Natasha gazed at Draco's back with a plethora of emotions running through her mind. She had gone from resenting him greatly to disdaining him, then to respecting him.
This respect wasn't due to any physical attribute he had or anything he said to her, but rather his wealth of talent and knowledge when it came to Tradeskills. To each resident of each village, Draco's crafts were novel, and seeing him work provided them with hefty enlightenment.
She had seen his procedure every single time, so she should have been desensitized to it… but no. Draco's endless knowledge as well as his means of crafting within Alchemy and Blacksmithing using the same technique had shocked the rebelliousness out of the birdwoman.
Natasha knew that no matter who came up, Draco would defeat them and he certainly had a great chance to become the inheritor of the Supreme Ancestor!
Of course, this threw Natasha into a tough spot. If she caved in right now, she would easily be able to ride his coattails and reap a great harvest when he succeeded. Just being around him for so long had yielded her immense benefits in terms of enlightenment.
However, Natasha disdained the idea of jumping on a lavish train just for the decoration. It didn't matter what the train was like, whether dirty, rickety or even broken down, as long as it interested her and was brilliant in its own way, she would choose it.
For example, she was growing interested in Draco organically due to his great talent in Tradeskills. However, the wall that was her self-esteem and bottom line prevented her from crossing the last boundary.
In this world, typical/average males and females had basic criteria for choosing partners. The males chose due to s.e.x.u.a.l attractiveness and the females chose due to success or safety.
As such, the general misconception that the average man was a sleazebag, and the average woman was a gold digger. The truth was that while some existed like this - a saddening majority too on both sides - there were more than a few who did not follow this concept.
Take Natasha for example. As for Draco… *cough* the fellow was average in this regard.
As the birdwoman deliberated on her choices, Draco himself was lost in a daze as he finally compiled all he had learned and guessed about the two upgraded techniques, and then took a deep breath.
It wasn't truly him compiling this, but whatever strange innate gift he had within that allowed him to learn techniques rather. It had finally understood the limits of the level 6 Refined Star Technique and Three Pound Origin, feeding them to Draco's subconscious.
To summarize… they were not even at the same level. It was as if he had rather gained two new techniques, not that he had upgraded old ones by just a level.
All that speculation about the reason why he struggled to progress from level 5 to 6 being due to his increased Control or whatnot was plain dogshit, simply the thinking of an ignorant fool.
It was simply because level 1-5 of both techniques represented one tier and level 6-10 represented another. The first five were an introductory sort, to help him get an idea of the perfect foundational technique, one level 6 was the culmination of the first five levels.
Hence, the reason why level 1-5 only increased success rate, but level 6 increased everything across the board. Going from 6 to 7 would not be as hard as going to 6 from 5.
The reason why was simple. So simple that it was the core reason why Draco was so dumbfounded that he didn't know what to do or feel right now.
Levels 1-5 were meant for the Amateur to the Master Rank. Level 6-10 were meant for the Grandmaster to Primogenitor Rank.
To clarify, Draco was a Grandmaster in terms of crafting technique, even if he wasn't an official one recognized by the system. However, the most important thing was that he had taken a strong and solid step forward to that end.
To become a Grandmaster, there were five criteria to fill, according to what Draco knew from the previous timeline as well as what he learned in this one.
The first was to have a Grandmaster crafting technique in the Tradeskill in question. It needs to be self-created and cannot be inherited from others. Otherwise, Grandmasters would be created en masse by Tradeskill organizations with powerful heritages.
A Grandmaster technique was not the same as a Legendary rated technique like those in the library. To put it simply, all Grandmaster techniques were Legendary techniques, but not all Legendary techniques were Grandmaster techniques.
The second requirement was a Grandmaster design. This was what Inventor Doug had been struggling with in the past and what he tried to accost Draco for when the fellow was still in his edgelord phase (chapter 26 or so).
Eventually, Draco had given him the Sunfire, which was a perfect Mystic Flame for the job. By now, the old coot might be well on his way to success, since he had fulfilled all the other criteria.
A Grandmaster design had to be fully drawn in one sitting. It depended on the functional knowledge a crafter had of their Tradeskill, and the difficulty rose the further they were into their design.
Using the same Inventor Doug as an example, the fellow could only reach 50% before his pencils would snap and his parchment would light on fire. It sounded simple, but it was only slightly less difficult than the first requirement.
The third requirement was to receive the recognition of a Primogenitor. Every Tradeskill had a Primogenitor in the world of the Gods, an Origin God that was stuck producing Origin Energy 24/7 to keep the world stabilized.
They were never present due to their everlasting task, but they had split a bit of their awareness to watch over the practitioners of their Tradeskills. This awareness only assessed the progress of various crafters and awarded them various rewards upon performing certain feats.
