Chapter 196: Wand of Eternal Fire
The finished wand had a blackish-red hue with red lines that sn.a.k.e.d throughout its shaft, making it look like the piece of metal had throbbing veins. With the tip shaped like a ball, it gave the wand the overall aesthetic of an oversized ballpoint pen.
Draco went on to the Enchantment section. As the first Grandmaster of Enchanting in this age, Draco should now be able to make Legendary Enchantments without much difficulty.
However, one shouldn't forget that Draco had never reached the Grandmaster stage in his previous life. Although he arguably had the tools to achieve it thanks to his perfect knowledge for the runes, he would first have to fill up the knowledge gap he had.
For now, he planned to push for a Pseudo-Legendary or Semi-Legendary item by using a Triple Enhancement.
This was one step above the dual enchantment for Eva's swords which had already been quite the burden on him. Now however, he had learned a lot about how to properly interact with Worldly Energy.
The temporary loss in his State of Being was more than outweighed by his increased knowledge. He was confident that he could handle three enchantments with ease unless they were Divine Rank...
Anyway, he would naturally need Divine Energy for that so it would not happen anytime soon.
Draco created three sets of enchantments. The first was Enka, Huo, Reva Rowa, which meant 'Wand, Fire, Eternal Growth'.
The second was Enka, Huo, Rera Reva, which meant 'Wand, Fire, Strike Eternal'.
The third was Enka, Huo, Kora Muso, which meant 'Wand, Fire, Push Explode'.
While these enchantment runes glimmered in the air, Draco hesitated. He was sure that his increased mental faculties would make it easier to enchant, so Draco had felt the inspiration to push himself a bit more.
As such, he had performed one of the taboos of Enchantment, which was to use the rune, 'Reva'. This rune meant eternal, and that word should never be used ignorantly, otherwise the consequences could not be imagined.
Yet here he had used it not once, but twice...
How the eternity rune would affect the specific effect when it was placed would vary, but it simply meant that the end result would be a supremely powerful active or passive skill.
However, the problem came in the form of providing fuel for the enchantment. If we're talking about Soul Stones, then more than a 1,000 top-grade Soul Stones would be required for such an act, which was prohibitive.
Of course, this was assuming that the Enchanter was at the Grandmaster Rank. For all Tradeksills, the higher your Tradeskill Rank, the fewer resources you needed to provide for your product.
But just like in the manipulation of cause and effect, there was no system function or mechanic to assist a player's will, so placing the runes still depended on themselves.
Draco, the living cheat, had Aether Crystals and a level 100 Grandmaster Rank in Enchantment, so it was time to push the envelope. After all, it was the only way to find out where the limits of a Grandmaster lay.
Draco took out 20 medium-grade Aether Crystals, which were just a few of the total amount he had generated over the past few days.
Last time, only one medium-grade Aether Crystal had been enough to power the second enchantment for Riveting Night's Chaos Blades, but Draco was unsure of 20 were enough.
Draco started filling the enchantments with the Aetheric Energy, and he felt his mind go blank when over 15 were sucked dry without a break, before he felt the enchantments close up and refuse any more.
15 medium-grade Aether Crystals, ah! If one low-grade Aether Crystal was 1,000 platinum, just how much would 15 medium-grade one's cost?!
The enchantments began to glow in a perfect light, and Draco began to push them on the wand.
Previously, Draco had exerted a herculean effort to push two Legendary Enchantments onto the Void Blade and the Chrono Blade, and the latter of those enchantments had been filled with one medium grade Aether Crystal.
Now, he was pushing three Legendary Enchantments onto this Wand, and these were at the peak of the Legendary Rank, if not something like Pseudo-Divine.
The kind of resistance he was facing was not small. It was like being a 10-year-old child who was trapped under the body of an obese person, trying to push them off.
Draco's eyes became red as blood vessels emerged in them and his temples throbbed visibly. Half of the problem came from the power of the enchantments themselves and the resistance from the wand.
