Draco's lips twitched. He had already been extremely unhappy about the matter concerning this title and its effects, only for the system to give him another that was just the same.
Part of the reason why he had chased after Master Rank was for the reward, which he had heard about, but didn't know the details of. The fellows who had achieved it in his past life had naturally kept it to themselves.
What made him utterly depressed was that this was his limit for the longest time. Cooking, Brewing, and Enchanting had all been 'Aether-Boosted' to the highest realms, negating this reward as the Rank boost was a reward in itself.
Magical Engineering, Tactics, and Scrivening… heh. Forget Master Rank, Draco would need months to get to the Elite Rank. They were out of the question.
This left Taming, but he only needed that skill for one thing, and that was managing young beasts/monsters. Clarent, as he was now, was no longer under the purview of this Tradeskill.
If he wanted it to increase, he would have to dedicate his precious time to gather a fleet of eggs/monster babies and raise them. So, unless he did that or alternatively was willing to part with his precious Tradeskill experience, it would stay at its bottommost Rank.
In essence, this was all Draco was getting in the near future, and this fact made him feel stifled. However, he could only let the matter go and rejoice.
For now, he could go ahead and upgrade Pair Dadeni as well as Mjolnir, trying for Legendary items in these two Tradeskills.
As for Epic items, Draco had been a Master Rank in his past life, so he knew whether he could craft them or not no matter which Rank he was at.
However, he had never touched upon the Grandmaster Rank, so he didn't dare to say that he could forge or concoct something at that Rank while being a Master Rank fellow.
As one of the three Grand Elders of the Tradeskill Association, Inventor Doug should certainly be able to access Legendary tools as well as materials to try and upgrade himself.
Yet, he still needed to fork over 5 top-grade Aether Crystals to Draco for the Sunfire Mystic Flame, which greatly increased his chances of creating a design. This would help him cross his bottleneck and enter the Grandmaster Rank.
If it was so easy, would the Master Rank fellows have sold themselves into indentured service at the Rank 7 castle just for a chance to Rank up?
Most importantly, if Master Rank Tradeskill crafters could still make something above the Epic Rank, why bother limiting the number of Grandmasters?
Why not make it that anyone who met the criteria could join the Ranks? Why was it limited to only 10 slots for every Tradeskill, meaning that there would be an intense competition?
These were questions Draco had long considered, but he had no way to get an answer. He couldn't keep both tools at the Epic Rank forever, and the only way he could suss out the difficulty of the Grandmaster Rank lay in trying.
Still, he had various means that raised his success rate in both Tradeskills. He had the Inventor Title that gave him a fixed 15%, 10% with his current Tradeskill Rank(s), 30% with the level 5 Three Pound Origin/Refined Star Technique, 20% with the Fire of War and - should he include it - 20% with his Master Craftsman title.
For Blacksmithing, he had 95% and Alchemy also had 95% if he didn't add the manipulation of Worldly Energy. Surely, they must count for something right?
Draco believed so. Of all of them, the Fire of War and the Inventor title definitively stated that the boon was regardless of Rank.
｢Passive 1 – Forging Efficiency: The success rate of forging for all items is raised by 20% regardless of rank.｣
｢Inventor – Special Rank
15% additional success rate when crafting regardless of item rank or type｣
So, on paper, he should have a 35% chance to even make a Divine item, should he know how, and if he was able to bear the cost! However, Draco's expression was solemn.
He was no longer conceited enough to think that the mechanics the players in the previous timeline had discovered applied to all the Ranks.
He had received a heavy face-slap for his arrogance, and the Tradeskill experience he had saved up turned out to be inadequate.
The AI couldn't possibly say something like 'crafting success rate only apply to all Ranks below Legendary', right? That would be unfair due to the exact wording.
Draco had been precisely rebalanced many times because of troublesome wording of his skills, allowing him to mix them with others to create balance breaking effects.
These two had been left alone in all these rebalance sessions, meaning that the AI saw them as legit, right?
Either way, only time would tell. The best he could do now was reach that level quickly so that he could become aware of his chances of success through practice.
Draco saw another notification pop up before him.
｢Congratulations on creating new weapon: Unnamed (Sword) (Semi-Legendary)
Rewards:
500% Exp
500% Tradeskill Exp
5,000 gold
500 reputation with the Tradeskill Association｣
Draco thought about it and decided to name the weapon Swordblade. Unfortunately for Slim Fatty, she had rolled a nat 0 when it came to Draco's naming quality!
