Birth Of The Crafts-God

The envelope the old man gave Lucas has only one letter inside, which was the recommendation letter as well as an approval slip attached to it, that was marked with some information. However, the old man's departing words were that a cooperation between them could only happen so long as Lucas got a sale slot for the auction to be held on the sixth day.

In other words, the old man wanted Lucas to compete with all the vestige businesses in the West Wing district, for a limited opportunity. Not only was this insanely difficult, but it was impossible for any regular individual to pull off. Even an experienced vestige-smith couldn't say for such that they had this in the bag, unless they were one of the top in the district.

Even then, it was possible for a nobody to get a slot over them, as what the appraisers judged wasn't the fame of the creator, but the value and potential of the vestige.

For Lucas, this convention was good news. He would get the free advertisements he's been dreaming off, and he could get a boatload of money from the auctions too. As part of the pro-bono movement for the industry, there was no commission on items sold in the auction, so the entire money generated would go to the creator.

Arriving at the public square, Lucas glanced around and was surprised; even though he left as early as 7:30 am, he was still 'late'. Many stall owners had already erected their selling point. As for the big companies participating, they had set up temporary buildings on the spot. With the technology of the era much advanced, moveable houses were a thing.

Staring at the temporary houses a few metres away, Lucas couldn't help but want one. Unfortunately, those weren't sold in the West Wing district, and Lucas didn't know how to make them.

He ignored the others and logged into the KSSI, locating the site designated from Eretre and then Baylands City. Lucas searched for the convention's homepage and logged in with the details on his recommendation letter.

For the convention, participants had the option to rent setup equipment from the organizers at a fair price, and Lucas had opted for this option a while after he arrived.

To prevent fights and disagreements from breaking out, the distribution of vendors in the public square was assigned by the organizers as soon as a participant was approved.

On the approval slip for Lucas' recommendation letter was marked a location for his stall to be opened. The old man's recommendation had only enabled Lucas to get enough space to open a stall, and not a store, but Lucas didn't mind. Even if he had enough space for a building, he didn't have the connections to buy one of those temporary buildings, and he couldn't make them either.

After putting in the details and paying for a stall to be set up, Lucas immediately set off for the designated location. The space wasn't so big, but it wasn't small either, roughly about four metres wide and three metres long. It was even smaller than a studio apartment, and roughly the size of a small bedroom, but that was to be expected.

It didn't take long for few drones carrying equipment to arrive at the scene. The unmanned drones immediately began to assemble the stall in front of Lucas as he waited.

"Excuse me." Explore more stories with empire

Just as Lucas was waiting for the assembling to be done, a voice called out to him. He turned around and noticed the person calling out was a middle-aged man in uniform, exuding the aura of a second level Apertures Opening stage stellar practitioner. Based on the outfit he wore, Lucas figured out the man was a security guard for the event, but this shocked him even more.

Most functions would use robots for security as they were much cheaper and could be deployed en masse. But the Silver Fig Consortium had actually hired freelancers for security purposes. The cost for this was definitely not cheap, and the convention wasn't a moneymaking event either. This just showed the financial prowess of the consortium.

Seeing Lucas turn, the man said, "Identification."

Lucas handed the letter to the man to check, alongside a projected image of his ID.

After going through them, the guard nodded, then handed the letter back to Lucas and left. He was slightly surprised but didn't seem to be bothered about Lucas' identity as a human participating in an event usually dominated by hyumans.

The reason was actually quite simple; some stores had proxies running them until the last two days, which was usually when the original owner would appear and unveil their masterpiece. In the guard's opinion, Lucas was most likely an employee of a business who was sent to look after their position for the meantime.

After waiting for about thirty minutes or so, the stall was finally completed. Although it was called a stall, due to the available space, it was much larger than a typical booth. It had a partition inside which separated the space to create a private room for the owner. Lucas was impressed by this and intended to use that private space as a work-station.

"System, will any transaction carried out here, be added to my mission count?"

The system didn't reply right away until three seconds later.

"Yes."

"Perfect." Lucas grinned.

The Silver Fig Consortium banned the physical sale of vestiges during the Trade Convention, but orders weren't prevented. In other words, one could place an order for a vestige and get it outside the convention or after it was over. The aim of the convention was the same as an exhibition show; to attract attention and offer advertisement.

In the case of services such as maintenance, the procedure was slightly different. On-site maintenance was banned just as physical sales, but one could simply leave their vestige with the vendor and collect it at the end of the day or elsewhere.

For instance, freelancer A could give his vestige to the smith at B, who would then fix it and return it to A after the convention was over for the day or at a later time outside the convention's venue.

Because of this rule, most participants would place a limit on the vestiges they would accept each day for maintenance, unless it was a big company that had dozens of workers. But even they still limited their maintenance slots per day

The main focus of the event was still on vestiges and not services, so most of the vestige-smiths would be busy making final touches to the vestiges they planned on showcasing from the fourth day.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

But Lucas was different. Compared to other vestige-smiths, his speed at maintenance and repairs was on another level, one could even say he was two levels ahead. As such, he could accept more requests than others, and even compete with the big companies.