Guild Wars-Novel

Chapter 228 - Magical Engineering 2

Draco had read the words when he made a cursory glance over, but it hadn’t truly registered in his mind as to what it meant. His mind quaked as he took in the details of the design as well as its output device.

｢Magical Firearm – Basic Device

Durability: 100/100

Rank: Common

Atk spd: 0.5

Dmg: 100-250

Effect: Unlimited Ammunition, No recoil｣

Draco didn’t know whether to pull his hair out or not when he read through the specifications for the Magical Firearm. It was half as powerful as a Semi-Epic weapon, and possessed almost the same damage as a top-tier Rare item... at the Common Rank!

Not only that, but it used Worldly Energy as a resource to form magical bullets, hence the Unlimited Ammunition effect. One would not need to worry about bullets as long as there was Worldly Energy in the area.

Not only that, but there was absolutely no recoil due to the lack of gunpowder! Magical bullets were fired out using only magical force, which did not cause recoil to the user, otherwise all Pyromancers would fly back like cannonballs after casting one fireball!

The design of the Magical Firearm was similar to the hand cannon, but most gamers worldwide would know it under a different name... the Desert Eagle. This was one of the most powerful pistols in the world.

Its recoil could even compete with, and surpass, many snipers! Of course, its damage was also horrific due to the sheer force, both to the target and the wrist of the shooter.

A desert eagle with no recoil... if Draco was in the FPS section of Boundless, he would be a god of bullets.

But in this world, it was even crazier. While its damage was pretty average above Rank 2 - meaning that Rank 2 and above enemies wouldn’t suffer too much from it - this wasn’t its strongest point.

No, the strongest point was its versatility! This didn’t function as a weapon type, but as an engineered device! In other words, it belonged to the ’misc’ category!

This meant that whether NPC, monster, cat, dog, mouse, or baby, one could use this device with no penalties!

Draco’s mind pictured an army made of serf players wielding one of these each. Putting aside logistics and the range of the bullets, such an army would be able to mow down anything in their path that was below Rank 4.

Even Rank 3 Kings could be vanquished if the army was around 5 million strong. This was a crazy thought to imagine!

However, Draco quickly sobered up. He realized that this would be impossible. The AI had almost destroyed Richmond for daring to teach him how to bypass the mana limit of the system far too early, so how could something that bypassed the combat limit exist like this without checks and balances?

Draco’s smile became bitter when he looked through the ingredient list of the Magical Firearm. The ingredients weren’t hard to acquire, most of them were sold in Rank 6 or Rank 7 Shops.

There were only 10 Rank 6 shops worldwide and 3 Rank 7 Shops. Umbra owned one of the Rank 7 ones, and the materials he’d need could be purchased in the fourth and fifth-floor shops.

However, with some rough calculations on Draco’s part, he estimated the price for one batch of materials would be around 10,000 platinum! This was not 10,000 gold, but 10,000 platinum! 10,000 platinum was 1,000,000 gold!

This was not factoring in the special material that was Aether Crystals. To power, the conversion and firing mechanism required 5 low-grade Aether Crystals.

Since one low-grade Aether Crystal was valued at 1,000 platinum, this meant that the total cost of production for one Magical Firearm was 15,000 platinum.

Draco could only smile wryly. Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir had led him to getting used to making items with no cost of production when paired with his Herald’s Badge, so when he had to suffer like everyone else, he felt saddened.

Just like Tactics, Magical Engineering offered no shortcuts for Draco. Epic and above Tradeksills had much higher utility, but their costs too were magnified to fit the standard.

Draco’s heart shivered when he thought about the Legendary Rank Scrivener Tradeskill that was awaiting his perusal. If even Epic Tradeskills were this expensive, then what about something at the Legendary Rank?

Draco’s mind seemed to consciously ’forget’ that the Primal Papyrus that Eva had purchased from the Divine Auction had come to around 400,000 platinum. Since it was a Legendary Rank material, it should theoretically be the minimum requirement for Scrivening.

Draco pushed his worries out of mind. When he was done with Magical Engineering, he would naturally delve into the secrets of Scrivening.

First things first, Draco spent 3 medium-grade Aether Crystals on all the basic designs. 100 low-grade Aether Crystals corresponded to 1 medium-grade, and 100 medium-grade equaled one-high grade, he was able to convert it easily.

The total price in low-grade Aether Crystals was 293. In terms of platinum, it meant he had just spent 293,000. Draco was certain that no Magical Engineer in the world could possibly own all the basic designs.

They would probably choose the easiest to craft yet the most valuable in order to make meaningful returns. After all, unlike Draco, who was a combat specialist with talent in crafting, they were pure crafters.

They created items to make a profit and acquire more capital to ply their trade, while acc.u.mulating experience to Rank up. It was a fairly normal process.

