64 (64) Don't make me into a table

Countless craters and burnt scars littered the stone floor, a blackened humanoid beast stood in the centre of the mess. Kraton had endured each and every explosion for the past five days, his hairy skin was charred and stunk of burnt charcoal.

However, the failures had come in a form of practice; each time his skin smouldered, the pain would flare up, but instead of dowsing himself in cold water, he would persist through the pain.

He had also been activating Harden continuously during his experiments, like an animal's muscle, it was adapting to the strenuous work and improving itself the more it got used.

Although the skill Harden thinned out the more it got battered, results were showing. After activating the skill, it now took longer to dissipate away naturally, furthermore, Kraton felt that it was more like a second layer of skin now - more flexible whilst still retaining its defensive capabilities.

But this didn't change the point that all his experiments were complete failures.

Frustration was building up, almost to the verge of breaking down. Time and time again his prototypes would misfire the wrong way, or implode and self-destruct on itself. Maybe both sometimes.

The problem laid on the energy distribution and consumption of the crystal, think of it as a hose; the water had to flow through the hose with ease to let out a steady stream of water. But if there was something applying pressure on the hose, the water would be held back. But when the water breaks free, a large volume of it would rocket out.

What was happening with the mana from the crystal was similar. Each rune had a different purpose, and the placement of each inscription had to also be in a specific location and distance away from the other.

Otherwise, from time to time the runes would crash, and the mana would have to wait for the clash to subside before running through the system again. But as more and more mana stored up behind the clash point, the more powerful the burst would be once released. This led to the device imploding on itself as the mana would then consume the whole device, and then it would explode outwards.

The times in which Kraton experimented with different runes and distances had led to a varied mixture of explosions. If the runes were too far apart, the mana would flow backwards, thus exploding the wrong way.

The ideal function of the device would be a long-range bomb; an artillery of sorts. Kraton was fine with the cylindrical container being a consumable, but what he didn't want was the whole device be destroyed, otherwise, it would eat away at all his stored materials too quickly.

Looting from Monsters was easy for Players, but for Kraton to swindle useful materials from Players was quite a tricky task that required a lot of luck.

"Why don't you just shove it in the ground?" Kraton snapped out of his vexation as Lysine peered over at his blueprints.

"What? Like dig a pit and shove the explosives down there and wait for the humans to step on it?" Kraton refuted the plan immediately, "The explosion would destroy the ground as it does with the metal - Oh..."

The idea clicked in Kraton's mind. If he can't control the range and power of the device, he might as well stick it under the Players' feet. That way, even if the ground becomes destroyed, it will just regenerate after the battle. This meant the only materials used would be the cylindrical canisters with the inscribed runes.

"That's- That's genius!" Kraton exclaimed with a large smile. He wanted to kiss Lysine for her ingenuity but she pushed him away immediately.

Since damaging the ground wasn't a problem during a battle, Kraton could now solely focus on optimising the runic inscription, maximising the potential damage it could do.

He quickly sketched out the base idea for the device, noting down a table of different measurements and digging the respective holes in the ground. The only problem was that to test it out, it would have to be a live test with players - otherwise, the damaged ground would remain destroyed and would have to be manually fixed.

After digging a few holes, adjusting the canisters was the next priority. Between the explosive paste and low-quality, flame-tainted crystal, Kraton carefully set a very thin plate of crystal.

This was the trigger mechanism. Due to the impossibility of manually detonating the device from such a far range, the slide of crystal would act as a switch. Unlike how a fuse would break a circuit, once the crystal was broken, the contact between the mana and explosive paste would allow it to detonate.

To break the crystal was simple: they had Barren.

The Crystal Golem remained oblivious to his role and continued to 'slumber' as a crystal.

From Psychi's prediction, there was still another week left until the Irrigance Family would need the money, that meant another week until Lloyd left, and when that happened, the Boss-challenges from the Players would resume.

During this period of time, Kraton continued to forge multiple canisters, each one varied slightly from another and were currently labelled with a number from 001 to 829, Lysine helped to give suggestions of various runes and combinations to change how the mana erupted.

It was the thirteenth day of Lloyd's army grinding their dungeon, unlike the Bosses, the Monsters in the Third and Fourth Floor had their fair share of battles and successes in battle.

The Gargoyles were already breaking through to become level 28, whilst the Nagas were already at the end of level 29. The Nagas were smart and held back their levelling, aiming to surpass the level barrier only after the Irrigance soldiers had left.

That way, the human soldiers won't gain back their morale at the possibility of more valuable loot drops. Right now, the soldiers had been grinding the dungeon arduously for almost two whole weeks. One could imagine how tired and bored they would be after constant repetition.

