48 The Granary Instance

The Granary was, like the Blacksmith, dark. There were no torches inside, unlike the original design. In the original design, there were torches in area dungeons for trick purposes. After all, the grains in the Granary could be burnt with the fire. However, for guild areas, they could choose to put torches in the Granary or leave it as that. If they had torches, it would be good for their movement and lookouts, but if they didn't it would limit their vision. Gunners were usually not allowed to go into a Granary. After all, the Gunner's skills were all firepower.

Jaglash decided to stay outside and watch. Dye had told him that if he went inside, he might not be able to go outside until the whole instance was cleared. Jaglash was barely level 10, so he might not be able to do much in this Granary. Another advantage if they triggered the instance, it would be an entirely different space. If the soldiers went inside, they wouldn't see or hear anything. It was absolutely safe, unless Jaglash spilled things out and made the soldiers wait outside the Granary until they finished the instance.

That, my friend, would be betrayal.

Most of the monsters in granaries were puppets, the strongest being Diamond Puppets (as designed in her past world). Diamond Puppets were very strong, and only players past level 60 could slowly injure them. Not only that, Diamond Puppets had a long string of HP but wasn't a BOSS. The BOSS of a Granary Instance were Puppeteers. They were available not only in granaries but also several other dungeons, as long as there were materials to create puppets in bulk.

Most players would ask, what was the benefit of killing a Puppeteer? After all, a Puppeteer was nothing without his puppets (they could control players for a brief moment). However, there was a reason why Dye was sure people would craze over granaries. They didn't quite need to look for food in the game themselves, but, there was something about the Puppeteers that would make even the wealthiest person in game greed.

A 'Puppet Crafting' skill book!

Compared to the other skill books, the 'Puppet Crafting' skill was a hidden skill available after finding the skill book. One couldn't use the level 2 'Puppet Crafting' skill book unless one had used the level 1 'Puppet Crafting' skill book. The 'Puppet Crafting' skill was used to create puppets. When one had defeated the Diamond Puppet's Puppeteer, they would be able to get the highest, most advanced 'Puppet Crafting' skill book, thus enabling them to look for much better materials and craft better Puppets.

The puppets crafted by a player would always listen to the player and couldn't be controlled by any BOSSes, or Dye hoped so. If that was true, then she had indeed gotten a huge cheat this time.

Although level 1 'Puppet Crafting' could only enable a person to craft at most 50 Straw Puppets, the puppets were stronger and much more durable than a normal Straw Puppet. The Puppeteer could also refine their puppets, thus enabling the puppets to impove. Of course, Straw Puppets would always be Straw Puppets.

This was the real reason why Dye wanted to enter the Granary Instance!

At the end of the instance, they would encounter a small shop to exchange monster tokens in. These shops would only appear at the end of instances, dungeons, and raids. Monster tokens existed in various forms and a form's value was different from the other. A Straw Puppet's Straw Heart could be worth 10 Monster Points while a Diamond Puppet's Diamond Heart could be worth around 100 Monster Points. Nevertheless, she decided to see if there were any type of weapon suitable for Jaglash to handle. Although Jaglash had told her that he would be fine, Dye was not...comforted just yet.

In this granary, a mere small granary, there were only Straw Puppets. Each puppet had a glowing blue mark on their body, and that was where the Straw Heart was. If one hit a Straw Heart, then it was a definite critical hit even though the Player's Crit Rate was only 0.00000000-a lot of 0s later-00001%.

These locations were called 'Critical Area'. The Critical Area was available on all monsters, only, some powerful monsters had invisible Critical Area. A low rate monster such as Straw Puppets of course had visible Critical Areas. As Ynoir was an old Elven Ancestor, Dye felt that she shouldn't lecture him about this part, lest she looked as if she was boasting her knowledge. However, she just realized that...

Ynoir didn't attack the Straw Hearts.

"Ynoir...you do know that you can attack the Straw Heart, don't you?" Dye asked, bewildered.

"The glowing blue thing is called Straw Heart?" on Ynoir's face was a look of pure astonishment.

...

"Ynoir, places like the Straw Hearts are Critical Areas. If you hit it, they might instantly die," Dye explained.

"O."

...