Since the wand was of a lower grade than the enchantments, it was more than 3 times harder to place the enchantments on to it.
If Draco had not tempered his will, this would have killed him immediately. However, he was able to hold on and press his will onto the enchantment with unparalleled force.
Trying to use the cause and effect theory would be inhumanly foolish, as using that was ten times harder than placing enchantments onto the wand. As such, he could only bear with it.
Draco did not use more Aetheric Energy to weaken the resistance like he did before. Rather, he resorted to battling it out with his will alone, as this would be the perfect tempering for him.
He could rapidly increase his willpower through situations like this, so that his cause and effect theory would become stronger and stronger by proxy.
It took 2 hours of continuous battle with the enchantments for them to stick on. When the two connected, a phenomenon occurred over the whole Rank 7 Castle, which caught everyone's attention.
A Flame Spirit hovered in the air over the castle. Its heat energy covered the entirety of the Noble's District. Even the Business District and the rest of Cario City were able to feel a sudden increase in temperature.
The city was thrown into a panic as they assumed that an enemy was attacking, yet the Noble's District remained relatively calm. After all, they had long since received news about Mage God Richmond being there.
After the last time he had let a huge fireball explode in the air, they had found out that he was training his apprentice, so they chalked this one up to him as well.
Draco was barely semi-conscious during this phenomenon, but Eva and Hikari had been able to witness it up close. The Flame Spirit was shaped like a campfire, and its form shifted many times.
It had no face, but its aura seemed to scream like it wanted nothing more than to rip Draco apart, before it re-entered the wand and merged with it.
The wand's outer look changed from a blackish-red with red pulsing lines in it to a crimson red with pulsing black lines. The sphere at the tip was a perpetually burning ball of fire that looked more alive than before.
Hikari noticed that Draco was out of it, so she went to take the wand from where it lay, while Eva fed Draco an Angel's Kiss potion gently.
Draco's stamina was restored by this, so he shook off his grogginess and he received the wand from Hikari. Both women inspected it along with Draco and all three of them were astounded.
｢Unnamed - Wand
Rank: Semi-Legendary
Effects:
Passive 1 - Eternal Growth: The user can sacrifice experience points to grow this item's rating.
Passive 2 - Eternal Strike: The user's auto-attack magic can be fired at a rate of ten attacks per second. The auto-attack does a fixed damage of 500 and ignores magic defense.
Active 1 - Flame Explosion: Send out a fireball ball that deals 600% flame damage over an area of 50 miles. Cooldown: 1 day.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 0% of 15,000% needed to upgrade to Legendary Rank｣
｢Congratulations on creating new weapon: Unnamed (Wand) (Semi-Legendary)
Rewards:
5,000% Exp
5,000% Tradeskill Exp
500,000 gold
5,000 reputation with the Tradeskill Association｣
Draco was astounded by the sheer nonsense of the Wand. The first passive didn't offer any material benefit to the users in terms of fighting power, but it offered something that no player item had ever possessed in both of Draco's lives.
That was the power to grow.
As far as Draco knew, only the system could give out upgradeable items. That was the meta-reason, but the in-game lore reason was that items needed to build up 'reputation' and 'renown' to be able to gain this feature.
It had to have its own story and lore, which a player item could never possess in the span of a mere few years.
Yet, the 'Reva Rowa' (Eternal Growth) runes had managed to create this effect as a passive. It could allow any player-made item to be upgradeable. This had a mixture of benefit and detriment.
The benefit was that as the item was upgraded, it would possess even greater power. If it could be upgraded to the Divine Rank, it would be unfathomable, but Draco doubted that.
He had the hunch that he needed to power the Eternal Growth rune with Divine Energy if he wanted it to reach such an effect.
Also, it would allow the item to become stronger overall, which was heaven-defying, even though leveling it up would require a lot of time and effort.
However, the main detriment was that it took up one space of the item's effects, thereby weakening in a certain way. If that space had been used for another passive, it would have been able to display more power.
