Draco woke up without looking like someone who had been sleep deprived for a few days and finally got some rest. He basically looked no different from how he was when he was about to sleep.
He casually did some stretches to loosen his body and walked over to the bath. This time around, it had been drawn by Natasha as Ophie couldn't take it anymore. The halfling also needed to prepare more drinks in this time, as she had spent a lot of her best ones on Draco.
Such brews wouldn't take too long. Just like with Carlo, the Master Rank Brewer in the Rank 7 Castle, Ophie needed only 2 days at most to make brews that would take a Common Rank Brewer 2 weeks to do.
Natasha could be described to be sitting on pins and needles when Draco came in. As he slowly receded his armor in his body, she quickly turned away. Natasha was not gutsy like Doris or foolish like Ophie.
In fact, she had carefully learned from the suffering of those two and understood that no matter what, she should not get entrapped by this fellow's charm! Natasha certainly found him enchanting, there was no mistaking that.
However, the race of bird people she hailed from had extra criteria that decided their romantic and s.e.x.u.a.l interest in another aside from just physical looks. As such, it was best to keep her interaction with him to the bare minimum until the competition.
When that time came, she would no longer have to entertain him and she would finally be free again! With that in mind, she just waited for Draco to enter the water before looking once more.
Seeing him lazily soaking within made her feel indignant, but she didn't dare to delay. She quickly got to her knees and began to scrub his body down.
If Natasha had Control, it was certain that she would switch off her sense of touch and ignore everything that was going on, but that was impossible for her. Instead, she simply tried to avoid paying attention to the things her hands could feel as she cleaned his body.
This was a remarkably futile endeavor. Natasha also avoided Draco's crotch area like the plague. Nothing would make her wash that place, so Draco could only chuckle and do it himself.
After the bath was done, Natasha refused to wipe him down and quickly left. Draco just watched the birdwoman go, but he almost lost his patience and called her back to be played with.
After all, among the three girls, Natasha had the body he liked the best. She was around 40% of Zaine's level, with a good-sized chest, wide h.i.p.s, and a heaven-defying bum.
It was definitely an A+ grade booty! One should not look down on this Rank, as the Wood Elf girls had SSS-grade booties, Roma and Rina had SS-grade booties, Hikari had an S-grade booty while the Almighty Zaine had a Z-grade booty, one that simply could not be judged by mortal man.
Natasha was just a little way off from catching up to Hikari! Not only that, but she was above other beauties like Slim Fatty, Bella, Loving Aunt, Diana and Myrine from the War Maniac Pavilion, and many others.
As such, it also required Draco to exert willpower to hold back, but he barely managed to. Natasha was his final target for his stay here, and even if the heavens crumbled on top of his head, he would not allow her to escape until he had savored her to the fullest!
In the meantime, Draco wiped himself down and re-equipped his armor. Once he was done, he summoned Natasha and left the Evergreen Manor. The birdwoman followed him silently and unwillingly.
Not too many people knew that she had been made to serve Draco in the Evergreen Manor. That way, after he left, she could pretend like nothing happened and find another native of the small world to get together with.
However, if she had to walk through the whole village in this formal maid outfit while behind Draco, even a 3-year-old child would be able to understand what was happening. At that point, even if Draco never touched her, many would assume she was used goods.
It would be hard to find love in that case… but what could she do? In fact, Draco was doing this very intentionally.
He understood that Natasha was a hard and willful woman normally. She was only temporarily suppressed by the circ.u.mstances, but she might resort to something extreme if Draco pushed too hard.
He was basically cutting her paths of escape away by strutting about with her in tow, preventing her from trying to block his advances by using someone else a shield.
Draco didn't need to do this for Ophie because the halfling could not scheme to save her own life. Even then, his interest in her was not that strong. He only bothered with her because it greatly pleased his Demonic side to defile a naive and innocent woman.
As for Natasha, she was marked territory. He was not willing to let this offering go at any cost, and she was something he would snatch away at all costs. However, while he still had the chance, he wanted to first break her then tame her.
This process required time and care.
As they entered the Northern Area, Draco walked into one of the open area workstations. The moment he did, the various people working here momentarily stopped their craft to gaze at him with surprise.
It was one thing for him to pass by, as they could easily ignore him in such a case. However, for him to actually enter their workplace and take up some tools, could it be that he was about to craft himself?
This naturally piqued their collective interest. Even though outsiders were largely feared, everyone knew that when they came around, they would display unique and bizarre techniques that they could learn from.
