Bab 80: Influencing the drops
"That is great! Just what we needed to make another floor!" excitedly said Five. He quickly added with a serious tone, "But don't do it again in the future. Attacking beasts, even if they are injured is dangerous. Remember that before you reach a high enough level, I would rather have you be observers! Even going out alone at night is already dangerous! If you keep encountering these situations, I would have to cancel your nightly excursions."
The harpies quickly lowered their heads, not knowing what to say. Clearly, they did not even attempt something dangerous but since the lie was already out, it was too late for regrets. 'Hmmp, you even scold us when we do something good... Master is really a mean person!' pouted Alice inside her heart.
"But still, these items can give us quite a bit of DP. Is there something you want?" asked Five in a softer tone. After giving them the stick, it was time to give them the carrot.
"Really? Can we get to watch more of the TV? Can we watch more Master Chef?" excitedly asked Alice.
During the three nights of being grounded at the dungeon, the harpies were restless and naturally, they ended up annoying Five. As a result, the latter had no choice but to take out things to entertain them and could finally have some peace as he showed them some movies.
There were no actual TVs in the dungeon, but the dungeon core could project a screen and display anything. Through the dungeon shop, he simply bought a few movies at the cost of 100 DP. The harpies immediately took interest in those; not only were the movies entertaining, but they also gave them an opportunity to take a glimpse at the real world.
However, the one downside of this was that Five had no other choice but to stay with them. He spent most of his time studying the different combinations of monsters for his dungeon, but he needed the dungeon core to do so. While the core could certainly do multiple things at once, with the background noise of the movies, Five could not help but eventually join the harpies into watching the TV. To him, it was just like procrastinating, but fortunately, there was no rush in building his dungeon; he could take his time and enjoy himself.
While just three nights had passed, the harpies had already found their own preferences. Alice naturally preferred action and adventure movies while Angela would prefer to watch some drama or romantic movies. As for Ariel, she preferred thriller movies.
They all had their own preferences but most of the time, they would all agree to watch the TV together and the middle ground they found was cooking shows. After the feast they had, the harpies became curious about what other delicacies there were that they could enjoy. Their everyday meal was already delicious but when looking at all the dishes from the shows, they would salivate and hope that Five would make another feast.
With the few DP Five gave them every day, there was still a long way before they would be able to afford these dishes. Little did Five know that the harpies not only watched the cooking shows to satisfy their own interest but also because of a little harmless scheme put forward by Alice. Since they could not afford this type of meal, they simply had to tempt Five! And what better was there than to watch those shows right next to him? Based on Five's personality, Alice firmly believed that if they successfully tempted him, he would at least share with them. Who asked him to give them a taste of these delicacies? They simply could not be satisfied with normal food anymore and could only scheme to eat them again.
"No. Don't listen to Alice master! But we do indeed have a request. Is it possible to teach some crafting techniques to Angela?" asked Ariel as she pinched Alice, warning her to let her speak.
"Crafting?" asked Five as his face lit up. Indeed, crafting would be a good option for Angela. It was obvious that she did not enjoy fighting but that did not mean she was useless. Just like most popular RPGs, New Earth also had elements of crafting. It was normally meant for players but considering what Five had seen, it might be possible for NPCs to also learn it.
"Yes! If you look into the dungeon shop, there are many books that could be purchased to learn the basics of any crafting discipline. There are also recipes and plans that can be purchased!" continued Ariel.
"Oh?" Five nodded and looked toward Angela. The dungeon shop simply had too many items for sales for him to know about everything. He had been browsing through the shop since day 1 and had yet to uncover all of its content. At the moment, he was not only looking at the monsters he could purchase but also the skills he could acquire to build up his own character. Unfortunately, having a wide range of choices just made things harder for Five as there were simply too many skills.
