As a Master Rank blacksmith in his past life (level 60-80) Draco had handled many different types of Epic materials, High Iron being just one of the more common types.
Before his demise, he had been able to reach the late stages of the Master Rank. This had allowed him to create the Pseudo-Legendary Mana Sword, which had perfectly fit his old fighting style.
However, he felt a mixture of excitement and apprehension seeing it right in front of him, because there was a fundamental difference between back then and now.
This difference lay in the Tradeskill level!
In his past life, he had been at level 78, 12%, yet that was after spending around a decade honing his skills and using up so many valuable resources that the overall cost must have been more than there was money in Earth's circulation.
However just over a week had passed since the launch of the game and while his achievement of reaching level 35, 86% was more than impressive, one should not forget what this meant!
This was the Elite Rank, where one should be thinking about how to manage Uncommon items!
Even Rare items would be a headache to the most talented Elite Rank blacksmith, much less acting like a toad l.u.s.ting over a swan that was Epic items.
Epic items were two whole Ranks above him!
This had been the same situation with the Angel's Kiss potion. Fortunately, alchemy was much more manageable for him since it mostly relied on Worldly Energy.
His Supreme Rank Draconic Source Origin granting him admin rights over that meant he was a living cheat and only needed to focus a little on technique.
However, Blacksmithing was different. It was a physical action that had very little to do with Worldly Energy and mostly with technique and knowledge. Draco's Three Pound Origin Technique was still stuck at level 3, while the Refined Star Technique he used for alchemy was at level 4.
Not only would there be a hefty time consumption if he were to make an Epic item, but there was a significant chance of failure.
Since he had a default 35% success rate thanks to the Inventor title and Fire of War, the system would add his external success rates to it to form the final amount.
As an Elite Rank blacksmith, his success rate for Epic items was 3%, and that was only thanks to his Three Pound Origin Technique. This meant that in total, Draco had a 38% success rate which was pretty abysmal if one had to use actual Epic materials.
They would be making more losses than gains, otherwise wouldn't everyone risk it all to become rich by practicing with Epic materials?
Personally, Draco would love to either sell or pass these Epic items down to his Tradeskill members, but once the process had begun, it could not stop.
The overpowered improvement passive of both Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir was great, but only in the hands of a capable owner. Right now, it was still a hundred years too early for someone to come even close to Draco's proficiency.
If time wasn't something he lacked, he would have gladly helped his former teacher Happy Saint reach an appropriate level to pass him Mjolnir. Hopefully with some pointers and some demonstrations in the future he could at least accelerate this process.
Draco steeled himself and brought the hammer down again despite his fear. The moment it collided with the metal, Draco felt like he was an 8-year-old child who punched a steel wall with full force.
His hand holding Mjolnir directly twisted and bent so badly that it looked comical. Draco was lucky he had receded the Dragorugio set into his body, otherwise, its durability would've taken a great big hit.
Draco grimaced from the pain and sighed. He cast Instant Healing and watched as his limb placed itself back into the correct position.
This bread and butter spell exclusive to Holymancers restored the greater value of either 30% or 15,000 with a cooldown of 2 minutes which meant that his 30,000 HP didn't top up after suffering 21,000 points in damage.
Draco paused and put the hammer down. He did not want to risk striking it again for fear that the next retaliation strike could deal even more damage and flat out kill him.
He couldn't take Mjolnir away from the anvil either as the High Iron would revert to normal iron otherwise, so he had to leave the ingot there while he got help.
Fortunately, there was a perfect candidate for this job.
Draco blinked to Hikari's room to find her in a half-human, half-dragon state idly staring outside. She still had yet to notice him. Draco smiled at this opportunity and silently walked up behind her, hugging her from the back.
Hikari was stunned when she was suddenly enveloped by Draco, but her face quickly became flushed and her heart began to pound. Her mind swirled with various thoughts as her body began to shiver slightly.
'Has he finally lost his patience? Is he going to take me by force?'
