Chapter 18：The Extreme Improvement from the Equipment

The Smithing Hall had finished construction long ago.

Lin Ke already started regretting sending Dra and Avina out just a few moments after they left.

He should have had them wear the Equipment in the Smithing Hall. Maybe he could have even used his remaining money to upgrade them further, improving their Attributes.

However, the duo had long since left the tower and there was no use crying over spilled milk.

Even so, Lin Ke bought another set of Equipment, using quite a bit of Silver in the process.

He used up a total of 3000 Silver!

In the Smithing Hall, the Equipment that was being sold was a green Bronze Equipment Set. Each piece of Equipment was sold at quite a reasonable price. They could be acquired for just 500 Silver.

This price was honestly quite low. Lin Ke had never seen anything with a lower price tag than this in the Silver Market.

Despite that, when he added up every single piece, it still burned a hole in his wallet.

Before this point, he had more than 4000 Silver in his pocket; after buying this set, he was left with just over 1000 Silver.

With this pitiful amount of Silver, he really could not do much. At best, he could upgrade either his Dormitory or Elemental Pond to Level 2…

...Or prepare to upgrade the Equipment.

Having bought some Equipment, Lin Ke tried to equip them. He realized, however, that although he could hold on to the Equipment, he could not actually wear them.

The Equipment seemed ethereal. he could still physically pick them up with his own hands, but as soon as he shifted his attention to something else, they instantly dropped to the ground.

After fiddling around for quite some time, Lin Ke noticed that his individual Attribute Pane now had an Equipment icon.

Opening the Equipment icon, the first thing Lin Ke saw was a 3D projection of himself. Next to the projection, there were 6 different slots, coinciding with the six pieces of Equipment he had just bought.

The helmet, the shoulder guards, the chest piece, the greaves, the gloves, and the boots.

He could not see their Attributes and other details; all of the stats were displayed as Mojibake. However, when Lin Ke inserted the Equipment into the appropriate slots, a new and strong sense of power emerged within his body.

This power was extremely strong, causing him to feel like his body was about to explode.

Of course, though this was an illusion, he could clearly feel slightly lightheaded. It was almost as if he was not himself.

Lin Ke immediately removed one piece of Equipment. Instantly, he felt much better, as part of the power had disappeared.

"Ugh, just removing that one piece of Equipment significantly reduced that power… That means a lot of Attributes were lost! Then, in other words, a full set of all 6 pieces of Equipment gives a set bonus?"

Lin Ke took off another piece of Equipment and felt the power within his body fading away a little more. He slowly removed the Equipment one-by-one as he tried to sense the difference in power of each one.

When he stopped feeling the power, he put on the equipment set once more and tried again.

After trying this a few more times. Lin Ke vaguely understood the concept behind this equipment set.

The set bonus for these 6 pieces of Equipment was based on the amount he had equipped. Other than the minimal Attributes that each individual piece gave, 2 pieces of this set gave a fixed set bonus, 4 pieces of this set resulted in a higher fixed set bonus, and a full set of 6 pieces granted the highest set bonus.

After Lin Ke tried multiple times, he could approximate the bonus that this equipment set gave.

If a 2-piece set bonus gave 15 points, then a 4-piece set bonus would increase it by another 25 points, and a full 6-piece set resulted in a whopping additional 60 points.

As Lin Ke took a look at his own Attributes, he estimated that it was, at most, around 30 points.

His Attributes had more than tripled, no wonder his body could not withstand it.

However, all of this was temporary, he just had to persevere until he got used to it.

This time, when Lin Ke re-equipped all 6 pieces of Equipment, he no longer felt quite as terrible as he did before.

He had started to get used to this strong power.

However, instead of continuing to wear the equipment set, Lin Ke removed the entire set. This caused his body to lose this power. This sudden change caused him to feel extremely weak. As he steadied himself, he said to Lucy, who was standing beside him, "Try out this equipment set and see how much stronger it can make you."

As soon as Lin Ke finished, he immediately opened up Lucy's Equipment Pane and placed all of the Equipment into her slots, having Lucy wear them.

After each piece was equipped, its ethereal-looking counterpart disappeared in reality, merging into Lucy's body.

Then, as all six pieces of Equipment were equipped, Lucy just frowned a little, not giving much else of a reaction.

"How does it feel?" Seeing her reaction, or lack thereof, Lin Ke could not help but ask, "How much more power did it give you?"

"Umm, it feels a little weird." Lucy looked over at Lin Ke, motioning for him to unequip and re-equip the Equipment repeatedly. After a long while, she finally replied again, "It's a very strange feeling.

"This set of Equipment increased my physical capabilities, but it didn't have much of an effect on my abilities."

Lin Ke just nodded silently. The physical capabilities Lucy was talking about were her Attributes, whereas the abilities were her skills.

This set of Equipment increased Attribute points; it did not improve skills.

"With the strengthening given by this set of Equipment, my physical capabilities are now slightly over double of my original capabilities." Lucy tilted her head at Lin Ke. "It didn't increase as much as it did for you, my Lord."

"I understand."

Lin Ke nodded. "I'll give this to Dra first. As a frontline meatshield, Dra needs the best Equipment she can get."

Although Lin Ke wanted to keep this equipment set for himself, he realized that the one who needed it the most was Dra, who fought on the frontlines. As long as he did not leave the tower, he would not be in danger.

However, there was now the problem of how much of an upgrade Dra would get from this equipment set.

This set had more than tripled Lin Ke's Attributes but had only doubled Lucy's.

In comparison, the difference in improvement was jarring. With that in mind, Lin Ke could guess just how low his Attributes were compared to the Heroes.

Even Lucy, who was only rated as Leader, already had much higher Attributes than him. This meant that the terrifying bonus Attribute increase from this equipment set would not do much for Dra, who was rated as Disaster.

Maybe, it would only give her a 50%, or even a 30% upgrade!

Of course, the Attribute increase might seem terrifying right now, but Lin Ke knew deep down that this small amount of Attributes was not really much to be impressed about.

After all, the reason why the Attribute gain from the equipment set looked so large was that they were still at Level 1 or 2.

Once their individual Attributes increased, what could this measly amount of Attributes even do for them?

In actuality, these set bonuses were only useful in the early game.

However, even if the set bonuses were not significant, that did not mean that these pieces of Equipment were useless!

As the Equipment got upgraded and leveled up, the Equipment's attributes would also increase exponentially. He did not even need to test this. In every game, Equipment would always play a huge role in a player's stats.

Most importantly, when Lin Ke was in the Equipment Interface, he saw a very interesting icon.

That was the Equipment's "Chain" state, notifying players that when all of the Equipment reaches Level 10, they would gain a Level 1 Chain effect, awarding the user with additional bonuses.

As for what the specific bonuses were, they were all written in Mojibake. None of it could be read.

However, based on his experience from the numerous games he had played, it would, at least, be much better than the 6-piece set bonus.