Birth Of The Crafts-God

"Big brother. Look."

The cheerful Melissa appeared in front of Lucas with a smile on her face as her body began to radiate a glowing blue light.

Lucas, who was currently making breakfast, was surprised and couldn't help going silent for a second.

"Big brother...?" Melissa carefully asked as she noticed his reaction was strange.

"It's nothing." Lucas smiled and ruffled her hair.

Actually, it wasn't nothing. If anything, it was something big.

Melissa had just broken straight into the third level of the Apertures Opening stage. That's right. She didn't develop step by step as a regular hyuman would. Instead, she skipped the entire Body Strengthening stage, together with the first and second levels of the Apertures Opening stage, to sit right at the third level.

This was an incredible feat, at least by this world's standards, which was why Lucas was speechless.
Explore more at My Virtual Library Empire

"Hehe. Now I can help you with work." Melissa's eyes sparkled as she stared at him.

Due to her young age and weak physique, Lucas had only taught Melissa how to create blueprints for vestiges and the theoretical knowledge of inscriptions. She didn't carry out any practical exercises as Lucas was worried about her. However, her passion for vestige-smithing wasn't to be underestimated.

To reach a balance, Lucas told her that he would consider teaching Melissa the hands-on aspect once she broke into the Apertures Opening stage.

Lucas' line of thinking for this had taken into consideration Melissa's hyuman aspect, but he forgot that she was actually a hybrid. Although he didn't know her mDNA concentration, Lucas was never of the opinion that it would be ridiculously high. This was because other hyumans had reported Melissa to be a human, because they couldn't feel the unique wavelength they did from other hyumans. This then meant that Melissa's father was most likely a categorised human [1].

Also, one of the highest he has ever seen, the princess of the Mertens family who was said to be 27% with a possible expansion maximum of 35% using serums, had only reached the third level of the Apertures Opening stage at eighteen years of age. Melissa was only eleven years old and she has yet to even start her stellar refinement journey.

Seeing how great the changes to her was, Lucas didn't react strangely but congratulated her and gave the excuse that they would talk about he training later on.

"Oi, system. Explain." Lucas mentally communicated with the system.

Lucas rarely talked to it after that incident at the Central Prefecture district, but whenever he encountered something he couldn't understand, the system was his best bet.

"Apologies, but the system can't help you."

Lucas was stunned and for a second, he could imagine a female pouting at him with annoyance written all over her face.

'Since when did the system have a tsun side [2]?'

Lucas ignored it and decided to just look up an explanation himself.

After breakfast, Lucas gave Melissa some homework to do, before walking towards the checkout counter and making use of the stellar mainframe there, which was essentially a computer.

When he had sent Melissa's details and DNA samples to the Hyuman Care and Rehab Society after rescuing her, Lucas had found out more about her. Apparently, Melissa was a hybrid of a categorised human father and a Nysa mother. Originally, Lucas didn't think too much about this as he had other matters on his mind, but now he decided to learn more about Melissa's other half.

After spending a couple of minutes on the mainframe, Lucas had a rough idea of the situation.

A nysa was an alien race that originated in the Eva solar system, which was a solar system in the Blue Mist star region just like the Kellan solar system. They were mostly known for their hyuman resemblance and astonishing beauty that was in line with hyuman aesthetics. As such, there were quite a lot of inter-species marriage between the two sides.

Nysas generally appeared at a height of between 1.6 to 1.8 metres (5.2 feet to 5.9 feet or 5'3 to 5'11), with the record tallest being 2.1 metres (6.9 feet or 6'10) [3]. They appeared almost exactly like hyumans, with the major difference being their place blue skin colour as well as the pair of antennas on their foreheads. But considering that some hyumans had a thing for furries, anthropomorphs with blue skin and antennas wasn't such a big deal.

Unlike the hyumankin or humankind, nysas were naturally born with the ability to utilise stellar energy from birth. As such, there was no need for them to undergo the Body Strengthening stage. Some of them were even born at the first level of the Apertures Opening stage.

