Draco continued on by placing the finished Primal Soil to the side. Then, he continued working by taking fistfuls of the Common soil then converting it upwards.
This time, Draco focused less on the structure of the two items and more on the change, the energy intake, and its speed. He purposefully dragged the process out as long as he could to watch what role the energy played at the molecular level.
If he could understand this, he could progressively cut down his costs. However, if it were that easy, Norma would not have required much from her successor and set such a high goal.
The energy was simply broken down into smaller units and infused into the molecules, reshaping them into the style of the Primal Soil. This showed Draco nothing more than he already knew, and he couldn't push deeper to find out more.
It made him frown deeply before he sighed. He realized that before he tried to understand something so deep, he should first expand his knowledge on the fundamentals of different materials and then analyze the changes during the process.
As such, after this fistful which lasted slightly longer but used the same amount of Aetheric Energy, Draco began working like a conveyor belt. He would grab some soil, refine it into Primal Soil, then toss it to the side as if it was something cheap and not a resource worth billions of platinum.
Zaine and Eva watched on with solemn expressions, knowing that Draco's status in the world of Boundless had severely changed. If he had been a promising powerhouse that could one day attain Origin Rank with his bloodline then move to another realm before, he was now the hope of the Western Fantasy section!
If he played his cards right, not just the Morningstar Clan, but the entire world might experience a powerful leap in power!
Of course, expecting such magnanimity from Draco was asking for far too much.
Eva and Zaine knew him, and they were sure it would require the entire world, from Origin Gods to the lowest rats, to kowtow to him 400 times and call him 'Ultimate Ancestor', before he would merely CONSIDER throwing them some of his scraps.
But would the other powers do so?
Ironically, the Origin Gods would for sure. Anything to free from their burden, pride be damned.
But the True Gods and the rest would never bend and rather break!
As for Roma, she was thinking about how cool it would be if Draco could make infinite Soul Energy for her to practice with.
All the Soul Energy she had gotten recently had been exhausted in her experiments, and she kinda missed hearing the screams of damned souls that deserved better before they were extinguished into nothingness, never to reincarnate again.
Hikari though, was wondering if Draco could make some precious resources that she remembered from the Ancestral City that could help incubate True Blood offspring.
It would severely cut down the time for gestation as well as hatching, as Hikari had long been a bit jealous and wanted to badly hold her own babies in hand as well.
In an hour, Draco was done with the dirt pile, and beside him lay a pile of Primal Soil of the same quantity. This was also one of the scary aspects of refinement, in that quantity was not lost during the conversion.
Of course, the key to this was enough energy. If Draco had too little energy, a fistful of humus could only become a few specs of Primal Soil after conversion, barely enough to even see with the n.a.k.e.d eye.
Since Draco only needed 100 kg for the Inner Universe expansion, he was good. He then turned to focus on the next resource, which were the Seeds of Wind.
Zaine and co had brought normal seeds, which Draco took one by one and began transforming into the Legendary resource. There were hundreds in the pile, and Draco spent the next 3 hours changing them all.
Since he only needed a hundred, he shoved the rest to Zaine for her to deal with it how she saw fit. Zaine herself smiled as she planned on going to visit the powers that won the auction one by one.
She would first sell them 5 Advanced Spatial Creation Devices at exorbitant prices, then bring out the very materials needed to expand these worlds from super mini to mini grade, selling those too at exorbitant prices.
If the current marketing geniuses at Apple were to read Zaine's mind, they would bow and call her Ancestress, for she had mastered their filthy tactics to perfection.
Draco next focused on the huge basin of water brought to him. He then scratched his head as he couldn't hold it in his fist, could he? As such, he could only use his telekinesis to carry a small bit out and change it before placing it in a bottle made from Worldly Energy.
Just like how he could collect potions, so too was he collecting this resource in such a manner. Each bottle had about 1 liter of Essence of Water and he came up with 50 liters by the end.
Since he only needed 5 liters at most, the rest was given to Zaine to squeeze out even more.
As for the final resource, the Essential Tinder, it was in the form of a glowing bark with some charred embers on it. As such, Zaine had brought Draco many small pieces of half-burnt wood as that was the closest thing they could find.
Changing these took another three hours as the quantity was similar to the Seeds of Wind.
Draco sighed with relief once he was done. He then took the other resources Zaine had acquired as well as the ones Shinoka Continent Amaterasu had gifted them, studied them, and then duplicate them using cheaper materials.
Draco then gauged his progress and found that while the game couldn't give him specifics, he could use Norma's baseline as a guide. As such, he could say that after more than 7-8 hours of nonstop high-level Refinement, he had progressed… 0.1%!
He could only smile bitterly and take it as it was. Whatever the case, he would never be hurting for resources as long as he could memorize their makeup, so after duplicating the materials, the rest went to Zaine, and then he took what he needed.
While he also wanted to continue Refining as it was a lot more fun than the other Tradeskills, not to mention very lucrative, he had gathered his wives here for a different purpose.
