Chapter 380: Total Upgrade 1
As soon as Draco chose to begin the process, a confirmation screen came up before him.
｢System to Player Announcement
Analyzing selected items...｣
｢System to Player Announcement
Permanently upgrade the following items by one Rank?
1. Pair Dadeni (30,000% of 50,000%) - Cost: 20,000% experience
2. Mjolnir (28,000% of 50,000%) - Cost: 22,000% experience
3. Fragarach (2,381% of 100,000%) - Cost: 97,619 experience
4. Dragonlance (0% of 100,000%) - Cost: 100,000% experience
Y/N｣
This would cost Draco exactly 239,619% experience. His stockpile was currently 279,062%, meaning that he would be left with 39,443% experience at the end of the day. This was more than enough for him to Rank up with, but it would be less than a dog's shite after conversion, so he wasn't looking at it twice.
After confirming the upgrade, the items rose up from the ground and floated in mid-air. They were encased in a wonderful glow of florescent light as they simultaneously broke through their shackles to rise higher.
They swirled in the air and began raucously absorbing Worldly Energy into their forms. Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir were relatively alright as they swallow up Worldly Energy mostly.
As for Fragarach and Dragonlance, these two monsters began by swallowing up Aetheric Energy. They didn't even allow one bit of Worldly Energy to enter their forms, as if it would taint their majesty.
Damn!
Draco was left speechless. Such arrogance! Worldly Energy was the fundamental energy of the world, of which everything relied on to live. It could be converted into any energy and be assimilated with any other with ease.
Yet this was the treatment it got from two Legendary weapons going up to Divine Rank... sigh, Worldly Energy was truly abused by the various existences of the universe. Being so fundamental but the lowest Ranked and most looked down upon was just sad.
Draco had a powerful State of Being, though he used it rarely nowadays like before, so he could tell that the rate of absorption by the four items here was skyrocketing, like a car that was still accelerating to top speed.
Draco remembered that Eva's Eye of Heaven had only taken a few minutes go upgrade, and its Worldly Energy absorption had been more modest and manageable.
Pair Dadeni and Mjolnir were slightly more violent in this regard, but they seemed to be on the same general wavelength. As such, it took about 5 minutes for them to be done with their absorption, the inflow of energy coming to a halt.
After that, the items transformed visually and functionally right before Draco's eyes. Pair Dadeni became slightly larger and more exquisite, its brown color changing to a lovely gold.
It also gained some strange motifs of a lake, and the rim of the cauldron now exuded a faint blue mist, which added to its mystery and majesty.
Mjolnir didn't grow bigger, but its form became shinier and more resplendent. Even though it was a hexagonal battle hammer, it now looked more majestic. Not to mention that there were sparks of lightning emitting from its form intermittently.
Draco checked out Pair Dadeni first.
｢Pair Dadeni - Crafting item
Rank: Legendary
Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000
Effects:
Passive 1 - Reagent Improvement: All ingredients placed into this cauldron are improved to the Epic or Legendary Rank, depending on the user's preferences.
Passive 2 - Wicked Refinement: Turn any living thing into a reagent to be refined into a potion or poison within the cauldron.
Active 1 - Return on Failure: Activating this skill allows the user to restart a failed crafting process 5 times. Cooldown: 9 days.
Description: The cauldron initially belonged to the giant Llasar Llaes Gyfnewid and his wife Cymydei Cymeinfoll, who lived within the Lake of the Cauldron. It was typically used to revive the dead infinitely, but was re-crafted for concocting potions. It regained some of its old characteristics after being upgraded.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 0% of 100,000% needed to upgrade to Divine Rank｣
Draco was left speechless. This upgrade wasn't a joke at all, the cauldron had gone from 'extremely useful' to 'will cause endless wars'.
Draco had always feared that upon upgrading, the first passive would raise all items to the Legendary Rank. It did not need to be reiterated why that would be a problem for him.
However, as if predicting his worries, it had developed in such a way that gave freedom to the user. This was just a change of a few words and terminologies, but the functionality had greatly changed to become something else.
With the first passive alone, he would be able to become a Grandmaster with ease and maintain his ability to mass-produce Epic items without having to use a different workspace.
This was extremely important to him, as he had many things he'd like to make for his guild members in order to increase their productivity and functionality.
As for the second passive, it was what came with the new Rank up, and boy was it absolutely WICKED. It would allow Draco to refine any living thing into a potion or poison...
So, if he captured Clarent for example, he could turn the fellow into a Divine Rank Dragon's Blessing potion and finally get even for him stealing that first one so long ago? Shit, could that really be possible? Draco was unsure and could only guess at this time.
It was possible that it worked on weakened enemies, as a fine and dandy person would likely just be able to resist and break out. When that happened, they might just clobber Draco and refine him instead, especially if the person was way above his own Rank!
Still, the idea that he could turn the monsters he hunted or killed into different types of potions was intriguing. Since he had no enemies in here, he would have to wait until he reached the outside world before trying this.