｢Sturgehaven Kingdom Regional Announcement
Player Draco has created the unique sword forging design, 'Swordblade'. Players can now purchase the design from player Draco and achieve a 10% extra success rate when forging the equipment.｣
｢Cario Continent International Announcement
Player Draco has created the unique sword forging design, 'Swordblade'. Players can now purchase the design from player Draco and achieve a 10% extra success rate when forging the equipment.｣
｢Boundless System-wide Announcement
Player Draco has created the unique sword forging design, 'Swordblade'. Players can now purchase the design from player Draco and achieve a 10% extra success rate when forging the equipment.｣
Draco placed the item in his inventory and went on to Magical Engineering. He then worked on a Basic Spatial Enlargement Device, which was one of the most valuable products a Magical Engineer could make today.
It was like with Aether Crystals, an item that had a permanent, stable, and high demand with very low supply.
Avarice Kingdom was indisputably the richest country in the world, and in fact, it was an oligarchy that was controlled by the Merchant Association.
They could afford to have even basic roadside carriages equipped with such a device, but even then, they were low-quality ones.
For example, the medium quality ones used to make - you guessed it - a Bag of Holding was an Auction-level item. Unless you went to one of the top 10 auction houses, you would be unlikely to get one.
As for the high-quality ones used to create Kingdom treasuries and the like, let's not go there.
A Kingdom only had one official treasury not because they didn't have enough manpower to build another, but because they could literally only afford to buy a device like this once.
So, Draco was trying his luck. Out of all the Common Rank designs for Magical Engineering, this one was the second expensive, being only 1 low-grade Aether Crystal cheaper than the Basic Magical Firearm Device.
Its materials too were on the expensive side, but Draco had already sent Darnia to buy more than enough to try his hand a few times when he had made the Basic Rechargeable Lighting Devices back then.
The fellow concentrated and activated the design in the Personal Workshop. Sofia came over to him and greeted him, but whether she and Satine were in contact, he had no idea of knowing.
Once again, Draco was pulled into the mind of whoever it was that was creating the device at this time. Unlike before, he wasn't confused, as he knew what to expect.
This time, he was in the body of a woman, judging by her delicate hands and painted fingernails. Thankfully, the system optimized the sensory feedback to read like it was a man, otherwise Draco might acquire gender dysphoria after this session.
The woman gathered her materials together, carefully cleaning each and every one of them thoroughly. After this, she took a blowtorch, equipping a metal visor that protected her face and eyes.
She then began to weld many of the metallic components together. Unlike the Basic Rechargeable Lighting Device that only required some joining and wiring, this one needed to be shaped from the ground up.
She merged many plates together before using a flame cutter that narrowed the fire down to a thin line, almost like a laser. She used this to shave off the edges and neaten them carefully, measuring with every step she took.
When she was done, the rudimentary device on the table was the size of a small frying pan, a circular shape with a curved interior. So, in essence, she had been working on just the outer casing all this time.
Draco could only sigh. With Control, he had no need to make step by step measurements like her and most other Magical Engineers. He could just go Zzhzhsh and be done with it.
She put the bottom casing aside and brought out four materials. The first was a mesh of copper that would form the internal wiring, the second were some small square blocks, the third was a glowing purple rock that seemed to cause the space around it to warp, and the final item was a full low-grade Aether Crystal!
She first wrung the copper carefully and set it into lines and curves that followed a strange pattern. She used the cutter to separate the wires at certain junctures, which seemed counter-intuitive to any onlooker.
Next, she took the square blocks and placed then between the area where the wires had been separated. After all, Draco knew this item. It was one of the staples for the Engineering Tradeskill, the wire hub!
It acted as a stabilizer for each juncture of the circuit, maintaining the temperature as well as the flow of power. On a device like this, there were many of hubs, so many that it was tedious to count.
After setting up the framework for the circuit, she then focused on the key material to the whole device's functioning. This was the Void Stone, an item that harnessed the purest spatial energy known to man.
It was an Epic Rank material that cost a pretty penny to buy, but it was affordable for Draco due to his immense wealth. This woman though, held it like she was holding her own child.
She didn't use the whole Void Stone, which was about the size of a fist. She simply and carefully shaved off a bit of its body to gather some residue.
She then took the low-grade Aether Crystal and placed it in a prepared slot at the center of the device. All the wires were connected to this point, where the source of power would be drawn.
As it was pre-planned, she had naturally made the groove for the crystal into the perfect shape to hug it tightly. After placing the Aether Crystal, she then sprinkled the shavings on it, which made the crystal's greenish-blue color darken greatly.
Draco heard her take in a deep breath and take a scribe, which was a special tool that was the shape of a pen, only that this one didn't use ink.
Its tip was horrifyingly sharp, meaning that one would be writing directly on metal or stone. She then proceeded to do something that made Draco's eyes bulge, which was to carve on the Aether Crystal!
My god, what a madwoman! Even if this was part of the design, this made Draco's blood freeze from fear. Playing with the concentrated energy in an Aether Crystal was deadly!
