The fourth book took Draco into the body of a female - though it was gender compensated by the AI - and not of the human race. This time, he was a female Dark Elf that was training in a group.
The goal of their lesson? To empower a ship post-construction with enchantments that increased its durability, speed, and power compared to those crafted by other shipwrights.
In fact, this tribe of Dark Elves had pioneered this technique, though there was no mention about how their secret racial technique got into the Privateer Tradeskill shop, though anyone with a brain could likely put two and two together.
Whatever the case, Draco feigned ignorance and soaked up what he could. He was surprised to see that their method of enchanting sh.i.p.s was not too different from how he would enchant a weapon after smithing it.
The most prominent change was the lack of a screen to prompt him whether he wanted to enchant the ship - this was a guess on his part as these elves weren't using the Tradeskill to do it - but rather that everything had to be done by hand.
Most importantly though, the method of formulating enchantments was vastly different from those done for weapons. For weapons, the process was Naming, Power, and Execution.
Naming where you named the item being enchanted in runes, Power deciding the main element or property it was being infused with, and Execution detailing how the enchantment would function.
Here though, there were five stages to a single enchantment. The Materia, The Chroma, The Forma, The Spiritua, and The Meta. Draco felt it sounded unnecessarily fancy, so he immediately decided to rename them based on what they actually did.
Elves were known for their penchant for unnecessary opulence when it came to cultural things, and although the Dark Elves were different from their surface cousins, some things remained the same, so he let the matter go for now though it was quite annoying, to say the least.
The Materia was similar to Naming, one used a rune to state the material the ship was made out of. Mu for wooded sh.i.p.s, Jin for metal ones.
The Chroma was the purity of the enchantment. These runes were used to decide how to run the enchantment's energy cycle cleanly.
The Forma was the direct source of energy for the enchantment. Unlike weapon enchanting that nominally required Soul Stones, ship enchantments were like dragons, they could use external energy to fuel themselves.
The Spiritua was the brain of the enchantment. It controlled everything, from the extraction of energy, to the storage and infusion, etc.
The Meta was similar to the Execution section, where the actual effect of the enchantment is listed. Everything that came before is just to set up a foundation for this one to function properly.
Draco was intrigued by their system of enchantment and had to admit that it was ingenious. If he had not seen it from their hands like this, he would never have developed such a system on his own despite being a Grandmaster Enchanter.
It only took a moment for Draco to decide on the new names for the various sections. The Materia he called Base, The Chroma he called Purity, the Forma he called Source, the Spiritua he called Engine, the Meta he called Function.
So Base, Purity, Source, Engine, Function. Such a system sounded a lot better, more professional, and more mature than that fancy garbage, all offense towards Dark Elves intended.
Draco soon completed the tutorial and spent some time in silence. There was a lot more for him to digest from the fourth book, but he decided to leave it for later eventually.
He would naturally jump to shipbuilding after the next book, so he would be able to practice hands-on. As such, he opened the fifth book and was whisked away into whatever final vision awaited him.
This time, Draco found himself in an Engineer's shop. Similar to the first book, he occupied the mind of an apprentice learning from their master, though this time the content was far more direct and interesting.
They were making weapons!
Cannons, swivel guns, mortars, and snipers even. What was doubly interesting was that these cannons were not your typical fare, but were also magical! This was because both master and apprentice were Magical Engineers!
As for this lesson, Draco took it in with relish for he had never used his Magical Engineering to craft something this large, and he had no idea if such designs were even available to him.
So, one could say that this was definitely broadening the scope of his knowledge exponentially.
In the third book, he had learned a bit about cannons and weaponry, but that only had to do with the idea of where to place them and how to gauge their positions in relation to functionality and weight, not how to make them.
Draco noticed that the Magical Engineers used materials he knew of and even had in his inventory, making things simpler for him. Along with that, they also shockingly further used some basic enchantments on the cannons via the typical method.
Draco was intrigued and interested in seeing these weapons in action, and as soon as the tutorial came to an end, he quickly put the books aside and exited the Personal Cabin.
He noticed that he was standing silently in the middle of the workroom's super mini small world alone. To that side were Mjolnir and Pair Dadeni still working hard in mass-producing some Epic grade stuff for him.
Nodding to his two slave- *cough* beloved items, Draco first took out the contracts he had purchased from the Personal Cabin and activated them all. With a poof, ten summoning circles appeared around him.
From them, 10 men and women of different races and builds appeared before him. What made Draco frown though, was that they looked more like puppets than actual people.
Along with that, they did not even speak. They just stood up groggily and shook off their confusion before staring at Draco silently. For that matter, Draco noticed that a screen popped up before him that detailed the stats of each assistant, their abilities, and their current status.
…huh.
