God Of Crafting

"It can't be illegal simply because it's something that was never done before in the recorded history of our species."

This statement was merely enough for Dickins to raise his eyebrow, a small gesture I could barely see with how much of his forehead was hidden underneath his helmet.

"You know, if you found a new way to cook meth or some other drugs, it doesn't make it any less illegal than using the tried and tested methods…"

Hearing this, I couldn't help but smile a bit.

"That's true, but it's not really what I meant with what I said," I claimed, only to then put a thoughtful look on my face. "Wait, now that I think about it…"

For a moment, I genuinely focused on nothing but analyzing whether or not whatever was happening within the factory was done before… or rather, if any element of what we were doing over there was done in the past.

"Actually, you are right," I nodded my head as if to acknowledge my mistake. "It's not like we are rediscovering the circle over there," I nodded my head towards the factory behind me. "It's more like… we found ways to use the blessing of technology to circumvent the issue most of the spiritual world has no other choice but to cope with?"

At this point, my voice grew less and less assured, given how I had to dance around with my words to make my point clear without revealing too much.

Sure, there was this strange instance of taboo that made it quite unlikely for anyone to connect the dots, something that I've long since confirmed even if I never really figured out the source of…

But still.

I wasn't naive enough to believe that I could just fling any number of hints around without the risk of someone either intelligent enough or simply lucky enough to connect the dots and crack the case.

"You are really careful picking your words, aren't you?" Dickins pointed out, proving that outside of all the management and combat skills he needed to claim his spot as the acting chief of the police, he also did have a solid background in interpersonal skills… Or, at the very least, enough skill in the field to be able to notice things like that. "And that makes me wonder… why?"

For a moment, I stared into the man's eyes with confusion written all over my own face.

'Wait, so is he socially adept or inept after all?'

"I thought it is quite obvious," I claimed while shrugging my shoulders. "I'm trying to give you just enough information to calm you down while not revealing enough for you, or anyone else listening to our conversation, to figure out the secret that we plan to abuse to become the biggest corporation in the world."

I took a deep breath while driving my eyes high up to the sky as I tried to find the right way to compare the current situation to something that occurred in the past.

"Oh!" I suddenly exclaimed, only to strike down with my fist at the open palm of my other hand. "Since I really don't want to say too much, how about you imagine a certain scenario?" I suggested, only to then stop just shy of revealing what I've just figured out, waiting for the man's approval instead.

At first, Dickins threw me an ugly stare, only to then utter a defeated sigh and roll his eyes.

"Sure, shoot… I mean," he quickly corrected himself, realizing that in this particular situation, using certain words could be quite reckless. "Sure, give it to me?"

Hearing the uncertainty and annoyance in the man's voice, I couldn't help but have the corner of my mouth twitch in a small smile.

"Imagine yourself standing in front of Bill Gates's garage right on the day he built his very first personal computer, all the while following nothing but an anonymous tip from an Atari or some other big shot of the time."

Initially squinting his eyes as he listened in closely, Dickins's eyes soon opened wide as he managed to draw the connection between the short story I painted and connect it to the situation we were all in.

"Would you be surprised if he was to fight tooth and nail to stop you, in fear of his discovery being revealed to hostile agents that are likely to be involved with the force?" I asked while locking my hands over my chest. "I mean, he had enough connections high up to prevent that from happening in the first place, but just for the sake of explanation, I think this example is pretty on the point."

For a few following moments, Dickins opted to just stay silent. Then, right as I started to suspect there was something wrong with my example, he heaved another sigh before raising his hand and grabbing a small prod of what looked like a microphone, hiding it tightly within his palm.

"To be perfectly honest, this whole affair stinks," Dickins admitted while looking around, as if to point out the whole mess around the factory. "I mean, deploying this level of force just because of some random and unfounded reports of high crime?" the man shook his head, as if to lament over just what the world has become. "Nothing about this situation appears legit, but it's not like I can just ignore the orders from above."

At this point, a small sense of relief filled my soul.

Up until now, I had no other choice but to consider the possibility of this man being in cahoots with the guys who orchestrated the whole thing. And while there was still the possibility of him simply trying to make me lower my guard…

For some reason, I just couldn't help but feel like he just… wasn't.