'He has been pretty nice to me, which is strange for a Black Dragon. I know his human side is stronger, but I guess our racial urges can't be beaten…'
'I don't really want to be taken like this, but I can't resist. Is this the fate of us White Dragons…?'
While she herself might not feel ready, her body reacted as her n.i.p.p.l.es hardened and her underwear became slick with wetness. It was a mixture of dark l.u.s.t and her bloodline cravings.
Dark l.u.s.t was the reaction the body had to certain situations that were forceful or unwanted by the mind. Not everyone showed dark l.u.s.t, as in fact, most people's bodies would follow their mind's feelings.
However, some people would react in such ways, whether it was a woman being forcibly pressed under someone or even a man being captured and finding himself being pressed under a woman, or even another man.
Naturally, just because their bodies reacted with dark l.u.s.t didn't make the act okay.
(Author's Note: No, dark l.u.s.t is not the official name, I have no idea what that is. For the purpose of Guild Wars, it shall be called dark l.u.s.t.
If you don't like it, you can retaliate by supporting me on Patreon. The link is in the about page.)
However, Hikari realized she was thinking too much into it when Draco whispered gently in her ears. "Hikari, I need your help. Your light magic is crucial to a task I'm performing, and only you can do it."
"I need you, Hikari. Only you."
"Will you help me?"
Hikari's eyes began to spin. Draco's breath tickled her ears as his silky and sultry voice wafted into her mind. From the way he held her to the way he enticed her, Hikari was unable to resist.
"I… I will…" Hikari replied weakly.
Draco smiled and released her gently. "Thank you, Hikari. I'm going to need you to cast your light magic on me whenever I'm hurt."
Hikari nodded but couldn't hide her curiosity. "What are you doing?"
Draco smiled and placed his arm on her shoulder, blinking them back to his super mini small world room after the cooldown for the skill elapsed.
Once there, Hikari first saw Rila and felt her soul shake. Thanks to her high State of Being, she, like Qiong Qi, could tell that Rila was a powerful being that could support the universe on her shoulders.
Though, the little tot had no Origin Energy in her, she was like a normal toddler as she slept soundly and happily.
Hikari then saw the set-up Draco had made with Worldly Energy and couldn't help but smile lightly, though she was also extremely curious. She had no idea what blacksmithing was, but the crude way Draco used Worldly Energy to build his stuff made her laugh.
Of course, to players and many NPCs of the Boundless world, Draco's work was top notch. But to a Dragon that lived and breathed Worldly Energy, and one that even saw Aetheric Energy as a waste product, this was like building a sandcastle and wanting to move a family in.
Hikari had no idea how these components worked, so she decided to observe for now. When she had a good grasp of everything, she could help Draco by creating a better one for him that would be permanent, instead of temporary like this one.
Draco was oblivious of Hikari's thoughts, but even if he did, he would laugh and give her a kiss for her willingness to help him. After all, with better auxiliary equipment, he could cut down the time consumption and significantly increase his success rate.
Draco took Mjolnir and raised it again. With boundless determination, he brought it down like a thunderclap. The moment the hammer hit the metal, Draco's hand was broken terribly once again, but he only grimaced.
Hikari, seeing this, felt shocked and pained. Her pain was twofold, one the psychological shock of seeing her Dragobonded mate hurt himself seemingly through his own volition and two because of the Lifeblood passive. She immediately cast her most basic healing spell, which was called White Light Healing.
｢White Light Healing – Active skill
Effect: Infuse an injured target with the holy light of purity, alleviating their pains and bringing them back to full health.
Cooldown: None
Autocast: Off｣
When Draco felt his arm return to normal almost instantly, he was shocked to the point that he even failed to notice his damage had been reduced by half with Hikari's presence.
He had imagined that her skills would be slightly better than the Instant Healing skill, which was practically the best self-heal spell Draco knew of in the game.
But Hikari's skill floored him to the point where he just stared at her with incomprehension.
Wasn't she the one who admitted that she had barely mastered any skills of her species? Wasn't she the one who claimed she was only average in terms of skill and effectiveness?
