Guild Wars-Novel

Chapter 463 - Privateering 1

｢Dungeon Creator – Legendary Tradeskill

Effect: Learn how to draft and establish dungeons of all types and sizes.｣

｢Skill Fusion – Legendary Tradeskill

Effect: Learn how to take two different skills and combine them to produce something unique.｣

Simple descriptions, but their utility was so great for a player that it made Draco shiver with delight. Words could not describe the amount of self-patience he had had to muster all this while to not dive into these two Tradeskills, instead focusing on leveling up the ones he already had.

As such, he had spent 6 months inside the Unique Quest on Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Magical Engineering, and Scrivener. He had reached the Grandmaster Rank in the first two and the Expert Rank in the latter two.

Now, it was time to focus on the three Tradeskills he had purposefully neglected so far, Privateering, Dungeon Creation, and Skill Fusion.

Seeing as it was the only one he actually knew about from the previous timeline, albeit in its weaker form, Draco chose to start with Privateering. This was a Tradeskill that allowed a player to build sh.i.p.s and simultaneously navigate the treacherous waters of Boundless with relative ease.

Basically, it was a combination of Shipbuilding, Navigation, Sailing, and Chartering. Any person who had this Tradeskill could build his own ship, captain it, and navigate it all at once. Naturally, one wouldn’t be limited to just one ship and given enough resources, one could charter their own armada, but before he could be off atop the seas, he would need a semi-decent crew first.

The least developed areas of Boundless had always been the vast oceans. Still, since the Sea Zones were more than 3 times harder to traverse through than their counterparts, the Field Zones, it only stood the reason that following the system’s golden rule, the rewards had to be worth it.

Poseidon and other water-based Gods had control over these locations, but clearly as there existed unmapped zones, it meant that there were should be completely uncharted and unclaimed oceans out there.

The idea had thrilled Draco, which was why he had kept the Privateering Tradeskill close to himself until he found the perfect person to wield it, which luckily turned out to be himself.

With it, he could conquer unmapped oceans with Eva and spread out his base of influence. Draco had largely known about the existence of unmapped zones, but like everyone else he hadn’t dared to enter due to his weakness.

Eva only got to Shinoka by sheer chance, and after seeing how it functioned through her eyes, Draco couldn’t wait until he found other unmapped continents. Who knew what bounties such places could hold?

Could it be possible for such zones to have abundant Divine Items? Or even Origin Items? It wasn’t impossible. Resources that were allowed to develop for hundreds of thousands of years untouched by humans or other sapient races would grow endlessly.

Whatever the case, the prerequisite was for him to have a suitable means of travel. Luxia was fine and all, but they would be cutting out a lot of fun, adventure, and resources by using her.

Slowly traveling over the seas while culling monsters and discovering rich isles was important. Even moreso was developing a trade/sea route that had to be cleared for others to pass.

Otherwise, how could they turn it into a base and link it with other Umbra controlled zones? If they used Luxia all the time, they could only end up like Eva’s visit to Shinoka, where it was just that, a visit.

She obviously couldn’t spend all her time going up and down from Shinoka, ferrying goods. It was severely counter-intuitive and wasteful, so Privateering was the perfect solution.

Draco activated the Tradeskill and was surprised to find himself in a small captain’s cabin. The floor was made of polished wood, cut and laid in slabs, with a light brown wall and ceiling made of plaster.

There were also many decorations, including portraits of s.e.xy mermaids, a trident, a small sculpture of a majestic ship, two crossed scimitars on the wall among others.

It was rather opulent and extremely aesthetic. It made Draco feel like he had jumped from a western fantasy game to a seafaring simulator. Alas, his excitement quickly died down when he saw the familiar form of Satine bobbing over.

Realizing he’d be unable to escape the yandere orb and her family, he cut out her repetitive greeting and inquired upon the ins and outs of this particular Tradeskill.

"This is your Personal Cabin, the area where you can design your sh.i.p.s and connect with your crew to give orders. While on the sea, you can overlay the Personal Cabin over the Captain’s Cabin of the ship and monitor as well as control the entire ship directly." Satine explained neutrally.

Draco rubbed his chin in interest. What a versatile Tradeskill! It would truly be useful when on the sea, for sh.i.p.s could easily build up damage and wear in unknown places that would be too late to find by the time problem struck.

With this, all he would need to mutter was Trace, On and he would be able to see every little detail of the ship. However, Draco was more interested in the first part.

"How can the Personal Cabin assist me in building a ship?" Draco asked with interest.

Satine lowered herself to the desk in front of Draco, shining her light on a giant cartographer’s map. "Here, you can access the map of the world you have explored and know about, as well as manage all trade and sea routes."

She then shifted her light to a bunch of books on the same table. "You can access your roster to control your crew, see who is who and who is doing what."

Her light went onto a small figurine of a ship that looked bland. "When activated in a ship, this figurine will morph into the style of the ship itself, and you will be able to control and monitor the entire vessel with it."

Finally, Satine shone her light on a small, open notebook on the forefront of the large table, right before the captain’s chair. "And this personal workbook will allow you to access ship designs and learn how to craft them in detail... for a price."

Draco smacked his lips knowingly. Heck, had there been no price, he’d have been even more worried, to be honest. He walked over to the desk and sat in the comfortable, executive chair meant for a captain.

