Birth Of The Crafts-God

"Again." Lucas glanced at Wally who was breathing loudly like a dog that had just run a mile.

After the interrogation at the Red Fangs station and making a report of the event that day, Lucas was sent back to his store the following day. At the store, he resumed his usual daily activities, which were improving his skill, calculating and testing out the feasibility of his idea, and finally, training Wally O'Connor.

The duo were inside the white room that was very spacious. The walls and flooring of the room were designed with criss-crossed black lines, just like a grid, giving the entire place a weird feel.

The ground floor of the Seven Sparks Forge building had four rooms: the work-station, the lobby for attending to guests, a restroom and finally, this white room which was called the Simulation room.

The Simulation room was the strangest place in the entire store after the system's renovation; it was even more fascinating than the workshop, a fact Lucas had a hard time admitting to.

The special thing about this room was that one could change its appearance and even size. According to the system's description, it utilised advanced spatial manipulation technology to be able to expand and contract the size within the room. When combined with top-of-the-line illusory and simulation technology, the Simulation room could be changed to replicate any environment.

Due to the sturdy nature of the room, it was the best place to test out the power of vestiges as well as to carry out Wally's training.

Wally held a spear in his hand as he wiped the sweat on his face. Compared to other spears, the vestige he had was lighter and more slender. But one shouldn't be deceived by its appearance as the weapon was as deadly as a Grade 1 spear.

Grade 1 was the limit of vestiges students could use for the mid-term practicals. As the students were still at the Body Strengthening stage, it made no difference what Grade they would use as even the most talented of them would at best display a level one stellar practitioner's strength with even a Grade 3 vestige.

Since there was no difference in power, it was best for everyone to be limited to the same grade of vestiges, as a difference would now mean relying on the equipment; after all, in terms of structural integrity, a Grade 3 vestige was more durable than a Grade 1.

With a cap to the grade of vestiges allowed, Lucas made Wally's vestige to be exactly at that grade. However, it was much stronger than the average Grade 1 vestiges and the stellar energy within the runes was even purer. At face value, it was definitely a Grade 1 vestige, but the power one could exert with it was closely approaching Grade 2.

"Even though you're allowed to use vestiges for the practicals, you shouldn't depend too much on them." Lucas said as he glanced at Wally who was still trying to recover.

While the latter had a spear in his hands, Lucas was unarmed.

This was natural, after all Wally's opponent was a 530+ years old former Grand Magician who had engaged in intensive physical training too. Even though he wasn't on par with his past life's peak, for Wally who was still at the third level of the Body Strengthening stage, it was enough.

Wally stood up and nodded. He didn't charge in right away, but calmed his beating heart and stared at Lucas like a calculative hunter.

'This kid... he's definitely something.' Lucas thought as he smiled.

"Come."

Just as the words left Lucas' mouth, Wally abruptly lunged at him with the spear aimed for Lucas' neck.

With a slight smile, Lucas stepped to the side and tapped the shaft of the spear with two fingers.

The spear suddenly moved to the side and Wally almost lost control of it. Instead of resisting this change, Wally flowed with it and moved the spear in the direction of the force, making a full circle at the spot and sweeping the spear at Lucas.

Lucas was unperturbed by this attempt as he bent low and let the spear just sweep above him. Having been fed up with dealing with attacks, he delivered a kick right away, forcing Wally to block with the spear's shaft.

*Bang*

The kick didn't have Lucas' full strength, but it was still on par with a fourth level Body Strengthening stage, and almost forced Wally back. However, the teen was already experienced with such powerful attacks from Lucas. He didn't even budge as he retaliated, firing a punch at Lucas with his left hand.

Lucas retreated while taking back his foot, but Wallg followed up right away. His attacks with the vestige was almost like the wings of a hummingbird, flashing rapidly at Lucas.

What looked like one strike would be two or three thrusts, aiming different locations in a bid to minimise Lucas' range of motion.

The attacks intensified so much that Lucas was nearly having a difficult time with them. After days of intensive training, Wally could now concurrently launch five thrusts with the vestige each time he made a move.