However, Draco was sure that once the item reached its maximum level, the system would rebalance it just like it had for his various items.
So, one would have to endure its current limitation then put in the time and effort to raise its level, and the reward would be great at the end.
The second passive also had been created because of his usage of the eternal ´Reva´ rune, and that one was paired with 'Rera' which was the strike rune. As such, it was another beast that broke through the laws of Enchantment.
The user could fire ten auto-attack spells per second, which was a crazy amount. One should note, attack speed and this passive skill's boost wasn't the same thing.
Attack speed dealt with how fast one could perform an action compared to the real-world equivalent.
This passive allowed the user to fire ten attacks within the span of a single second.
In 5 seconds, that was 50 attacks. In 10 seconds, that was 100 attacks. In 1 minute, that was 600 attacks.
This was overpowered but manageable. After all, auto-attacks would have to be accurate and one's base damage would have to be high enough to make a difference.
Now, let's read a bit further and... Huh? WHAT THE F.U.C.K?!
The auto-attack damage was fixed at 500?! And it was a flat value, ignoring magic defense?!?!?! That was outrageous! Mad!! Balance breaking!!!
This item could not be allowed to exist! It had to be destroyed for the good of mankind, for the good of the world as well as the sake of peace and stability!
500 fixed damage per second meant 5000 damage per second should every attack land. One minute of continued usage would be enough to deal 300,000 damage!
My god, that was one dead Captain Rank monster every minute! This was too much, the heavens needed to strike down that wand before it was given to someone evil!
However, such things did not exist in the Western Fantasy world of Boundless and Draco had obeyed all the rules. This item could not be nerfed, because in a bizarre way, it was balanced.
How?
Well sure, one could deal 300,000 damage in one minute but... which monster was going to stand there and allow itself to be hit so much? Auto-attack magic wasn't guided like spells from skillbooks.
It was like Draco's subjective magic, but worse. At least after firing his attack, Draco could maneuver it and guide it with his will. However, auto-attacks could only be fired in a straight line and could not be moved.
So, if one dodged the barrage of flame balls that consisted the Pyromancer's auto-attack, the wand would be nothing but a fart.
The accuracy would depend on the skill of the Pyromancer and the objective agility of the enemy. Against a player, they would be finished, but against monsters and NPCs, as long as they could survive the initial barrage, the user would be finished.
As for the active skill, it was similar to a weakened version of Rina's Supernova, so it was nothing to write home about. However, it was slightly stronger than what should be a Semi-Legendary version of it, so it was quite good overall.
All-in-all, the future owner of this wand would become an unparalleled beast under heaven, the only master of flame other than Rina who had Flamesear.
Draco smiled. It was perfect for Jada, and the rewards for doing it were also good, so overall he was quite satisfied. Draco decided to name the item 'Wand of Eternal Fire'.
｢Wand of Eternal Fire - Wand
Rank: Semi-Legendary
Effects:
Passive 1 - Eternal Growth: The user can sacrifice experience points to grow this item's rating.
Passive 2 - Eternal Strike: The user's auto-attack magic can be fired at a rate of ten attacks per second. The auto-attack does a fixed damage of 500 and ignores magic defense.
Active 1 - Flame Explosion: Send out a fireball ball that deals 600% flame damage over an area of 50 miles. Cooldown: 1 day.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 0% of 15,000% needed to upgrade to Legendary Rank｣
｢Boundless System-wide Announcement
Player Draco has created the unique wand forging design, 'Wand of Eternal Fire'. Players can now purchase the design from player Draco and achieve a 10% extra success rate when forging the equipment.｣
Draco smiled and put it away. Next, he would have to make something similar for Jade. This wand was too powerful and giving only one twin such a mighty weapon would shatter the balance between the two.
Alas, he didn't have any ice element ores on his person right now to start the process. He would send Verita over to buy a few tomorrow so that he could make a wand for Jade as well.
