Birth Of The Crafts-God

The next day came soon but Lucas didn't do much. Since he was still on leave, he didn't attend the race today. Instead, Lucas spent his time in the work-station and occasionally came out to play with Melissa. He also taught her some mystical energy refinement methods from his previous life, as well as training her in the art of vestige-smithing.

With her third level Apertures Opening stage strength, Melissa could pass as a Tier 1 vestige-smith, but her skills were still lagging behind; she was almost at the level of a Tier 1 Apprentice vestige-smith, which was a rank lower. Nonetheless, Lucas didn't think too much about it. Melissa was still very young —at eleven years old. Her future was very bright. If one were to consider the fact that when Lucas was at this age, he hadn't even come into contact with mystical energy, then Melissa could be said to have more potential than he did. Of course, this was only in regards to her raw power and not her potential as a vestige-smith, although that wasn't lacking either.

The repetitive days continued like this until the fifth day of Lucas' break, which was two days since his meeting with Luka.

"Big brother, when will I learn how to make swords?" Melissa asked while drawing on a special blue parchment paper.

The blue paper was provided by the system in the work-station. It was used for tracing vestige designs and making blueprints. Not only was the quality of the paper amazing, but it was also long lasting and couldn't easily be damaged by folds. It was every architect's dream paper, although in modern times, everything was now done digitally.

"Wait a bit more, then I'll teach you how to build sword moulds." Lucas ruffled her hair as he spoke.

Ignoring her age, Melissa was indeed at the age to dive into the practical aspect of vestige-smithing. She had been watching him at work for two months now, and understood some of the basics in the practical aspect. As for the theoretical aspects, it was impossible to be mastered, but one could say that Melissa had taken a strong foot forward.

Lucas left after making some corrections on her work and pointing out places she could improve before entering the workstation.

Melissa was registered as an official employee by the store and was a third level stellar practitioner. Because of the system ability, the Employee Hire Function (EHF), Lucas could use Melissa's ability almost as if it were his own, without having any effects on her.

With a third level stellar practitioner ability and his current knowledge bank, it was possible for Lucas to try his hand at smithing a Grade 4 vestige even though the stellar energy prerequisite was the seventh level of the Apertures Opening stage. This was more than twice his current ability using the EHF. If it weren't for the fact that Lucas' real ability and experience was that of a Grandmaster in his previous life, which was far ahead of a Tier 1 Grandmaster, Lucas wouldn't be trying this.

The vestige he was building this time around wasn't a simple cold weapon but a hot-weapon-type vestige. The reason for this was that unlike cold weapons, hot weapons had an added complexity due to the inclusion of physical sciences such as physics and mathematics in their construction. While cold weapons did take into consideration mathematics, it wasn't as much as with a hot weapon.

As for why Lucas decided on this, it was because he intended on producing a racing shuttle engine next. Racing shuttle engines were very much complex cold weapons, so it was better to start from hot weapons which, albeit complex, weren't as difficult to make as a racing shuttle engine.

One might ask what's the relationship between a gun and a hover car, and in truth, there was none. However, this was on the condition that they weren't vestiges. If the two creations were vestiges, a vestige-smith could draw similarities in their principles of operation when using stellar energy.

The more knowledgeable a vestige-smith was, the more similarities they could spot. This was why a Tier 1 Grandmaster vestige-smith was revered; apart from their ability to Smith Grade 5 vestiges, they were very knowledgeable about vestige-smithing and could easily switch to any branch, albeit they won't be as efficient or impressive as a dedicated vestige-smith. Nonetheless, the ability to smith any type of vestige-smith was amazing and made one admire and desire to have a Tier 1 Grandmaster vestige-smith.

The weapon Lucas was making wasn't just a simple cold weapon. It also borrowed a few concepts from the operation of a hover engine and an Internal Combustion Engine back on Earth. For instance, it utilised a specially built-in piston and cylinder system which helped boost and speed the power of each shot. Due to that, there was a large component that was essentially similar to an engine block, albeit not the same appearance.

It also copied the stellar arc flow system of a hover vehicle, which was a design system that supported the flow and transmission of stellar energy from one end to another, which minimising as much energy loss as possible.

Because of the nature of the vestige, it would be one of, if not the largest vestige Lucas had made, excluding his battle armour. He estimated it would take him five days to complete, and this was because Lucas was still unfamiliar with the design and development. Once he got the hang of it, subsequent versions could be done within two to three days.

One should recall that this was to be a Grade 4, and Lucas was only at the third level thanks to the EHR. Being able to complete a Grade 4 vestige in five days was incredibly, and doing so within three days would make a lot of Tier 1 Master vestige-smiths commit suicide of hide their faces in shame.

While Lucas was busy in the work-station, a visitor, or rather, a group, had walked into the store. They were three: one female and two males.

The men looked quite mature and wore black suits, appearing to be at least in their late 30s. However in truth, these two were actually well past their forties. One of them had brown hair while the other had dark-grey hair. There was this occasional glint in their eyes as they studied the store.

As for the third person in the group, it was a young lady with black silky hair. She looked like a gorgeous model and a likely winner for the Miss Universe pageant.

Her pair of red succulent lips split apart as she glanced at Melissa with a confused look on her face.

"Where's the owner?"