Draco could only sigh and put these misc thoughts aside. No matter how he felt, it was not possible to jump over sections, at least not yet. Rather it was more imperative to make sure that his detailed recording proceeded smoothly.
It wasn't really time-consuming, just required a lot of focus and attention. A normal person would easily be tired after a few minutes of this and get distracted, but Draco had both Control and his bloodline keeping him on the path of righteousness.
He shuffled through resource after resource. When he was done with them, he would immediately coalesce a new one beside it using a trash-tier resource. It only affected how much energy he used, and Draco found that the bigger the gap between his source material and end materials, the more 'exp' or 'proficiency' he gained with Refinement as a whole.
See, this was the issue with the powerful Tradeskill. What Norma had given him was an unpolished piece of coal that was on the cusp of becoming a diamond.
So as it was right now, Draco could not teach it to anyone else or allow anyone else to use it, and he couldn't even gain Tradeskill experience for it or use Tradeskill experience on it.
However, the difference was that he could use it with no restrictions… well, in general. As Norma had wanted him to elevate the Tradeskill to its highest heights, she couldn't let him go astray.
As such, she manually limited the Tradeskill that was inherited, only allowing Draco to access the higher Ranks and power of the Tradeskill after reaching a certain threshold of quality and expertise with the Tradeskill.
As it was, he was at the basic stage where he needed to stringently follow the four main steps of Refinement, which were;
– The source material
– Knowledge of the source material's structure
– Sufficient energy, which could be in the form of Worldly, Aetheric, or even Spirit Energy
– Knowledge of the end material's structure
Missing even one of these steps meant failure.
As stipulated by Norma in the guidelines she had left for Draco within the Tradeskill, he had to reach a margin of error of 0.5% of perfection in terms of energy utility when Refining.
This was a brutal requirement because even Norma herself had only reached a margin of error of 2.5% before she had ascended from mortal to True God.
Norma had been bottlenecked by what she had believed to be her deficient talent, so she had put an even more stringent requirement on talent for her successor.
However, Norma didn't realize that Draco was in awe of her monstrous talent for being able to discover this. Rather than lack of talent, Draco felt the one thing limiting her had actually been Energy.
If she had a realm like the Inner Universe, Norma would have easily ascended to True God. This was what Draco was going to mostly rely on, as he didn't dare claim his talent was higher than hers when it came to this.
Unlike Norma who had to utilize every resource carefully and struggle to reduce her wastage through intense discipline as well as control, this supreme fuckboy by the name of Draco didn't even hesitate for a second to abuse the infinite energy of his Inner Universe to spam resources until he reached 0% wastage!
It was possible. With enough time and energy, he would definitely learn how to reduce his control, and that was why he was here.
Draco was about to do something called a pro gamer move.
You see, what did Draco need most now?
No, not higher IQ!
…Well, yes but actually no.
Anyway! What Draco needed most was time!
Draco needed to be able to control time and stop it however he liked!
…no, he did not need Za Warudo.
HE NEEDED ZA UNIVERSE!!!
That was the plan. He was channeling resources for Eva to upgrade her Sun to Tier 2 and he to perform Area Expansion level 3 as well as Universe Growth level 1.
Universe Growth level 1 would introduce the Four Elements into the entire void. With this, other islands would begin to spawn in the void that could begin to house basic life like plants and some bacteria.
No animals or the like would spawn, though Hikari could create those with her current abilities. However, that was not what was the highlight of this.
The highlight, was Area Expansion level 3. This particular upgrade would introduce the pinnacle elements to the island in the void, allowing Draco to access the laws of Space and Time.
Obviously, you should know what that meant! Super time dilation!
Currently, Draco was at Universe Growth level 0 and Area Expansion level 1. He would expand the universe by one and the island in the void by two, so there were quite a few tough and previous resources he had to go through.
When he was done, replicating them was even more brutal as the whole void shook with the energy that was dragged over. His inefficiency coupled with the small area made it such that the fellow pulled in greater amounts than needed creating immense wastage.
On the main plane, even the AI might strike him down due to anger for wasting such precious resources, but here, he was God. No one could call Draco dumb for pouring rainwater into his pool when it was already full, right?
The energy was constantly supplement by the Eternal Tree with ease, nothing Draco could do would faze its output. It wasn't releasing the energy in bits too, but maintaining the full state.
The upside of this was that Draco was adapting VERY quickly. Much faster than he or Norma had expected. After all, even a Semi-Origin Goddess couldn't expect her successor to stumble upon INFINITE ENERGY!
That was why her pack had contained Origin Crystals, so Draco could use the energy in them to slowly practice and not worry about where he would get some.
It also had to do with the fact that instead of starting small and working with common materials then working his way up, the fellow had mostly been working with Epic and Legendary materials, even some Divine.
Initially, his progress towards Norma's goal had been at a measly 0.1% and over the time he had spent in seclusion and the one-off times he used Refinement here and there, his progress had risen to 0.3%.
Now, after such an intense bout, his progress had risen crazily!!
Now, Draco was on the cusp of completion at a whopping 0.5%!!
Cough cough, what did you expect? It's a Divine Tradeskill for God's sake! If it was that easy, why not wrap up the game and let Draco use it as a condom to bang Local Lord's mom?
Anyway, Draco was proud of his progress this time. He only used Control's Void of Perfection to gather the Worldly Energy, not invoking his Cause and Effect Theory nor his Draconic State of Being.
(Author's Note: I know some of you have forgotten due to the hiatus and the general lack of mention towards it, so here's a refresher on what Cause and Effect Theory was. It's basically a means in which to invoke your will to manipulate the world around you without relying on your State of Being.
I.e. 'Because of X, Y occurred.' So if one wanted to bend light without using Void of Perfection, one would say 'because the light bends around me, I become invisible'. The effectiveness of this depends on the strength of your mind and your will, putting great strain on both. There's naturally more to it, but this is just a refresher, not exposition.)
He did this so that he could push his Control even further to the brink, allowing it to reach the next tier. Just like he had formerly forsaken Control and his State of Being to strengthen his Cause and Effect Theory, right now he was reconciling with Control, telling her that she's the only one in his life and everything else was just him being a young dumb man.
But this was just one aspect. If he truly wanted to level up, he would have to make use of the Body of Godliness, and he had plans for that starting with the 21st floor.
Soon enough, he was done with the sets of resources, putting them down neatly between himself and Eva. He collected those he needed for the Inner Universe and created a barrier of Destruction Energy around himself as he gazed at Eva solemnly.
He had not forgotten how he had been severely burned the last time she had upgraded her Inner Sun. He wasn't sure what would occur this time if it went out of control.
He had even gone as far as to place a powerful barrier backed by the Eternal Tree around the Heavenly Palace. He could tolerate himself getting hurt, but the rest of his family should not experience the fallout of this, not if he could do something about it.
Eva collected the resources needed for her second upgrade and absorbed them into her body. Draco focused his Eyes of Caelo to peer into his Inner Space, which only he could do with ease.
Within, he could see Eva's blazing Inner Sun that was the size of a small city block as it rotated slowly. Each second it rotated generated endless amounts of Heat and Light Energy for Eva, making her reserves unquenchable.
The Inner Sun was mostly calm until it sensed the influx of resources, at which point it ravenously attacked the materials, melting them down as it absorbed them one by one.
The rotation then came to a stop as Eva's body trembled strongly, and so too did her Inner Sun.. Great amounts of Worldly Energy were pulled in her body, being absorbed by the blazing ball of flame as its size began to expand once more.