Birth Of The Crafts-God

"That's enough!"

After fifteen minutes, Callus finally had enough and interrupted the two sides.

"We don't have time yet here you two are, arguing." Callus stared grimly at Havos and the irascible teammate on his side.

"Alright." The man sighed and sat down.

"Don't be so harsh on them, Callus. He was simply dragged into a pointless argument." The Tier 1 Elite vestige-smith on their side spoke up for his colleague.

Callus frowned slightly. He was a bit disappointed that the middle-aged man hadn't spoken up sooner and only did so after he had reprimanded the other man.

"Hehe." Havos suddenly chuckled.

"You guys look down on me too much. Pointless argument? Well, it doesn't matter. I've already made changes to the original blueprint."

"What?"

The other six men in the meeting were stunned.

For the last fifteen minutes, they had watched as Havos was engaged in an intense battle of words with two of them. He had yet to even pick up his light pen to make adjustments to the projection. Despite that, Havos claimed that he was finished.

"Enough boasting, brat." The short-fused team member said.

He recognised Havos as a genius, but not as the department head, hence the form of address.

Havos glanced at him and tilted his head.

"Boasting? Well, I can't blame you since you've never come in contact with a true genius before."

Even Lucas couldn't help but twitch his lips at Havos' shamelessness. Compared to the Havos he met during the exceptional basis exam, the current Havos was the standard definition of an arrogant young genius.

Without waiting any further, Havos picked up his light pen, enlarged the projection of the Juggernaut's blueprint making it visible to everyone. He then proceeded to scribble all over it using the light pen.

At first, the group was surprised, then confused by his modifications. But as Havos went on, the Tier 1 Elite vestige-smith seemed to figure something out as he widened his eyes in shock. Mixed feelings of awe, praise, and defeat could be seen in his eyes.

"What's this?" One of the vestige-smiths on the other side asked, clearly confused by the drawings Havos added to the blueprint.

"Heh. Guess I have to explain in the end." Havos smirked.

"You all are vestige-smiths in the hover car branch, so you should know how a Stellar Propulsion Engine and all other stellar-powered system works, so I'll skip the detailed part. We know that all stellar-powered engines and systems work in two major ways, which is by either converting stellar energy into electrical energy or directly using it.

"The first method is more commonly used with hover cars and shuttles since it's cheaper and easier to do. However, since there's a need for a conversion, there's a time lag, albeit very minute [1]. Although in day-to-day operations, this time lag is unnoticeable, but when it comes to drift racing, it can affect the speed of the driver and the final results."

The process of changing energy from one form to another was a very common one as old as the universe itself. However, such a process required a factor known as time.

In simple or basic activities, this time lag was barely felt and unnoticeable, so no one thought much about it. However, in drift racing where drivers needed to accelerate up to 180 km/hr (111.8 mph) in a second or less, the time lag would affect their efficiency in doing so.

Drift racers weren't the only victims though

"The latter method is more commonly used in space shuttles, spaceships and so on."

"Are you suggesting we modify the engine to utilise stellar energy directly?" One of them asked.

"Bingo." Havos grinned as he pointed the light pen at the man.

"That's insane. Forgetting whether we can even do that, it's not something we can pull off in a day." The irascible man retorted.

To be able to make such a major revamp on the Juggernaut's engine, the level of skill required was immense. Typically, only Tier 1 Grandmaster vestige-smiths could do so. Otherwise, at the very least, one would need a team of at least seven Tier 1 Elite vestige-smiths working on it.

Even if the required skill level was ignored, this wasn't as simple as making a few tweaks to the engine. Such a drastic modification to the Juggernaut's engine was no different from dissembling it, restructuring and replacing some of the parts, then reassembling it. There would also be a need to test the engine under various conditions to ensure that no accident would occur in the future.

Without a doubt, this was definitely not something that could be done in a day.

"You're right about that which is why this would be our long term plan." Havos didn't deny the man's points.

Another person in the group was confused and spoke up,

"Then-"

"But who said we needed to complete the switch?" Havos interrupted him with a smile as he leaned forward on the table.

Using the light pen to point at the spots he drew on, Havos continued,

"We can make some partial adjustments here and here. Apart from that, we can utilise the heat energy from the transformation to create a layer of heat shield over the vehicle go help cut through the air."

Usually, when energy was converted from one form to another, there would be losses in the form of heat energy. This was why light bulbs would get hot over time while turned on.

Havos' suggestion was to use that heat and spread it to the front of the Juggernaut to create a 'heat shield'. This 'shield' would help heat the air as the shuttle sped forward, making the air lighter and easing air drag and resistance, which were effects of high speed [2].

It was an ingenious idea that the vestige-smiths had not thought of yet. If successfully done, it would improve the acceleration and top speed of the Juggernaut by at least a small percentage. Even though it was small, such a difference was invaluable in drift racing.

"Apart from that, if we make changes here, here and here, we can improve the Juggernaut's efficiency by 7%, the top speed by 12% and acceleration by 3%."

Overall, Havos had raised two major points which had greatly improved the capabilities of the racing shuttle. The five men who were friends with Callus couldn't help but be speechless. Even the short-tempered fellow was conquered. He had tried to counter Havos' points, but after considering them, he couldn't help but admit they were accurate.

As usual, Lucas was ignored during the discussions for the changes to the Juggernaut's engine, but he didn't think much about it. Instead, he focused his attention on Havos' points.

While they were theoretically correct and feasible, Lucas calculated that the changes wouldn't be as precise as what Havos had stated. However, he chalked that up as being estimations. Regardless, there was no problem with it.

The problem however, was that even after such improvements, the Juggernaut still won't be a serious competition to the top racing teams. With Callus' driving skills, the improvements would at best bring them to the middle of position of the thirty-man table.

Although moving from nineteenth to fifteenth was impressive, Lucas felt they could do better. The changes he made to the blueprint was even more advanced and detailed than Havos'. If the team followed his, the improvements would be at least 12% in terms of efficiency, 18.5% to top speed and 10% to acceleration.

Even then, Lucas felt the improvements were little, but the one-day deadline and his abilities were what limited him. There was no reason for such thoughts under than the fact that in his eyes, the Juggernaut was a below third-rate racing shuttle; there was so much room for revamping.

Suddenly, Havos recalled Lucas and glanced at him. Seeing as the latter wasn't too focused on the discussions, he called out to him.

"Lucas, did you get it?"

"Yeah." Lucas nodded.
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Although he had his head facing downwards and his attention elsewhere for the most part, he was still able to take in all that occurred here.

Seemingly distressed at the defeat he faced at Havos' hands, the hot-headed man turned his attention towards Lucas.

Just like Havos, Lucas was a 'young un' who had gotten his way into the Black Star racing team due to his connections to the major shareholder, Luka.

In Havos' case, he was the student of a ,Tier 1 Grandmaster vestige-smith and also a Tier 1 vestige-smith himself. He had also proven his abilities just now.

However, Lucas was different. He was a human, which meant that the best he could achieve was the status of a Tier 1 Apprentice vestige-smith, which was a level lower than Havos. He was without a significant background and even younger than the latter, which meant he was less talented.

Finally, Lucas was to take on the role of developing and tweaking the chassis [3] of the Juggernaut, which was the job the man held onto before. This meant that he would have to work alongside Lucas on equal footing. Naturally, he was irritated by this, but his main focus had been on Havos' all this while.

Now that he was done with Havos, the man turned his attention towards Lucas.

"Youngster, don't you have anything to say? Or were you just dozing off all this while? Are you looking down on us or something?"