Eva looked at Draco's side profile with stars in her eyes.
This aura of wealth, debauchery, and callousness… so handsome!
Draco and Eva watched as their sizable refinery that had been working as rapidly as it could to purify materials began to suck in torrents of Worldly Energy far more ferociously than any of the previous buildings.
Its size expanded greatly, going up to five times its previous self before it began to slow down. Worldly Energy still flowed into it for another five minutes before it finally stopped, leaving the White-Haired Duo greatly curious as to what had happened exactly.
They lowered themselves down to the level of the building and noticed that while its outer appearance was much the same, it now sprouted a mysterious chrome-like design that was a bit too futuristic for a Western Fantasy world.
Upon entry, they saw that the Rank 7 Refinery had lost its open factory nature where machines had been placed all over with various workmen manning them. Now, all they could see was a large hall with various double doors on either side with labels atop them reading 'ore refinery', 'reagent refinery', 'hide refinery', and the like.
"Greetings, Guildmaster Draco and Vice-Guildmistress Riveting Night. I am the Refinery Management System JamieHam and it is my job to facilitate the process of turning raw materials into semi-finished goods of all types!" A pleasant voice spoke into their minds.
(Editor's Note: As you might have noticed the Avatars have been named after certain members of our readerbase. Should you be interested in also becoming a canon existence of the GW world feel free to start commenting or donating PS to make yourself more memorable. ;) )
The White-Haired Duo smiled, pleased that there was another Avatar in charge of this building. That makes things much easier and streamlined for them compared to manually managed buildings.
"Please let us know the various functions of this Rank 7 Refinery." Draco requested with his arms folded.
"Certainly! This upgrade has provided many new functions and some old functions have been removed or upgraded."
"Firstly, the auto-refinery. Through a unique method, this refinery no longer requires the labor of humans or other beings to turn raw goods into semi-finished products. As long as the raw materials will be provided to the relevant refinery rooms, they can be worked on immediately and turned into finished goods."
"Secondly, the energy consumption. This refinery no longer requires the manual provision of energy through kinetic force produced through labor, but can automate all its processes as long as sufficient ambient Worldly Energy is present."
"Thirdly, the auto-maintenance function. Similar to the two functions above, as long as there is enough ambient Worldly Energy, the refinery can automatically keep all functions in pristine shape, never to suffer wear or tear."
"Fourthly, the safety protocol. To prevent improper intrusions, the refinery can only be accessed by those recognized with sufficient authority."
"Fifthly, the auto-delivery function. One can receive their refined materials right after they are completed through a programmed delivery function that will directly deposit such items into a designated space."
"Finally, the quality balance function. Regardless of the quality of raw materials placed within, after the processing, all of them will be raised to the perfect grade."
"There are naturally more functions of less importance, which I can elaborate on, if you so wish. But before that, I have detected the presence of a Rank 7 Warehouse within your territory. Do you wish for us avatars to link our activities to activate the auto-convert and store function?"
"What do these functions entail exactly?" Draco asked with surprise.
"Doing so would make the warehouse send over any raw material to the refinery for auto-processing. Once the process is completed, the semi-finished goods would be deposited into the warehouse." The Avatar explained calmly.
Draco and Eva breathed out deeply. This function was truly too overpowered. If all raw materials were auto-converted into perfect grade semi-finished goods, then the Tradeskill growth of many fellows in Umbra and part of Vita would explode beyond comprehension.
Not only that, but finished goods would have a higher quality than before, which would then be boosted further by Vita Kingdom's bonuses. Just the thought of it alone was enough to make the White-Haired Duo extremely satisfied.
It worked like this; A serf player of Umbra would take a quest to mine 500 ores of Iron for 0.1 UP. After taking almost a week or more to achieve this, assuming they found a good mine and the one in question worked nonstop, they would then transfer what they had to the Guild Warehouse.
What was in the Guild Warehouse was automatically transferred to the Kingdom Warehouse. From there, these ores would be automatically sent to the Rank Refinery and turned into Perfect grade Iron Ingots, which would then get sent back to the Kingdom Warehouse, where Tradeskill players of Umbra could casually pick them to create an Iron Sword that would be 15% better than one produced using an exceptional grade ingot - which was one tier below perfect - not counting any bonuses from their own Tradeskill level, items or techniques.
This was also before accounting for the 50% quality increase to produced items that Vita Kingdom provided. Perfect grade materials also increased the success rate by 30% when used to craft something at the same Rank, and this was also not counting the 30% automatic success rate Vita gave to all those within.
