Draco was like a non-stop machine of work as he made potion after potion of the same thing. He wasn't even planning to sell them anymore, but acc.u.mulate them for the Tradeskill players he would soon be recruiting, as well as his future NPC Tradeskill clan faction, the natives of this Treasury.
His output per day was precisely 1,450. Even though one might think it should be 1,440, there were times where he would end up with two successful collections for one cauldron of potions.
Unlike Common, Uncommon or Rare potions, Epic potions could not be collected as more than 1 per batch. Of course, with his overwhelming success rate and his new Grandmaster technique, Draco was able to do that every now and then if he hit those RNG throws just right.
Ultimately, it took Draco five days to reach level 80 in Alchemy. He originally stipulated that it would take four days, but it ended up overshooting the amount because of the repetitivity of his craft.
Still, it was only a day of difference. If he hadn't created the Enlightenment potion, this could have well taken over double the amount of time required. Not to mention that the bonus was that he now had six days' worth of Enlightenment potions in his inventory.
That equaled around 8,700 potions minus those he had consumed. Since the various villages here had more than 200,000 people per village, it wouldn't suffice even them.
Now, it was clear why Epic potions were so expensive. The results were extremely good, far better than anything below its Rank, but the availability was abysmal even though there were hundreds of thousands of Master Rank Alchemists in the main plane.
Draco knew that if he wanted to mass-produce the potion enough to satisfy continuous use by his players and NPCs, he would need to work round the clock for 50 years or more.
If his output continued to be 1,450 a day, he could only make 10,150 a week, 43,500 a month, 520,250 a year, and 2,646,250 in five years. Just taking a look at the natives alone, this would not be enough for even their elite.
After all, if every village had 200,000 residents on average, it meant that their total population across 99 villages was slightly less than 20 million. Draco would need to spend every waking moment for many years to even satisfy the natives alone, before thinking about players, then the rest of the world in terms of sale.
Draco naturally could not and would not spend that much time on such a task. He had many other things to do, and it wasn't like he was the only crafter in the world.
Out of the millions of natives, naturally many were Master Rank Alchemists. He could just hand them the recipe and let them mass produce it themselves. Also, if Draco reached Grandmaster Rank, he could extract more than one bottle per batch.
This might be a mere Epic potion, but its value was inestimable. Of course, the materials required to create it were also extremely valuable, and Draco had burned through many of them.
If it wasn't for his Grandmaster technique allowing him to cut material consumption by almost 30%, he would have wasted a lot more. Though, the Enlightenment potion was just like Angel's Kiss, meaning that a single Epic reagent was used.
If Draco could find the Common equivalent, he could abuse Pair Dadeni to raise it up. The only thing would be that he would need to be in Vita City-State where he would have an eternal abundance of Worldly Energy to upgrade the materials once they entered the cauldron.
Now that he was a level 80 Master Rank Alchemist, Draco was ready to cross the final barrier. However, before he did so, he switched to Blacksmithing. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but he had an important reason for doing so.
He wanted to bring Alchemy and Smithing to the max level at the same time and cross over that last gap simultaneously. Draco felt that such an action would be prudent, not to mention that he desperately needed class experience.
As such, he took the many ores that Hoover had brought over and slowly smelted them. Smelting was an important part of the refinement process because it turned the ores from polluted clumps of mineral to a purified essence ready for shaping.
Draco also filtered the ores for impurities. This was slightly different, as there would be some dirt or useless stuff mixed with the ores during formation. Smelting was done to mostly remove other minerals from the ore.
For example, the default exchange rate between ore to ingot was 5 iron ores to 1 iron ingot. This was because an iron ore could be comprised of 54% iron essence with others like carbon, zinc, and copper bits inside. Then, there would also be impurities and dirt in there.
When accounting for the loss of some iron essence in the smelting process, it made sense why five ores would be turned into one pure ingot with 100% iron essence.
Draco usually used Pair Dadeni, so when he filtered the ores, they were Common Rank. As such, he was able to do so in seconds due to his high Rank, and for a pretty negligible cost.
They would also have a perfect grade, meaning no further filtering or heating was needed. It was only when he tossed these Common ingots onto the anvil and hit them with Mjolnir that they would upgrade.
As such, when they upgraded, they maintained the perfect Rank, which was another reason why Draco was easily able to create such great Semi-Legendary weapons.
After all, the rejection between a mere Epic weapon/armor piece and a trio of Legendary enchantments was not small. Draco used a mixture of his strong willpower and compatibility between the weapons and the chosen Enchantments.
This was his secret to success.
However, he was now directly smelting Epic materials, which was exactly at his Rank. This made it very hard to achieve the Perfect grade for them even with his high success rate.