Draco's promotion to Grandmaster for Enchanting, for example, was handled by the Enchanting Primogenitor, through the AI of course. Or rather, it should be put the other way round that the AI had awarded Draco because the Enchanting Primogenitor had been impressed.
Essentially, getting the recognition of the Primogenitors was not that hard for a talented Master Rank crafter. One only needed to spend some time creating unique and special creations, and get awards from the system.
At a certain threshold, one would have already satisfied this criterion.
The fourth requirement was to craft a Legendary item within the Tradeskill in question. If it was Privateering, then one needed to make a Legendary ship. If it was Scrivener, one would need to make a Legendary skillbook.
This might be at fourth place in terms of difficulty, but it only showed how hard the first three were in comparison. One might be able to grudgingly produce one Legendary item after much research and practice.
However, to make a Grandmaster technique, design, and then perform a great many notable feats never seen before by everlasting Primogenitors was beyond hard.
Making a Legendary item in comparison was easier… if one used a scale meant for geniuses and purposefully ignored 99% of crafters. Draco himself was only partly certain of making one, which told of how skewed it was.
As for the final requirement, it was to have more than 20,000 reputation with the Tradeskill Association. This one was the easiest to complete, and even Draco had long crossed this barrier before he even reached Master Rank.
One just had to keep on going with their crafts and they would eventually reach this amount.
Looking at this list, Draco had succeeded in completing the hardest of them by reaching level 6 in both techniques. As for the second requirement, he had yet to do so.
However, he satisfied the third and fifth requirements. In essence, as long as Draco could make a Grandmaster design and craft/brew a legendary item/potion, he would become a Grandmaster Blacksmith and Alchemist.
This was something that greatly excited him, for it had been his goal in the previous timeline. Just like how there was a great chasm between levels 1-5 and 6-10 of his techniques, there was a great gap between going from Amateur to Master and Grandmaster to Primogenitor.
Entering the Grandmaster realm would admit him into a whole new world! Even though he had long become a Grandmaster for Enchanting, that was through using shortcuts.
If it wasn't for his perfect knowledge of runes and his buffed willpower, he wouldn't even be able to live up to his Rank, much less think about breaking past it.
Draco shook his head and put this out of his mind for now. All these deliberations were fine and dandy, but he had other things to deal with. For one, he needed to finish his enlightenment spree.
Because he had been researching on his techniques, he had stopped harvesting the ideas of the enlightened crafters, as he would immediately leave and move onto the next area.
However, such a thing mattered little to him now that his techniques had achieved Grandmaster level. In fact, if it wasn't for the need to enlighten
These last four villages, he would turn around and head back to Evergreen manor to start developing Privateering as well as the Tradeskills he chose from the library in the manor.
As for taking Blacksmithing and Alchemy to Grandmaster Rank, he wasn't in a rush. He knew how to go about it and how long it would take him to achieve it, and it would definitely not be before the Treasury quest ended.
Even if it did, he could still do the same in the outside world. He was confident that the 10 Grandmaster spots for Blacksmithing and Alchemy had not even been half-filled, otherwise that Doug fellow wouldn't be so rabid to succeed.
Heck, Enchanting only had him in this entire era, and he even got in through hacks! The Primogenitor of Enchanting might still be coughing blood due to helplessness to this day, wondering why his Tradeskill was so unfortunate!
Still, Draco set foot in this new village to deal out his usual magic. He performed Alchemy for them this time, and his full understanding of his technique made his work smoother and far more efficient.
Previously, it took only 15 minutes to craft an Epic potion using on his technique and his Tradeskill Rank, but with him fully understanding level 6, it took just 5 minutes.
This meant that the quality of the enlightenment for the onlookers had substantially increased, but the quantity of those enlightened proportionally decreased.
After finishing this one, Draco met the Lord and received his gratitude before moving on. He went through these last four villages within a single day, given his absurdly increased crafting speed, quality, and his ability to blink from village to village.
Natasha still followed behind him, and her mind was pre-occupied with her dilemma. She didn't even have time to notice the interested glances of males or the sharp glances from other top beauties assigned to Draco from each village.
After all, she couldn't continue to let herself be suppressed by the competition. Many of these chosen beauties had respectable heights with thick backsides, not always similar to Natasha, but close enough.
And unlike her, they fully recognized Draco's value and wanted to board the fancy train while it was still at the station by any means necessary. Once it set off, the difficulty of getting a ticket and clambering on would skyrocket insanely.
Draco paid no mind to Natasha or her thoughts. He was focused on his own progress right now and was in no mood to entertain his Horned Demon Inheritance's wicked desires.
After finishing up the last village, Draco sighed and placed a hand of Natasha's butt, squeezing it tightly as he blinked them away. When they appeared, he took his vile hand away and walked towards Evergreen Village.
What was even sadder was that Natasha had no reaction to this, and whether it was because she felt it was futile to resist or she was no longer against it was currently unknown.