53 (53) The Dream

In the following days, when Kraton finally had his own free time, he would either laze about or focus on his latest project.

The passive Multitasking and Ambidexterity skill was extremely helpful in not only fighting with both hands, but also in multitude of more normal activities. With this skill, Kraton could easily forge three or four devices or weapons at the same time.

What was even better was that the quality between the devices that his left and right hand made was minimal. However, the quality of the devices whilst mass producing them was not nearly as constant as when he spent his whole concentration on it.

By focusing on a single device or weapon that he had already mastered, Kraton could now consecutively forge Gold Quality items. Whereas, when he tried to forge multiple at the same time, the outcome would be a mix of Silver Quality and a few Gold Quality items.

Kraton's latest project involved runes and energy crystals. Although he didn't know much about this stuff, he understood the concepts and how to implement them. Besides, he always had Psychi available if wanted more knowledge on that matter.

All three Bosses were intrigued by the runes some humans used, it seemed much more simplistic than the common nodes and chants, yet they were still as powerful and could also be inscribed into most, if not any item.

Barren was an ancient monster and had started hibernating long before runes became a thing. In his day, the human mages even had to chant out their spells aloud. Nowadays, they just had to speak out the command, such as "Fire", "Barrage" or "Release".

Only the believers of a certain forgotten religion called 'Otakus' would go as far as proclaiming their moves and skills before they even did them.

The amount of rune weaponry that the Bosses had encountered had risen during the last few months. Yet none of their qualities had come close to Celeste's weapon.

The only item that was similar in quality to her sword were the golden armours of the Noble's party, but even then they still lacked something.

A few months back, when Celeste had randomly visited the dungeon because she claimed that there was an annoying 'stalker', she had found Kraton looking at a few blueprints on runic devices.

After a brief conversation, Celeste explained the concepts of her weapon. The runes inscribed on her weapon helped store and cycle her mana through the sword, but the key to the weapon was actually in the ruby gems thant were embedded in the hilt of the sword.

These gems did not only help direct her elemntal mana into the sword, but also purified and enhanced it. With these gems, in addition to the runes, it would be possible for the stored mana to ignite the sword with the purest of elemental flames. But doing this would definitely consume the blade in the process.

The blade of a special weapon couldn't just be replaced, unlike many swords were the hilt and blade could detach, the highest quality weapons were made as a whole item and forged at the same time.

This was the reason why Kraton had included energy crystals in his products. Normal crystals would supply large amounts of energy and mana, whilst elemental crystals would also supply an elemental mana.

Simple right?

Nope. Even with Barren's help, producing a pure elemental crystal took a long time, the quickest crystal to produce was a regular mana crystal that may be tainted with elemental attributes.

Furthermore, crystals were all consumable, but depending on the concentration, thus the quality of the crystals, they would be able to be used different amounts of time.

This is what differed between natural crystals, and augmented or refined gems that were made by blacksmiths.

One-time consumable crystals were still very useful in some cases; Kraton had started implementing them into his bombs, but it wasn't as straightforward as just putting the crystal in the bomb, he needed to make a mechanism or a circuit to harness the power.

After the bomb had been blown, the crystal inside would shatter, preventing anyone from picking up the valuable crystals afterwards.

However, for the new project, one-time consumable crystals weren't as useful as long-lasting and rechargeable gems, they still worked, but it would be wasteful long-term.

Over the past few months, Barren had been cultivating the better quality gems, Kraton planned to take them with him, hoping to find a monster knowledgable in the arts of refining gems. If there was no-one, he could always resort to giving them to Celeste to find a human blacksmith.

The three Bosses sat around the stone table, they were all staring at a glowing crystal that was placed next to a whole pile of other crystals. Yet only this crystal let out the exuberant energy that was full of power.

This jewel was the product of a month-long concentration on a singular entity. Barren had solely focused on this vibrant, orange crystal in attempts to experiment with the changes in quality.

<Analysis: Resource>

<Energy crystal (S), Quality: High, Detected attributes: Flame.>

<A small sized energy crystal which contains the abundant energy of Mana, and Flame attributed Mana. This resource can be used to craft, or be added to other items to provide additional effects.>

The tier 2 Analysis didn't seem to do too much, but it had improved the skill by quite a bit. The analysis now showed the type of item, the size and had a better description for its uses.

Unlike weapons, resources did not have a level, and their quality were split in four categories: Low, Medium, High and Superior.

The pile of crystals were composed of Medium Quality, Small Mana crystals. The difference between the two qualities were significant, even when Barren had been trying to form an elemental crystal before, it would never be considered as an attribute in the Medium Quality crystals, but were only tainted by the element.

The Medium Quality crystals which Barren formed were made far too quickly for the elemental attribute to be absorbed. If Barren hadn't taken an entire month, the High Quality crystal might not have the flame attribute either.

The higher the quality, the more concentrated the attribute can be and the more of the element it can store. But this also meant it would take longer to become an elementally attributed crystal rather than an elementally tainted one.