Normally, he would get a Superb grade most times, which was below Exquisite, and Exquisite was below Perfect. Now, with his Grandmaster technique holding the fort, Draco was able to achieve Exquisite grades easily.
When it was time to start the actual forging process, Draco was surprised to see that his required time had reduced again. At the Expert Rank, his time penalty had been 2 hours per craft, and in the Master Rank, in had been 1 hour per craft.
Now though, he only needed 10 minutes to make a single weapon or armor piece. This naturally stunned him, as it meant his smithing productivity would rise to untold heights!
With that in mind, Draco felt doubly motivated. He truly felt the perfection of his level 6 Three Pound Origin as he continually struck on the weapon he was making.
A new feature of his Grandmaster techniques was that Draco could automate the process with his Control, leaving his mind free to do other things even though his body was moving.
As such, he spent the time contemplating the perfect recipe to make his Grandmaster debut. As one could imagine, this bastard intended on creating a new design AND craft that design in order to become a Grandmaster.
In essence, he wanted to fulfill the second and fourth requirements for becoming a Grandmaster at once! Such arrogance!
Only a fellow like Draco could think up such a thing. One could only pray for the RNG Gods to abandon him for once, so that he would learn a valuable lesson in respect and humility, but those damned RNG Gods were probably sleeping with Draco behind the scenes!
Draco's speed in leveling up Blacksmithing was slower than Alchemy, which was normal. After all, Blacksmithing took more time per creation, and if one didn't create something new but used old designs, they wouldn't earn that much more than Alchemists.
However, on the flipside, Blacksmithing gave much more leeway for creativity and success than Alchemy. After all, Alchemy needed the crafter to be able to manipulate Worldly Energy, but Blacksmithing did not.
It also had low penalties for failure. Your lump of metal going bad was far easier to deal with than your cauldron going ka-boom in your face.
Draco focused on armor pieces after making the first one a weapon. Back when he had been crafting furiously to raise his level for the First Player Auction as well as create some tradeable items, he had focused mostly on weapons.
He had grown tired of the dangerous items and now wanted to make something that prevented death instead of causing it. Maybe being in this nice and cozy village without the need for fighting had made him softer and more sentimental.
Besides, armor always sold for higher than weapons. It was nice to have a tool that could reap the lives of enemies, but boy, there was nothing better than having a tool to safeguard your own life from another's weapon.
After 5 days of work, Draco reached the halfway point of the Master Rank in Blacksmithing, level 70. What was even better was that in these five days, he had made over 720 pieces of equipment.
Out of them, approximately 75 were unique designs. This was only a tenth of the amount he made, but Draco was perfectly content because the experience yield was far higher in comparison.
At 500% class and Tradeskill experience per announcement, he now had an extra 37,500% experience. When added to the 4,200% experience he got from the 42 unique potion recipes he made over a week ago, the amount was extremely close to his goal.
He needed a total of 51,257% to reach his goal, and he now had an extra 41,700%. This meant that he needed slightly less than 10,000% experience to reach the target! Seeing as he still had 10 levels to go in Blacksmithing, it was clear that Draco would make the cut.
This pleased and encouraged him like no other. He would hold so many Divine weapons and would have Legendary crafting tools! This would be a first for any Immortal Adventurer or even many beings on the main plane.
Of course, in these past few days, he had bedded more than a few of the prospective concubines after the half-golem girl. Most were normal half-breeds of some okay-ish races, but the one Draco remembered most fondly was the half-breed Wood Nymph.
Or as one knew them as, Dryads. She had been the one to receive his 'love' and 'care' the best. No matter how Draco railed her, she never broke, only demanded more and more, which he was happy to give.
This pleased him greatly. It was like having a super-fast car but living in an area where everyone had normal cars, so he could never race anyone. Then the half-dryad came in with a Maserati and was able to race him for a long period, bringing him euphoria.
He had almost cleared his backup of concubines, and only a few were left. As one could expect, he made Natasha clean each of them up, which left a strong mark on the young woman's mind.
From wariness, she now felt curiosity and even a bit of desire. With every girl Draco cleared, her time was running out, and she too would be devoured without a bone remaining.
However, there was nothing she could do but wait in silence and hope for the best.
As for Draco, he used another week to reach the level cap of the Master Rank in Blacksmithing. In that time, he had made many more pieces of equipment, far more than he made the previous week.
When Draco tabulated the amount, he was stunned to see that he really got his creative juices going. Out of the many he had crafted, there were more than enough that had been unique, meaning that…
Draco now had enough experience to upgrade all his stuff and Rank up!