles Group, if he wanted to bring back the series of vestiges reliant on stellar processors. Emery knew this and on one hand, intended to wait for Lucas to come begging. After all, whoever initiated the talk first would be at a disadvantage during negotiations. This was why he had even joined to coalition to pressure Lucas to make a decision quickly.

On the other hand, Emery also wanted to take a chance at stealing the secrets of the SS stellar processors himself. This was the second and true reason he joined the coalition.

With Lucas having no suitable partnership option, Emery wasn't worried if the former found out that he was in the coalition. In the business world, there were no eternal enemies, but only benefits. He believed that Lucas would understand this and eventually come to his senses. Lucas would then agree to a cooperation between the Forge and the Group. The coalition was simply a push towards that and even if it didn't happen that way, as long as they were successful, Emery could have the secrets himself.

Now however, he was stunned by the news that Lucas had partnered up with the Silverine Factory.

"What is that bastard thinking?" Emery furrowed his brows as he began pacing around the office.

"Maybe, he's overconfident and doesn't understand the reality of things?" The secretary hesitantly suggested after seeing that her boss wasn't as furious as he was earlier.

"Plausible, but it can't be." Emery shook his head.

Unlike Novanio Tech and the Versailles Group which were both companies originating from outside Baylands city-state, the Silverine Factory was a true local company. It had only one headquarters in Baylands City and its production factory also happened to be here in Maldoso district.

As for the owners of the company... Thinking here, Emery's eyes finally glistened with a bit of realisation.

"The Mertens and the Ross families are allies." Emery muttered.

The owner of the Silverine Factory was none other than the Ross family. The Factory supplied their other business, Esko Technology, with processors —both stellar and regular ones— for their products.

"But even if it's because of the alliance, this isn't smart." Emery shook his head.

The upgraded Novanio Tech stellar processors, or the SS chips version 1, had an increased 38% performance rate. This might not seem like much, but one should understand that the stellar processors supplier by Novanio Tech were mostly their flagship designs, with the lowest quality one still being a premium model. A 38% increase in performance already exceeded everything else that was on the market at that point and even until now.

On the other hand, the flagship designs of the Silverine Factory couldn't even compete against those of Novanio Tech or the Versailles Group. It would take an upgrade of 55% just for them to catch up to the flagship models of the other two.

This was why the stellar processor market was dominated by the two giants.

With some of the SS chips version 1 still in circulation, albeit in small amounts, it would affect the Seven Sparks Forge store's reputation of the version 2 made from the Silverine Factory's products underperformed the version 1.

As for outperforming them, Emery believed it was impossible. Maybe if the base model chip used was from Versailles Group or Novanio Tech, then it was possible. But by relying on the Silverine Factory? It was much better to gamble on the world ending by next week.

"So why?" Emery was confused.

Yet for some reason, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive.