Guild Wars

Chapter 230 - Scrivening 2

Draco suddenly understood why the lore for Boundless had been structured in the way it was. If players were to play in a world like the old era, there would be little room for growth, because the NPCs would own everything.

Epic and Legendary Tradeskills required truckloads of Aether Crystals to function, so by establishing the lore as every single Dragon getting slaughtered, it put the world into an Aether Crystal deficiency.

With this, it didn’t even matter if a player was so outstanding that they received an Epic or Legendary Tradeskill as a fair reward, because it would severely limit how much they could benefit from it and thus a proper balance could be kept in this section of the game.

But how could the AI have predicted that a beast like Draco would exist? Even if it somehow could have accounted for bloodlines before this, what were the chances of a Serpent God Inheritance member possessing the affinity of a genuine dragon? And a Black Dragon, at that?!

Even that would have been fine because without bloodline compatibility, they couldn’t learn Draconic skills or spells before Update 5. However, Draco had gone to spray his DNA over the AI wickedly.

Not only that, but he had also abused his future knowledge with Eva’s help to discover the only remaining White Dragon on the material world, who had an entire global story event revolve around her once players reached the higher Ranks and began to encounter True Gods.

All of that went down the drain once Hikari was ’captured’ by this vile beast, who proceeded to lay his monstrous claws on her fair skin.

If it was just that, the AI could have swallowed the bitter pill and re-organized the events of the quest. However, the fellow had then built his bloody settlement over the Aether Mine and used it to form his current City-State.

His claiming of Hikari led her to grant him the Aether Production passive skill, paving the way for Draco’s ensuing evil.

Afterwards through the fellow foolishly underestimating the immensity of the heavens and earth by playing with the Aether Conversion Orb in the Anomaly Realm beneath the Aether Hall, his Aether Production had been upgraded to the Aether Conversion, which was even stronger than what Hikari possessed.

He had become a factory for Aether Crystals, and just selling a batch he had spawned over the course of slightly more than a week had made instantly turned him into the world’s richest man.

However, there always had to be balance in life. He had gained the Magical Engineering and Scrivener Tradeskills which were huge Aether Crystal sinks...

This had been designed to act as a limiter on the Tradeskill’s productivity in order to prevent the crafters under this category from becoming far too potent, especially on the NPC’s side.

At the end of the day, Boundless was a game for players, so they would be given better treatment and a higher priority.

Draco sighed and let it go. He had come here to test the validity of the Tradeskill in order to craft some items and get a hand for its procedures. Once he raised its level with his acc.u.mulated Tradeskill experience, everything would become better.

As such, he paid with 1 medium-grade Aether Crystal to have both Sword Skill 1: Inclined Slash and Sword Skill 2: Parry converted.

A progress bar appeared beneath both Tradeskills, signaling that it would take 3 hours for the conversion of each of them.

Draco frowned at the long duration, but attributed it to his low Tradeskill Rank. If he went higher, it was likely that he would be able to shorten this process to mere seconds.

At least for the basic Tradeskills, higher level meant less time and resources, so it should be no different here.

In the meantime, he rested his tired mind by mediating in the silent library. He felt his lapsing concentration solidify and his headache begin to diminish slowly.

The other Tradeskill masters occasionally glanced at their lord who had been silent ever since he entered, with his eyes dazing into the air. They wondered what was going on with the fellow.

Not only that, but he suddenly began rubbing his temples and whispering expletives under his breath. Such a thing would be inaudible usually, but in this silent atmosphere, he might as well have been yelling.

Many of them felt their faces redden, because some of the combos Draco used were truly too amazing. They, who were ’intellectuals’ who would never reduce themselves to uttering such profanities were naturally exposed to the dark side of the world.

Many of them were awed. One could actually put such vulgar words together to achieve such a critical hit? Wow! I must try this on that enemy of mine...

Caff!

Of course, this was just a passing thought, it wasn’t like we would do such things in reality, hahaha!

After the two techniques were converted, Draco’s mind had recovered by 90%. This had taken 6 hours, meaning that the day was almost over.

However, he wasn’t bothered. By spending such a great amount of effort recording his first 100 techniques, he could slowly convert them over time.

That was another thing, the conversion timer. As Scrivening didn’t require one to be at a set location, he could easily pay for the conversion anywhere and have it work in the background.

So, he could fight, explore or craft while the conversion was going on, maximizing his efficiency. He had chosen to meditate because his splitting headache prevented him from doing anything else.

However, it had largely recovered now, so he had no problem. As such, he decided to continue the process of Scrivening and learn what its end result was like.

First, he checked the converted techniques, and saw that they were presented like a skill book in his mind, with their details highlighted.