That was to expand the Inner Universe from its bare and inhabitable state to something that could be occupied!
As such, Draco smiled and rose to his feet. He then gazed at the Four Beauties before him and waved his hand, creating a portal that led to a small island in a void.
"Well, my darling babes, are you ready?"
They all smiled and nodded, walking calmly into the portal and appearing at the center of the island floating in the void. They looked around with marvel, seeing endless stars in the sky that surrounded their stationary island.
The island itself looked picturesque, like something from a painting. It had a river that started at one end - from the void - and flowed endlessly at another - into the same void - making them wonder where it went after it disappeared?
Was it perhaps an endless self-contained loop?
The science - or magic - behind it escaped the four ladies, but they noticed that aside from this river, the rest of the island was a grassland with very little diameter.
It was only enough for about ten people to stand on, still somewhat cramped. Seeing this, they understood why Draco hurriedly wanted to expand it, as it was a complete waste to leave it bare like this.
As such, Draco wasted no time in bringing up the Inner Universe's menu.
｢Universe Name: Unnamed
Owner: Draco
Tier: 0
Worldly Energy: Unlimited
Aetheric Energy: Unlimited
Divine Energy: Unlimited
Origin Energy: 10%
Indigenes: 0
Plants: 1
Worlds: 0
Upgrades
Options
Permissions｣
Draco frowned as he noticed something that he had missed before. It stated that there was 1 indigenous plant, but there was nothing he could see!
Apart from the generic grass and water, there wasn't really anything else.
Even those were formed with energy, as the elements were not yet introduced into this world in the truest form.
Draco put this aside for later and chose the Upgrades option. There, he saw what was required for expansion and shook his head as he knew he was in for it.
｢System to Player Announcement
Please choose one of the two methods of Upgrade:
1. Area Expansion - Cost: 100 kg Primal Soil, 5 Liters Essence of Water, 100 kg Essential Tinder, 100 Seeds of Wind, 300 cubic meters of Soul Energy, Pure Fruit 70 Kg, Aether Soaked Dew 2 Liters, etc
2. Universe Growth - Cost: 100,000 kg Primal Soil, 5,000 Liters Essence of Water, 100,000 kg Essential Tinder, 100,000 Seeds of Wind, 300 cubic kilometers of Soul Energy, Heart of a King Colossus 5, Blood of a Kraken 1,000 liters… etc｣
Obviously, he was going for Area Expansion. That would allow him to increase the size of the island greatly, at least the first stage should be enough to make it livable by a small group.
As for Universe Growth, that was akin to going from super mini small universe to mini small universe. Obviously, the quantity and quality of resources needed for that were of a different type altogether.
Draco could assure for a fact that without Refinement, there was no way he could ever gather 100,000 kg of all those materials. Even 100 kg had given him a great headache until Eva had enlightened him.
Heck, even parting with a few grams had made the Merchant Guild's Guildmaster hesitate in front of high wealth. It wasn't until Draco had proposed something more than 100 times the value before they agreed.
Forget about stuff like the Heart of a King Colossus and the like. Such beings were between Rank 5 to 7, not something Draco could hope of touching. Even if people killed them, no one would trade the materials easily.
For now, Draco was satisfied with option 1. He had already collected enough Soul Energy as he had Hikari use the Energy Converter to turn Aetheric Energy into Soul Energy.
Luckily, the conversion rate between the two had been really great. After all, Aetheric was more than a single step higher than Soul Energy, which was why Draco using Aether Crystals back then had been such a breakthrough.
Right now though, Draco paid everything up as the system sent more notifications in response.
｢System to Player Announcement
Analyzing selected materials…｣
｢System to Player Announcement
Assessing the state of the landmass…｣
｢System to Player Announcement
Merging resources in the required formula…｣
｢System to Player Announcement
Done! Area Expansion level 1 complete!｣
Immediately, the five people could feel the change. The land around them began to quake and shift, extending itself a few hundred kilometers in each direction.
It finally stopped and created a wall at the end, blocking any unfortunate fool from walking over the edge and falling into the void. Compared to before forests now sprouted and the universe had lakes and even waterfalls.
The place was lush with energy and nature, adding that certain something that it had lacked before. Life had not yet sprouted in the form of animals and the like, so the ecosystem was not yet complete.
Draco though, was more than satisfied with what he wrought. Now the Inner Universe was livable for his beauties and his kids, and he could establish the personal world of the Morningstar clan.
Before they returned to the Anomaly Realm, Draco gathered the beauties around and asked.
"Well, we have to name this Inner Universe, so what do you ladies suggest?"
The four of them pondered and deliberated with each other for a few minutes. Hikari didn't have much skill with naming things, Roma had a diverse language vocabulary that she could offer and Zaine had extremely high EQ.
As for Eva, she was basically the judge and would have the final say, so she eventually smiled and called out the – possibly most fitting – name for the Inner Universe.
"Morningstar World."
