Currently, Draco was only a little bit off from the Expert Rank of Magical Engineering. It had taken him about 60 days, but he was now just 31% off from entering the Expert Rank in Magical Engineering.
Even for Common Tradeskills, this was unbelievable. To climb one whole Rank in just 2 months for an Epic Tradeskill was unheard of, even for the residents of this Treasury.
The reason Draco could do so was compounded. Being a Control master, the availability of top-tier resources in the treasury, his high State of Being, the Ultima Sunt's Pinnacle Intelligence passive skill, and obviously his reliance on the Enlightenment potions.
Even though the potion's effects only lasted one hour with each consumption, Draco had set many of them up for auto-crafting in the past few days. Of course, he didn't and couldn't afford to drink them like water.
In fact, Draco was considering trying his hand on a Legendary variant that should have a higher increase rate coupled with a longer duration, but that was for later. Right now, his goal was to smash into the Expert Rank of Magical Engineering with a bang.
Draco got the materials for the Basic Knowledge Compression Device ready. However, instead of a typical core device made of Maether to act as the central processing unit, Draco used a scale from his Dragon Form to craft it.
Not only that, he changed the central storage unit from a cylindrical metal tube that used an empty medium-grade Aether Crystal to a fully-charged top-grade Aether Crystal.
He also engraved it with runes just like he did for his Advanced Spatial Creation Device, dictating how it should generate and store energy. Instead of a typical computer relying on AC power to stay on, he was making something like a laptop that had a suitable battery.
As for the issue with the data storage, he was not savvy enough to solve that yet. That's why he had to rely on a roundabout trick to reach his goal and hope it succeeded.
Draco was done in under 30 minutes with his new craft. Assembled, it looked like a military-grade laptop, only much uglier due to the materials used to compensate for modern tech.
Draco took a deep breath and waited, but nothing happened. Then, Sofia came into view. She normally left Draco alone since he used Magical Engineering a lot nowadays and he needed to focus, but she was compelled to this time.
"As I told you the other time you tried something like this, 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 reminded in her robotic voice, though Draco heard a tone of rebuke in it.
Since this was the exact same message she had uttered last time he did this, Draco was doubly reassured that success was smiling upon him. He walked over to the completed device and switched it on.
His face lit up with excitement when it began to run its pre-installed programs made through runes, and he realized that this creation might even surpass his Advanced Spatial Creation Device.
It was exactly because he was distracted by thoughts of grandeur and ideas for a catchy name for the device that Draco mounted no defense when the megaton explosion occurred.
BOOM!
The whole super mini small world shook like it was about to collapse. Tress got destroyed and a huge crater appeared with the epicenter being the location where the new device had formerly been.
Draco had been sent flying, smashing through many a tree until he reached the edge of the super mini small world, where he crashed against the 'barrier' that formed its edge and was subsequently blasted back into the ground, digging a long trench in it with his body.
In this devastated super mini small world, only two things remained intact, Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir. They were protected by the system as Auto-Crafts and Batch-Crafts could not be disturbed by any stimulus except the directives made through the Grandmaster Menu pertaining to it.
Draco slowly dragged his body out from the grave of sand he himself had dug, his armor cracked in various places and his face pale beyond belief. He spat out blood that coated his teeth and chest.
His bones were twisted in some places and one of his eyes had been destroyed. Truthfully, he should not have been alive after eating a country-destroying level explosion point blank with no defenses, and then crashing through so many things, rebounding off a wall at full force, then crashing through the earth a little more.
As one could imagine, the only thing that could have saved him was…
｢System to Player Announcement
You have entered an invincible state for 1 minute.｣
Yes, the new Divine Seal of Camelot had bailed the suicidal lunatic from certain death… possibly even deletion given the scale of this explosion. Without it, Draco would have turned to ashes in one hit, not be blasted to some corner.
Dragging his broken body up. He took out an Angel's Kiss potion and drank it, watching as his body patched itself together and his numerous debuffs left one by one.
Sighing with remorse, Draco realized that he had become too conceited. Thinking back, it was luck that he had succeeded the first time, so why did he provoke fate and try something even more outrageous?
If it had been Blacksmithing, Alchemy, or Enchanting, it would have been possible if he tried to do something like this, but Magical Engineering? Who the hell did he think he was, Boundless' Leonardo Da Vinci?
Rising from the ditch, he walked over to the area where Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir were, still working on their tasks as if nothing else that happened had anything to do with them.
Draco was certain that if the tools had mouths, they would be snickering and muttering for months about how stupid he was, but lucky he was spared that due to circ.u.mstances.
Face going black from shame, he quickly used his State of Being to reset the super mini small world back to its original state. In a few seconds, it looked brand new, no longer as if a nuke had just been dropped.
Draco sighed and checked to see that he had, as a matter of fact, broken into the Expert Rank, now at level 41, 2%. It seemed even his catastrophic failure had touched the AI's heart and made it decide to give him a small consolation prize.