These were the kinds of effects Rank 7 buildings could yield which was why they were so d.e.s.i.r.ed yet so hard to acquire. Draco and Eva had only found out today that certain Rank 7 buildings like the Refinery and the Warehouse could even have synergies with each other.
Seeing that he was prevented from using a shortcut on this matter, there would still be the legal way. He knew that it should be possible to craft these things with Magical Engineering, but he was convinced that he would have to become a Grandmaster for that first. Considering how many hours it had taken him to grind to become an Expert Magical Engineer, he was not looking forward to it.
Whatever the case, the White-Haired Duo were greatly satisfied by the Rank 7 Refinery and set the rules similar to how access had been granted for the Warehouse. They then left the area and forwarded all the details they had found about the buildings to Sublime so she could handle their functions.
As for Draco and Eva, they cricked their necks and called out Luxia, traveling to the coastal towns owned by Umbra on the Cario side. They came to see that the entire Field Zone had been fully developed, with Umbra cities on the coast and the towns built by the Ferroria Empire to handle logistics until it reached their kingdom.
Yes, in these 3 months, the coastal towns of Umbra had mostly upgrade into cities due to the sheer amount of serf players who stayed here and helped developed what would likely be their new homes in the future.
However, despite this, they were severely understaffed. Even if there were about 3 million of them spread out on this side, they still did not have enough men and women to man all the sh.i.p.s that they had and meet the daily demand.
They were working nonstop going across the sea route endlessly in a thick line of sh.i.p.s since there were about 2 million of the serf players on the Vareas side and about 30,000 sh.i.p.s between them.
Some had been made by Draco and obviously, about 90% of them had been purchased from other shipwrights on both continents, especially Vareas which had a more vibrant maritime industry.
Yet, even with this, they could only ferry about 35% of the maximum goods they received on a daily basis. This was grossly inefficient and led to some problems as merchants on either side were waiting on the goods to sell them across the continent.
Sublime had long reported this problem to Draco and Eva, and the White-Haired Duo had recognized that they had three options. The first was to send more serf players over to add more manpower, but that would limit their expansion on the continent itself.
The emperors of both sides had gently prodded Umbra to increase their output but had not done so rudely. In fact, their workers treated the serf players of Umbra like gods, which had made more than a few heads swell from the power.
'Even if I am trash at home, here I am King!'
The second option was to collaborate with other powers, allowing them to also develop on the sea route, in exchange for paying tariffs to Umbra. It would help them reach a 100% efficiency rate, but this would involve having various Rank 7 powers with maritime functions like Voila use the trade route while paying about 50% of profits as tax.
Of course, this was the normal option which many powers would have taken. Not many would be greedy like Umbra and try to swallow everything by oneself, but then again, no one could argue since they had been the ones to clear the route
As such, the rest could only fold their arms and watch as Umbra struggled to meet quotas, sneering at the guild's greed and short-sightedness. How dare they think they could handle it all? Eventually, wouldn't they have to come and beg for collaboration?
The third option Draco and Eva had was to expand the route and let other player guilds develop with them, like Kamisuo and Desecrators. Truth be told, this had already happened, alas it had only increased the efficiency by 5%.
Since they didn't have too many serf players they could throw over, they didn't make too much of a change in the grand scheme of things.
This left the guild at an impasse, wondering what they were going to do next.
Hence, Draco and Eva had decided to come themselves and sort this issue out.
The question was, how? How were they going to solve something as problematic as this that even Sublime couldn't find a way for?
However, once they arrived, the crowd below were startled to see that Draco and Eva had replaced Luxia with a huge airship that floated above the entire coastal area like a behemoth.
Oh God, the size of that thing was enough to turn this area into a wasteland if it crashed!
Draco had a smile on his face and he waited until the guild member in charge of managing the entire sea route, Cold Summer, appeared on the airship with a surprised expression.
He greeted Draco and Eva with respect. Before asking what was going on.
"Cold Summer, you have done a great job dealing with this problem over the past few months, but there is no longer a need to stress yourself. Keep the sea trade as it is and transport those that can't be carted over with this airship." Draco began with a smile.
"It is able to defend itself, it is powered through Worldly Energy, can increase its speed for a short while, and can change its size at will. It is large enough that no matter how many goods are brought over, it should be able to handle them with ease." Eva finished calmly.
Cold Summer was shocked. The Guildmaster and the Lady Boss were giving them this huge airship? That was incredible!
"Of course, this is only a temporary loan. This is, after all, the personal airship of my clan and can only be managed by one of us. I will leave an Avatar here to manage this airship until you are able to get the route below under full working capacity." Draco warned.
All the group needed was more sh.i.p.s.
