405 Struggle To Become a Grandmaster Blacksmith

Draco sighed with relief when he saw Eva's body settle down. All the alarms switched off and the lights returned to their bright green. 

Amber, who was still on the line, read some information from the terminal connecting to the AI and sighed. "Everything is fine now. According to the system, she has miraculously overcome her crisis, and like a phoenix rising from the ashes, she has been born anew." 

Draco slumped down like a sack of meat. He had been on high alert all this while, and finally hearing the good news made him feel almost lethargic. Still, he picked himself up and checked Eva's pod carefully. 

"So that's it?" He asked skeptically. 

"Yep. Your soulmate still needs time to adapt to her changes internally and externally. Feel free to hop back to your pod and continue with whatever you were doing beforehand." Amber smiled cryptically. 

Draco ignored her and entered his pod, re-entering the world of Boundless. He spawned exactly where he left himself, in front of Pair Dadeni. He had been assessing the Grandmaster menu and was about to put the Enlightenment potion on batch-craft. 

｢System to Player Announcement 

Set up a crafting queue for the 'Enlightenment' potion? 

1. Auto-craft (Success rate 65%) - Amount: 60 (ETA: 1 hour) 

2. Batch-craft (Success rate 32.5%) - Amount: 300 (ETA: 5 hours) 

Y/N｣ 

Draco was surprised. It seemed the crafting duration was the same as in real life, 1 minute for 1 potion. That was extremely convenient, but also saddening. If it had taken him merely 1 minute to craft an Epic potion with his Grandmaster technique as a Master, shouldn't it just take him 30 seconds as a Grandmaster? 

Still, Auto-Craft worked by doing the queue one by one, like a restaurant preparing a meal for consumers, while Batch-Craft was like a fast-food joint, where a huge amount of food was cooked in one pan for multiple consumers. 

Draco smacked his lips and decided to find out more later. For now, he allocated the reagents meant for the crafting and tossed them to the cauldron. After that, he felt the Worldly Energy of this workroom getting dragged into the cauldron to change the reagents to their Epic variants and the potion process took place as if he was the one to brew it. 

Draco immediately stopped caring because Worldly Energy - for crafting - was now beneath him. When working on Legendary and above stuff, Worldly Energy only polluted and hindered the new creation, so he had to use a purer alternative. 

As a Grandmaster of Alchemy, it was time to take his Blacksmithing to a new level. 

Draco removed Mjolnir and admired the hammer. Now, it looked just like the version from those popular superhero movies back in the early 2010s. Even the lightning that occasionally snaked around it looked legit. 

Initially, he had wanted to use the Light Dragon scales Eva had acquired from the Church of Light to make her a set that would transcend time, but he had changed his mind after finding out that she was now a Celestial Prime. 

He still planned to make the set, but only in her presence. If she could pour the entirety of her Source Origin and some of her bloodline source into it while he was crafting, he estimated that it would result in an armor that would be similar to his own Dragorugio armor set, meaning it would be able to evolve and become part of her which she could recede at any point. 

As such, he had to go with plan b. 

He was going to make an ornamental item for Eva, one that suited her bloodline well. Draco knew that she had the Eye of Heaven, Lightfire Mystic Flame, and Light Manipulation passive skill to enhance her light-based abilities, so he wanted to focus on something else. 

Draco had already thought of something and his face curled into a wretched smile. 

'Teehee, Eva darling, don't blame me for being cruel! You were the one who forced me to do this!' Draco thought viciously. 

He quickly took out some Legendary grade ores that he got from the people here to suit his needs. The ore was called Supreme Etherium and had the best magical-enhancing and supporting properties of all high-tier ores. 

Draco was about to toss it into the smelter when he paused. An idea so vile and so foolish came to him that he could not put it aside. Draco's face changed multiple times in a second as he contemplated this new choice before a look of madness flashed across his face. 

He took back the Supreme Etherium he planned to use and pulled out… he pulled out… 

Oh God, the idiot pulled out a few top-grade Aether Crystals! 

With that flash of mental instability still in his mind, he directly skipped the smelting process and tossed three of the Aether Crystals onto the anvil. How would Madam Carrie react if she were to find out that Draco was casually using them for crafting when it was precious enough for the Church of Light to trade away their treasured Dragon Scales... 

One could almost hear the Semi-Epic anvil and forge screaming for help, to be saved from this madman. But who could save them? 

Draco concentrated and raised Mjolnir up high. If any onlooker could see this, they would flee in fear and not even dare to watch, because it was clear that this retard was looking to die and take a whole continent along with him! 

When he wanted to bring Mjolnir down, Draco even felt resistance from the hammer. After all, items above the Epic Rank had some small consciousness and awareness, though they did not interact with players at this stage of the game. 

Draco could feel the reluctance in Mjolnir. The hammer was not willing to die so early, it still had so many sexy ingots to pound! Even though the idea of pounding Aether Crystals was kind of hot - because it was taboo - that didn't mean that the hammer was willing to die for it. 

