Birth Of The Crafts-God

Ronny and his friends remained in the store waiting for Lucas to be done. Three hours wasn't a lot of time for them and the Heavenly Demonic Shop had a lot of time-killing features. For instance, the simulation room that existed in the Seven Sparks Forge was present in the new shop. Customers could go to the room and test out their vestiges in action.

The group of five had walked into the simulation and stretched a bit. By stretching, the obvious action was to do battle.

"Damn. It's so realistic, I don't think anything else could compare." A blue-haired man in the group exclaimed with amazement.

The simulation room could create desolate beast projections and environments for the user. The strength of the projections perfectly replicated that of the desolate beast. The similarities didn't just stop at power level, but even behaviour. This made it feel as if they were facing a real desolate beast.

"Indeed. And the best part is that it doesn't cost much." Ando sighed as he commented.

The price of the simulation room only cost twenty federal coins, but it was free for customers who bought a vestige or service from the store. That meant that Ronny could use the room for free, but the other four had to pay for it.

Originally, the group had wanted to check out other stores until the three hour mark was up, but Melissa had suggested they try out some of the facilities in the store. The man who had a daughter of Melissa's age, got touched and decided to do as she wanted. In the end, the other four decided to stick around as well, and they didn't regret the decision.

Ronny didn't say a word, but his hopes were raised even more.

One should know that simulation rooms like this were quite popular in Belfargos city-state unlike Baylands city-state. However, the simulations weren't as realistic as the one in the shop. For such realistic simulation rooms, the pieces of equipment needed were very costly. Even operating it consumed a ton of resources and not every store could easily afford that. Only those top stores that easily made hundreds of thousands could do so.

Since the Heavenly Demonic Shop had such, it meant that it was on par with a top store. After all, possessing such a simulation room without being able to make a reasonable profit would become a loss. Only stores with a high ranking vestige-smith would do such a thing, because they were confident in making a profit.

"It's time. Let's get going."

Ronny glanced at his wrist and saw that it had already been twenty minutes past the agreed three hours. They were enjoying the intense realism experience and lost track of time.

Nonetheless, there was no problem with coming even five hours late or the sort as there was no lateness fee or withholding charge.

The group returned back to the lobby where they saw Lucas relaxed behind the counter.

"How is it?" Ronny couldn't resist asking right away as he glanced around the counter looking for the ring.

He was clearly nervous and hopeful about the result. One should know that there was a fifty percent chance that the artefact would be very valuable and could be sold for hundreds of thousands. There was also the possibility of it being worth not much. However, if the restoration process was successful, then it could be sold above the average price for a dud artefact.

Lucas opened his eyes and glanced in front to see Ronny's anxious face.

Although it looked like he had been resting, Lucas was stuck in the deep recesses of his mine, analysing the magi runes he had encountered in the last three hours. Lucas was a man with an obsession towards material science and magic blacksmithing. On Earth, he couldn't learn the latter, so only his material science obsession was present. However, in Eretre, although there was no magic blacksmithing, there was vestige-smithing which was essentially the same to him.

When he saw the magi runes, Lucas had to hold back himself from behaving out of place and focus on the job first. Once he was in the work-station, Lucas began obsessing over the runes even while he restored the artefact. In the end, a task that would have usually taken him two and a half hours, ended at three hours and fifteen minutes; fifteen minutes beyond the time he gave Ronny.

Luckily, Ronny and his group arrived late otherwise they wouldn't have met Lucas. When he noticed they hadn't arrived yet, Lucas spent the remaining five minutes meditating on the runes he was exposed to and trying to decipher its secret.

"It's done."

Lucas took out a plain jewellery box and passed it to Ronny. The box was something he made after fixing the ring. It wasn't a vestige and was just a product of blacksmithing, but the craftsmanship was still very impressive.

Ronny was surprised by the box and couldn't help but strongly praise its appearance. But in the next second, he rushed to open the box to check its content.

Inside was a ring that glistened with the slightest reflection of light on it. It looked like a ring that was fresh out of the smithy and had never been worn before. If it weren't for the fact that he had stared at the ring countless times and could see some familiar parts of it, Ronny would have found it unbelievable for this to be the same artefact hundreds of years old.

Propping the ring closer to his face, Ronny studied the inscriptions on it.

He might not be a vestige-smith, but as a pioneer, Ronny had to learn a bit about inscriptions so as to identify trash from value in relics. Stellar matrices had a more distinct and geometrical appearance compared to other inscriptions. As for stellar runes, they looked like a mix between the Human era's ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and latin.

Upon scrutiny, Ronny could see that there were new inscriptions added to the ring which differed from stellar matrices and runes. However, these inscriptions perfectly fitted in with the existing ones. He couldn't even spot a difference between the two inscriptions. The only reason Ronny was even able to point out the new inscriptions was because he had memorised the existing ones in the artefact long ago.

Based on appearance alone, it seemed like the human shopkeeper before him had restored the artefact perfectly. This was understandable since Lucas had considered various possibilities before trying to restore the artefact.

Even though magi runes were similar to magic runes, minute differences still existed which gave birth to slightly different effects and appearances. But to someone who had never studied the two runes, they would be unable to spot a difference. This was why Lucas confidently took on the task.

After admiring the ring's appearance, Ronny wasn't done yet. There was still the stellar energy test.

If the runes used were in restoring the artefact was inappropriate and unsuitable, the inscriptions would either be destroyed or the ring damaged, as soon as stellar energy was circulated into the inscriptions.

"Remember what we agreed upon." Ronny glanced at Lucas with a grim look on his face. There was also a mix of apprehension, and hesitation in his eyes.

This was the deciding test which would either reveal good news or ruin the artefact for good, turning it into a dud. Unless it was the former option, Ronny couldn't handle the loss easily. But he had already hopped on the train, so all he could do was hope for the best. If not, Lucas would have to at least refund him.

"I don't like repeating myself unnecessarily." Lucas calmly replied.

"Go ahead and give it a try. You should already know what the functions are based in the previous report."

The appraisal report Lucas had given Ronny earlier contained various details about the ring, with the most important of them all being the artefact's function.

The ring possessed the ability to temporarily boost the user's strength on the arm that had the ring. It could also project an energy shield which had defensive strength roughly the same as a Grade 1 vestige.

In terms of quality, the ring was roughly on par with a weaker Grade 2 vestige. Your journey continues with empire

While this didn't seem like much, the value of an artefact didn't lay in its power but the technology used.

Artefacts were just like prehistoric art prices on Earth like terracotta works and the sort. Although such art works could easily be replicated using modern technology, they wouldn't be of the same value. The unearthed ancient relics on Earth would hold more value because of historical attachments and dating.

In the same way, the value of an artefact was mostly due to the dating as well as the technology used, which varied from the hyumankin's vestige-smithing techniques and inscriptions.

With Lucas giving the go ahead, Ronny no longer continued with his words.

As the rest of his group, and even Melissa, looked on, Ronny finally imbued his stellar energy into the ring.@@novelbin@@