If something went wrong and the energy burst out, she would be worn down into nothing within a split second. Only beings like he, Hikari, and Clarent could weather such a thing because Aetheric Energy was deferential to them - as long as it came from their bodies that is - making them largely resistant.
Draco silently watched her work with his heart in his throat. She seemed to be carving out some runes, which he was naturally able to read.
She was instructing the Aether Crystal to absorb the spatial energy and pass it through the wires, diffusing it into the area around it to create a small stable space.
Truthfully, it was also something Draco could achieve with either Enchanting or subjective magic, but he dared not do so in either of them.
Subjective magic, even if he still had a Supreme Rank State of Being as a Black Dragon, would require so much in terms of resources that he would have to drain many countries' worths of Worldly Energy to do so.
That was putting aside whether he even had the capacity for that in the first place, external means regardless.
As for Enchanting, he could try it. However, it wouldn't cost something as little as one low-grade Aether Crystal. Enchanting was a Common Tradeskill while Magical Engineering was an Epic one.
Putting aside their utility, their efficiencies were in two different zones. Next was the fact that he would have to use his willpower to place such a horrible enchantment down.
It would be like a halfling man trying to press down a buff orc woman beneath you. Forget success, you might find that she would rather push you down instead... or worse!
A key aspect was the presence of the Void Stone shavings and the careful wiring. The Void Stone shavings made it so that the spatial energy had a source to sprout from, and the wiring provided it a precise means to diffuse.
For subjective magic and Enchanting, one would be trying to create Spatial Energy from nothing, which was the key difference.
After completing the runes - without an explosion thankfully - she then prepared the top of the casing, which was a flat piece of metal. In the center of it was a nice red indentation that worked like a button, as some rubber had been placed there.
Draco was curious to see if some aesthetics would be added, but this was clearly not part of the package, as he was kicked out and sent back to his body.
Once back, he reflected on all he had seen and didn't rush to craft the device. Unlike the Basic Rechargeable Lighting Device, Draco understood a lot more about the Basic Spatial Enlargement Device.
With his knowledge of Enchanting and subjective magic, he felt there was a better way to harness the Spatial Energy of the Void Stone to fit the needs of the item.
As such, he quickly prepared the casing in record time, using only 5 minutes thanks to his Control. After that, he easily handled the wiring and the hubs. As for this process, there was little he could change here without compromising everything.
Draco took a top-grade Aether Crystal and placed it in the grove he had made. Not only that, but he directly carved the runes onto it using his will, as the Aether Crystal came from him.
The runes were far more complex and layered than what the woman had made. Unlike she, who listed the general process, Draco carved everything in detail, from how the energy should move, at what timing and in what quantity.
It wasn't that his knowledge of runes was higher than hers, but only that she didn't dare to carve this much for fear of overdoing it. Draco, this bastard, could afford it thanks to his relationship with this crystal.
He then grounded, not just a little, but half of his Void Stone and mixed it with the Aether Crystal. Once the residue connected with the crystal, the whole device shook, and extremely small spatial tears emerged around the device for splitseconds before they disappeared sequentially.
Soon, the device settled down, revealing an Aether Crystal that was completely black in color. At this point, even Draco did not dare to touch it.
He quickly prepared the top casing and sealed it before painting it in a black color, with a white indent in the center where the 'button' was fixed.
Draco heard no alert from the system nor did he see any increase in his Tradeskill experience, so he guessed that there was something left to do?
"Sofia, is there anything I'm missing?" Draco asked the floating orb.
"Yes, you have unwisely tweaked many features of a very dangerous device, so you will have to activate it for its effects to be seen." Sofia answered monotonously, though Draco heard a bit of unhappiness in it.
Draco began to sweat. Was the AI trying to kill him? Why the need to manually activate it when it was a thing of its system? Sure, he changed it up, but it had been able to evaluate his bloodline and all that, even though there was a '???'.
Draco guessed it had something to do with in-game lore, so he could only grit his teeth and command Vitae to fortify this room in case anything happened.
Draco took in a deep breath and brought out a normal leather pouch he withdrew from the Guild Shop.
He then placed it atop the device and activated it, before stepping back rapidly. It seemed his previous escapades had left a respectable fear of death in him.
The device came to life and began working. A purplish miasma leaked out of it and covered the leather pouch, smothering it and possibly reforming it!
Draco's fear slowly abated as this went on, and he began to feel anticipation well up in him. After all, if this succeeded, he would be able to make a killing!
Soon, all of the miasma was absorbed into the pouch, but this wasn't all. An energy burst from the device also entered the pouch, making it glow.
After five minutes of this, the glow subsided, and Draco saw the very same pouch sitting there with no changes as to design.
However, its mouth no longer showed its bottom, but an endless blackness that swallowed all mass.
It was a success!