Chapter 346 - Lengthy Study 1

Draco nodded when he went through the entirety of the Blacksmithing section. He had learned a lot this time and he was thoroughly satisfied with his gains. His enlightenment alone meant that his mind had broadened and all his worries would be quelled in time.

As for the designs here, he also ignored them. If his creativity had to be called supreme in Alchemy, then it would be at the same level or even higher for Blacksmithing thanks to the combination of the smithing itself and his Grandmaster Enchanting!

He naturally would want to focus on much more important stuff like the aisles for Magical Engineering and Scrivener. They were extremely important to Draco right now, not only for the designs they held within but mostly for the techniques.

With those techniques, it would be possible for him to start generating his own. Magical Engineering and Scrivener were too esoteric for him to draft techniques without understanding their core essence.

After all, he had never personally ventured in such a field in his past life, so apart from the guidance the Tradeskills provided innately, he had no idea how to go about things.

With those scrolls though, he might be able to kickstart the process by filling in the gaps from others. After all, Draco had the almighty Insight passive skill he got from Roma, which made his learning speeds double for when he was learning himself and three times when learning from others.

Draco first entered the Magical Engineering aisle. Here, there were far fewer scrolls overall, not even 1/3rd of the amount that populated the aisles of the Alchemy or Blacksmithing lanes.

However, Draco would have been shaken to his core by the might of the old era had there been more. After all, there were quite a few techniques like this for Alchemy and Blacksmithing in the current era, but not a single one for anything above Epic.

If the old era had scores of techniques for Magical Engineering, then the Gods had sinned too much by fighting so terribly that they ripped the world apart and killed so many living beings.

Draco picked a scroll for Magical Engineering and read through it. When he was done looking through, a system menu popped up before him.

｢Galvan Method – Epic Technique

Effect: This technique is estimated to increase the chances of success for all devices below Epic Rank by 25%, as well as their default quality by 15%.

Description: This technique utilizes the special procedures for material selection, cutting and joining, welding, and melting propounded by Robert E. Galvan. It emphasizes a strict methodology to work, increasing mechanical accuracy through memorization.｣

Draco raised an eyebrow. This was the first time he'd ever heard that the system could assess a technique like it was a skill and then display it. Then again, it wasn't strange since this was a technique generated by the system (or an NPC, which was basically the same thing).

And also, didn't Scrivener work like this? Even though the screen was not displayed to him, his self-created techniques were objectively assessed by the system and replicated with total perfection, able to become actual skills if he converted and penned them down.

Still, it was strange for this mechanic to work now, when it didn't work before for the previous scrolls. The only difference Draco could think of was the fact that this was a technique for an Epic Tradeskill.

If that was the case, then wasn't this AI a bit too biased?

How could it show such blatant favoritism? Discriminating amongst technique scrolls because of their grade was simply wrong! All techniques deserved rights and were equal under heaven!

Thinking like this, Draco snorted coldly. He opened his mouth to berate the AI and strongarm it into giving him benefits when he remembered that it would absolutely not interact with him while in-game.

Frowning, Draco filed this matter to the back of his mind. He would certainly not let this go and seek redress for these poor, bullied techniques when he visited GloryGore Labs next by extortin- *cough* collecting some Divine Items as compensation!

Draco had already imprinted the Galvan Method to mind, so he picked up the next scroll to see what it was about.

｢Unique Assembling Technique – Epic Technique

Effect: This technique is estimated to increase the chances of success for all devices below Epic Rank by 30%, as well as their default quality by 10%. It also greatly increases the speed of manufacturing by 40%.

Description: This technique utilizes the special procedures for joining, welding, and connecting when assembling prepared parts of a device that were developed by the Confederation of Engineer's top student, Jennifer Lisan. It was a great breakthrough in the field of speed assembly, winning Jennifer the title of 'Holy Hands' among Magical Engineers.｣

Interesting. This one was slightly better than the one that came before, and there was even an interesting little anecdote attached. Draco learned that there had been a Confederation of Engineers back then, probably encompassing both normal and Magical Engineers.

Unfortunately, Draco could not tell the size and scope of this Confederation. Was it an alliance of groups? Of individuals? Of guilds? Of kingdoms?

Or even… an alliance of empires?

It was impossible to tell. Another tidbit he had gleaned was that there was a training regime of some sorts, likely an academy for top Magical Engineering students and that this Jennifer Lisan gal had been the best of them.

Not only that, but Draco had found something even more shocking when reading through the technique. He had seen this technique in practice before!

That was right, Draco had seen this technique used to its fullest extent back in the Rank 7 Castle, when he activated the Personal Workbench. It was specifically when he was learning the design for the Basic Spatial Enlargement Device.