Considering the potential and innate talent of the Nysa race, Lucas couldn't help but wonder how the hyumankin had defeated them. Actually, the same could be said about the other alien species the hyumankin had defeated in war hundreds of years ago. These alien species could utilise stellar energy from birth and some of them were born at stages hyumans would have to labour for decades to achieve.

Despite all that, they had lost to the hyumankin and become subordinate races.

While the history books claimed that it was due to the steady accumulation of hyumankin, the talents in their numbers, as well as their grit and will, Lucas wasn't someone who would accept such a simple explanation.

For some of the alien species, hyumankin night be able to trump them in the reproduction department, which could add a solid reason as to why hyumankin won. However, some of these species didn't lack in that department. Some could even reproduce faster than hyumans and they were still blessed with the ability to utilise stellar energy from birth, giving them a headstart over hyumans.

Nonetheless, they all still lost in a head-on war against the hyumans. This was strange.

Regardless, Lucas didn't dwell on it. He was far away from even reaching the threshold of exploring the truth.

Bringing his attention back to reality, Lucas could now understand why Melissa had improved so much. But he then stumbled upon a certain piece of information. Even amongst the nysa, jumping straight to the third level of the Apertures Opening stage without prior exposure or experience with stellar refinement was very rare.

Although the nysa could innately utilise stellar energy, but it didn't imply that they were geniuses at birth or the mystical energy's favourite.

The only exception Lucas had managed to find out was if the person was a pure-blooded nysa of the royalty line. But looking at Melissa, she didn't seem to appear like any of the sorts. Chances were her mother was one, but if Melissa had inherited the pure-blooded genes, she should have appeared the same as well.

"The only way to find out more is to track her ancestory. But that would require me travelling to a different solar system." Lucas sighed.

Forget travelling to a different solar system, he couldn't even afford travelling to the nearest planet.

Lucas could only toss the idea at the back of his mind. For now, he had to make sure that Melissa could hide her aura and appear ordinary to others. Otherwise, if those around found out about an eleven year old girl who was at the third level of the Apertures Opening stage, Lucas couldn't say for sure what would happen.

Previously, Lucas had planned to enroll Melissa in a school to get along with people her age and learn more about the world. However, it looked like that idea would be shelved for the moment.

"System, why am I so unfortunate?" Lucas sighed once again.

He had been labouring for over half a year now, but was still some distance away from being able to utilise stellar energy. Meanwhile the little girl he adopted some two months ago or so, was now at the third level.

"Maybe the host had offended someone in the past." The system's voice sounded.

"..."

Again, Lucas ignored the system and focused on himself instead.

So far, the system was at level three and there were still two more levels to go before Lucas had the complete materials to create the medicine that would 'fix' him.

After he left Baylands City and opened a new store the first time, Lucas had unlocked a hidden achievement. When he closed the first branch, he unlocked another hidden achievement. Following that, Lucas proceeded to leave the location before opening the current branch in Trundel City, where he stayed.

When he made his first transaction in the Heavenly Demonic Shop branch, Lucas had unlocked an achievement. After Ronny and his crew came over and bought vestiges from him, Lucas had unlocked another hidden achievement as it was the first vestige sold from the new branch.

In total, Lucas had gained four achievements in the span of a month or so. If it were in the past, he would have levelled up by now, but it was obvious that the threshold for leveling up was much higher now. However, Lucas was confident that if he could complete the mission given to him by the system, he would be very close to doing so or even level up straight away. This was because the mission was very difficult, and based on what he knew already, the rewards were proportional to the difficulty, and this included the experience points rewards.

The Crafts-god System operated differently from the systems Lucas had read about in his spare time from web and light novels back on Earth. Completing missions gave him rewards, while the system gained a concealed amount of experience points which it used to level itself up.

Leveling up the system would grant Lucas more benefits and increase the reward he could gain from missions.

From this arrangement, it felt as if the Crafts-god System was one that benefitted both sides. As for why this was so, Lucas couldn't answer. But he wasn't worried.