Chapter 371 - Tradeskill Growth 2
Such a huge number of potions meant that Draco could make a good amount of money if he put them up for sale in an auction or in his shop. However, instead of being happy, he felt endless frustration for one particular reason.
His worst fear had been realized. In this Unique Quest, he might be able to enjoy the nice part of the banana, but he was also forced to eat the bruised parts.
All the potions had been made with a good amount of formulas he knew or remembered as being unique from the previous timeline. Many of them were just random mixtures that he abused his high success rate to make happen, otherwise even a real Grandmaster might face a cauldron explosion.
Yet, no matter what, only about 30 of his crafts had been recognized as unique with an accompanying system message. Since he only got 100% exp and Tradeskill experience for every Epic potion recipe, Draco realized that he really had a long way to go.
At least his Tradeskill level was soaring rapidly. After all, the recipes might not be new, but they were still Epic. One day of work with his increased tempo had generated enough potions to rival a normal Master Rank Alchemist's monthly output.
If normal Master Rank Alchemists needed 6 months to reach the level cap, then would it take Draco six days? Indeed, and while this may seem short, one should remember that the difficulty in the Master Rank wasn't going from level 60 to level 80.
No, it was going from level 80 to level 81, a grueling task that took years upon years. Just leveling up seemed like a cakewalk in comparison, and it was just that for Draco.
However, the lack of class experience infuriated him. He began to despise the old era for being a land of pretentious louts that looked into the future too much.
Who asked them to be such geniuses who had almost everything? Harrumph, it served them right for getting annihilated!
Draco continued to let negative and hateful thoughts run through his mind about the old era due to his dissatisfaction.
After spending a whole day crafting, Draco went out to take a bath and enjoy a meal. Both of these activities were handled by Natasha, who no longer hated her role.
In fact, she met it with surprising enthusiasm, which startled Draco. Once again, his predictions had turned out to be wrong, as Natasha had come around faster than he expected.
However, Draco was not on the mood to savor the delicacy that was the birdwoman. After he finished most of his work, then he could still lay waste to her, but until then she was off the hook.
Natasha seemed disappointed by this, but she still maintained her enthusiastic behavior. Such was life. If someone chased another person and got ignored, it was no surprise that when the roles reversed, the same might happen.
Draco checked on Ophie and saw that the halfling had returned to work, and was brewing many drinks for her new hubby. The pint-sized cutie wore a happy smile and even sang a little song as she worked, bringing a smile to Draco's previously unmoving face.
As for the other maids, some chose to bite the bullet and join Draco's lineage after Hoover explained the details, while others chose to leave, as they were only looking to get some quick benefits without any strings attached.
Still, a good amount of the beauties remained on the fence, as this was a big decision. No one knew the future, and no one could say that choosing to be with or without him was a good idea.
Perhaps if they were more familiar with the outside world and understood what Umbra, Vita, and whatnot stood for, they wouldn't hesitate.
Currently, it was akin to asking a group of non-believers to accept a new religion. Some might join the faith, some would be unsure and many would scoff in derision. It was a similar thing.
A total of 15 so far chose to join the Morningstar Clan. Draco told Hoover to bring one of them to his private bedchamber every other day, so he would finish consummating him within a month.
After all, he was in work mode, so he couldn't dedicate a lot of his precious time to planting seeds in any garden he saw. As for the girls, they couldn't complain, as they had already made their choice. Now, it was a matter of waiting to see if they were wise.
Draco went back to making endless potions. After his break, he focused on trying to make extremely crazy or nonsensical recipes that no one should have ever attempted. He knew that he would really be pushing his cauldron and success rate if he did this, but he had no choice.
If he didn't get enough experience to level up his stuff, he could never become Rank 2. Even though there was no real rush to get there, Draco wanted to upgrade his subjective magic to Rank 2 through his Mage God title.
At Rank 2, he would gain the ability to use basic spells of the pinnacle elements, and that would change how he fought fundamentally, instantly making him far stronger than he already was.
Unfortunately, Draco was not very successful in this endeavor because even a high success rate could not guarantee a potion when the ingredients were too chaotic when mixed together.
Instead, all he got was a batch of waste. It was impossible for his cauldron to explode in his face since he used Worldly Energy to suppress it and toss it out when it looked problematic.
As such, in the second day of his potionmaking, Draco only got 567 useful potions while the remaining 789 were failures. Even worse, out of those crazy 567 successes, somehow only 12 ended up being unique designs.
At this point, he was about to pull his hair out from anger. However, he took a deep breath and after calming down a little, he understood the logic behind this. Alchemy was by far the most lucrative Basic Tradeskill out of the bunch, so unsurprisingly there were quite a lot of them, and chancing upon a new recipe was the life goal of every Alchemist.
Compared to them, Blacksmiths usually worked with simple designs and hardly made new ones unless they were custom ordered or it was time for them to try and become a Grandmaster.