Draco placed the 5,000% experience into Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir equally, bringing the hammer to 24,500% from 22,000% and the cauldron to 20,100% from 17,600%.
After that, he went to bed with Hikari and Eva, who both seemed exhausted. Hikari had continually healed him as well as being forced to watch him suffer, while also losing HP due to the Dragobond.
Eva had felt intense phantom pain due to her mad obsession for Draco, and watching him suffer had left her feeling terrible all over. The duo clung to Draco tightly as they slept, and he gently caressed them reassuringly.
The good news was that his Blacksmithing had broken to the Expert Rank and was now at level 41, 56% from level 38, 93%. Now, the backlash from working with Epic reagents should greatly reduce, which was a great comfort to Draco.
As such, the fellow fell into slumber with the two greatest beauties of the universe in his arms.
.......
The next morning, Draco woke up to discover that Hikari had become like Eva. In fact, she felt so comfortable in his embrace that she started drooling. Even worse, her wings and horns had emerged due to her sheer comfort.
To see two Celestial Beauties like Hikari and Eva unreservedly drooling was quite a sight for Draco. He was endlessly amused by this and woke them up gently.
"Let's go and bath. Afterward, I'll make you guys some nice breakfast."
The two women nodded groggily and followed Draco into the bath. They were soon invigorated by the hot springs and the cool waterfall.
Hikari directly transformed into her White Dragon form since they were in a super mini small world. She flapped her wings and took to the sky, performing some moves in the limited air space of the super mini small world.
Eva laughed and decided to show off as well. She directly summoned out Wings of Light and took to the air, flying around gracefully and agilely.
Because this move cost a lot of bloodline energy, she usually did not use it. After all, she only used to have 80% before, but now she had 90% bloodline purity.
As such, she could use it for much longer, but she would be unable to use other bloodline techniques of the Goddess of Light Inheritance.
Draco was stunned by this, but then became pensive. If he thought about it, shouldn't he be able to form wings as well?
In fact, all three of his Inheritances would technically allow him to spawn wings. The Serpent God allowed him to summon Draconic wings, the Horned Demon allowed him to summon Hellfire wings - which were made of pure flame - and his Dark Angel Inheritance should allow him to summon black angel wings.
Of the three, Draco assumed the easiest to form would be the angel wings, because they would be organic and cost the least, while having the best performance.
Horned Demon Inheritance's seemed like it would be hard to summon, while the Draconic wings would consume too much energy per second, as Serpent God stuff had higher price tags.
Dark Angel was just like the Celestial Maiden Inheritance for the Amaterasu Lineage and the Undying King Inheritance for the Pangu lineage, in that it consumed next to no bloodline energy to maintain while seemingly working passively.
Once the idea came to his mind Draco felt a burning desire for it. If he could learn how to fly for extended periods of time, his mobility and combat prowess would soar to unreasonable heights, especially against land-based foes with no ranged capabilities.
He would basically become as annoying to deal with as the C.o.c.katrice, yet with his Mage God training, he would be even more deadly.
Draco reined in his desire, as it would come in time. After he was done with Richmond's training, there would be plenty of time to work on his bloodline with Eva and Loving Aunt around.
As such, Draco finished bathing while watching the two beauties fly around playfully, especially since Hikari reverted to a semi-human form with draconic wings.
The two n.a.k.e.d women in the sky presented quite the sight for the spectating Draco, who felt extremely comfortable. After Roma gave birth, she would be able to join them, and everyone he cared about would be in one place.
After bathing, Draco prepared some breakfast for everyone, which they enjoyed heartily.
Today's menu consisted of tea with a bread and egg sandwich, where the eggs were prepped with sausages, onions, and tomatoes while the bread was glazed with butter, then toasted in a pan.
When Draco entered the courtyard, he noticed that Zaine was not around, neither were any maids for that matter. He paid no mind to this and went up to Richmond to begin his training for the day.