If 30,000 sh.i.p.s could fill 40% of capacity, then a 100,000 should be enough to create an equilibrium! Purchasing so many sh.i.p.s was not easy, and some of the sh.i.p.s they bought were not as good as the ones Draco made.
The ones made by him were mostly done with top-tier Shipwright assistants who took heavy salaries, but boasted exemplary speed and quality.
It was only a matter of time till that amount was reached, so the airship could be used until then. Since the next Unique Quest was a tower climb, the White-Haired Duo doubted they would need the airship
As such, they could loan it out. Even if they needed it back, the avatar Draco could make with his new Ultima Sunt skill shared the same inventory, so the avatar could simply place the airship within and Draco could withdraw it wherever he was.
Both then left Cold Summer to his business, but the fellow obviously looked like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The pressure from all sides had even made a stoic fellow like this feel stress, so anyone else might have long crumbled.
This made Draco and Eva sure that it was a good idea to choose Cold Summer specifically, for the fellow was truly able to stand tall amidst adversity.
As they flew in the air leisurely, the two chatted.
"Well, it's about time we start the Unique Quest, right? Everything seems to have been taken care of, and only needs time to consolidate. We can use this time to see this Tower of Babylon and see what goodies we can get from it." Draco suggested with interest.
Eva nodded. "Yeah, I don't think there's much else to do. While I would like to find Susanoo and take the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, he is a True God in this game and I don't have nearly enough power to beat him."
Just as they were flying, they suddenly received a call from Cobra. Upon accepting it, they saw that the fellow had an enraged expression on his face, as if he had suffered an injustice and couldn't hold it in anymore.
"Boss Draco, Lady Boss Eva, there is some troublemaker here giving us a headache!" Cobra complained with a puffed-up face.
The White-Haired Duo paused in the sky with deep frowns. It should be impossible for Umbra to eat any loss in any field. No player or NPC could cause them trouble or would dare to cause them trouble, so what was going on?
"What's happening? Give us the full rundown." Eva ordered.
Cobra took a deep breath to calm himself and spoke. "Sorry for the rush, let me start over properly. A player came to the Rank 7 Guild Hall with his name and identity concealed, then proceeded to challenge our members to a Tradeskill competition."
"Of course, we didn't pay him much attention at first, but he then went to Vita Kingdom, where he challenged all our affiliated Tradeskill crafters, defeating each and every one of them brutally."
Cobra's face changed at this point. "He seems to be able to master any Tradeskill as long as he watches someone perform it once, and that was how he managed to beat those he fought against, no matter in what area. We then couldn't ignore this, so we sent out Tradeskill guild members from the basic to the expert grade, but he defeated them all systematically."
Draco and Eva were shocked. What kind of monstrous talent was this? Able to master Tradeskills at a glance?
Hm, wait. Come to think of it, they actually knew a player like that from the previous timeline. However, he wasn't supposed to join the game until around the time Draco would have entered his edgelord mode, which should be about 5-in game years away.
Could it be?
"What else?" Draco asked.
"Well, he is currently fighting against Happy Saint and Noble Writer, but the two are having a tough time with him. It seems to be a stalemate so far, which is why I have contacted you!" Cobra answered immediately, shaking his head.
"Roger that, we'll be there soon. For the time being, treat him nicely if you can, we might know who he is." Draco informed Cobra with a smile.
This surprised the assassin, but he nodded and cut the call to implement Draco's orders. In the meantime, the White-Haired Duo shared a look then smirked.
"Harrumph, that fellow is already at it again. In the previous timeline, I had been unable to beat him, forced to suffer endlessly abuse under his skills, but now it is HIS turn to be shamed by ME!" Draco proclaimed arrogantly.
Eva sighed. "If he had simply gone into hiding to acc.u.mulate more proficiency in this timeline, he could at least pose some threat. However, he dared to come out and cause such high-profile trouble…"
Draco hmphed coldly. "That fellow is too arrogant, and cannot act low-profile. I have always told him to be like me, humble and never one to toot my own horn, but does he listen? No!"
… alright, Eva took some damage for that and lost 30 points of HP.
The White-Haired Duo then mounted Luxia and appeared above Vita Kingdom the next instant. They noticed that there was a large crowd in the inner section that surrounded the Tradeskill Association's branch in the city.
From there, Draco and Eva could even see what was going on, as one fellow who was cloaked from head to toe in purple-white robes was facing off against an older man who had metallic arms and a young man who wore glasses and had a scholarly air about him.
However, it was clear that the two were suffering to keep up under the oppression of the cloaked fellow.