This was evident in the Low Quality crystals that Barren made extremely early on for the bombs. The normal crystals took two to three days, but many could be cultivated at the same time.

However, when Barren took a week to cultivate two or three of the Low Quality crystals, two of them became Flame Attributed crystals.

As a Low Quality crystal, these Flame crystals worked perfectly with the bombs, but they didn't store enough mana for the new project, hence the cultivation of the High Quality Crystal.

The orange crystal sat on the stone surface, the aura it exuded made the air around it shimmer. Kraton reached his hand out to hold it, on contact it made his hand feel warm but the longer he held it, the hotter and hotter it seemed to become.

Soon, Kraton yelped in pain and dropped the crystal back on the table, luckily the crystal was strong and durable. The heat slowly decreased back to what it was before, but Kraton felt weak and tired.

"Haha, wimp!" Lysine chuckled at his display of weakness and went forth to inspect the crystal as well. Similarly to what happened before, the crystal started heating up again. But unlike Kraton, Lysine gracefully placed the jewel back down before it got any hotter.

"This crystal... it absorbs our mana." Lysine deduced the sudden feeling of weakness after holding the crystal, she glanced at the pile of energy crystals and a thought occurred in her mind.

Kraton stared blankly as he watched Lysine take a small energy crystal and pressed it against the orange crystal. Within a minute, the small, low-quality crystal lost all of it's little aura that it had.

The outer layer of the small crystal crumpled away, it was now no bigger than a human's thumbnail. It seemed to have become lighter, hollower and duller and upon Analysis, the description of the crystal had changed.

<Analysis: item>

<Tiny Crystal, a decorative crystal with no practical use.>

<A pretty crystal that can be refined to be fit into clothes and jewelry at a cheaper price than energy gems.>

The orange crystal on the other hand, appeared brighter and felt heavier. Lysine's deduction was spot on; the orange crystal was able to store even more mana than it was naturally formed with and was capable of absobing lower quality crystals as well.

This meant that the crystal could theoretically be recharged, although it used external means rather than natural regeneration.

Still, this was a groundbreaking discovery that could be used for the project. It would mean that only one of these high-quality crystals would be needed for each item if they couldn't refine it into a gem.

But if this trait also carried over when it was refined as a gem, in addition to the natural regeneration and no chance of the jewel shattering once all the energy is used, it would be a very convenient addition to the device it was used in.

Think about it; natural regeneration of the mana in a refined gem took some time, but with this absorbtion trait, the energy could be refilled mid-fight as long as one had spare energy crystals on them.

This could help recharge the most powerful of weapons, defensive systems and relics during a battle. Where they would normally have only been able to use it once each fight, they may now be able to use it dozens of times, giving the user more opporunities to strike and less of a risk when they missed.

"Are you sure you want to bring these? Barren can only produce one more anyway."

Kraton slowly nodded his head, even though these crystals were very expensive and were meant to be rare, they needed to be refined into gems in order to work perfectly with what he had in mind.

If they could find a reliable and trustworthy Boss in the Intermediate Gathering, they could possibly expand their fame with the more virtuous Boss, but if they caught the attention of the tyrants, they would be exploited and threatened.

It was a gamble, but if they make the right friends, it could go a very long way in life.

...

That night, after a very tiring failure of implementing the low quality crystals into the cheap prototypes of the project, Kraton fell asleep.

Recently, his dreams were changing, they were all still lucid dreams... but they felt real. It was almost as if he could feel, smell and taste everything in his dream.

The start of all dreams were the same, and they always had been. A black darkness, a void which gets filled with the countless random dreams. But now, the void felt cold and empty, yet there was something there. Normally the void felt like nothing, you couldn't feel it; that was the law of the world.

Would you call black a colour or a shade or a lack of light. What about a void? Is a void empty if it is there, what makes the void up, what if something is in the void, is it still a void?

The dream that came to fill the void felt real. Kraton felt like he had been there before, yet nothing was recognizable.

The whole place was full of white buildings, pure white that not even dirt could taint. The sun, was nowhere in the sky, yet the place was still basked in its natural light.

There were people, or at least that's what Kraton thought they were. The people of the city, all blurred, no details. Strange.

They all seemed to play, to talk, to work. At an unknown hour all the blurred people made their way towards a tall structure that had an entrance to the underground.

Kraton tried to make his way into the structure, but as always, something stopped him. There wasn't a forceful restraint, no barrier, yet his body; or consciousness couldn't move any further.

Every time he looked in, the people vanished into the bright darkness, when he looked behind him, there was a long, eternal line of hazy figures that walked straight past him, sometimes through him. But when he wasn't looking, he could feel their eyes, or someone's eyes staring at him.

"Child..." A familiar voice would always speak.. but that would be when Kraton would wake up, whether naturally, or by Lysine.

Every morning after the dream came, the voice, the city, the people would fade from his memory. All Kraton would recall was a bright light, the shadows of darkness, and a slim purple oval in-between. But even that would have been forgotten by the end of the day, only to be remembered when the dream came back.

...

"Wake up! We should probably leave right now, damn lazy beast."