(48) Bombs

Psychi and Kim left in the early hours of dawn. Throughout the night they had discussed many things, Psychi even helped brainstorm ideas and blueprints for Kraton to forge with his explosive paste.

The ingenuity of the paste left him amazed, as the ingredients were fairly common and easy to grow. Although it was inferior to gunpowder in many aspects, the advantages of a paste were clear.

The greyish paste was especially useful when camouflaged as cement along the walls or on the floor. The only problem laid on how to ignite it.

With Psychi's knowledge, the pair of them had successfully created a small mechanism which pressurised the paste in a container.

The container was quite fragile but easy to make, and once thrown hard enough, it would break open with the help of the expanding pressure of the condensed paste inside.

Small pieces of shrapnel were also placed inside the container and as the vessel shattered into many irregular cracks, the pieces of metal had a large chance to produce sparks and ignite the paste.

The latter half of the late evening was full of fun and games. Of course, the loser of the games were punished.

The last game was a simple race from one end of the large room to the other. The clear winner was Kim; being a quadruped with wings no less had its bountiful advantages when it came to speed.

Suprisingly, the fight between second and third place was extremely close. Lysine just barely managed to reach the wall before Pyschi due to her Lamia physique and Dash skill.

Physically, a Moon Immortal did not possess a stature which benefitted them in strength nor speed, however Psychi was already level 25 and had learnt a wide variety of spells and skills which included movement techniques and wind manipulation.

The loser in fourth place was indisputed. The other three Bosses even had enough time to catch their breath and prepare the punishment before Kraton had arrived.

Although Kraton had strong, powerful legs and muscles. And had specialised in speed, he lacked any helpful skills and hiss large build and weight held him down. Quite literally.

When the two guests finally left, Kraton had swollen up and looked vaguely similar to 'Michelin Man' [1].

Kraton had the guts to complain middway through his punishment that today was just an excuse to beat him up. This resulted in him being 'rewarded' even more.

Although it was the early morning, Lysine energetically flew down the dungeon. She had almost forgotten how fun life could be, after all being a Boss, or a leader of a swarm was tiring work.

Without waiting for Kraton, Lysine soared towards the magnificent door and pushed them open using the two high handles. These handles seemed to never have been used compared to the lower handles. With their constant usage by Kraton and Lysine, the handles had worn down into a sorry state.

Kraton trodded along heavily behind Lysine, every part of him hurt and ached tremendously, but by the time the players would enter the dungeon he would have already healed. There would be no-ne in this world which could pity him.

It wasn't just Lysine who felt restless with abundant energy, as after resting for no more than an hour, Kraton had woken up again - unable to fall asleep.

With nothing else to do, he bgan fidgeting with the one completed, home-made grenade. Deep in a trance, his hands started to mimic the completed product with unused materials.

With Kraton's wandering mind, another mechanism was completed. However, there was a large difference with the new version. The outer shell was not completely smooth like the previous version but instead had multiple grooves and contours thgat spiralled around to the top.

Furthermore, Kraton didn't add in any pieces of shrapnel inside. At the bottom of this device, there was a T-shaped pin with a long stalk that led inside of the container.

The stalk was made up of two parts, one of them had rough teeth and the other part surrounded the first with a rough, cylindrical barrel filled with some explosive paste. The end of the stalk had a small hook which connected to part of the inside of the shell.

This version now looked more like a human grenade, albeit a rather aesthetically pleasing one that also resembled a harmless human party toy.

Kraton snapped from his daze and inspected his new creation. The surface felt inherently warm to touch, as if the paste inside was keeping it warm without activiating.

'Analyse' he thought to himself as he canned the device.

Kraton became shocked at the little bomb. Yes, it was weak for his level, but he could remember each step into making it as it was fairly simplistic.

As well as this, its almost innocent look could catch the opponents off-guard.

The level of the device would estimate at what level it would be useful for, or against. And the quality would determine how good the item is compared to it's potential. A Diamond Quality would be the best of its potential, whereas a no-quality item would be the worst.

A Bronze Quality item would be useful for the level of the item, minus 2 or 3 levels. So the bomb Kraton was currently holding would really only be useful for level 7 or 8 players on average.

If Kraton could master the forging of the bomb, then he could maybe produce multiple Gold or Diamond quality bombs successively.

Kraton quickly analysed the bomb that he and Psychi made together. The quality was obviously much better than the one he just made, but it probably had different uses.

<(A homemade) Grenade, Level 10, Gold Quality>

It was somewhat disappointing to find that the level of both bombs were the same, however it was understandable because players over level 10 would normally have better defencive capabilities such as shields or shock resistant armour.

Furthermore, the two bombs in front of him would spew out fire, along with a tremendous repulsion force. Unless the fire burnt the players' exposed skin, it wouldn't actually do much damage. As well as this, the repulsion would only affect those in it's immediate vincinity.

Nevertheless, a few more alteration such as penetration abilities would allow the two bombs to reach new heights in their damage capabilities. Moreover, if he made them with quantity over quality, it would eventually overwhelm the delicate humans, leaving them completely shell-shocked.

Kraton continued forging as many of the two bombs as he could. Lysine had somehow fallen asleep despite her earlier restlessness and Kraton's disrupting noise.

Yet, it was only when the first few players started to enter the dungeon, that Kraton himself started to feel exhausted. A few minutes later, Kraton slumped asleep whilst Lysine just woke up.

Sensing his deprivation of sleep, Lysine decided to battle by herself. If needed, she could always rely on the good 'ole Barren.

As time went by, she felt like she was forgetting something. The dungeon had become quiet again and the previous players seemed to have already left the dungeon.

Lysine was just about to got back to sleep when she felt a notification from her Data Rock. A single message was sent by Floor 3:

<"We nearly forgot! Sorry for the late reminder, but there's meant to be an Appraiser.">

Lysine glanced at Kraton, he was still in a deep slumber. To wake, or not to wake?

After some thought, she resolved to wake Kraton up harshly just before the Appraiser entered. Maybe he could activate a beserk status again. Lysine doubted that he even had a Beserk status as she had only heard it from one of his stories - never having seen him in it herself.

"What's an Appraiser?"

Barren's voice made her jump, at times his presence was almost undetectable. As long as he stayed as a crystal for long enough, anyone would forget that he was there.

A brief explanation of the Appraiser's job was given to Barren, he still had a multitude of questions but was cut short when the sounds of a battle was heard from above.

"Don't show yourself no matter what," Lysine hurriedly commanded the Crystal Golem, but then a sudden thought came to her, "Can you still attack and kill without being vulnerable to the Analysis skill? Yes? Start attacking when Kraton looks mad, but don't make it obvious."

Barren nodded forcefully like an army soldier, but at the same time it felt like he was smiling like a child that was about to pull a prank. He then transformed back into the beautiful, ornamental crystal without so much of a sound.

Lysine was left to prepare herself next to the still snoring Kraton. 'How on earth did this lazy, hairy oaf manage to become so powerful?' she thought.

Most of the time, Kraton would leave most of the work to her, but then again, when Kraton did reveal his abilities, his strength was rather shocking.

~~~~~~~~

[1] Michelin Man: Mascot of the Michelin tyre company; a humanoid figure consisting of stacked white tyres.