He aimlessly spun around in it for a bit, before focusing on the workbook before him. Once he did, similar to a projection from a Holo-Watch, a screen came up before him showing a niche storefront.

The store in truth was just a large wooden shelf with small figurines of sh.i.p.s labeled in each column. Draco scanned them, seeing their names and prices, before nodding his head.

Like Magical Engineering, he could only learn designs at his current Rank, so as an Amateur there were 5 of them for him to choose from. The other rows had the motifs of books, and it seemed like they contained basic knowledge about shipbuilding and seafaring in general for the Common Rank.

Also, there were scroll-like icons that depicted contracts. Draco checked and saw that they were contracts for professional Common Rank crewmates and assistant shipbuilders who would work for him, but their pay was steep.

The cheapest and most unskilled took a minimum of 10,000 platinum per week as wages. To Draco, this wasn’t much, but was he the only person to ever lay hands on this Tradeskill?

Was every Privateer a filthy rich fellow who could afford to throw platinum about? No!

Even in the old era, such wages were steep as hell, much less in the current one. Most would likely either do it themselves or hire local but cheap builders to do the job for wages in Silver at the most, with many workers taking Bronze coins home a week.

Of course, the quality differed greatly. Those hired through this store could work in tandem with the system/Tradeskill to bring the best results and effects to bear.

They could enchant each part of the ship while building, add any form of aesthetics while compensating for the entire design, they would never make any mistakes and could correct any unseen flaws as they worked, along with a myriad of other functions that became crazier the more expensive their wages.

Well, one could see it like this. A privateer who cheaped out to hire external shipwrights was like a person asking a bunch of roadside mechanics to build a car for him, while the privateer who splurged on the internal shipwrights was like a person asking the people who built and designed supercars to make a car for him.

Big difference there.

Of course, since Draco could afford it, he bought all the contracts and paid their wages. Even though he was broke in here, the Personal Cabin/Workstation, etc from the Legendary Tradeskills were their own thing and didn’t care about whether one was in a Unique Quest or not.

As such, as Umbra’s Guildmaster Draco simply linked the income source to his guild’s funds. As for the books on shipbuilding and the ship designs, they were naturally priced in Aether Crystals.

Well, what did you expect at this point?

Draco spent 35 low-grade Aether Crystals to buyout the books on shipbuilding, then put them aside. He also checked the contracts he paid for and found that they were like summoning contracts.

He would have to leave the Personal Cabin and use them outside to get the people he hired to appear. This intrigued Draco, for if this Tradeskill was like Magical Engineering where its legacy was from the old era, would the people he hired be summoned from the old era?

Was there time travel involved here?

Well, for that particular issue, he could certainly find out more later on. Right now, Draco was more interested in checking out the exact details of the ship designs.

While there were only 5 of them, each one contained so much information that it made his head spin, so he settled for a basic introduction in order to get used to what they could do.

｢The Sailor’s Rave – Design

Durability: 100,000/100,000

Rank: Common

Sail Spd: 1.7

Defense: 300,000

Dmg: 3,897-6,925 (Cannon)

Effect: +10% to Cargo Hold, +10% to Crew Stamina

Price: 34 low-grade Aether Crystals｣

｢The Princess’s Delight – Design

Durability: 80,000/80,000

Rank: Common

Sail Spd: 1.5

Defense: 100,000

Dmg: 1,265-1,790 (Swivel)

Effect: +20% to sale price, +20% Crew Comfort

Price: 67 low-grade Aether Crystals｣

｢The King’s Spear – Design

Durability: 120,000/120,000

Rank: Common

Sail Spd: 1.2

Defense: 500,000

Dmg: 13,786-18,953 (Cannon, Mortar)

Effect: +10% to damage, +10% to defense

Price: 90 low-grade Aether Crystals｣

｢The Rapscallion’s Glee – Design

Durability: 30,000/30,000

Rank: Common

Sail Spd: 2.25

Defense: 70,000

Dmg: ?-? (Snipers)

Effect: +30% to acceleration, +30% to stealth

Price: 76 low-grade Aether Crystals｣

｢The Mourner’s Dirge – Design

Durability: ?/?

Rank: Common

Sail Spd: ?

Dmg: ? (Ethereal)

Effect: +50% to illusion, +50% to darkness

Price: 1 Medium-Grade Aether Crystal｣

Draco inspected them and nodded. The Sailor’s Rave was a typical small merchant ship, built to last and to maximize the sailors’ ability to carry goods from one dock to another.

The Princess’ Delight was basically a medieval yacht. A fancy and aesthetically attractive boat meant for a princess to invite her girlfriends over and have stupid fun until they got tired.

As such, it wasn’t durable, fast, or strong in any way, just very pleasing to the eye. Draco had to admit, if he was invited to a party on a boat like this, he would definitely attend it with Eva in tow.

The King’s Spear was a warship at the basic level. Not as large as a galleon in the real world, but much faster and more durable. It also dealt a good amount of damage and should be the first choice for those who planned to conquer the sea, rather than traverse it.

The Rapscallion’s Glee was a small boat no bigger than a schooner, and its boasted extreme speed, maneuverability, and disguise. It was for smugglers who were ferrying high-quality cargo or fledgling pirates just starting out in the world.

However, the one that left Draco dumbfounded was The Mourner’s Dirge. Looking at the ill.u.s.tration of it... hey boss, isn’t this a f.u.c.k.i.n.g Ghost Ship?!