He remembered he had been in the mind of a female, but the system adjusted it so it would feel like a man for him. The female who had assembled the device for him to learn that design had used everything in this scroll to the 'T'.

Naturally, Draco guessed that it had been this Jennifer Lisan again. If this was true, then that girl was a true-blue monster. One should not forget, the design tutorials in the Personal Workbench were done by the people who created the designs in the first place.

So, if it had been this girl, then she had created one of the most pivotal Magical Engineering designs in history! Draco sighed when he thought about this.

The old era was long gone, so even if she had survived, she would have long become dust and bones under the cruel actions of the ever-flowing river of time. Such a thing made Draco sad, as he would have loved to capture such a woman and knock her up after adding her to his lineage.

With such unparalleled talent, she would definitely become a pillar for the Morningstar Clan, and if their kids could inherit even 10% of her talent, everything would be fine.

Draco stopped his lamentation and continued browsing through the techniques one by one. He went through almost 500 of them, which was a mind-numbing number if each of them had the same benefits as the last.

And as a matter of fact, they did. It was startling to note this, but the techniques for Magical Engineering never went below 20% success rate and a 10% quality increase. Some had other effects like speed boosts, material cost reduction, reduced material wastage, increasing innate skills, and some even improved stats slightly!

There was a wide variety of them and Draco had learned a lot while reading through these techniques. He knew that the next time he practiced Magical Engineering, he would begin auto-generating an unparalleled technique just for himself!

Draco then moved onto the designs. He frowned when he noticed that these ones didn't come with the tutorial, and they could not be manually added to the Personal Workbench.

Draco smiled wryly. He should've known better than to expect a free lunch. Which game company added microtransactions and at the same time, made all the content free?

These designs could only be used as a reference. It Draco had the skill to perfectly make the devices listed on them without the assistance of the Personal Workbench, the AI was not bothered, for it showed talent!

However, both Draco and the AI knew that this was impossible. Draco was talented sure, but talent only reduced the time it took to go from amateur to professional compared to others.

Talent did not make one become a professional overnight. There was still a learning curve involved, and Draco was still stuck in this stage. Once he started his technique generation, things would be easier.

With that in mind, he only glanced through most of the available designs and committed their details to mind. Going through the entire Magical Engineering aisle took him 34 hours, so his debuffs had gotten even more debilitating.

At this point, he decided to take a quick break before coming back to resume, as the debuffs were interfering with his study.

When he went to bathe, he noticed that it was Ophie who was unfortunate enough to handle this task, as Natasha had constrained herself to her bedroom and refused to come out unless the world was coming to an end.

Doris was also still laying in her bed, recuperating from her 'wonderful' night with Draco. It was not likely that she would be able to continue anything for the next three or so weeks at the least.

The halfling wore an expression of pain and reluctance. Her feelings could be understood, as no one would like to be around something they desired but could not have.

No guy would be happy in the presence of the woman who blue-balled him every time he was in the mood, so the same logic applied to Ophie. However, she had no choice in this case, so she could only take a deep breath and scrub Draco down.

The fellow himself simply lay in the bath as if he had no worries in the world. This was the same method he had adopted with Doris, only that Ophie did not have half the guts Doris did to venture far and take advantage of Draco.

However, the poor little halfling was red to her ears and her breaths were coming out in ragged pants. Her desire was extremely high at this moment, and only her last sense of reason was preventing her from committing a taboo.

Her eyes misted over as she became slightly distracted, her mind retreating within to carve out many fantasies about her and Draco that she had no confidence in ever experiencing in the real world.

Draco's eyes flashed as he placed a hand on the halflings head. One could see a blackish miasma exiting Ophie's body and entering Draco's, making Ophie's expression of suffering lessen greatly while Draco adopted an expression of enjoyment.

It was slightly saddening to see that he was using this poor, naive girl's negative feelings to fuel his own enjoyment, as this was plain but indirect torment. After Draco absorbed a batch from her, Ophie became much better and was able to carry out the rest of her job.

This time, she didn't need to run away at the end. She simply stood by the side as Draco emerged and slowly wiped himself down, allowing the halfling to ogle his body, which she did in a very open manner.

She wasn't the brusque type, she just did not understand some levels of propriety. She was just like a loser nerd/otaku meeting a hot alien chick that happened to fall into his bedroom like how most anime started.

After Draco was done, he turned to Ophie and spoke calmly. "Tell Natasha to prepare dinner for me. She is no longer allowed to shirk her duties. She will now follow me at every available moment to meet my whims."

Ophie was startled by this, but she nodded and went away to inform Natasha and Hoover. Despite not really understanding much, Ophie felt her heart well with sympathy for Natasha, as the birdwoman was about to be thrust onto the path of hell.

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