Chapter 31：Gears

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• [CLOAK OF PHASING] : A cloak made by a mysterious Arch Mage. Protects the wielder by phasing in and out of the material plane.

Grade : C+

Defense : 36 (physical)

Armour Type : Cloak

Weight : 0.46 kg

Ability :

• [ASTRAL MAGIC] : (Active ability)

A type of Defense ability. When activated, the user is allowed to access the astral plane, making the user immune to all types of damage.

Duration of skill : 10 seconds (Can be increased by leveling up).

[ Rank : C ]

[Mana cost : 95]

[Cooldown : 6 minutes]

Additional effect : [NIGHT OWL] - Adds 8% extra defense in dark places.

Price : 9 .

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"That's it!" Arnold exclaimed. He finally found what he was looking for. He immediately bought the cloak from the shop. The stats of this cloak were more than sufficient to make up for his missing defense stat.

The cloak got stored in his inventory, he brought the cloak out and wore it. The black cloak extended to his ankles, it even had a hoodie attached to it. He stared at his reflection in a mirror, some would say he looked like an assassin from a particular game.

Arnold still had few crystals remaining so he kept browsing through the shop hoping he'll find something else. He finally found something eye-catching.

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• [SPECTER] : Standard hand glove used by gunslingers, has weapon enhancing abilities.

Grade : C+

Defense : 15 (physical)

Armour Type : Glove

Weight : 0.12 kg

Additional effect : [FRIENDLY FIRE] - (Passive ability)

A type of Defense ability. Nullifies the effects of self damaging spells.

Additional effect : [WEAPON MASTER] - Adds 5 points of Accuracy and 10 points of extra strength.

Price : 2 + 10

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"This is perfect! Now my hands won't get burnt when I use [ASTRAL FLAMES]." He could still feel a slight pain in his hands after using his fire ability. The price wasn't too high either, thus he immediately wore them. They looked and felt like any standard leather gloves. He stretched his fingers and activated the [ARCANE FLAMES] ability once again.

"This actually works, I can't feel any pain at all!"

*****

A WEEK LATER...

KNOCK

KNOCK

KNOCK

"Arnold are you in there?" a Nina's voice came through the door.

"Hey Nina, you needed something?" Arnold asked as he opened the door.

"Yeah were about t- What the hell are you wearing? I didn't knew you were interested in cosplay stuff..." Arnold sized her up, she was wearing a black sports bra and and black yoga pants which tightly hugged her curves. "You look like an assassin and a hitman at the same time."

"No no, this is my battle gear, I made them myself a week ago." Arnold said as he pulled his hoodie off. "So what do you think?"

"Yeah looks kinda good on you. By the way we are heading off to a dungeon and you're supposed to come with us. I came to tell you to get ready but since you're already dressed up I'll leave."

"Dungeon? What rank?"

"It's a Red one. So most probably it's a B rank dungeon, but don't worry the two of us will be joining rank A and B warriors to complete the task."

"Great I'll just go and tell Nicole that I'm leaving for a bit."

"Do whatever you want, just get to the main gate in an hour." She was about to say something but then changed her mind and left.

*****

"You're heading out again?" Nicole whined in a low voice.

She looked much better than she had a week ago. Her once shriveled hair had turned smooth and silky black, and her weak body had started to gain some weight. A positive and shiny aura surrounded her. It felt like he had awakened some type of healing ability which made her to look like a somewhat normal person again within a week, she could even run for a while now and rarely used her wheelchair anymore. But this raised another issue for Arnold because now Nicole was suffering from an acute case of 'attitude problem'.

"Just for a bit." Arnold massaged his temple.

"You always leave me alone!" She crossed her arms before her chest and pouted.

"When have I ever left you alone? These guys are always here to play with you and protect you, though I highly doubt you'll need them here, inside this 'fortress'."

"I wanna go with you! Even Alice isn't here-"

"Don't ever take her name again. Forget about her and the others. Got it?"

"But-"

"No buts."

"I hate you... just get back soon okay?"

"Yes your highness." Arnold playfully bowed before her and left 4 golems behind to take care of his sister.

For the last week, Arnold didn't skip the daily quests even for a day, and because of this he had gained 21 attribute points, he dumped all of these points to the mystic stat which increased the number of summons he could command. But he saved up the potential points because he couldn't decide on which skills he wanted to upgrade, this was one of the problems with having too many abilities and skills.

For the previous week he continually enhanced his gears and summons and he was quite pleased with the results.

[VINDICATOR] was permanently enhanced and could now deal twice as much damage as before, his [CLOAK OF PHASING] was permanently enhanced as well and gave him about 50 defense points to him. But He wasn't able to get that lucky with his [SPECTER] hand gloves.

Now 6 out of his 8 golems were either rank C+ or B, with Duke and Marshal leading the charge as they were already at rank B+. The hounds were doing good as well, with 5 out of the 9 being permanently enhanced to rank C+. All in all his combat ability was greatly increased.

"Let's level up more!" He couldn't contain his excitement anymore.