This made him feel simultaneously relieved and frustrated, but he stifled it down. He simply checked what new designs had come with his Rank upgrade.
｢Advanced Personnel Identification Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Personnel Identification Device.
Price: 57 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Area Cloaking Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Area Cloaking Device.
Price: 69 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Basic Bestial Automaton Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Area Monitoring Device.
Price: 1 High-Grade Aether Crystal｣
｢Master Mana Conversion Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Master Mana Conversion Device.
Price: 3 High-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Mana Blocking Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Mana Blocking Device.
Price: 98 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Master Equipment Maintenance Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Master Equipment Maintenance Device.
Price: 2 High-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Basic Automatic Sentry Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Basic Automatic Sentry Device.
Price: 7 High-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Master Energy Converter Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Master Energy Converter Device.
Price: 15 High-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Exothermic Implosion Device – Design
Rank: Rare
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Exothermic Implosion Device.
Price: 95 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
｢Advanced Knowledge Compression Device – Design
Rank: Uncommon
Effect: Learn how to craft the Advanced Knowledge Compression Device.
Price: 99 Medium-Grade Aether Crystals｣
Most of them were upgrades from previous designs at the Elite level, showing that the gap between them was not too far in that case. Some even became the Master grade version of their designs! (Not to be confused with Master Rank in Tradeskills)
There were two new ones, and they were the designs one expected to hear about whenever someone mentioned Magical Engineering, which was the Bestial Automaton and the Automatic Sentry.
The former was something like a rat or squirrel type beast that could travel short distances and perform various tasks like spying, hunting, or fighting, though they were not very good with the last one.
However, the tech was extremely impressive from what Draco could see in the design. The Auto-Sentry was just a placement that could detect foes using a simple rune algorithm and open fire on them… yes, a sentry gun of sorts.
Draco paid for all the designs once again. So far, he hadn't even spent a full top-grade Aether Crystal on the Elite and Expert Rank designs c.u.mulatively, which was quite depressing for other Magical Engineers who had to stress themselves to get this stuff.
After spending a few hours to learn the crafting procedures for these new designs, he put Magical Engineering aside. He had set a goal to reach the Elite Rank at the minimum and the Expert Rank at the maximum, the latter of which he had achieved in a span of 60 days after reaching the former.
Since his 1-year deadline for this quest was now reduced to about 6 months, he would have to focus on his other Tradeskills while he could. Once he went out there, he wouldn't have as much free time to dedicate to Tradeskills given his plans for the future.
He had reached his goal of becoming Grandmaster for Blacksmithing and Alchemy, even getting the blessing of two Origin Gods in the process. He had successfully reached Rank 2 and upgraded all his tools by one Rank.
He had now brought this Epic Tradeskill to Expert Rank, which left his current Legendary Tradeskill to be worked on, Scrivener. This one was even more time-intensive than Magical Engineering, and the cost of production was high as hell.
But the benefits did not need to be explained.
Draco checked to see the conversion list and saw that all the 360 Sword Skills for the first set of Paragon Sword techniques had been converted. Since he had already inputted his Bow Skills and converted them, there was nothing currently in the queue.
He first decided to enter the Vault of Techniques and increase the quantity of his techniques that could be converted into skills for scrivening. As such, he directly appeared in that strangely cut off dojo in the middle of nowhere.
The moment he did so, Satine bobbed up to him and greeted him. "Hello, Scrivener. It has been a long time since you were last here. It is a very bad practice to-"
Draco waved her away. "Yes, yes, yes. I'll be spending some time here anyway, so look forward to it you Yandere Orb."
Satine shuddered as she floated, and Draco had the distinct feeling that she was blushing furiously, twisting her lips in indignation for being called out, which made him feel like the floating orb was quite cute.
"What does Scrivener Draco need done?" She finally asked in defeat, though her tone was still neutral.
Draco took out a typical bow as well as a quiver of arrows from the dojo and entered an Archer's stance. "Satine, begin recording. This is a bow technique called Bow Skill 11: Fire Arrow."
"Acknowledged. Please display the technique fully." Satine replied with a bit of indignation still in her tone.
Draco pulled back the string of the bow and nocked an arrow there. He channeled his subjective magic and infused the arrow with a sphere of fire magic. (Not a literal sphere, but the Sphere from the Theory of Spellcasting)
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Author's Note: You might have noticed that the plot has suddenly sped up. This is because I've already finished all the tedious stuff and can now focus solely on progression.
Also, only writing about Tradeskills but not being able to sell/use the products is kinda boring. Just like you, I want to see Draco get back out there and kick some ass with his OP waifus.
Gosh, can the world of Boundless really survive?
Of course, I still care about consistency and proper pacing, so I'll only cut off descriptions for skills and new stuff until the arc ends.