Birth Of The Crafts-God

After that bout with the fifteenth place, Lucas went on to carry out two more vestige duels before the day finally concluded. Unsurprisingly, the other two opponents had surrendered before the duel even began. The news had already spread, and no one was foolish enough to bother engaging in a vestige duel with Lucas.

Luckily for him, the system still considered them as victories, so his count was now brought up to sixteen. There were now only four more vestige duels left and Lucas would have completed the mission.

Just as he returned to the stall to close up, Lucas was surprised to see a crowd of people gathered in front.

"What's going on?" Lucas asked.

"You're finally back." The man lined up in front smiled.

"We're here to check out your services, and get our gears fixed."

Lucas was surprised by this, but on second thought, he understood.

Having generated a buzz recently and made a name for himself, or at least the vestige-smith supposedly behind him, it was only natural for there to be more customers interested in the services offered. It was just like when he had won his very first vestige duel against the freelancer and was flooded by a few agents and freelancers.

Except this time around, Lucas had defeated vestiges much more impressive than the Hozier-class Halberd, and this made people take him more seriously and even want to patronise the stall for their own benefit.

"If you're here to take orders, you can copy the code in the stall and check out our price list. But if you're here for services, unfortunately, there's a limited slot for those."

The Silver Fig Trade Convention banned on-site trading and maintenance, however, the organisers had purposely left some loopholes to this rule. For the first, one could simply draw up a contract for the sale of vestiges and the matter would be settled at a later date.

As for maintenance, the vestige-smith stall could accept maintenance orders and fulfill them outside of the public square or at a later date after the convention.

However, due to this, vestige-smith stores would become busy after the convention. To reduce the load, they would limit the number of transactions, especially maintenance works, that they accepted.

"No problem. Just let us know and we'll figure it out." The man smiled.

Lucas nodded and went into the stall before bringing out a small plastic board, the size of a palm. The board was turned on and it projected a special diagram that looked like a QR code.

The diagram could be scanned by a communicator to reveal the information on it; the pricing list of vestiges in the Seven Sparks Forge.

When the crowd scanned it and went through the list, one could hear occasional sounds of astonishments and deep breathing. Lucas, however, was already used to this and wasn't bothered. He now has a good understanding of the vestige-smithing ability of the West Wing district. As such, Lucas was more than confident that his prices were fair.

"These prices, aren't they a bit too much?" Someone carefully asked.

"A bit? With these prices, I can buy two vestiges. If I want to consider quantity and not quality, I might even be able to get three vestiges." A middle-aged man grumpily complained.

Lucas glanced at him for a brief second before ignoring them all and walking towards the stall.

Whether they wanted to buy or not, Lucas didn't let that bother him. Those who could afford it and understood the real value would buy it. Those who couldn't afford a vestige here, yet still understood its value would inform those around them about this. But there are those who could neither afford nor understand the value of the vestige.

For such kind of people, Lucas deemed it unnecessary to dawdle on their matter.

Seeing him ignore them, the group went speechless. Usually, a vestige-smith stall would try to convince them otherwise. They would use all sorts of linguistics, marketing tactics and lines all to make them consider buying something. But Lucas straight up ignored them.

"Who does he think he is?"

"You're wrong. The question should be who do you think he is? He beat the top eighteen and fifteenth place from last year. He's currently on a sixteen win streak; seventeen, if you count his victory against the Hozier-class Halberd."

"Yeah, but the one who did all that was the vestige-smith. He's just a representative." Someone else argued.

"True, but that makes him the only connection between us and the vestige-smith. So, we might as well act politely." The man who stood on Lucas' side said.

Eventually, some from the group had departed over the prices, while the others entered the stall and made their orders. At the end of everything, including previous orders, Lucas had now made over thirty thousand federal coins in revenue. Even after the 75% deduction by the system, his profit was large.

After he was done with that, Lucas left and returned back for eh Seven Sparks Forge building in the market zone.

. . .

Meanwhile, somewhere in the West Wing district. A fleet of hover-bikes with members of the Baylands City Patrol Corps. There were at least ten of them, and behind the pursuing group was a hover car with the logo of the Patrol Corps.

"Catch him." A voice sounded in the helmets of the Baylands City Patrol Corps as they pursueed their target.

Inside the hover car were three members of the Red Fangs, with the one leading them being a familiar face. It was Nafir.

Soon enough, the pursuing team caught up to the target and pinned him down on the ground.

The target was actually a green-skinned alien who appeared in a humanoid form. However, despite having two legs, the lower part of the legs branched out to form a pair of lower legs. As a result, the alien had two upper legs but four lower legs.

Also, rather than hair on his head, the alien had a few tentacles. Each tentacle was laced with enough poison to knock out a full grown adult horse, making the alien a walking danger. He also had three fingers as opposed to a regular hyuman.

The hover car arrived and Nafir stepped out of it alongside the other.

"A mixed race? Tell me, what are you doing in a Baylands city-state unregistered?" Nafir glanced at the creature who has been cuffed with special handcuffs.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Kekeke. You might have caught me, but don't think I'll talk. A mere patrol corps, don't get too high on yourselves." The alien grinned.

Nafir fromwed and waved, signalling to his men to take him away.

Suddenly, the alien began to convulse before frothing from the mouth.

"Poison, hurry!" Nafir screamed.

One of the Red Fangs near him rushed towards the hover car for a medical box, but by the time he returned, it was already too late. The alien had died.

"There goes our lead." One of the Red Fangs duo sighed.

"To be able to commit suicide, just to prevent leaking any type of information. Such a kind of dedication to his belief, is incredible, but also dangerous in this case." Nafir frowned as he studied the corpse.

"Baylands city-state might soon get less peaceful in times to come."