｢Sword Skill 1: Inclined Slash – Active Skill

Rank: Common

Effect: Swing one’s sword in a 45° angle to inflict severe lacerations. Deals 20% sword damage on contact.

Cooldown: 5 seconds.｣

｢Sword Skill 2: Parry – Active Skill

Rank: Common

Effect: Enter a defensive stance that parries a single attack from an enemy wielding a similar weapon.

Note: This only negates damage, but not the physical force of the attack.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.｣

Draco was extremely impressed with his sword skills. They were the first ones he had created, a basic offensive slash and a defensive posture to resist one attack, but they had been further amplified by the conversion.

20% sword damage on the first one was almost on the level of an Uncommon skill. Not only that, but the cooldown was great, only 5 seconds!

An average swordsman with this skill would really be crucial in a raid. He could deal 20% of his sword damage every 5 seconds. This was almost as good as the Common Rank Fireball spell which dealt 15% fire damage every 7 seconds.

If it wasn’t for the Sword Skill requiring one to be within arm’s length from the enemy, it would be even better than a similarly ranked magic spell!

As for the second one, it was even better than the previous one because it negated physical damage from one attack every 10 seconds.

Of course, the attack had to originate from a sword, and even then, it only negated the damage, but did not removed the physical force of the attack.

Still though, it was an extremely good skill for PvP fights between swordsmen. The one who had this skill would easily wipe the floor with another.

Draco nodded with satisfaction. Both skills could be used by many players and NPCs of the world, meaning that it would have a great selling value.

Paying 50 Low-Grade Aether Crystals was equivalent to 50,000 platinum, but if this skill was mass produced and sold, one should easily be able to recoup costs... eventually.

After all, the AI would have to be very foolish to create a Tradeskill where unless one had many cheats like Draco, it was impossible to profit off it.

If that was the case, why not just slap "for Draco’s use only" on the Tradeskills and let matters rest?

Draco went to the third screen, which was to pen the skillbook itself. Here, the options were to prepare the ink, prepare the paper and then Scriven.

Draco selected to prepare the ink, and found that a new pop-up appeared, asking him the Rank of the skill he was choosing to pen.

He chose the Common Rank, and then a list of materials was shown to him. Aside from that was a detailed process of how to prepare the ink itself.

When Draco saw the materials, he slapped his forehead. Most of them were Common Rank materials that could easily be acquired. In fact, many of them were already present in the Rank 7 Castle.

He understood everything now. To make a skillbook at a certain Rank obviously required materials of a similar Rank. How could he use Legendary materials to make a Common product?

Of course, this logic only applied to writing Tradeskills. Engineering was a Tradeskill were one could make even a Common Rank war weapon with Epic materials, much less Magical Engineering.

However, it was the end result that mattered. A creation from something like Magical Engineering could warp reality itself, and also could be used by multiple parties.

Skillbooks could only be consumed once and then they were gone for good. Basically, it was like comparing a printing press and a car manufacturer. Which one cost more to make, a newspaper or a car? At the same time, which one sold for more, a newspaper or a car?

Draco nodded and called over Darnia again. The pretty, yet young Head Maid entered the room of solemnity, attracting the various gazes of the fellows working here.

After a long day of work, getting to gaze upon a beautiful woman was truly a pleasing sight, so they took this chance to take a break.

Naturally, the old woman who managed the library harrumphed unhappily and looked away. When she had been at that age, she was ’naturally’ an empire toppling beauty herself, but time was merciless.

After receiving Draco’s orders, Darnia went to collect the necessary items posthaste. In almost no time, she went down to the storerooms and collected some lamp black, honey, some gum arabic as well as supporting materials.

Draco thanked Darnia and selected to begin crafting the ink. The process was not too complex at all. Since he was making simple black permanent ink, it was simple for the early stage.

First, he mixed together the egg yolk, gum arabic, and honey. The end result was a strange smelling and yellowish-brown liquid that was extremely viscous.

Honestly, it looked like someone’s diseased phlegm, but Draco didn’t want to think about it too much. He made sure to slowly stir in the lamp black, adding it to the yellowish-brown mix.

Suddenly, the color became pitch-black and the funny smell changed. Now, it stank like good old ink, a very familiar smell that anyone who had gone to school would know with ease.

The final product was a thick paste that could be stored in a sealed container. However, it wasn’t usable yet, because there were some extra steps that needed to be taken.

Draco took the shavings of a low-grade Aether Crystal and mixed it with the paste, which made its black color glow with a certain magical shine.

Now, he had the necessary ink to write skills and spells!

He quickly stored it in a metallic container. Since he planned to make a single book, he had only made two servings of the ink, meaning he would have to make more later.

Draco inspected his creation.

｢Special Ink – Material

Rank: Common

Use: Scrivening｣

He nodded his head with satisfaction. He would work on the paper next, as he would need to bind it into a book form in order to function properly.