As for the active skill, it had also been upgraded. From having a 21-day cooldown, it now had only 9 days, which was far better. The number of times he could retry a failed experiment had also increased from 3 to 5, meaning that he could fool around a lot more and have to worry less.
The description even had a short addition, but what stole Draco's breath was the ability to upgrade it once more. This was not something he expected, and was the reason he would never dare to show Pair Dadeni to anyone who wasn't a part of his people.
Which one was more valuable? A 'normal' Divine item or a Divine item that could help you make many Divine items?
Was the answer even in question? It was obvious that the latter was the best choice! And if Pair Dadeni could raise reagents to the Divine Rank and process Divine potions and poisons... the consequences were too scary!
Still, the 100,000% experience stifled his breath. He had just struggled to reach this amount by already using a sort of shortcut, and yet here he was again, still stuck with this nasty burden. It had taken him almost half a month of nonstop crafting to get half of that amount.
At this point, it would be a struggle to create anything new enough to grant him that crazy experience, unless he began making Legendary stuff. And to do that, he'd need to become a Grandmaster in both Blacksmithing and Alchemy.
But he would still need to create new recipes never seen before in the old era... the task was too hard. He could only create with ease up to the Epic Rank thanks to his vast experience stemming from the old timeline, anything above was impossible without investing time and research.
So, no matter what happened, nothing would change. Also, if he became a Grandmaster, he would stop receiving the 500% experience reward he got from making Semi-Legendary items as well as the 100% from Epic concoctions.
In other words, he would have to go back to grinding to earn that 100,000% experience. Not to mention that if he Ranked up, he would no longer be able to stockpile experience, meaning his Divine Class' 10% exp gain would return with a sneer, laughing at him for thinking he could flee from the system's effort to somewhat balance the living cheat that was Umbra's Guildmaster.
Draco was once again faced with the same choice he had made in the past. It was either forcefully halt his personal progress to upgrade the items to the next Rank or continue to move forward and upgrade them whenever he might have that opportunity in the far future.
The first time, he had chosen to halt his progress, but this time he couldn't do same. There were too many things he needed to accomplish to continue holding himself back like this.
Especially with his 10% exp gain. He didn't have the same luxuries he did before, so this was not the time. Besides, the cauldron was just perfect as it was now, he could use it until he reached the pinnacle of the Grandmaster Rank.
When it was time for him to become a God of Alchemy, he could figure out how to increase it then. On that note, Draco focused on Mjolnir to see if it had manifested similar or varied changes.
｢Mjolnir - Crafting item
Rank: Legendary
Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000
Effects:
Passive 1 - Ingot Improvement: All ingots that are struck by this Hammer are improved to the Epic or Legendary Rank, depending on the user's preferences.
Passive 2 - Auto-Refine: All ingots that are processed by this hammer are automatically raised to the Perfect grade in terms of quality, through the cleaning of divine lightning energy.
Active 1 - Return on Failure: Activating this skill allows the user to restart a failed crafting process 5 times. Cooldown: 9 days.
Description: In the history of the Gods, Mjolnir was the hammer of Thor, the God of Thunder. It was re-purposed for the art of crafting after the Gods receded into heaven. It has regained some of its old characteristics after being upgraded.
Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 0% of 100,000% needed to upgrade to Divine Rank｣
Draco was once again startled. Mjolnir had many similarities to Pair Dadeni - both had come as rewards from the same quest after all - but the new passive skill it manifested still sent him reeling.
The first passive was the same as Pair Dadeni, so he wasn't too surprised. It was only a very good upgrade in his opinion, nothing shocking enough to make him scream in fear.
The active skill had also followed suit. His Return on Failure had increased from 3 to 5 times while the cooldown had decreased to 9 from 21 days. The description too was the same with a similar new addition to Pair Dadeni's.
The experience requirement was also the same, simultaneously pleasing and depressing Draco. He realized he had tough days ahead. He would need to be strong if he didn't want to crumble under the pressure of these hungry whales that were his items.
However, it was the new addition of the second passive, Auto-Refine that got him silent. His biggest worry was that filtering and refining ores were not the same before, where he could get Perfect grades easily.
Even the upgrading aspect of Mjolnir only affected the ingot's Rank, not it's quality. Rank affected the strength of the metal while quality reflects its ease to be worked on, as well as its receptiveness to Enchantments.
With all his Epic and above ingots automatically being raised to Perfect Grade, Draco would have fewer struggles as a Grandmaster Enchanter. If he required 100% of his willpower to merge one Legendary Enchantment with an Epic weapon previously, it would now take only 50% of the same effort.
This would help him achieve his side-dream of becoming a living assembly line that could endlessly produce items and weapons upon demand. After all, he wanted to outfit his entire guild and faction with the best, which required a hellish amount of time and resources.
The resources could now easily be handled thanks to the passives of the two crafting tools, but the time aspect could only be done by himself. This passive indirectly cut down his crafting time with equipment, so it was a double benefit!
Draco collected the two tools gently and turned to the other two fellows, who were still voraciously taking in Aetheric Energy like they were drinking water.