"You feel that way, while I know that to be the case," I stated while allowing a short sigh to escape my lips while letting my shoulders drop, as if to showcase just how tired I was of this whole affair. "Anyway, where do we go from now? Given the pressure from above, I doubt you can just pack up and leave, not after all the resources you guys dropped to make this siege happen," I added as I looked above the man's shoulder at all the barriers, firing positions and even the snipers deployed to the roofs of the nearby, abandoned factories.

"That's most certainly correct," Dickins agreed, only for his shoulders to drop too, as if to reveal the amount of pressure he was forced to cope with. "In other words, it seems we found ourselves at a rather uncomfortable stalemate, didn't we?"

This time, rather than answering with my words, I simply nodded my head.

"It seems that unless something new and unexpected happens, we will remain in this deadlock for a while, won't we?"

There were many mysterious ways in which fate works.

One of those ways would be how I apparently became the only person free from the restriction of the taboo of mixing technology with cultivation. Another of those weird ways gifted me with the very constitution that became the seed from which we managed to create a divinity.

Right now, however, fate decided it was just the right time for two things to happen pretty much at the same time.

First, a voice erupted in Dickins's helmet, growing loud enough for me to catch some of it.

"…fied… …ching…"

At the same time, my eyes drew down the street, to a vehicle moving fast enough to make me doubt whether or not it had any intention of stopping before the police's blockade.

A mere second later, however, the familiar force suddenly twisted my neck, steering my face in the opposite direction to the unidentified car, locking my stare at something so far away, I couldn't even see its outline.

When it came to my eyes, however, as I felt the familiar energy shoot right into them, it wasn't the horizon that I saw, but the insides of what looked like an extremely technical control room, with more buttons, levers, and turn knobs than I ever seen gathered in one place ever before in my life.

A room filled with people donning technician outfits and blue helmets while focused on nothing but the many screens they used to monitor something while operating on those levers, switches, and buttons to maintain it.

When it came to that room, however, there were two distinct elements that instantly drew my attention, either thanks to my instincts, or by the favor of the very same power that allowed me to see that place to begin with.

First, it was a forest of power poles spreading as far as I could see from the massive and only window in the room, allowing me to easily figure out just where that control room was located.

The other part that drew my attention, however, was the only one that stuck out like a sore thumb in that strictly technical setting. A figure of a masked man with nothing but a butcher's knife in his hand and his eyes trained on the technicians busy with their jobs of managing what appeared to be the city's main power plant.

'Wait… don't you fucking tell me…'

Right as my eyes widened, the vision came to an end, throwing my consciousness back to where I stood, frozen in the same position as my eyes drew towards the invisible outline of the power plant, currently blocked by all of the abandoned factories left to rot in the second industrial park.

"Are you alright, man?" Dickins asked, finally allowing me to snap out of it as I turned my head to look at him.

"You are in the wrong place," I muttered, my thoughts still too muddled after the vision for me to seriously consider the possible consequences of my words. "Fuck!" I cursed out loud, right as the realization struck me.

When this whole siege began, I foolishly came to believe this factory of mine was where the main showdown would play out. The fact that we handled the people tasked with cutting the power lines gave me even more confidence in that fact, only for this guess to turn into unfounded certainty when the police deployed en masse all around the area.

But as it turned out, everything up until now was but a massive distraction! A distraction… that actually worked!

"What? What happened?!" Noticing the panic rising in my eyes, the agitation grew in Dickins's eyes to match my own.

It was also at this moment when the unidentified car stopped mere steps before the police's blockade, only for a lone figure to jump out of it, simply run past the police, and then rush right to where the two of us conversed.

A figure I could easily recognize, be it from our encounter in the spiritual district… or from my vision of the headquarters from where this whole operation against my factory was controlled to begin with.

"You need to go to the power plant right now!" Cassie screamed out from the bottom of her lungs, not paying me even the slightest hint of attention as she focused herself on no one but Dickins himself. "You need to go there before my clan's hitman burns the whole place down to the ground!"