Angela shyly stepped forward and spoke with a quiet voice, "yes master. If possible, I would like to learn some skills to still be useful…"
Seeing the shy harpy speak, Five immediately felt her sincerity. She genuinely wanted to learn some skills and contribute to the dungeon. Angela's case had been sitting at the back of Five's mind since that day. The harpies held a special place in his heart and even if Angela wanted to simply stay in her room and do nothing, Five would have allowed it. However, it seemed that she was eager to help and she had already found a way to do so! A faint warm feeling rose in Five's heart as he looked at Angela.
"Of course you can. There is no need to ask for my permission. As long as you like it, you can purchase anything related to crafting. What discipline do you want to learn?"
"Eh… I am willing to learn anything… As long as it is not blacksmithing, you can choose for me," said the harpy as she tried to sound assertive.
"Anything but blacksmithing?" murmured Five. He did not know why she chose so but it was just a small detail. "Then what about alchemy? I think it would be very useful for us if you can make some elixirs."
"If it's ok with you…"
With a kind smile, Five opened his interface and immediately purchase two books; "Introduction to alchemy" and "Encyclopaedia of plants and animals". From their title, they were both appropriate for a beginner to try alchemy. He quickly handed them to Angela who hurriedly bowed.
"Learn these first. I will keep the items in my inventory for the moment. If you need them, just tell me. We can buy the raw materials from the shop but there are also a lot of herbs scattered in the forest. When you go out at night, try to collect some for your own experiment," said Five.
The harpy nodded and displaying a bright smile. She looked at the books full of anticipation. It will only be a few days later when she would face constant failure that she would realize that crafting was not that easy.
"This aside, we have another thing to show you, master," said Ariel. She quickly cupped her hands and approached Five.
The latter confusedly looked at her and responded by opening his hands.
"Here," Ariel opened her hands, allowing a black feather to fall within Five's hands.
"What is this?" asked Five as he grabbed the feather. The black feather was relatively small, but it was clearly too large to come from an actual bird.
"It comes from my wings. We discovered that we could pluck out one of our feathers. If we are not wrong, they also count as materials and can be used for crafting…" explained Ariel as she tried to avoid Five's gaze.
"From your wings?" Five's mind went blank. 'Weren't the harpies' wings considered as their private parts? I know that women like to compare themselves but what were they doing for them to even pluck out feathers.' A naughty thought crossed his mind as he quickly scolded himself for starting to have this type of thoughts. 'Better not think about how they discovered that…'
It was only after the initial dirty thought went away that Five realized the importance of the feather. He immediately looked at Dreidus who was quietly observing them.
"Do you know what that means Dreidus? What do you think?"
The lich moved his hands to his chin; he looked like he was caressing a non-existing beard. "If I am not wrong, the black feather should be an item obtained from the death of a harpy? So that means, it is possible to obtain the drops without killing the monsters?"
"That's also what I am thinking but is it just a coincidence?"
"What coincidence? We can also take out a feather!" exclaimed Alice as she showed a black feather and placed it into Five's hand.
Angela also looked through one of the pockets of her dress and took out a black feather.
"You girls… How could you be so reckless! Don't just pull out your feathers like that. Who knows if they can grow back?" exclaimed Five as he looked at the harpies with a worrying look.
"This is very interesting… Does that mean I can also take one of my bones?" asked Dreidus as he examined the feathers.
"Shall we investigate that? What about using a few skeletons to run some tests?" proposed Five.
As he heard that, Dreidus' eyes dimmed a little. The skeletons who were essentially under his commands were going to be sacrificed. While it was true that they were undead monsters and did not really feel any pain, Dreidus was still pained as he saw that Five was going to sacrifice his monsters.
However, he understood the importance of the test. They could obtain valuable information about the monsters and if Five had decided to sacrifice a monster not serving under him, he would have immediately agreed to it. The problem was that aside from the harpies who were special, there were no other monsters.
In the end, he knew what he needed to do: "No problem, I will immediately call a few skeletons so we can do some tests, or would you rather summon new ones?"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone