Draco woke up after his night of debauchery with a yawn and stretched his body. The ladies he had ruined the previous night were nowhere to be found, as they had either been carried away by Asha or Hoover in the end.
Taking it one step further, the room looked to have been cleaned to perfection while he had been asleep, possibly something Hoover, that excellent butler, had orchestrated. Draco got up and walked through the hallways half-n.a.k.e.d until he reached the bathroom.
There he saw an already drawn bath and sighed with pleasure as he dipped into it. This time, it was not Ophie who catered to him, but one of the concubines he had taken a week ago.
Draco made some simple conversation with her as she worked on his body, and he got to know more about her in passing. After completing his wash-up, he went to the dining room and saw Natasha as well as Ophie there.
Ophie was bubbly as always and came to sit by Draco, showing off her latest concoctions and having him taste test them. Draco, now completely fond of Ophie, couldn't bear to refuse.
As for Natasha, she only presented him with her food and stood aside quietly. She looked a bit haggard, like she had been unable to sleep for the past few days, turning Draco's annoyance with her for not showing up into genuine worry.
"Natasha, are you okay?" he asked with concern.
Ophie had also noticed her change in behavior, but didn't want to bother the reticent birdwoman unless it was absolutely necessary. Hoover also looked askance to the birdwoman, generally displeased by her lackl.u.s.ter performance as a maid since she had come here.
Natasha simply lowered her head and quietly replied. "I… I'm fine."
Draco's eyes narrowed. He scanned Natasha's body fully with his Eyes of Caelo but found nothing off. For a moment he feared that someone might have tried to force themselves on her or something, leading to her current state, but she was fine and untouched.
This likely meant that it had to be a personal or mental issue. Draco wished he was stronger with Telepathy like Eva, but that was her Inheritance's specialty. The next best thing he had was his Psychometry, and he channeled it towards Natasha.
He detected sadness and regret in her heart, as well as a feeling of endless shame and self-reproach. He could only glean the emotions themselves, not the reason for them, so Draco had to try something else.
"Natasha, raise your head and look at me." Draco commanded.
Unable to resist, Natasha shuddered and slowly raised her head to gaze at Draco with those platinum-colored eyes. The moment they made eye contact, Draco's face paled and he spat out a mouthful of blood.
Hoover and Ophie were shocked, while Natasha was stunned for a second. Ophie quickly ran to Draco and held him with worry. "Are you okay? Draco, are you okay?"
Hoover also came over and rubbed Draco's back. "My Lord must still be tired from overexerting yourself yesterday, you should take a rest."
Draco though, waved them away. "It's fine, just a technique I used to cheer her up backfired on me."
Everyone sighed with relief. Hoover quickly had the place cleaned and Draco continued his meal in silence. However, he couldn't help but shiver at what he felt when he read Natasha's feelings.
L.u.s.t! Burning hot l.u.s.t! L.u.s.t even more scalding than bathing in lava!
An entity that could literally induce endless l.u.s.t and eat it for breakfast had been forced to spit blood by someone's organic l.u.s.t… that should tell of how intense it was.
Draco couldn't believe it. It should be impossible for a sentient species to carry that much l.u.s.t and remain sane. It wasn't as if her race had periods of heat, making her immune or anything. She should have ripped off her clothes and become no better than a beast that tried to pounce on him.
However, she was standing there, fine and dandy. What exactly did she do to keep her mind stable? No, first of all, what had he himself done to make her so hungry for him that it caused him damage when he tried to peek at it?
Draco pondered over this as he ate and came up with a few conclusions, but decided to deal with them later. After his meal, he turned towards the trio of Hoover, Natasha, and Ophie.
"I will be continuing my work for the next few months, so please make sure that everything is taken care of. Apart from meals and baths, I will not leave the workroom, and I will not add any more concubines to my clan."
Hoover bowed. "It shall be done, Lord Draco."
Ophie and Natasha also bowed gently. Draco smiled at them and left the dining room, returning to where he would be holing himself up for the longest possible time, trying to bring his other Tradeskills up.
Once in the workroom, Draco sighed and checked on the crafts he had set up. Of the 60 Enlightenment potions he had put up for Auto-Craft, 49 of them had succeeded while 11 failed.
This was at a rate of 65% for each potion mind you.
Of the 300 he put up for batch craft, it failed. The success rate was half the auto-craft rate at 32.5%, and that was for the ENTIRE batch. So, it was one big gamble that did not pay off, unfortunately.
As for the Dragorugio sets he put up for auto-craft, 78 out of 100 succeeded at the same success rate as the auto-craft for the potions. As for the batch-craft, it was not yet completed, requiring slightly more than 30 hours to complete.
Draco rubbed his chin and tentatively decided that auto-crafting was better until he could maximize his success rate through titles or some other objective means.
Naturally, he set up a new queue for Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir, with the latter being set to start after the batch was done.
｢System to Player Announcement
Set up a crafting queue for the 'Angel's Kiss' potion?
1. Auto-craft (Success rate 65%) - Amount: 6,000 (ETA: 100 hours)
Y/N｣
｢System to Player Announcement
Set up a crafting queue for the 'Dragorugio' set?
1. Auto-craft (Success rate 65%) - Amount: 500 (ETA: 50 hours)
Y/N｣
Draco provided the resources for both, grimacing when his Source Origin was extracted in full once again, but he began the restoration process for it immediately.
After sorting that out, Draco settled down near a workbench and began focusing on his Magical Engineering. Currently, his level in the Tradeskill was 14, 15%. He was just 6 levels off from entering the Elite Rank, which should yield him more functions and designs.
The ones he had, while good, increased his Tradeskill level too slowly for his liking. The main reason he got this far was thanks to his Unranked Advanced Spatial Creation Device giving him absurd Tradeskill experience with every craft.
As such, Draco decided that it was what he would use to raise his level in Magical Engineering. Void Stones were within the Inner Section of the Treasury aplenty, so much that even Draco could not use them all.
When added with the ever-growing mountain of top-grade Aether Crystals in his possession, what did he have to fear? As such, he began a single-minded process of making Advanced Spatial Creation Devices like a robot.
Even the most efficient modern assembly line would feel pressure if forced to compete with Draco at the moment. He was used to making this device, and his efficiency rose slightly with every new craft.
He even began skipping and remodeling stages of the creation that he discovered to be unnecessary or tedious. He still got a functioning device out of it and a shorter time spent on it overall.
This was normal though. Humans were the deities of adaptation and efficiency. The more we did something, the better we got at it and the more we were able to understand it. Once we did, we could even optimize parts of whatever we were doing, saving time, cost, and energy with each upgrade.
Draco was just going through this in a quicker process thanks to his Control and his talent for crafting. Advanced Spatial Creation Devices were filling up his inventory in crazy amounts. Even though his stacks were up to 999, it looked like he might fill it up in under a half a month at this rate!
It wasn't until Draco saw that Mjolnir's batch was done that he came out of his trance. He had many debuffs on his body for sleep, hunger, thirst, and poor hygiene, but he simply frowned and used subjective magic to dispel those debuffs.
He checked the batch from Mjolnir and saw that the 500 at 32.5% success rate had been successful. That greatly heartened him, since the cost in Source Origin had been quite steep for this stuff.
It meant that after the next auto-craft queue, he wouldn't need to make any more of these sets and could focus on something else. Putting that aside, he didn't bother to go out since his magic could negate the only reasons he had to anyway.
As such, he went back to his grind. Slowly but surely, his Tradeskill level in Magical Engineering increased stably. While it seemed slow compared to his former explosive growth with Alchemy and Blacksmithing, the problem was that the exp he gained for making basic Devices was decimals points per craft, while he earned at least 2-4% per Advanced Spatial Creation Device.
At his current crafting speed, he could make 100 in 24 hours, meaning that he had made about 150 or so currently. He had currently hit level 18, 90%. The goal was close and he could practically smell it.
Draco continued crafting over the next 12 hours, not stopping for a minute. He made an extra 50 Advanced Spatial Creation Deices, and despite more than 99% of them yielding 2% Tradeskill experience, he was able to net some with 3% and 4%, meaning that he was able to smoothly reach the Elite Rank!
Proud of his hustle, he opened the Personal Workstation and checked the new recipes he had gained access to at the Elite Rank.
｢Basic Personnel Identification Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Personnel Identification Device.
Price: 1 Medium-Grade Aether Crystal｣
｢Basic Area Cloaking Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Area Cloaking Device.
Price: 6 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Basic Area Monitoring Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Area Monitoring Device.
Price: 4 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Mana Conversion Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Mana Conversion Device.
Price: 25 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Basic Mana Blocking Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Mana Blocking Device.
Price: 22 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Equipment Maintenance Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Equipment Maintenance Device.
Price: 12 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Spatial Enlargement Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Spatial Enlargement Device.
Price: 99 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Energy Converter Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Energy Converter Device.
Price: 15 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Basic Exothermic Implosion Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Exothermic Implosion Device.
Price: 9 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Basic Knowledge Compression Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Knowledge Compression Device.
Price: 45 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
Hm, there were a lot of new names at the Basic Rank, but there were some designs he remembered from before that were now present at the Advanced Rank.
He was naturally more interested in the new designs that appeared because they would also appear at the later Ranks in stronger forms more likely. Besides, the cost of learning the recipes had skyrocketed from low-grade crystals to medium-grade.
Even though most Magical Engineers on the main plane were stuck at the Amateur Rank with no hopes of ever climbing, those once in a millennium talents hidden away in corners of the world who actually managed to reach this stage would cry tears of blood.