Once Lucas tried to widen the gap, Wally would chase right after him. Even when Lucas had prepared a counterattack just for that, Wally would block with the spear before attacking with his left fist. Lucas would then be forced to either block or dodge, giving Wally enough time to attack with the spear again, resuming the same relentless assault strategy.

This resulted in a situation were Lucas was forced to stay on his toes as any slight relapse in concentration would lead to his defeat.

"I guess this is enough for a warm-up." Lucas suddenly said.

Wally was startled by this, but almost immediately his muscles tensed.

'It's coming.' Wally thought.

This wasn't the first time something like this happened. It was about two days ago. Wally had made massive improvements and could force Lucas to be on the defense for over thirty minutes. Although it was mostly because Lucas was holding back and fighting only with the strength of a fourth level Body Strengthening stage practitioner without a vestige, it was still impressive.

However, Lucas became dissatisfied and burst out with more power. He was still using the strength of a fourth level Body Strengthening stage practitioner, but the skill and expertise with which he did so made it difficult for Wally to be able to react and he was beaten black and blue soon after.

In the end, Wally's training became as such: the first half would be made up of him suppressing Lucas until the latter had 'warmed up', following which it would be Wally's turn to take a beating.

'Here!'

Although he was still forcing Lucas to remain dodging on the defence, Wally noticed the air around him change.

At the start, Lucas could be described to be giving off the air of a friendly sparring partner who was just trading blows with him, but with no intention of causing severe harm. However, when he had turned serious, the Lucas before him would become an oppressive and formidable beast that could rip him in shreds within a few seconds.

It was almost as if what he was facing was no longer a human, but a bloodthirsty creature that had survived in the wild and knew the laws of the jungle; silent but deadly, and seizing any and every opportunity it got within a split second.

Just after Wally had launched a barrage of thrusts and was about to attack again, he saw a fist flashing in front of him.

Wally was stunned by the speed of the attack, but he didn't lose his cool as this wasn't the first time such had happened. Instead, he hurriedly retreated while moving his head to his right.

Grasping his vestige tightly, Wally was about to attack and seize back his momentum, but a kick suddenly appeared at the edge of his right eye's vision, aimed for his head that had tilted to the right.

Gritting his teeth, Wally forced his body to react quickly as he placed the spear in between him and the outstretched leg, blocking the attack. But that wasn't all.

A fist appeared from his left side, aimed his chest. Wally's two hands were occupied as they held the vestige in resisting the kick, so he was left open.

*Bam*

The fist connected and Wally spewed out a bit of saliva with his eyes bulging in pain.

Even after seeing this, Lucas didn't hold back in his attacks as he pummelled Wally right away. This beating, ah, training session, went on for five more minutes before Lucas stopped.

"You managed to handle two attacks this time. That's quite good." Lucas praised.

However, Wally's mouth twitched at those words. Who would be satisfied with just blocking two kicks while getting pounded like yam for five minutes straight?

"Your practicals begin next week right? That's in two days." Lucas suddenly asked.

"Yeah." Wally barely responded.

"Alright. You don't need to come tomorrow. Take a break and get your body in peak form. You can go now." Enjoy new chapters from empire

"...alright." Wally nodded before dragging his weakened body out of the simulation room.

Lucas glanced at the youngster who was leaving with a mysterious look on his face.

Wally might have taken it to be him letting out his frustrations, but the beating was still part of the training. Lucas had only been training Wally four hour sessions for barely five days, but in this time, Wally had shown so much progress that Lucas thought him to be inhumane.

Lucas had initially raised the bar high, starting with a fourth level Body Strengthening stage degree of power while using only five percent of his skills. But within three days, Wally had actually managed to force him to remain on the defence. Although part of that had to do with the fact that Wally was armed with a vestige while he wasn't, it was still incredible.

To prevent being disgraced, Lucas decided to occasionally use ten percent of his skill when things got a bit risky, and in just two days, Wally had managed to react to two strikes of his. If he was a bit stronger physically, he might have blocked the third attack.

'Is this a hyuman thing or is this kid a genius?'