Birth Of The Crafts-God

Sare shuttles of different shapes and sizes zoomed in the air zone of the modern jungle known as the West Wing district. The streets were bustling with crowds of various skin and hair colours of different shades; a view that a human on Earth would be unfamiliar with.

Even though the West Wing district was the least successful of the five districts of Baylands City, it was still a part of the city, making it more populous and wealthy than any of the other fifteen districts. The market zone of the West Wing district, most especially, was known for being the centre of commerce of the district.

West Wing district neighboured the Wastelands, one of the largest and most dangerous desolate beast zones in Eretre. As a result of this, the district developed in consideration of this, building its economy around the trade of desolate beasts and the occupation of freelancing. The market zone, being the centre of commerce, was the go-to area for every freelancer who made their way to the district.

There one could find all sorts of stores, buildings, malls and even stalls, dealing in vestiges, desolate beast parts, armours, shuttles, and whatever it was a freelancer needed.

The Seven Sparks Forge was located in the western region of the market zone, in a corner far off the centre. However, it had recently gotten a bit of fame, being related to the terrorist attack and the outburst of desolate beasts in the Bayena Plain. But right when one would expect the owner of the store to capitalise on this little fame, the door was currently shut close.

In the lobby of the Seven Sparks Forge, a burgundy coloured envelope with a broken black wax seal and a letter peeking out from it, laid atop the checkout counter opposite the entrance. The store was empty, devoid of any life except for the owner who sat down by the counter and stared at the ceiling, lost in thought.

Lucas was currently contemplating the offer of the old man.

Since he came into this world, Lucas never intended on working for anybody, but being entirely independent had its flaws.

For instance, in his first life, Lucas had lived a solo life, lacking any power or organisation backing him. When he was a nobody, this wasn't necessarily bad, so Lucas had it somewhat easy. However, when he became famous, a lot of sects, cults, organisations, bands and whatnot tried to invite him to work for them.

They lured him with whatever imaginable idea they could think of, and with his past world being one where the fist ruled, some even tried to kidnap him or threaten Lucas.

The appeal of a magic weapon-smith was just as attractive as a vestige-smith in this world, and maybe even more. This was because Lucas' first world lacked the level of technology in this world, so everything had to be done by hand. In this universe, cold weapon-type vestiges could be assembled by machines with the rune writing and stellar matrix inscription done by the vestige smiths.

This lead to a situation where there was a large influx of vestiges as the procedure had been simplified.

But in his first world's situation, there was no technological advancement and magic weapons had to be created by hand from the very first step until the end. This made magic weapon-smiths valuable, and the higher one's skillset, the more valuable they were.

Respect would be given to them by organisations on their righteous side, but some on the dark side simply utilised threats and any means they could to have magic weapon-smiths do their bidding.

This was how Lucas had died, but, it was more, interesting, than that.

The experience of his first life made Lucas understand that working for an organisation was important as he could be offered protection. This was how he led his second life on Earth.

After being recognised for his smarts, Lucas gave his skill and knowledge to the service of his home country, Rhodia. But who would have thought that even after being regarded as a national treasure, he was still assassinated in the end.

His second death had left Lucas with a bunch of unanswered questions, and truthfully, he was suspicious about it. There was no way a foreign power could have been able to sneak past his security and planted a bomb. All the guards by his side were also members of the Federal Interior Security Service, which was concerned with his safety. None of them could be spies.

All of this led to Lucas drawing up an insane conclusion; his home country had orchestrated his death.

Rhodia ranked top amongst the top five most powerful nations in the world, and Lucas' existence was steadily pushing them to be number one. Lucas wasn't just a genius; when it came to the study of materials, including nuclear elements, he was like an incarnation of Einstein, Newton and Galileo of his time, all in one body.

If he wasn't such a genius, Lucas wouldn't have been classified as a national treasure.

His research had created new metals and materials, expanding the periodic table as we know it, by at least thirteen more slots; five of which had the potential to redefine the weapons industry, with two of them being radioactive in nature [1].

While all this sounded great, Lucas' existence was a threat to other nations. Even if they organized joint projects with Rhodia, Lucas being an asset of Rhodia irked them and they tried to kill him secretly. This was why Lucas was assigned security detail on par with the vice president.

Despite this, while Lucas was secured, the same couldn't be said about Rhodia. They had been pressured by other nations above and under the table to give up Lucas. Whether it was in trade deals, sanctions and so on, Rhodia experienced it all. Find more adventures on empiren/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Lucas suspected that the harassment was getting out of hand, which was why they had decided to take him out. If that were true, then the Rhodian government must have destroyed his research on the surface after his death, while secretly hiding them for their own use.

To further ensure that no loose ends were made, they probably weren't the ones to have actually killed him, but an assassin from a foreign nation. But in a normal situation, the assassin wouldn't succeed, unless Lucas' security purposely exposed a flaw.

With Lucas murdered by a foreign assassin and all his research 'destroyed', the other nations would have no justification to keep harassing them lest they wanted a world war. In fact, Rhodia could cause a commotion as Lucas' death was a direct act of one of the top foreign powers. They could showcase out a 'hurt' display and retaliate against the other powers for a while, before calming down.

As long as Rhodia played the act well enough, the other foreign countries -suspicious or not- would lessen their pressure on Rhodia, while the latter could explore Lucas' research in-depth in secret.

Of course, there was no way to confirm any of this unless Lucas could get back to Earth and find out the events that took place after his death. But regardless, his suspicions made Lucas realise that working for someone else was also not a viable option. That was unless his partner/employer was so powerful that no one would want to offend them.

But as he was now, why would such an individual or organisation approach Lucas?

The two options marked out, left Lucas with a new option. With the store and the system assisting him, Lucas was confident that he could do better in this life. But before that, he would still need some help.

'A business cooperation doesn't sound bad, but I have too many secrets and I don't think the system would let another person run the store with me. It's pretty much a majority shareholder and decides most of the store's rules already. It would be difficult to explain that to another shareholder.'

'But this is a tempting offer.'

Lucas glanced at the letter on the table.