Birth Of The Crafts-God

The top ten were all companies with a couple of vestige-smiths under their belt. Only the eleventh place wasn't a registered vestige-smith company but a single vestige-smith doing the work. Such a party was exactly what the first faction wanted best.

"I never thought we'd meet again so soon even more so like this, Lucy." The orange haired man smiled.

Lucy grimaced upon seeing him. Even though all sides worked under Novanio Tech, the three factions were competing with each other, so they kept their movements hidden from the other.

"Arlott." Lucy nodded at him.

"Oh don't be like this. You seem to forget it's your side that's challenging mine, so no need to act offended." Arlott smirked.

Lucy frowned and ignored him. On one hand, Arlott was right, but on the other hand, all this started because the vestige-smith had decided to mock Lucas during his press conference the previous morning.

"Are you the little guy who's been making so much noise recently?" The silver haired vestige-smith asked as he stared at Lucas.

"If that's how you want to address me then fine." Lucas shrugged.

The inspector suddenly walked out and stared at Lucas.

"I'll be the overseer for this vestige duel."

Lucas had no problem with that and wasn't worried. An overseer didn't have much influence in a vestige duel after all.

"Both contestants bring out your vestiges."

"Since you've been competing with a Grade 3 vestige, I'll entertain you today."

The silver-haired vestige-smith smirked. While Lucas' streak of victories might seem troublesome to others, to him, he wasn't bothered by it. The reason was quite simple; he was very close to the Tier 1 Master vestige-smith, meaning he could barely make the weakest Grade 4 vestige with assistance from others. However, he didn't field such a vestige for this duel.

In fact, even his masterpiece wasn't Grade 4.

Unless one was a bona fide and experienced Tier 1 Master, a Grade 4 vestige wasn't necessarily stronger than a Grade 3.

For instance, Sofoklis, who had just ascended into the ranks of Tier 1 Master, had competed against the Gold Rain Factory using a Grade 4 vestige he made, the Hand of God Trident. Despite the difference in grades, the Gold Rain Factory's Grade 3 Annalia spear had managed to beat the Hand of God in three tests -durability, sharpness and strength tests.

The Hand of God only managed to win the vestige duel rather than draw simply because it was a Grade 4 vestige, thereby winning the Power test.

Forget being an experienced one, the silver-haired vestige-smith wasn't even a Tier 1 Master yet. Trying to make a Grade 4 vestige would only result in what could be termed as a half-baked creation. Putting the effort and resources into making a powerful Grade 3 vestige was much better.

An assistant walked out from the building with a box. However, the box was so large and heavy that he needed the aid of two lift robots to carry it. Lift robots were robots that appeared to be automated mini forklifts. Their main function was to assist one in carrying a heavy load.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The fact that the box needed to lift robots to aid the assistant was a testament to its great weight.

"Defeating you with just any vestige won't do it. So I'll let you know the difference between us." The silver haired man spoke.

When the contents of the box was revealed, it turned out to be an axe and a really large one at that. The full length of the axe was equivalent to a door, while the blades were half the size of it. Their edges were black with red runes inscribed on the left blade while blue runes were on the right. The shaft of the axe was unsurprisingly metallic with a silver sheen to it.

At the point where the two blades connected to the shaft, there was a strange red and blue crystal fixed on the point.

"My masterpiece for this year's convention: Winter-Summer axe." The silver haired man introduced.

The Winter-Summer axe was a very powerful vestige that made its debut just the previous day. It was a masterpiece created by the silver haired man, Nicholai, and was one everyone was confident would get accepted into the auction. All that remained was for its final ranking to be determined.

There was no doubt that this was a top fifteen rank vestige in the entire West Wing district, and it could potentially rank in this year's top 30 Grade 3 vestiges in Baylands city-state.

"The Winter-Summer axe is designed with the ability to deal out two varying types of damage, making it suitable for battling in two different environments. Due to the dual kinds of damage, the danger value of the Winter-Summer axe is increased to a whole new level." Nicholai said with a proud smile on his face.

The Winter-Summer axe was most likely the only vestige he had that could beat the brown shield from their investigation.

A vestige duel was a duel where the results were open to all, hence why there was no need for a judge. However, this was somewhat problematic for some. In this case, Lucas had participated in over sixteen vestige duels, with six of them involving the brown shield, the results of the vestige duels were pretty much known, as well as the details of the vestige.

This allowed Nicholai to pick the most suitable one he could find to achieve a clear victory.

As for why Lucas' opponents didn't use such a method before, it was because there was no time. Unlike with Nicholai, who had a couple of hours to prepare and was facing a somewhat popular foe, the other vestige-smiths were seeing Lucas for the first time during their duels. Their experience was the same as with Toman's Workshop -looking down on Lucas and not taking the duel seriously.

It was only after a couple of wins with the news spreading around that the details of the brown shield were finally spread around. That was after Lucas' duel against the fifteenth place on the list; the fourteenth match. The next two duels ended with the opponents surrendering as they were now aware of the abilities of the brown shield and knew they couldn't compete against Lucas.

But now, such a decision was against him. Lucas, however, wasn't worried about this. On the contrary, he had a smile on his face.

"It's your turn." The overseer glanced at Lucas.

While the majority in the crowd didn't think much, some already realised that Lucas had the lower hand in this duel already. Nicholai had enough information about his vestige, and so could field a much better option.

On the other hand, Nicholai's masterpiece, which was only just revealed the previous day, had gone unchallenged by any other participant until today. As such, there was no single detail of information about it, except what Nicholai had mentioned in public.

However, Lucas was very sensitive to mystical energy, and he could tell that the brown shield as it was would surely lose to the axe. The gap wasn't so wide, but it was enough for a clear winner to be determined.

Nonetheless, Lucas smiled and still took out the brown shield. However, he didn't hand it to the robo-tester just yet.

"I never really said anything about it before, but the brown shield is incomplete."

"Incomplete?" Nicholai was stunned for a moment before frowning.

"What kind of stupid tale are you spouting here?"

"Whether it's stupid or not, we'll find out soon enough."

Lucas' free-hand suddenly appeared to have a metal plate sitting on it. The metal plate was black in colour and roughly the thickness of a newborn's arm. It was decorated all over with yellow runes that gave it a mysterious yet somewhat solemn feel.

Once the plate approached the brown shield, a compartment formed on the shield, roughly the same shape as the metal plate, revealing a space available for the plate to be fitted in. Lucas did just exactly that and the metal plate attached itself to the shield with a click.

"You see, when I made this shield, I didn't finalise the designs. I held back a bit as I thought it was unnecessary to compete with the final product."

As the metal plate fitted into the compartment, it let out a low hum and the yellow runes on it lightly glistened.

"The final product is a vestige I made by combining two major philosophies; a new path I've decided to pave myself. You should feel proud being the very first vestige-smith to experience this first-hand in a duel."