Birth Of The Crafts-God

A few hours later, Jonathan Oakval had returned to meet with Lucas, but the latter still didn't give his a response he liked. In the end, Jonathan left, but not without giving Lucas a piece of information.

Lucas would be set free and sent back to his store. But in three days, the top factions would send their representatives to get a response from him. At the same time, he would be under surveillance by the BCPC's Central Prefecture district branch 24/7.

The Mertens family was the last faction to have met with Lucas as everyone else had already done so. They believed that prior to visiting Russell Mertens, Lucas had already notified his master, the vestige-smith, about the proposals of the other forces which was enough. Even if he had yet to do so, the investigations of the BCPC speculated that Lucas had a means to contact his master within the store.

After three days, the representatives of all interested parties would arrive in the store for an answer.

Although Jonathan didn't mention it, Lucas was aware that if he didn't give a response the group's found to be satisfactory, his situation would worsen.

In Baylands city, the law was just and fair, but this was only in the hidden condition that one was hyuman.

. . .

After the meeting with Jonathan, Lucas was sent back to the store. He had found out that the Patrol Corps didn't manage to arrest Melissa as well. This was because right after he was knocked out, both Laura and her father, Russell, had stepped in to ensure that Melissa wasn't arrested alongside him.

The director of the BCPC Central Prefecture district branch, Nolma, had to give way this time around, and some the Mertens managed to save Melissa. For this, Lucas was grateful, but it still didn't mean he would work with them.

The reason was quite simple; Lucas realised that the issue was out of control. There was no right choice any longer. If anything, he wasn't even seen as a player, but a pawn.

Suppose he was to side with the Mertens family, who was to say that the other factions wouldn't ally together to strike them down?

According to Russell, siding with him would gain Lucas the protection of not just the Mertens family but also the Ross and the city lord. However, Lucas felt something was off.

The Central Prefecture district branch, which was arguably the BCPC's most important unit, was being influenced by external forces and the city lord did nothing about it. Lucas found this to be unbelievable.

The only logical explanations for this that either the city lord was too weak, or he had tacitly agreed to it. If it was the former, then even with the team up of the Mertens and Ross family, Lucas doubted he would be safe. If it was the latter, that was all the more reason why Lucas couldn't work with the Mertens. It meant that this conspiracy was much more complicated than he thought, and even the city lord could be involved. In that case, even the Mertens family couldn't exactly be trusted entirely.

To be honest, Lucas had experienced such a situation before. In his first life as Yohan, he had felt what it was like to be a talented prodigy, yet have no backer. It was this exact plot that had cost him his life, and sent him through his first transmigration.

As such, with the prior experience, Lucas already knew what decision he had to take. In fact, he had only one option at the moment; to leave the city.

After leveling up before [1], Lucas had unlocked a new system function. To be precise, he hadn't unlocked the ability yet. As of level 3, the system would begin to present Lucas with options in order for him to determine his growth path.
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Lucas was to choose one system ability from three available options, but he had postponed the selection as he couldn't come to a conclusion. Now however, Lucas had already made up his mind.

Opening his system interface, Lucas went to the profile section and selected a tab that was tagged 'Level Up Reward'. There were a few icons there representing level one, two and finally three. However, the first icons representing levels one and two were dull, while the third one was brilliant. The difference in contrast was due to the fact that Lucas had already accepted the rewards from the other two levels, while the third was still open.

Selecting the icon for level three, three boxes immediately appeared on the screen.

[[ Please choose one system skill. ]]

At first, it looked like it was a random selection since no information regarding the boxes was displayed. However, by hovering his finger over them, a pop-up window describing part of the skills would show up.

The first box contained a system skill called Architect. It could let Lucas take note of every single change within the store, and also enable him to change the layout of the store as he wished. While this didn't sound impressive, if used well, it could boost Lucas' vestige-smithing skill within the store. He would be able to sense any little change in a vestige he was working on, so long as he was inside the store. The work-station counted as the store, so Lucas could use this ability while working. It seemed like the best skill as it could aid in his vestige-smithing.

The second box has a system skill called Branch Manager. It allowed Lucas to be able to open branches in other regions, which would also enjoy the benefits of the other system skills. He would also be able to move from one branch to another using a special teleportation skill called Branch travel, which came with the Branch Manager skill. It was a very handy ability, but when he first levelled up, Lucas didn't see a reason to hurry to open a branch.

The third box sealed within it a skill called Ranged Teleportation. It allowed Lucas to be able to teleport to any point within a certain radius around the store. This seemed like a handy ability which could not only get him out of the store secretly, but also bring him into the store as long as Lucas was within the active radius.

All three skills were nifty, which made it difficult for Lucas to select one, especially the first and third skills. Both had their advantages and disadvantages, and he was caught between them. This was why Lucas had postponed the selection.

However today, none of them caught his attention. Instead, it was the second box that had the skill, Branch Manager.

Since he had the skill in mind, what Lucas had to now decide upon was where to go

Eretre has four continents and thirteen city-states. Situated on one of the largest continents, the Groeten continent, were five city-states including Baylands and Paris city-states.

On the Beast continent was Digress city-state and another city-state.

The Bernin continent held only one city-state which was called Oklo. It was also the home of the Oklo Dynasty and the entire continent was directly under their rule.

The last continent was equally as large as the Groeten continent and had five city-states as well.

Relocating to one of the city-states on the Groeten continent wasn't a smart move as Baylands city-state's forces might still be able to reach him. Since the Oklo Dynasty was the unquestionable leader of the planet, some of the city-states had formed alliances with each other and traded together, just as like in Earth.

If Lucas happened to end up in a city-state with close ties to Baylands city-state, his arrest could be requested by the city lord. With their alliance, the city-state would agree to it in lieu of protecting Lucas.

Another criteria Lucas had to keep in mind was that the next city-state he would be heading to had to be less hateful of humans and mixed species. This was something that had cost him dearly and made it such that Lucas couldn't even turn the situation around. As such, he took this requirement seriously.

Digress city-state seemed to do well here, but due to the public opinion of the place as well as his suspicions, Lucas didn't go for it. However, he did consider Digress city-state to be his backup choice.

Also, the city-state had to have fair laws and be able to protect him to a certain extent. Otherwise, once the city lord dog Baylands city-state caught a whiff of him or other eyes looked his way, the same situation would repeat itself.

Finally, the city-state had to be a bit more advanced that Baylands city-state in terms of vestige-smithing. This way, there wouldn't be much fanfare with Lucas' products, even if it was ahead of the market in terms of technology. The more backward the place was, the more chances that other forces would become jealous of his success and turn greedy for his technology.

"Hmm. I think I have the perfect pick." Lucas' eyes flashed.

Without further ado, he logged into the KSSI and went to the section for planet Eretre. However, Lucas didn't move towards Baylands city-state's section. Instead, he connected to the intranet for a different city-state; one quite far away from Baylands and on an entirely different continent.

Using his information, Lucas purchased a building here. He also did so in various other city-states in both that continent, the Groeten continent and even the Beast continent. It wasn't until more than half of his hard-earned wealth was gone, leaving a mere fifty thousand federal coins with him, did Lucas finally stop.

From formerly being worth a bit more than half a million federal coins, Lucas now only had less ten percent of that. However, there was no regret on his face. This move was necessary if he needed to escape.

"Money can always be made, but you only live once. Well, I've lived thrice."