God Of Crafting

"We are all ready and willing, so how about we cut on the small talk and just get going?" Too tired to give any damn about etiquette or the ceremony of the moment, something all the more important given not only the presence of the city's mayor but also a whole slew of his retainers… I just cut to the chase and said the words everyone was secretly hoping to hear.

"Wait, Tim, are you alright?" Clayton suddenly broke his majestic persona and stepped closer, clearly noticing the signs of exhaustion all over my face.

Actually, it would be hard for someone NOT to notice the bags under my eyes, the unfocused look in my eyes, or how I constantly had to combat my eyelids to stop them from closing down and thus luring me into standing slumber.

"Why are people still asking if I'm alright rather than doing their best to remove the further burden that's on me to bear?" I asked begrudgingly before I managed to put reins over my exhaustion-based anger and shake my head before fixing both my posture and my expression. "I mean, I'm sorry for that, but really, can we get going already?"

For but a moment, I entered a contest of stares with my uncle, a contest that pretty much everyone on the site couldn't turn their eyes away from.

And surprise surprise, even though I was not only of a younger generation than my uncle but also came here extremely exhausted… It was Clayton who turned his eyes away first!

"Let's not waste any more of everyone's time, then," my uncle stated only to grit his teeth right as he turned around on his heel before leading the entire group into the factory building… as if there was anything for them to inspect there.

Soon enough, my assumption proved true when save for the building's structure itself and a whole mess of unopened boxes occupying every free inch of space in the factory's warehouse, there was absolutely nothing worth mentioning inside.

In fact, the inner state of the factory wasn't just empty on the level one would expect when a business clears out all their belongings to return their rented property to the state it was in when they first rented it.

No.

When we came to the innermost part of the factory, the place where the most technically challenging processing was supposed to take place, I realized that this entire place was cleaned much more thoroughly than that.

It was as if…

'It's as if someone intentionally removed absolutely everything that could be taken out without putting the structural integrity of the building itself at risk…'

This was the only reason I could figure out for someone going to such extreme lengths to remove absolutely everything they could from this place, all for the sake of leaving it as a perfectly empty room consisting of nothing but a concrete floor, bare walls, and a concrete roof.

'If not for how normal the doors to this place are, one could assume this place is a bunker of sorts!' I thought, only to stop moving when I realized the entire group ground to a halt.

"This is where I suggest you either assemble or use those devices of yours. You won't find a place that's more secure than here anywhere else on the whole property," Clayton announced, only to then stare at Chihiro for a bit before turning his eyes over to me. "And now, I think it's high time for you to show us the bait."

Clayton didn't even need to cast a fleeting glance over his companions to make the message clear.

Now that Clayton did his part, it was our turn to pull our weight. And given all the communication with my uncle that came before today… It wasn't Clayton himself that I needed to prepare bait for, but the people he needed the cooperation of to make this project happen.

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Right now, it was my responsibility to give them just enough encouragement and proof of concept to make them not only realize the potential of this project but also the value that went into keeping it a proper secret.

"Okay then," I clapped my hands down against my hips before allowing my backpack to slide off my shoulders before gently putting it down on the ground.

Pulling the zips down, I opened up its main pocket before pulling out the example of the device that I'd assembled mere minutes before leaving for this very meeting.

"This here is an electricity-powered Qi-condensing device. Or rather, that's what it was supposed to be before I realized that rather than gathering the spiritual energy from the air, turning it into electricity, condensing it, and then reversing the conversion… I can remove the first two steps and replace them with…"

I plunged my hand into my backpack again, only to move it around for a bit before finally grasping at the familiar structure, and then, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of their hat, I pulled the charging cord out of my backpack.

"And replace them with this. A standard issue charger for the heavier electrical devices."

It wasn't the RGB turbo mecha Playboy spintowin level of charger that clueless gamers would stuff into their set-up to power up all of its components. It was a simple piece of slightly thicker cable with a ferrite unit roughly in its middle and a simple male socket at its end.

With all of that said, I contrasted the highly dramatic presentation by… just putting the device down on the ground before bringing the cable closer and pushing its female end onto the pins of the device's charging socket.

Now, all I had to do was plug the entire thing into the standard issue socket, something that even now could be found literally all over the walls, the floor, and even the very ceiling!

"Is that it?" one of the men Clayton brought over asked with a rather dissatisfied look on his face.

"Yeah, that's it," I nodded my head in response, not having any spare patience to deal with whatever bullshit he wanted to give me. "Given the time pressure, I've opted to go with an efficient design rather than one that will look all nice and fancy.

But I'm quite sure if you are willing to pay for it, we can arrange for a whole new factory to produce nothing more… but casings for my device so that they will look the part in your eyes."

I stared into the man's eyes for a few seconds AFTER I'd finished my sarcastic remark, before just rolling my eyes, grabbing the device, and then moving it just a few steps over, to where one of the many sockets in this place was embedded directly into the floor.

"Now, if you were smart enough to bring over a cultivator to check the validity of our claims, right now is the time to warn them not to overreact," I announced when my hand stopped just an inch shy from actually pushing the charger into its respective socket and thus connecting it to the industrial-grade wiring of the property that then connected directly to the city's power grid.