So it seemed he was wrong and this was not time travel. Well, not overtly at least. These puppets were like androids if anything, and they seemed to be semi-sentient for the most part.
Draco could immediately tell that they were shoddy clones of other people. In fact, his current theory was that these fellows were clones made of actual people from the old era, as the wages he paid had to go somewhere.
It was likely a feature of the Tradeskill that allowed talented shipwrights among the lot to create replicas of themselves to work as assistants for others in exchange for funds.
That was actually a sensible and worthwhile mechanic, as it would allow the poorer of the lot to acquire funding from somewhere without having the impede on their own time and duties.
Draco didn't waste any more time speculating. He took out the materials for the cannons he had seen in the last tutorial and began putting them together. He selected two of the 10 assistants that had high stats in cannonwork, and had them assist him.
He was quickly shocked by their skill, speed, and efficiency. It was no different from hiring two of himself! This was definitely worth the price in platinum per week!
As for the other assistants, since he paid them per week it would be a shame to not make the most of them, so he assigned them to different tasks. Draco quickly realized the difference between himself and an average Privateer.
An average user of this Tradeskill would have to do everything on their own in the early stages until they made enough dough from selling their services that they could hire help one by one.
However, a rich bitch like Draco was able to take the easy way out and had hired everyone he could, so he could work on all parts at once. He was no different from the foreman in the third tutorial who had spent years building up his shipyard and crew from scratch.
As such, he stopped being totally hands-on and adopted a more supervisory role. He commanded each of the puppets with his mind like a network, instead of using verbal commands.
Draco had taken a cue from Eva and started applying his bloodline psychic abilities a bit more. He refrained from using Telekinesis or Telesthesia fully because, like Eva, he was certain that he could lose control and end up with something unpredictable.
With Draco's Dark Angel Inheritance 30% activated, it was the least controllable of the lot, no different from a nuke that was primed. If he jostled it too much in ignorance, it would explode.
However, basic Telepathy was easy enough for him, especially thanks to experiencing it first hand through Eva. It burned twice as much energy for him compared to her, but he could still do it.
Draco watched with a mixture of disbelief and defeat as the 10 assistants quickly put together the first design he had chosen to work on, The Rapscallion's Glee.
Draco intended to only make one of these for now as the demand was likely low and it was pointless anyway. He didn't need pirates among his members, because for pirates to function, they would need semi-stable waters with plenty of trade routes to plunder.
As stated, the current sea was fatal after just a few miles from shore, so who exactly were they supposed to plunder?
After it was done, Draco noticed that he received 50% Tradeskill exp for the first craft, which was a welcomed surprise. It was much more than Magical Engineering or Scrivener's first craft boost which was just a measly 5%, but then the difficulty and time consumption was also of a different category altogether.
Well, putting aside Draco having all the materials at his beck and call, having money to hire out the best help, and being situated in a super mini small world perfect for all forms of crafting that is.
When one thought about the suffering, sweat, and tears the average Privateer must have vented in their early days compared to Draco's smooth sailing, one could only feel like taking a stick to bash the fellow's skull in.
Draco moved onto the next design, which was The Princess' Delight. Not only was this ship larger, but it was more complex and required a more direct touch due to the heavy emphasis on aesthetics.
The Rapscallion's Glee took only a day to make while Draco had estimated the average time to be 7 days for others, while The Princess' Delight took the group 5 days compared to the average of 35 days.
Just having these 10 assistants reduced the craft time by a factor of 7, and reduced the difficulty to almost nothing as well. However their wages were no joke, totaling 340,000 platinum a week for all of them. This was an amount that not even the former Hellscape and Darkrow put together could have afforded, not even if they had sold all of their assets.
Just like any aspect of life, money could make everything smooth and easy… if you had a lot of it. Also, the degree of ease and freedom decided how much one would need to fork over.
In this case, at the mere Amateur Rank, Draco had to give out just under 350k platinum a week to enjoy these cheat-like benefits. Even for him, this was steep. It was likely that Sublime Notion would jump in fear due to the sudden bills hitting her desk.
Heck, had they not acquired more land or gained the almighty Money Lover, Umbra wouldn't even make enough weekly to cover the cost. Even now, these contracts were draining Umbra cruelly, so Draco knew he couldn't keep it up forever.
Draco also smiled bitterly when he realized that the system was cruel. By implementing such steep costs, people who intended to use this Tradeskill to make money would tough it out themselves and never use this method.
How many sh.i.p.s could you even make a month and how much could you sell them for to make up for these severe costs?!
As such, the only idiots- *cough* rich young masters who would actually pay for such a thing were people like Draco, who used the Tradeskill for themselves, to build a personal armada according to their own tastes and for their own personal consumption.