Birth Of The Crafts-God

The decision of appointing Lucy as the mediator was due to the fact that she had worked on the role before with Lucas. She was also the only person in the company who had a positive relationship with Lucas.

As the person selected to mend the relationship between Novanio Tech and Lucas, Lucy was naturally under an intense amount of pressure. However, she couldn't escape this responsibility.

"Let's just get this over with." Lucy sighed before sending an email to some other staff in the company.

. . .

The next day arrived and a hover shuttle left the Legacy Crafts Dealership headquarters in Baylands City's West Wing district.

Meanwhile, at the Seven Sparks Forge, Lucas had finally processed the orders of the day with Melissa's help. After the ticket scalping incident, Lucas only accepted forty six requests, fourteen of which were custom production orders while the remaining thirty two were repairs. As for sales, there was no limit.

After taking the orders, Lucas decided to get to work. If he delayed on those orders, his routine would be overwhelming.

But even with Lucas' punctual personality, the orders were still a bit more than he could handle. Usually, Lucas would set aside a bit of time to research and improve on his skills. There was also the need for sleep; even though Lucas didn't need a complete eight hours of sleep, in order to be at his peak form each day, he still needed at least four hours of sleep.

With only twenty four hours of time alone on his hands, it was clear that it wasn't enough. As such, Lucas ended up hiring an assistant to help with the repetitive menial tasks.

"So what am I doing today, boss?" Vergil wore his vestige-smithing apron and approached Lucas.

That's right; the assistant Lucas hired was Vergil.

The Mertens family, under Russell, had done a lot for Lucas and even faced off some challenges for his sake. Although Lucas knew that this was because, just like the others, they were interested in his potential, it was still admirable that they took a more agreeable route.

Lucas was also aware that one reason why Russell supported him was because the old man hoped that he could introduce his son to Lucas' teacher —whom Russell believed to be the Grandmaster backing Lucas. In the end, Lucas decided to fulfill that wish of his, albeit not as Russell thought.

Without looking at Vergil, Lucas answered him.

"Prepare a bowl of Black Silver-Phenol as usual. Maintain the corrosive strength at T3 for Grade 3 vestiges, and ensure the stellar energy feeding levels are at F4. Get the other materials ready as well..."

Black Silver-Phenol, or Black Silverine Carbolic acid, was a unique mixture used by vestige-smiths to erase existing inscriptions such as runes or stellar matrices from a vestige. Compared to similar mixtures, the success rate of Black Silver-Phenol is higher, but it was also more expensive as a result. However for Lucas, this price wasn't worth considering too much about.

Glancing at the list of orders for the day, Lucas added,

"...the usual."

While compared to his previous employee, Kelvin, Vergil was a lot less skilled and experienced, but there was an advantage to this. Lucas could properly train Vergil to work better with him and guide the latter in the right path. Also, compared to someone who already had their own philosophy and techniques, Vergil was more attentive at work and willing to learn.

However, it was somewhat of a waste of a slot in the Employee Hire Function, especially considering the fact that Vergil was only at the second level of the Apertures Opening stage —a recent breakthrough from a month ago. There were only three slots and with one taken by Melissa and another by Vergil, there was one left.

'I'll have to find a way to recruit a peak rank Tier 1 Master at the very least. It would be nice if I can find a Grandmaster as well.' Lucas thought of how to utilize the last slot.

If anyone could listen in on Lucas' thoughts, they'd either sneer at him or beat the hell out of Lucas.

A Tier 1 Master vestige-smith was at least a peak sixth level Apertures Opening stage stellar practitioner. On the other hand, a peak rank Tier 1 Master was a peak eighth level stellar practitioner. This was someone in the level of a family head.

A Tier 1 Grandmaster was even more absurd. The weakest was at least a peak eighth level stellar practitioner while the majority were at the ninth level. Some were already at the tenth.

Yet Lucas wanted to have one of them work as an assistant in his store.

Dismissing his thoughts, Lucas entered the workstation to get to work. As usual, the daily limit of 46 orders was filled up so he would be busy for a while. Even though Lucas' work speed was quite fast, this was only in the case of repairs. When it came to the vestige custom orders, Lucas was a bit slower.

A short while after Lucas and Vergil had entered the workstation, the bell at the entrance chimed. This meant that someone had entered the store.

"Seven Sparks Forge here, how can I help you?"

Melissa smiled at the newcomers.

Even though this was a line she repeated tens of times every day, Melissa seemed to not get tired of doing so. Lucas had once tried to convince her otherwise so as to not tire the little girl out, but she didn't listen.

To Melissa, the Seven Sparks Forge was her big brother's store which in turn meant it was hers as well. As such, all the customers were her customers, and so, she wanted to give them a proper treatment when they were in the store.

This naturally won her favours and praises from the customers who were used to Lucas' cold and nonchalant face. They treated Melissa well in return and she eventually became the poster child for the store.

"Hi. We're looking for the owner of the store. Is he around?" Lucy asked the little girl in front of her.

At first, she was shocked that Lucas had a child working at the front desk and couldn't help but wonder whether he had changed to become a wicked soul. Even though Novanio Tech had done some digging and figured out that Melissa was Lucas' sister, their relationship was only one on paper so Lucy felt that Lucas didn't truly treat the little girl as his sister.

She felt pity for Melissa, but had to focus her attention to her reason for coming here. The matter of child labour could be handled afterwards.

"The owner? Do you have an appointment?"

Although Melissa was only eleven years old, she was quite smart. She knew lots of people wanted to meet Lucas for various reasons, but Lucas didn't want to be disturbed either especially when he was inside the workstation. As such, unless one had an appointment, she wouldn't make a move.

"Uhm, not exactly." Lucy hesitated.

In truth, she did try to fix an appointment with Lucas but the latter ignored her messages. As this was a do or die affair for her, Lucy thickened her skin and made her way towards the store, even at the risk of offending Lucas.

How could Melissa not understand the meaning of her reply?

"I'm sorry but big brother is a little busy at the moment. You can try again tomorrow if you arrive on time." Melissa replied.

Lucy gave a helpless smile as she had expected such treatment, but she couldn't just leave like this. With each day that passes, Novanio Tech's stock dropped. It had only been eight days, but the stock price had already dropped by 14%, even worse compared to Versailles Group's 10% drop.

This was attributed due to the current relationship of Novanio Tech and the Seven Sparks Forge. Compared to Versailles Group, the general public and majority of traders were more pessimistic about Novanio Tech's future in the stellar processor industry since they had offended the Seven Sparks Forge.

order to better plan their movements, the members of the five-man coalition, bar Olaf, had deeply studied about each other. They had even gone as far as identifying the true potential and possible factors within the other's hands. In the case of the Versailles Group, their true potential was massive since this was just merely a branch. However, it was basically impossible for them to do so, as the headquarters wouldn't easily intervene in this matter. But they just did.

The Falcon X series was the premium grade stellar processor series of the Versailles Group headquarters. Although it wasn't their flagship product, it was a leading model in the premium category. The X9 was the current generation of the Falcon X series, and it was a very powerful chip. The benchmark ratings of the X9 already placed it on par, if not slightly ahead of the SS V1 chips.

It should be recalled that the SS V1 were modified Orion Cores —flagship stellar processors from Novanio Tech. Novanio Tech's Orion Core was basically the same as the Versailles Group's KY chips. The SS V1 chips had a 38% increase in performance compared to the latter two and was able to dominate the ranks of the stellar processor market.