Birth Of The Crafts-God

One week went by after the competition and there was still no conclusion on Lucas' demands yet. Instead, a general meeting for the shareholders of the team had been called and today happened to be the day of the meeting.

The agendas of the meeting were split into three: first, to welcome the new stakeholder —Lucas— to the board; the second was to discuss the development of the team's business wings; and the third was Lucas' demand. Whenever a brand wanted to take up a sponsorship post, they would be investigated and judged by the board of the company.

"These days, it feels more like I'm running a business than actually crafting." Lucas sighed.

"System, any missions for me?"

After over half a year, Lucas was now level four and just one level away from five. At level five, he would have the complete requirements to modify his body and become capable of using stellar energy.

"The system finds it quite disappointing that the host asks questions with obvious answers. Permission to carry out a body scan to ensure that the host's central nervous system is working perfectly." The system said.

Lucas' lips twitched as he ignored it and walked into the room.

The meeting was being held in the administrative complex of the Versoa team, a six storey building that was located not so far from the residential apartment. The fifth floor housed a large conference room that was usually used for events such as this.

Seated inside the room were three other individuals who happened to have arrived early. One of them was a familiar face, Mr Jermaine. As for the other two, Lucas had not met them before but he had seen one of them during his first meeting with the team. The man had attended using a virtual projection of himself.

Lucas walked in and sat on an empty chair which was in between both Jermaine and the man. The last man sat in the opposite direction of Lucas. This position was quite clever as it was at an equal distance from the two sides, showing that Lucas had yet to associate with anyone of them.

After ten minutes, the remaining three members of the board arrived, as well as Helnord, who was the company's secretary.

"I announce the start of the fourth meeting of the year." Vienna, the chairman of the board, declared a few seconds after everyone was seated.

"Using this opportunity, I'd like to bring forth the appointment of the company's new majority stakeholder into the board of directors. If anyone else disagrees with this, please declare your stance."

Because of the small size of the company's shareholders, every one of them was automatically voted into the board of directors. However, there was a formal process for this, albeit simply for the sake of regulations. Usually, no one would disagree with the appointment of a new stakeholder to the board of directors. This was even more so since the new stakeholder was a majority and also one allied with Vienna, the company's chairwoman.

"No statement of contention has been raised, as such, Mr Lucas Yohann Saunters will become a new board member of Versoa Team Co."

After that, the second agenda was brought up and discussed. It was about the company's business wings and their progress. Lucas wasn't interested in any of these, so he didn't pay attention throughout. Instead, he channeled his attention into the depths of his mind and began practicing inscriptions.

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After completing the previous mission from the system, Lucas was rewarded with the 'Basic Inscription Knowledge' tome. However, even though the system's books could be directly feed into his mind, he still had rehearse them on his own.

Soon, the second agenda was over and the main article up for discussion was raised. This was the issue of the sponsorship deal.

Even though he had beaten Orvel, Lucas couldn't make himself the team's sponsor even with his strong influence over the team. This was something that was against the team's regulations. For something this serious, he had to make a formal appeal. The bet would only stop Orvel from directly interfering with the process. This was because Orvel was likely the only figure who would have an issue with this. As for the shareholders, the details of the sponsorship deal was quite interesting and beneficial, even for them. It was difficult to reject such an amazing deal.

However, some still didn't want to agree to it.

"This is a matter of our tradition and the interests of our staff. We can't easily accept to it." One of the stakeholders said.

He was a majority stakeholder with roughly six percent of the company's stocks. This made him the fifth largest shareholder, just behind Lucas, Vienna, Mr Jermaine and another.

"Why not? Change is a good thing." Mr Jermaine voiced out.

Seeing Mr Jermaine speak up, the man hesitated. He might be wealthy, but he was far from being on the same level as Mr Jermaine.

"Then even if we desire change, we should pick a better candidate."

The man who countered was the third majority shareholder and Mr Jermaine's direct opponent, Guilla.

There were factions even within the Versoa Team Co's board. As Vienna was too high above them and didn't interfere most of the time, only two factions existed. The first was led by Mr Jermaine and one could say it was somewhat sided towards Vienna. To gain the upper hand, the faction was used to trying various means to appease her.

As for the second faction, it was led by Mr Jermaine's business nemesis, Guilla. They didn't go against Vienna, but simply tried to impede the progress of the other faction while trying to win some benefits for themselves.

Vienna was a fair character and despite the fact that there was a faction within the board trying to suck up to her, she didn't favour them all the time. As such, both sides had recorded both wins and losses.

"The current candidate is clearly unfit to hold the position is sponsor. You should all know that this position is one that can affect our public appearance. It is also linked with benefits to the team. Even if we don't need the payments, it doesn't mean we should forego them. A reputable party with a strong foundation is clearly the better option." Guilla added.

Guilla argued that since Lucas didn't have a background to begin with, it would be difficult to ensure that he keeps his own end of the bargain of the deal. He also hinted at the fact that Lucas' store was not famous, so there was no surety on him being able to generate significant profit or offer a collateral if the conditions of the deal weren't met.

As a sponsor, the party should be able to make seasonal or annual payments to the team, but Lucas was a newcomer struggling to make sales. He also didn't have a backer, which made it more difficult to trust him with this position.

The vestige-smith company sponsoring a drift racing team was essentially the official sponsor for the team in most cases. With the Versoa team not having even a single sponsor, Lucas would automatically become the official sponsor of the team if the deal succeeds. In that case, he would be aligned with the team and the team would be associated with him. Guilla believed that this was bad for them because Lucas wasn't a renowned figure, and being associated with him might drag them down.

Mr Jermaine didn't continue the argument but turned his attention to the head of the table.

"Please decide on this, Miss Vienna."