If she was 'bad' at her job, then shouldn't all the clerics in the world go and slice their bellies open?
Hikari blushed when she saw Draco stare at her like that. With a bashful expression she further made the fellow want to scream at the heavens by saying:
"I'm sorry, this is the most basic skill belonging to my species and is all I know. I promise to learn the slightly better ones when I become stronger."
Draco had to take a deep breath as he made some scary realizations at this time. It seemed like his 15 years of knowledge was truly lacking in some aspects.
It had allowed him to have a grasp over the fundamentals of the game world and gain an insurmountable advantage over any other player and even some NPCs who were natives of this world.
However, thanks to his past acc.u.mulations helping in this timeline, he was able to encounter topics and things that would only have been a pipedream in his past life.
Now, he realized the scary implication about being third on the State of Being Rankings and that it didn't just mean that one could control Worldly Energy freely.
No, it was a direct indicator of that race's power and potential. Number 1 was the Gods, number 2 was the Ultima Sunt which weren't even a natural species. Right under them were Dragons.
The fourth-place would actually be Phoenixes, but they were vastly weaker than Dragons.
Between third and fourth place was a divide so large that the numerical difference didn't do it justice.
From what Hikari just told him, this overpowered healing skill was just the basic and natal skill of the White Dragon race. No matter how stupid one was, they would instinctively know this from birth.
Yet it was so…
Suddenly, Draco made another connection and felt like slapping his head. When he had summoned the Black Dragon, it hadn't known any skills except a single one, which was the Orb of Destruction.
Look at the effects of that black orb. It was able to wipe out whole area zones when colliding with another of the same mass, as well as ruin a location.
In other words, one Orb of Destruction was like a magic nuke.
For a Black Dragon - which was a purely offensive being - to know only this would be a joke! Not to mention, how could the newly born Metal Dragon know this if it wasn't a natal skill?
After all, it was a clone of Draco, meaning that it was also a Black Dragon. This was why it was able to use Destruction Energy in all its attacks.
However, since the Dark Knight had been an entity that had almost no form under its armor, that was what became its skin.
As such, it was more of a Metal Dragon than a Black Dragon, hence the classification. It had displayed many skills of a Metal Dragon, but only one of a Black Dragon.
This could not be a coincidence.
If the basic, level 1 skill of a Black Dragon was the Orb of Destruction and the base skill of the White Dragons was this overpowered healing spell…
Well, now Draco understood why there would only be a few of his and her kind at any point in time. Any more and the world might really suffer.
Dragons weren't a joke, almost every culture in the human world revered Dragons as the ultimate creature under heaven, whether as a valiant species or an evil overlord.
There was a reason for that reverence, naturally.
Draco brought his focus back to the anvil and continued pounding away. Every time his hand would be smashed by the force of the High iron's retaliation and unwillingness to be shaped, Hikari would flinch and heal him back to perfect health.
With her larger health pool and her natural high defenses as a dragon, her own physical suffering wasn't as bad which was why she did not heal herself as often.
Draco took breaks to reheat the ingot as his pounding was doing very little to shape it.
Even with the usage of his insane physical strength courtesy of the Horned Demon Inheritance, which was boosted by his stats and then his Body of Godliness, he was only able to make slight progress.
After 3 hours, Draco could say that he had made only 5% progress in shaping the ingot. This wasn't like alchemy at all where Worldly Energy could help him accelerate the task. He had only brute strength and technique to rely on, which was not exactly helped by his own low Rank.
However, one should not forget Draco's heaven blessed natural talent, which was his learning comprehension and ability to extrapolate new techniques using his Control and body as a foundation.
Then, there was the Insight passive skill he gained from Roma which doubled his learning speed when he was creating techniques.
As such, by the fourth hour, Draco was able to break through level 3 and enter level 4 of the Three Pound Origin Technique. This allowed him to strike the High Iron in a much more efficient and meaningful manner.
As such, the High Iron's rate of completion increased significantly. By the time 6 hours had passed, Draco had hit 30%!
