59 (59) Blueprints

When the loud impacts had resumed in Floor Four, Kraton sighed in resignation. If Psychi was correct, this would continue for a week or two. That also meant at least a week with getting less sleep.

Moreover, it might only be in the latter parts of the week when the 'elites' would also come to the Dungeon to try and grind the Golems. That being said, the three Bosses might not have any chance to stretch their muscles before then as since the players were here for the loot, why would they challenge the dungeon Bosses when they can grind the monsters?

Since they had nothing to do, the two Bosses went off to do their own things.

Lysine started reading through the numerous pages of information, skills and data which the Typhoon Harpy had shared with her. Both being winged, humanoid creatures had given them many similar points which they had conversed about.

The information that Lysine was now reading was an in-depth report from the Harpy's own experiments. The experiment was primarily focused on the natural movement of wings, rather than skills. But a few sub-sections also included the addition and distribution of skills.

Although a Lamia's and Harpy's wings were different; one being scaly and the other made of feathers, the report was still useful for Lysine. Apparently, the Harpy had mastered the combination of several different movement skills and had merged them with her wing movement.

This gave inspiration to Lysine for which Skills to learn next. After removing a few skills which she couldn't learn due to elemental requirements, she was still left with a fair few with intriguing results from the experimentation.

Kraton, on the other hand, focused on implementing the Medium Quality crystals into a few explosive devices.

Splitting the large pile in two; one to keep in case he wanted to refine them into gems, and the other to experiment with, Kraton started to forge different bombs whilst trying to implement the crystals.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, he realised that it would be better if he created a blueprint, checked the calculations and then tried to forge the devices, instead of trying to create them purely from his head. After all, having a plan was much more efficient, and the product could be duplicated precisely if one of them worked, otherwise he would have to rely on his memory.

When the time was around 8.30, the loud impacts stopped again. Kraton assumed that they had all gone to the upper world to get some breakfast, alas it wappeared that was not the case when Barren emerged, furtively glancing towards the doorway.

Kraton stopped what he was doing a copied suit, staring towards the door. Lysine still continued reading through her Data Rock, but she was intently using her Acute Senses.

"There's a lot of them." She spoke up without looking away from the rock.

True to her word, about 30 human players were stood at the base of the staircase. The majority consisted of soldiers, but there were also two 2-line generals and a blonde, short-haired young man.

The young man was stood at the front, he was casually making his way towards the blue and green crystals stationed by the large, stunning double doors.

All the soldiers and both the generals looked at the young man with respect, it was obvious that he was superior to everyone else in ranking.

"Be careful Young Master, the two Golems are strong!" The broadshouldered Swordsman called out to the young man.

"Ha! Who do you think I am? I'm not like any of you weaklings." The blonde man dismissed the warning with mockery in his voice. The Swordsman bowed down his head in shame, all three of the squadrons that were under his charge had failed to defeat the two Golems.

When the other 2-line General had heard about this, he had burst in laughter as well. The Swordsman scowled at the thought, 'As if you could beat them!' he shouted in his head.

As the young man approached, he kept his hands his side in a slightly clawed position. Black tendrils wisped out of his palm, waving around as if it were alive.

When he got within 50 metres of the two crystals, the crystals responded, shaking slightly as they morphed into their Golem form.

The two Golems stared at the young man, they could feel a dangerous aura about him. They paid no heed to the thirty odd men and women behind him as they were too weak to cause any harm.

Noticing the man's exposed stance, Sapphire attacked first. Its blue, glowing fists shone with a bright radiance as it charged forward.

The young man looked shocked, he had never expected level 30-ish monsters to exude such strength. Instead of dodging aside, he flung his hands outwards and the black tendrils exploded in size, lashing out like a whip.

The black tendrils collided with Sapphire, wrapping around its arm. The soldiers stared in awe when they saw the blue Golem being flung aside like it weighed nothing.

In the Boss Room, all three Bosses were now facing the door. They felt an oppressing aura, a dangerous one at that. They watched as the familiar blue and green light flashed through the doors, yet another light was also mixed in; one as black as the night and as cold as a heartless soul.

The intense sounds and flashing lights only lasted for a few minutes, however this time the Bosses knew that it wasn't the Golems who prevailed.

The dark aura lingered before contracting. Outside, their were many deep cracks and craters in the room. They began to repair, but only slowly as their were still foreign entities inside.

The young man was bending down, picking up two or three items. When he turned round, the soldiers saw him grinning, and looking in his hads, they saw the reason why.