As for the paper, the process was even simpler than the ink. All he needed was some common rolls of papyrus that hadn’t been treated yet.

He then unrolled and cut rectangular segments to form sheets. Draco used his subjective magic to form a miniscule wind blade that vibrated at a high frequency, so it acted like a razor.

It was attached to the tip of his index finger and was about the length of his fingernail. With his mechanical accuracy from Control’s Body of Godliness, as well as his Void of Perfection’s ability to perfectly measure everything within its domain, his incisions were no different from modern day machines.

He cut out 20 pages of paper, since that was the limit for Common Rank skillbooks. It didn’t matter whether it was word or picture heavy, 20 pages was the maximum one could have.

Draco then used some more Aether Crystal shavings to treat the pages, though he melted these shavings into a syrupy form before applying them.

After that, the paper glowed with a healthy color, like it had been infused with the breath of life. He then bound them together using some string made from a Rank 3 monster called the Ferrous Spinner, which was a spider that made metallic webs with high tensile strength.

Next, he used some sturdy, yet soft cardboard to form the cover, sticking the pages to its spine with a supporting material called Gerald’s Glue, which seemed to be a material created by a fellow called... Gerald.

Anyway, it was quite useful as it had the best adhesion available in this world for a simple product, and Draco was able to tie off the process with its help.

He then painted the cover and spine with a light brown color, adding in some aesthetic designs he liked. Naturally, he repeated this process for the second book, right down to the very same colors and ridges.

After both were done, he then moved onto the Scrivening process. Funny enough, this one wasn’t as hard as he thought.

He just had to follow some "on-screen" prompts. Basically, just like with the Personal Workstation, he entered an Augmented Reality situation where he was given a 3D guide to follow in writing the book.

With his very same mechanical accuracy, this was a cinch. Within no time, he had filled the book with all the necessary details of the skill, it even needed some diagrams to be drawn in it, amusing Draco to no end.

After this, the ambient Worldly Energy was dragged into the book in torrents, creating a small tornado in the room. All the other Tradeskill masters were stunned out of their minds when they encountered this.

Just now everything had been peaceful, how did things become so chaotic in just a few seconds?!

Many could only scream or cry when their hard work over the day was pulled into the whirlwind and destroyed. The fortunate ones had just started today while others had been working on this for a month.

When the torrent subsided, Draco gazed at the book with a smile. It looked no different from a typical skillbook, and his inspection proved that.

｢Sword Skill 1: Inclined Slash – Active Skill

Rank: Common

Effect: Swing one’s sword in a 45° angle to inflict severe lacerations. Deals 22% sword damage on contact.

Cooldown: 4 seconds.｣

Draco looked at the other Tradeskill masters and shook his hands. "Report your losses to Darnia and I shall reimburse you all. I also apologize for any damages or losses incurred."

His words mollified them greatly. Most would ignore them and leave them to sort themselves out heartlessly, but at least he had apologized and promised to reimburse them.

While it couldn’t recover the precious time and effort that had gone to waste, it was better than being ignored completely.

"I’d advise you leave the area, as I have one more product to make." Draco warned with a light smile.

Hearing this, his audience fled the library as if there was a fire on their bottoms. Once bitten, twice shy! After being victims of their Lord’s "work", they were now fearful of his presence.

Draco only smiled before Scrivening the details for the second sword skill in his repertoire. After he was done, another mini-tornado spawned in the library, which made the old woman pound her chest in pain.

Many of the books here had been ravaged by this beast who called himself ’Lord’, yet he didn’t even have the guts to look her in the eye so that she could glare at him with hate!

Of course, Draco wouldn’t dare to look at her. After almost destroying the library, how could he have the face to gaze at the librarian? Even Qiong Qi would quietly leave with his tail tucked in.

｢Sword Skill 2: Parry – Active Skill

Rank: Common

Effect: Enter a defensive stance that parries a single attack from an enemy wielding a similar weapon.

Note: This only negates damage, but not the physical force of the attack.

Cooldown: 8 seconds.｣

Thanks to the Legendary tools he used in penning the skillbooks, both of them were slightly stronger than they were assessed to be, and he hadn’t even activated the enhancement feature yet!

Draco sighed and took both books into his inventory before blinking away to his personal room. He dared not walk around too much in case the old woman attacked him with her slipper.

It was a good thing too, as a hate filled scream echoed out in the library as soon as he left.

Draco returned to his room to see that both Eva and Hikari were waiting for him. After going through their usual routine, they returned to share updates on the progress of the city as well as Roma and Zaine’s pregnancies.

After that, Hikari stated that she was ready for yet another egg, but Draco gave some excuses about having a headache and pretended to quickly fall asleep.