During this time, Hikari had been watching Draco quietly and attentively. Since she set her White Light Healing to Autocast, she didn't need to manually cast the skill whenever he was hurt.
She also had no worries about mana since Worldly Energy was her plaything and they were surrounded by it in the super mini small world.
Even the Metal Dragon had been able to abuse Worldly Energy in the Plains of Deriam to cast terrifying skills, much less Hikari who was the offspring of two God Rank Dragons.
As such, she used this time to analyze Draco's equipment carefully, learning how the forge, workbench, etc functioned. Just as she was about to ask Draco to pause and let her build a new set for him, Hikari noticed the Worldly Energy change.
She turned to see Rila was waking up slowly, and the ambient Worldly Energy trembled in awe and respect for her. Hikari also felt her heart shake, but she resolutely walked over to the little munchkin.
She was incredibly curious and even though Hikari knew Rila was an Origin Goddess, she had a premonition Rila wouldn't hurt her in any way.
Hikari was right, as Rila allowed herself to picked up by this new person. Hikari held Rila to her chest gently as some buried maternal instincts welled up in her.
Rila had found Hikari's aura to be pleasing. Light Energy that was geared towards healing was known to be incredibly gentle and loving. Eva's Light Energy was the offensive type, closer to heat and blinding power.
Amaterasu was the Goddess of the Sun after all, and the sun's light was able to shine throughout the world.
Hikari held Rila gently as she watched Draco torture himself with the crafting process. Many times, she had wanted to stop him as seeing him endure such pain was terrible, but she gave up when she saw the determined expression on his face.
She understood that offering him an easy way out might be in his best interest, but at the same time, it would belittle all the hard work he had put into his work so far.
As such, she just stood aside quietly and watched Draco with amazement and respect. His willpower and perseverance alone were enough for her to admire him ten times over.
Rila was not allowed to look upon Draco, as Hikari shielded her sight with Worldly Energy. She didn't want the little girl seeing such a grueling scene with her perceived father.
Rila didn't complain, as she idly lay on Hikari's chest. She was generally a mature and obedient toddler who didn't throw tantrums or make any fuss.
Draco continued to shape the shortsword gradually, taking another 6 hours to finish the process of shaping. With a light smile, he completed the crafting process and brought the blade back to the anvil.
It gleamed with a grey-white color, as it keened lightly. The sword keen would render one's ears full of pain were it higher in volume, but right now all it could do was slightly intimidate.
Draco knew this was normal though. Every new Epic weapon would try to oppress, while new Epic armors would try to suppress. After a while, they would become a lot more workable.
Draco chose to try and enchant the weapon for now.
As explained before, Enchanting was a Tradeskill that required three things, Knowledge, Willpower, and Resources, especially the last one.
Once one knew all the runes off the top of their head and was able to draw them to perfection, they would still have to possess potent willpower to merge the enchantment with the item.
Since this was an Epic item, Draco would really have to strain himself to place any great enchantment onto it. This was inescapable. He had already faced some slight difficulty when enchanting Chieftain Lokthar's Rare Mithril set.
Then, there was the issue of resources. Enchanting anything required Soul Stones, which were rare crystals that could harness the potent energy of a dead soul that was collected at the moment of death.
Draco had yet to acquire the Soul Trap passive skill that would allow him to fill his own empty soul gems with this soul energy when killing any living thing.
The AI wanted to regulate the distribution of Soul Stones, as that was the main barrier for the Tradeskill. After all, the Enchantment Tradeskill level's effects on enchanting were only to control how much soul energy would be needed for an enchantment.
If players could easily make their own Soul Stones, then people with this Tradeskill would be able to reach Master Rank in one week.
The Soul Trap skill was listed as an Epic passive skill, so Draco would have to either find it as a drop or hope one of the top-tier auctions would be selling a skillbook for it.
Draco put Mjolnir aside as he began to move the Worldly Energy in the room.
With his immense will, he began to form runes in the air!