Three crystals were cradled in his grasp, there were two low-quality and one medium quality energy crystals. The man felt like his family could be saved, as a few hundred of these were enough to make a small family rich for decades.

Since the two Golems would respawn every ten minutes or so, and the man had two weeks to bring back the loot to his family, he was sure he could collect around 1,500 crystals if he stayed here.

Although their Noble Family would have to sell most of the money due to the debts they had collected over the last two months, the remainder would still be enough to keep their title.

"Ha! I'm the best, I doubt any of my siblings will beat me." He shouted in glee, and the two generals awkwardly laughed with him.

With this gold-mine, the blonde man was sure that he ould impress the Family members and would inherit the Family name. Maybe it was a blessing to be sent to this small town instead of a major city like some of his other siblings.

The Bosses inside felt a shiver, the man's aura had flared up a bit during his excitement, and from it they could estimate that whoever was out their was at least 10 levels higher than them.

A ten level suppression had a tremendous effect, it was similar to how a human felt when buried beneath a few elephants.

After the young man had finished laughing, he promised the soldiers raise in wages and a treat to seaweed soup once they had finished raiding the Dungeon in two weeks.

With this motivation, the thirty soldiers and generals departed back up the stairs. The show was over and they had a job to do.

Once they had left, the young man glanced towards the double doors and pulled out the metal device. After reading through the information projected by the device carefully, the man grinned.

"At least I will have some fun if I get bored wwith these Golems..."

A bright light made him shield his eyes; the two Golems had respawned. He jumped up and summoned his black tendrils once again as he faced the two monsters.

Seeing that no-one had entered the Boss Room, Kraton sighed and busied himself with drawing out another blueprint.

Currently, he was adjusting the Direction Bomb. By implmenting an energy crystal that was tainted with the flame-element, he was hoping for a much larger eruption of firepower. Even without the flame-attribute, the vast amount of extra energy would add to the impulse making it deadly at point-blank range.

Yet implementing the crystal was a problem in itself. To fully extract the energy, he couldn't just chuck the crystal in the bomb. Instead he had to find a way to break open the crystal, or extract the energy using runes.

Once the crystal was broken, most if not all the energy would explode outwards like a pressurised can. However, this meant that some energy would be wasted as the explosion was omnidirectional.

What would be best was for the energy to move unidirectionally, blasting out of the party-popper's mouth. This was where runes came in.

With specific runes and inscriptions, it would be possible to force the energy flow to follow a pattern or direction, some runes would also allow it to spiral around or concentrate in a small beam.

But runes required a place to inscribe it on, and that couldn't just be a random place on the inside or outside of the shell. The runes would need to be on another container around the crystal as it needed to be directly in contact with the energy source.

And this was the main problem, how the hell could he fit both the crystal, and another container into the bomb, whilst keeping it light-weight, throwable, and cheap and easy to produce.

Furthermore, runes were a delicate entity. A slight mistake in inscribing it could divert the energy elsewhere. Any leakages may cause the bomb to internally combust and potentially backfire - which wasn't too much of a problem for the grenade, but the same couldn't be said for the Direction Bomb.

After several hours of racking his brain and experimenting, Kraton gave up on making it throwable or pocket-sized. Instead, he decided to build it in a cluster of cylinders which were held together in a large metal or rock block.

This prototype looked similar to a rocket barrage container, moreover, it might be possible to reuse the large base, only making the cylinders consumable. This would make it much easier to inscribe the runes, fit in the crystal and pour in the explosive paste.

Due to the massive impulse, the container block would have to be very heavy, or stuck in the ground, otherwise it might fly backwards, making the shots inacurate.

The issue with this dedsign was that it would be easy to locate and hard to hide. Who in their right mind would stand in front of it by one's own volition?

*Crash*

Another loud impact reverberated outside the Boss Room, making Kraton feel miserable. At this point, it was just bullying the two Crystal Golems. During the last few hours, the Golems had been defeated over and over again.

However, each time it seemed like the battle took a minute longer. Maybe the Golems were adapting and growing stronger to the attacks, or maybe the human was just getting tired or lazy.

After the collision, Kraton was about to turn back to his blueprint and prototype, but Barren caught his attention. The colourful Golem had stood up and was watching the door.

At the same time, Kraton and Lysine felt the deathly aura approaching them.

With a silent swish, the double doors swung open. A blonde man stepped out of the light, he looked calm and refreshed but a gash in his clothes and a fresh wound gave it aways that he had been fighting recently.

"Well, s***. The room's tiny."