Also, they had many more combinations to create something unique with all the types of weapons and types of materials, especially when one added the existence of Enchantments.
Fortunately, this also meant that Draco would have a much better chance at this with his Blacksmithing, and the experience earned would be higher too. After all, each new Epic potion recipe only gave 100% while a never before seen Semi-Legendary design gave him 500%.
As such, Draco gave up trying to chase after new potion designs as he was wasting time and effort for something not as useful. It would be far better to focus on creating proper potions until he reached the level cap.
With that in mind, Draco changed his goal for the third day. He simply stuck to one of the new recipes he had created in these past two days, which had been named as Enlightenment Potion.
｢Enlightenment – Consumable
Rank: Epic (100% effectiveness)
Effect: Boosts Tradeskill experience gain by 100% for one hour. Grants a small chance to develop a new crafting technique of their own.｣
It was something that would sell like hotcakes among all Tradeskill masters in the world, whether player or NPC. However, no player could afford it easily unless they were part of Umbra's upper echelon.
As for NPC factions, very few apart from the top powers would be able to afford to buy them in bulk at the prices Draco planned to charge. Naturally, many Expert and Master Rank Tradeskill masters could purchase it, as their craft would have yielded them many profits over time.
This was the fundamental difference between combat players/NPCs and lifestyle players/NPCs. Combat players were always looking for ways to make more money in a shorter time to increase their strength, so they had to hunt in the wild and rely on RNG to feed them day by day.
For lifestyle players, their normal work was tradeable, so they were never truly lacking money in the same way that combat players did. However, they were usually weak and couldn't defend themselves against threats.
Everything had its upsides and downsides.
In essence, making items geared towards Tradeskill masters rather than the usual combat individuals would yield much more profit and marketability. Many more would be able to afford Enlightenment compared to Angel's Kiss, which was useful for only battle.
Sometimes, the value of an item was not decided by its own utility, but the number of available buyers that could actually purchase it. For example, one could have a supreme item to give eternal life, but if no one could buy it, then it was practically worthless from an economic standpoint.
Draco naturally consumed the potions he made every hour. There was no point in wasting any more time since he had a long list of things to accomplish in the shortest amount of time possible.
Just like that, his Tradeskill level shot up like the power of the Four Beauties. After just another day, he had gone from his starting point of Level 63, 14% to level 70, 87%.
This was a mindboggling jump that any Master Rank Alchemist would scream at. Just 3 days!! He was already at the halfway point of his Rank, and it was looking like he would hit the level cap in another 4 days.
As his Tradeskill level increased, he gained less experience from the same recipes. As such, even though he continually drank his own potion and worked tirelessly every day except for when it was mealtime, he still made less and less progress.
Not to mention that he now had to seed one of the girls. The first one Hoover had assigned to him was a half-golem girl with rocky bits on her shoulder, back, and legs. Only her thighs, butt, chest, face, hair, and stomach were normal human skin.
This didn't make her look weird, but added an exotic aesthetic to her. After all, the thing players loved most about Boundless was the wealth of races and s.e.x.u.a.l experiences awaiting them.
Everyone could find that one race they could have only fantasized about in their heads or watch in p.o.r.n and actually physically copulate with them. It didn't matter that Boundless was virtual, because everything felt real to the point where there was no distinction.
Even Draco was intrigued by this. After all, in the previous timeline he had spent the first half chasing after Eva and then being with her, then the second half was torn between hates.e.x with Rina and being r.a.p.ed by Maria.
As such, one could say that the previous timeline was just… really messed up all around. No one really had a happy ending back then, except of course Local lord, who was the grand winner of the previous timeline.
Because of that, this current one was like a utopia for Draco and everyone else. Even though the others had no idea of this, their current lives were more than a thousand times better and smoother than would have otherwise been the case.
As for the previous winner, he wasn't even in the running anymore. He was but a fat piece of meat slowly getting cooked to perfection. Even though he could be consumed at any time, the sad part about it... was that he was completely oblivious to this.
Draco made sure to pound this new concubine mercilessly, even activating his Horned Demon Inheritance. Had the half-golem girl not possessed a strong physique thanks to her rocky-lineage, she would likely have ended up like Doris.
Draco was startled to find that she felt just like a normal girl down there, with a strangely unique feeling to it. It was slightly rougher than most normal canals, but the slight coarseness just ended up yielding more pleasure due to the friction.
Once he was done, there was only a pretty half-golem girl on the bed with a white-ish black liquid coating her body and pouring from her canal. Her eyes were glazed over as she had lost consciousness.
Draco called in Natasha to handle the cleanup this time, in order to provoke her l.u.s.t and desire. Now that she had fallen, he wanted her to simmer in longing like Ophie and see how long she would last before herself jumping him.
When Natasha entered and saw the poor, broken girl, her expression changed. She couldn't help but wonder if she would one day end up like that, and the thought chilled her heart.