Chapter 234: 234
Putting this aside, Draco brought out another set of ingredients, this time most of them containing traces of a Phoenix affiliation .
While mass-producing an already completed and valuable position like the Basic Dragon Transformation Potion was good, he sorely needed to accumulate Tradeskill experience for his high-end Tradeskills .
As such, he would have to generate new potions that were also valuable enough for people to splurge Aether Crystals on . The difficulty of this went without saying, but Draco was hopeful .
While many others would waste precious Epic materials countless times for one success, he could cut costs by relying on his cauldron's passive skill .
He had wasted the active skill though, and its cooldown was a whooping 21 days . So, if he failed now, he would have to restart .
Even if that was the case, Draco would rather not fail . While he might be able to get a new batch of materials with ease, Update 1 had introduced a concept all players would curse on a daily basis . . .
Durability .
It was something both combat and Tradeskill players had to watch out for, as their tools would receive damage from failures, whether it be through battle or cauldron explosion etc .
The issue was that until he entered the Master Rank of Blacksmithing, he would be unable to repair the cauldron . An alternative would be to use the Basic Equipment Maintenance Device from Magical Engineering, but its Rank was too low .
It would certainly restore some durability, but that would be in the single-digit range . On a cauldron that had 500,000 durability, this was a pitiful amount that wouldn't change much .
However, Draco knew he would have to risk it all .
Why? Because he had shot up from level 50, 65% in the Tradeskill to level 52, 30%! This was a jump of about two levels, which was unheard of in his Rank .
It might be due to the fact that he had created a new recipe, but that alone could not be it . After all, he had done this many times with Blacksmithing, but it hadn't yielded so much in terms of experience, even with the 'Eternal Growth' items .
Draco, as a reincarnator, was easily able to deduce the reason . It was something he knew and always mentioned, but never truly respected, which was the ratio of difficulty to success .
When using Worldly Energy, he would naturally be able to succeed on potions above his Rank due to his ingenuous use . However, this followed the same logic as using Control or his State of being for the Cause and Effect Theory of Subjective Magic .
It was an external means, an intermediary or middle-man to put it better, in the facilitation of the process . It was different from succeeding in an Epic potion relying on the traditional means of fire and technique .
He was currently in the Expert Rank (level 41-60), which equated Rare potions . If he was in the Elite Rank (level 21-40) which equated Uncommon potions, what he had just tried would have ended up a failure ten times out of ten, regardless of however many times he used Return on Failure .
So, in essence, using it at the earlier stages had been the correct decision . It had allowed him to quickly jump higher and gain amazing rewards for his Rank back then, which helped him lay a great foundation overall .
It could even still be used now, only that the experience yield would be lower . However, if Draco imposed more difficulties by trying to make High-tier Epic potions - bordering on Legendary - relying solely on his traditional skill, his yield would be almost triple .
So, to simplify, he had two choices . The first was to continue crafting using Worldly Energy as a buffer, greatly increasing his success rate - meaning he would have more potions to sell at the auction - while the second would be to forgo Worldly Energy and rely on himself - meaning he would work like any other Alchemist, but in exchange pave his way back to the Master Rank in record time .
Draco silently pondered before going with option 2 . This wasn't because he felt option 1 was bad, but because logic stated that option 2 was smarter .
Option 1 guaranteed more potions to sell for Aether Crystals, but after just thinking about how the human race didn't have enough good stuff to sell in exchange for his products, why should he do something like this?
Even if he could put them aside for races that would kill to buy them - like the monster races - that was still a matter of the future . Right now, his immediate goal was to complete the auction then rush to Rank 2 .
After that, he would partake in the Refinement God's Treasury and then deal with the matter surrounding his growth items .
(Author's Note: I know the original plan stated that he would level up the items after the auction BEFORE reaching Rank 2, but as mathematics teachers always say, we are way behind schedule . The Training Arc took far longer than I expected because I wanted it done once and for all, and we have yet to move on . So, some events will be reshuffled to reflect this . )
Option 2 guaranteed more Tradeskill experience, which was what he needed most . Besides, he could only effectively abuse the large Tradeskill experience while he was crafting things above his supposed rank . Once he reached the Master Rank he wouldn't get any bonus experience, yet his time penalty would be removed and everything would depend on his crafting skill .