Immediately, Mjolnir 'spiritually' called to its one and only brother Pair Dadeni, to come and save him. If Pair Dadeni could disrupt the batch-craft or something, it might pull Draco's attention away long enough for him to regain his senses. 

Pair Dadeni received he message and 'glanced over' to Mjolnir as well as Draco's antics with a 'calm' expression. Then, it immediately 'looked away' and 'covered its ears' so that it wouldn't hear any screams. 

Fuck! 

Mjolnir was stunned. Is that the fellow I called best buddy for so many months? Wasn't it the two of us who swore to be blood brothers for eternity, no matter the developments that happened in life? 

Damn! 

Mjolnir was distracted, so Draco regained control and brought it down heavily upon the Aether Crystals. As it continued to go down, it continually swore at Pair Dadeni, Draco, and even the Aether Crystals. 

Of course, Pair Dadeni, that unreliable homie, was 'deaf' to and was lazily 'seeing' to Draco's task. Draco too could not hear or see any of this because it was filler comedic relief. (Editor's Note: Let's hope that this is all it was. The world (of Boundless) is not ready for Draco's shamelessness to be passed on to his items...) 

When the hammer connected with the Aether Crystal though, nothing occurred. It simply flattened the topmost layer of the crystal, making it smoother than it usually was. 

Of course, Draco was a risk-taker, but he wasn't going to risk his entire set-up for it! He only dared to do so because he had enough confidence in the control of his own droppings- err… Aether Crystals. 

However, it wasn't a cakewalk. Draco had suffered to become a Grandmaster of Alchemy, using his Eyes of Caelo and Pair Dadeni's active skill to analyze his way through, as well as combining his cumulative knowledge to succeed. 

And as they say, when you become very good at one thing, to the point where you reach the top, it is comparatively easier to reach the same point in another similar field compared to someone experiencing it for the first time. 

As such, if the difficulty for becoming a Grandmaster the first time was 90%, then the second time it was reduced to 50%! 

Of course, this only applied to Draco and the residents of this small world. This was due to the available Grandmaster slots first, the old era legacy that paved the way for them second, the abundance of energy and resources here for them to practice with third, and their own immense talent for Tradeskills. 

Unfortunately for the fellows on the outside, they lacked some or all of these criteria, so even becoming a Grandmaster in one field was enough to elevate one to the topmost echelon of the world, a being revered and respected by all. 

Draco used his upgraded racial State of Being in conjunction with his Three Pound Origin to shape the crystals. The State of Being allowed him to control the Aetheric Energy freely and prevent it from exploding or reacting, while the Three Pound Origin was in charge of the actual work. 

This would have been impossible otherwise. Draco was unsure if Dragons of the old era were as crazy as him to craft with their Aether Crystals, but Draco had a sinking feeling that Dragons hardly did anything back then. 

After all, they practically shat out money every hour, so anything they wanted to be done would be done for them. It didn't make sense for them to do their own work as the number 1 species in terms of Rank, power, and wealth. 

No wonder it was said that the Ancestral Dragon City was the richest location in the entire old world, to the point that even gods were considered poor before them. With every resident practically printing money, who wouldn't work like a dog for their sake? 

The three Aether Crystals began to transform as Draco continually worked on them. Since the Aetheric Energy within them was maintained, he didn't need to add any from an external source as he did with the Call of the Void potion. 

Slowly, they shifted from sizable rhombus-like crystals to a circular design that had rivets and depressions across the base and rim. Draco also carved holes in the upper half of this circular band like thing, each of them equidistant from the other and of the same shape. 

Not only that, but he added spikes to the top, also in an equidistant separation, which had small holes that were also of the same shape as the larger ones below. 

When Draco was done with it, he placed it on the anvil and wiped away the sweat from his brow. As one could expect, working with his State of Being always on to prevent the explosion while crafting had worn him out in ways that becoming a Grandmaster in Alchemy could not emulate. 

To give an analogy, it was like being military personnel and being commanded to retrieve a portable nuclear warhead that was extremely volatile and could blow up the entire state. 

As such, you had to slowly shuffle along, not moving your upper body at all in order not to shake the warhead and go kaboom. Apart from the mental stress and strain on your body, you also had to do this while climbing 100 floors worth of staircases. 

If Draco wasn't at the Medium-Rank, didn't have such a strong will, and most importantly, hadn't Ranked up, none of this would have even been possible. Even then, he barely passed the bare minimum requirements to achieve this feat. 

However, he wasn't done. He had only completed the first stage of it all, which was preparing the base form of the ornamental item. Looking at what he placed on the anvil, what he was making became clear. 

It was a crown! 

He had already shaped the base form of the now greenish-blue crown, and one could see the Aetheric Energy swirling within it potently. Now, Draco had two more tasks to complete before he could become a Grandmaster. 

The first was to fill the holes he had made with jewels to decorate the crown. Naturally, since he was making something powerful, he needed special jewels that could maximize Eva's strength as well as the properties of the Aether Crown. 

The second was - of course - to change up the aesthetics of the crown. Greenish-blue and plain were not fitting for a Goddess of Light like Eva, so a creamy white color would be perfect, with some hints of red and black in there.