It was even worse when they still lost to the Nagas quite a few times. Unlike Lloyd, they didn't have an artifact, let alone a relic that could reduce their level loss. Therefore, at the end of the week, they hadn't gained any experience from the battles. Alternatively, they had spent quite a lot of their personal savings; buying drinks at the taverns, wasting potions in the dungeon as well as the need to repair their armour. These minor costs added up to quite a lot in two weeks.

The soldiers assigned to the Fourth Floor were busy celebrating that night, at dawn, they would finally be leaving this bedraggled town, which signified that they would never have to fight these Nagas again.

Similarily, but not for the same reason, every other soldier and General assigned to this region from the Irrigance family were celebrating their success. For each of them, they felt like they had received a pot of gold. Their levels had increased by at least one, and many of them received loot that they were allowed to keep.

The scene in the dungeon was also comparable to that of the soldiers. Floor Four had scored a bountiful reaping and had also managed to pillage some dropped armour and weapons before the players could reclaim it. Some of the stolen goods fitted the Nagas, whilst the rest was stored away fro Kraton; by now, everyone knew his obsession in collecting the metal equipment from players.

The two Bosses were also present at Floor Four and were busy celebrating the Nagas' success. Despite somewhat downhearted that they hadn't increased their own level at all during the last two weeks (The two Golem Guards also hadn't won a single time), they were still happy for the others.

Later that evening, a nervous Gargoyle clambered down the stairs. The Nagas were too busy having fun to glare at the intruder, but the Gargoyle felt even more fear from this. He hesitantly made his way towards Kraton and bowed down, his stony legs and wings quivering madly.

"What do you want?" Kraton glanced down at the Gargoyle, trying to appear imperious in the poor fellow's eyes.

The Gargoyle shivered uncontrollably, his brothers had told him many stories about the big Boss of the dungeon, and none of them presented him as anything other than a tyrant.

With shivering hands, the Gargoyle passed over a small, wooden parcel enlaced with golden trails and a silly cover. "A- A scary.. no uhm, p-pretty lady told us to give this to you." The Gargoyle's voice squeaked and wavered as he recalled the frightening scene the 'pretty lady' made.

Kraton opened the box clumsily with his massive hands, inside the box laid a beautiful, orange gem resting on a velvety pillow. The oval gem shone vibrantly, not a single imperfection flawed its beauty.

"Why didn't she come down herself?" Kraton knew who the 'pretty lady' was, yet he wondered why didn't she come down when she had already arrived.

The Gargoyle visibly paled when he heard the question. Scenes flashed before his eyes and his knees buckled over. "S-sorry. We disgusted her..." His voice trailed off as he whimpered, his stony eyes flickered all over the place in fear. "Please don't turn me into a table!" The Gargoyle begged on his fallen knees.

"Pff," Kraton restrained his laugh as he dismissed the Gargoyle away with a wave of his hand. The Gargoyle quickly fled the room and scrambled back up the stairs, crashing sounds echoed down the stairway, resulting in snickering and laughing from the Nagas.

Shortly after the Gargoyle left, the Nagas crowded around Kraton. "Oooh, it's beautiful." Many of the Nagis exclaimed, jewellery wasn't only fashionable to humans and other Player species, but some monsters also found it attractive.

Kraton held the palm-sized gem in his hand, it felt nice and warm to touch, unlike the blazing, scorching heat the crystal became after holding it for some time. The gem seemed in control of the mana inside it, it wouldn't mindlessly devour any mana, but only a specific type and at a stable rate.

<Analysis: Module>

<Energy Gem (S), Quality: Superior-High, Detected attributes: Flame.>

<A small sized energy gem which controls the abundant energy of Mana, and Flame attributed Mana it contains. This module can be implemented into certain items to provide an energy core or give additional attributes.>

"A Superior quality..." Kraton sighed in amazement. The Analysis showed the quality of the gem first, and the quality of the crystal it was afterwards.

A note was placed in the wooden box as well, Lysine read it aloud whilst Kraton was still staring infatuatedly at the gem.

"Half a week is needed for a Medium-Quality Gem, a week for a High-quality Gem and two for Superior. That's for a single gem, for multiple crystals just multiply it. For medium-sized, double the time. Let me know when you have the next batch. As I said, this one will be for free."

"Ooh, there will be more?" One of the Nagis called out, followed by a crowd of nodding heads and wide-eyes.

"Probably." Lysine answered the Nagas. She was still amazed at the quality and speed that Lunia refined the crystal. They had definitely struck gold when they met her.

"Phew, let's hope that Device works now.."