This was Draco's plan. He wanted them to exchange understandings about crafting through practice. He had seen many different old era techniques, which was all fine and dandy, but theory was theory and practicals were practicals.
This exchange was to kill two birds with one stone. The first was to hone his own skill by using theirs a grindstone as well as a meaningful point of comparison, which was more of a direct benefit to himself and an indirect one to them.
The second was to try and weaken the three flaws of their crafting, as this would benefit him when he took them out to be his people, and would directly benefit them since he would be opening new pathways to them.
As such, Draco began with Alchemy. He did not take out Pair Dadeni since that would defeat the purpose. He wasn't going to use his typical buffers or titles, but rather use his Refined Star Technique alone.
As such, Draco switched off the Inventor title which gave him a fixed 15% success rate in all crafting, his Fire of War which also added a fixed 20% success rate and the Master Craftsman title which gave him 20% for Blacksmithing and Alchemy only.
This left him with the default 10% success rate that came with his Tradeskill Rank and the 30% success rate from his Refined Star Technique. When removing his Worldly Energy Manipulation from the equation as well, Draco only had a 40% success rate at the moment!
However, he was unperturbed by this. His enlightenment had also awoken him to the fact that his current method of crafting would stifle his future growth. After all, his perfect success rate relied too heavily on external means.
There was no room to grow because he had filled that room with meaningless things that would not help him personally. The reason he even had a solid foundation in Alchemy and Blacksmithing was because he had nothing but his own skill to help him climb the Ranks.
Now, with this title or that item or this other method, he no longer needed to sweat when crafting. Everything was a breeze in the park. This was fine if it involved his struggle before reaching the Master Rank, since he had already conquered all these levels.
But if he wanted to become a Grandmaster, he would have to return to simplicity. Draco took out some Epic reagents he had filched from the marketplace last time and carefully analyzed them.
Each of them was of the necrotic affiliation, meaning that this was poison with a focus on decay and withering. Draco drew up a plan for concoction in his head, an activity he hardly ever did since everything would be made easy for him when crafting.
After doing this, he methodically filtered each reagent at least 5 times, making sure that all impurities and blotches had been washed away, before grinding some of them together.
He didn't mix the main ingredients, but the supporting ones were merged with some of the main ones to make a variety of small pastes. They were all black, but contained the hues of different colors like red, blue, and yellow.
Since he did not use Worldly Energy to help, Draco took almost an hour to do all this compared to the mere seconds it usually took him. Despite this, the crafters here watched him like hawks, not one of his movements escaping their critical analysis.
Even before he actually started concocting, many of the crafters here felt new ideas pop up in their minds as their preconceived notions which shackled their thoughts and creativity began to weaken.
Draco heated up the default cauldron provided here, which was of the Epic Rank. Even though it was high Rank, it was only for durability purposes. It wasn't as perfect as Pair Dadeni or Mjolnir which were heaven-defying tools.
It took a while for the cauldron to be heated appropriately, but Draco used his Refined Star Technique to guide the flow of the heat with careful twists of the cauldron. After all, his Refined Star Technique was based on his Control, so the Void of Perfection allowed him to perfectly grasp the right timings.
Even though he felt the heating was slow, many of the crafters here were shocked at his technique. It was simply too profound for them, for it took Draco only 10 minutes to reach the optimal initial temperature for concocting compared to the typical time they themselves took, which was 40 minutes if not more.
Many tried to grasp his trick, but found themselves stumped. They could not even begin to make heads or tails of how he knew when to move the cauldron here, to lower the fire there, to focus it here and whatnot.
This was natural. To understand the Refined Star Technique, one needed to have Control. Even if one had Control, they would still have to obediently sit down for Draco to lecture them on the details of the technique to have a chance to grasp it.
Still, despite this, many were able to gain some benefits by just looking at how he methodically heated the cauldron. Even though they couldn't grasp the timing, it was the idea of it that was important.
If they had enough time, they too could draw up a technique of their own to mimic this effect, so many realized that watching Draco was like being a dehydrated plant being baptized by rain.
Draco began placing in the regents. His timing in doing so - once again - left many baffled, but they noticed that it followed a trend of precision and accuracy that would be impossible for a human being.
No matter the person, there would always be a margin of error in their timing. There might be a few picoseconds of delay, or they might use too much or too little force when placing regents in.
Draco's movements showed none of that. It was like he was being puppeteered by another party, his movements were too precise and artificial, not appearing to be natural at all.
If the natives of this small world knew about robots, they would describe Draco as one right now.