With Worldly Energy, his level 5 Refined Star Technique and the amazing Pair Dadeni cauldron, he reckoned that his craft time per potion could be reduced to 3 minutes per attempt instead of the current 10 minutes .
Not only that, but putting more emphasis on his Refined Star technique would push it for another breakthrough . Draco assumed that there were 10 levels in the Technique, so he should have enough of a foundation to reach level 7 currently .
That was why it had taken a final little push to send him from the pinnacle of level 4 to level 5 . As for the intricacies of his techniques and how he formed them…
To be honest, Draco wasn't too sure . He had always had this talent since he began playing Boundless, which was fighting in a life-and-death environment .
It became even more rampant when he unlocked Control . Most of the time, he didn't even consciously create techniques, his mind would just begin generating them when he tried his hands with something new .
This had nothing to do with his bloodline as it had been tightly sealed at the time, so its release hadn't strengthened it . It functioned at the same capacity and power as always, meaning that this was something intrinsic to Draco .
He had theorized that it might be something like how Jada had legitimate Clairvoyance in the real world, while Jade's mind seemed to work like a computer, allowing her to manage electronics with such precision .
As for Sanji, his was just a case of years of practice make perfect, whereas Jade's was pure talent . It was possible that there was some secret behind it, but Draco had no way of knowing just yet .
As such, he filtered this batch of reagents using the Semi-Epic Alchemy Set Hikari had coalesced for him a while back, which took no time since they were Common materials .
He easily mixed them into a relatively perfect blend before tossing the paste into the cauldron with some water made from Subjective Magic . Draco had used his Control to handle the resource provision, and the water was magically enhanced .
This naturally meant that he had provided a hefty amount of resource to facilitate this, but it wasn't much of a struggle when he was using Control as a buffer . If he used his State of Being, he could even yawn while doing so .
Draco began the concoction process after preparing all of this . The materials were upgraded to their Epic variant, which drained a good amount of Worldly Energy but at least, this time it didn't leave it barren .
After all, while the Phoenix race was number 4 on the State of Being Rankings, the disparity between them and the number 3 Dragon race was immense . This was not to say that the Phoenix race were inferior .
In actual fact, with the Gods having receded, the Ultima Sunt had been hunted to extinction and the only actual Dragons alive were only their offspring with various amounts of their bloodline remaining, so pure-blooded Phoenixes could bully those overgrown lizards . That was nothing to say of the large gap between them and the number 5 race .
Draco's goal for this potion was to function as a hidden card . It was something that harnessed Phoenix Fire and could erupt with untold power when used .
Yes, this wasn't a 'consumable' potion, but an 'explosive' one . It was meant to be tossed at the enemy and watch them being cooked into a sunday barbecue .
If you foolishly drank it, you would be the one frying until you were well done .
Since Draco was working with an extremely volatile potion, it was natural that he had to be extremely careful . If a normal cauldron explosion would result in a loss of 10,000 durability, this one could take away 50,000!
Frankly if an explosion was imminent, Draco would rather swallow the unstable mixture and blink away, letting it blow him to pieces from the inside out rather than damage Pair Dadeni .
After all, he could easily respawn 3 times a day with no losses incurred, but repairing Pair Dadeni's would cost more than a little bit, not to mention the hassle of finding someone capable of doing that and paying for it .
Draco channeled all of his focus and his Refined Star Technique's prowess while working on the mixture . Even though the Basic Dragon Transformation Potion was far less volatile, it was still harder to work with than this one .
He used his insights from the previous method to minimize the problems occurring here, and many reference points could be found . Of course, it wasn't all peaches and roses as he encountered many hiccups .
What saved him was the - relatively - lower difficulty of this concoction compared to the previous one, as well as his powered up Refined Star Technique .
As such, Draco was able to complete process without failure, granting him a new recipe and all its ensuing rewards .
「Congratulations on creating new weapon: Unnamed (Potion) (Epic)
Rewards:
100% Exp
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