When one considered the various circ.u.mstances surrounding Draco and Eva, this normal process became somewhat complex. At times, he would craft for free, like for the members of Umbra, or sometimes he would craft for a specific purpose, like during the Flora and Fauna quest.

To a typical crafter, the crafting wasn’t usually as much of a problem compared to the acquisition of the needed materials. Whether it was the price for purchase or the lack of availability, many issues existed in this world.

They simply didn’t have the efficiency of modern Earth’s supply lines and technology to smoothen the process. There was no such thing as the Internet where you could look up the prices and the availability.

They were in a world that existed before the Renaissance era in terms of technology, so there was still a lot of flaws in the system. It was nothing unusual to use a powerful Guild or Shop to post a request for certain materials.

Draco was now privy to these problems and could only deal with them as best as he could.

The good news was that the cheaper the design, the cheaper the cost of production. The Basic Rechargeable Lighting Device only amounted to a few gold pieces, because It required very little materials and needed only some shavings of a Low-Grade Aether Crystal.

This was one of the most mass-produced items by current Magical Engineers, and it only took a day to make one. It gave very little Tradeskill experience at level 1-5, and almost none above that.

Draco decided to start with this one in order to get a feel for how the overlay worked. As such, he summoned the new head maid, Darnia, who was a light-skinned beauty.

He gave her money and a list of items to purchase from the Rank 7 Shop. When the lass saw the long list and the outrageous prices, she almost screamed in fear.

This was like being given 1 billion dollars and a super long shopping list by one’s boss/parent. How anxious would one be?

Darnia experienced that today as she went up and down like there was a fire lit on her bum, purchasing every item in a rush. Draco had given her over 1,000,000 platinum to buy a lot of stuff.

She even had taken more than a few maids and knights with her to handle transportation. Of course, the maids attracted many an eye thanks to Richmond’s spell that had enhanced their bodies, but the knights intimidated anyone from coming too close.

For full-fledged knights to follow a group of maids like this, it meant that they were affiliated with a strong backer. They had to be nobility at the least, and a very prominent one at that.

Soon enough, Darnia returned to the Rank 7 Castle with her group, bearing ’gifts’ for her lord. The knights carefully left the loads of items into the workshop, some from their inventory and some from their hands.

After all, NPCs did not have the same storage amount as players, and even then, the system inventory had a size limit for items.

So most of it had to be hand-carried, and since Cario City was so bloody large, they had to walk the streets with all these in hand.

Just picture holding a bag of heavy groceries over a distance of 1 mile. Now multiply the weight and the distance by an exponential amount and you would understand what these fellows had just gone through.

If they weren’t in a world where the average strength was much higher than the real world’s and they had great stats, they might have collapsed into a heap of flesh.

As it were, they all stumbled out of the workroom with the maids helping them, as they were likely to fall down otherwise.

Draco snickered meanly and shook his head. After they were gone, he activated the Personal Workstation and spoke to Sofia.

"Take me through the process of crafting the Rechargeable Lighting Device."

"Acknowledged, beginning simulation process," Sofia stated, taking Draco into a black world that seemed to exist in the middle of nowhere.

Just when he wanted to ask what the hell this was, Draco’s mind jolted. He was sent into the mind of another person, a man who was standing before a workbench.

On the workbench were all the necessary materials for a Rechargeable Lighting Device. The man seemed to be frozen in place, like a video that was paused.

Draco, who was viewing the world through his eyes, felt this to be unbelievably surreal at this moment. It was like watching a POV video with VR.

Even crazier was the fact that it felt like he was the fellow he was possessing. No, it felt like an evil spirit had possessed ’his’ body and taken over, controlling his actions.

In essence, he could feel every twitch of the muscle and every breath of air like it was his own body, just that he wasn’t the one in control.

When he seemed to acclimate to this, the ’paused’ scene came to life. The Magical Engineer who was making the Rechargeable Lighting Device took the materials and cleaned them thoroughly.

He also assessed them, checking if they were without any blemishes, before he began shaping them. Shaping in this sense meant that he was changing them into segmented parts that could be assembled.

This involved heating, shaping, welding, and soldering, these methods not always together. These were processes that were handled by machines in the real world, leaving the assembly to human hands.

Magical Engineers had to do everything themselves from scratch. The fellow first heated up the various metallic materials and then welded certain pieces together after cutting them into perfectly measured bits.

The welding was enhanced by the fellow’s skill and proficiency, making it seem as if these metals were naturally formed in such a manner, rather than being welded together artificially.

After the main bits were prepared, which was the filament for the lighting and the circuitry for the lighting that was powered by magic, the fellow got to the annoying task, which was handling the casing and external bits.

This included the screws and bolts that held the casing together, as well as the actual working parts to the casing. It wasn’t particularly difficult, just very time consuming and tedious.

Once this was all done, the Magical Engineer then got to the softer bits, which was applying the flow of power and linking the circuits. He connected the lighting filaments to the energy converters and the mini-cooling system.

The Aether Crystal shaving was important here, as it was used to coat each of the core segments, thereby giving them the properties needed to facilitate its functionality.

After the core tech was connected perfectly, it was held in place by a stand while the casing was assembled over it. This included the glass that formed the lens of the lighting device.

After everything was carefully placed together and screwed in tightly, the fellow sighed in a deep voice and stood back. He then activated the device with a bit of his own mana.

It was like sparking a car. Power would be drawn from the battery to spark the engine, which would turn on the generator. Once the generator of the car started producing power, the load would shift onto it and free the battery.

In fact, the battery would even join the load and get recharged by the excess power from the generator, forming a perfect cycle.

It was a slightly similar thing here. The mana would spark the device when applied in a specific way and then it would shift to the energy converter, which would pull Worldly Energy to power the device.

Since everything was coated with Aether Crystal shards, mere Worldly Energy was easily subdued and could flow through the metallic circuits with ease.

The cooling system prevented the circuits from overheating as they were working with a form of energy and were made of metal, otherwise the lighting device would melt itself after some time.

The Worldly Energy which was converted to light energy via the energy converter would pass through the special filaments that would brighten in order to produce light.

After adjusting the lens, the light was focused and much more useful. Voila, one Basic Rechargeable Lighting Device ready for use, sale, or display!

After this, the connection was gently terminated, and Draco returned to his actual virtual body. He noticed that not even a minute had passed, as everything had occurred in his head.

Yet there was no detracting that experience. Draco remembered it all perfectly. It was like he himself had done it just a moment ago and had taken a break, leading to this instance.

When he looked at the materials on his workbench, he didn’t even need to activate the Personal Workstation’s optimization feature.

He directly took the materials and replicated the process he had seen... no, that he had lived through just now. Everything flowed smoothly, like it was truly he who had been making this device for years, not that he was someone who just learned about its existence today.

From the heating, to the welding, to the assembly, every little step had been recreated without fail. Unlike in the vision he lived through though, his tools here were of a much higher grade thanks to the Rank 7 Castle.

It was like a chef who used a blunt knife to cut meat replacing it with a sharp knife, or a programmer who used a sub-par computer to code who acquired the latest model.

It required some time to acclimate to the better tool, but it took seconds at worst. After that, their production and output would naturally be better than before!

Draco was even faster than in the vision thanks to this, and his almighty Control allowed him to be precise without making any mistakes.

Even as he worked, he began auto-generating a new engineering technique using his Control as a foundation. It couldn’t be helped, this was how he was hardwired.

He only had Control in his past life, so he had relied on it for everything back then. Now he had bloodline and whatnot, but Control was still his core.

After completing the Rechargeable Lighting Device, Draco smiled. It only took him 3 hours to make one, which was much better than the Magical Engineer he had watched spend a whole day on it.

This was thanks to his perfect mechanical accuracy with Control, and the supreme quality tools in the Rank 7 Castle’s workroom. As they say, give a farmer the best cutlass, and he shall harvest the best crops.

Draco tested the device and found that it was working splendidly. The converter was even optimized, using less energy for more light.

Not only that, but it produced far less heat and the slightly optimized cooling system kept it at room temperature. The filaments also handled the light energy perfectly, with no dark spots at all.

Draco nodded and placed the complete device in his inventory. He then spent the rest of the day making more of them, until it was about 8 pm.

Around 13 hours had passed since morning, and taking away the time it took for him to get used to the Tradeskill and the acquisition of materials, he had spent 9 hours on crafting.

This resulted in him acquiring three completed Rechargeable Lighting Devices. The heartbreaking part was that the first one had provided him with 10% Tradeskill experience, while the two that followed after only gave 1% each.

In total Draco now had 12% experience in level 1 of the Tradeskill. It was clear that climbing the Ranks in Magical Engineering would require time and effort.

Not only that, but one could not jump levels and craft something higher for more experience. At the Amateur Rank (level 1-20), Draco could only buy the basic designs. Even worse, Draco had no doubt, that the dwindling exp gain would only lessen with each repeat...

The intermediate, advanced, professional, expert, and divine designs were out of reach until he reached the equivalent Tradeskill Rank for them.

Draco’s lips twitched as he decided to let it go. Tomorrow, he would open up Scrivening and discover how it worked as well. After getting a handle on it, he would then use the acc.u.mulated Tradeskill experience to level all his Epic and above Tradeskills to Master Rank.

By then, he could dominate the world and become a God on earth!

Thinking like that, he broke into an arrogant smirk as he returned to his room. Eva had spent the day with Roma, Zaine, and Hikari at Vita City State, since Sublime was out on her class change quest and they were in the later stages of their pregnancy.

However, Eva had returned with Hikari a little while ago, and they were chatting as they waited for Draco.

After greeting each other lovingly, they bathed together playfully before going to bed with smiles on their faces.