Taking my armour off and handing it over to Greez was a weird feeling. I felt naked without it.

  It’d been so long since I’d bought it, it was practically my second skin these days – as gross as it may be, I rarely took it off. I felt oddly exposed knowing that I couldn’t at least quickly equip it if I needed to.

  Greez took the armour from me and placed each piece over the forge one by one, inspecting it as he went.

  “Hmm,” he said, “Currently, yeh have two pieces that have vitality enchantments in them, one that does strength and one for agility. I guess that lines up nicely. Increasing an already present enchantment is quick and cheap compared to making a new one from scratch,”

  “So I’ll save money?”

  “Aye, it’ll only cost yeh 100 grand per enchantment like I said before. If yeh didn’t have any base enchantments for me to work with it would’ve been 150 grand a pop.”

  Glancing at Panda, he looked back at me and shrugged.

  “So, it hasn’t made any difference on the original price you gave me?” I asked, a little irritated.

  “I gave yeh the base price, it’s called salesmanship. Besides, not many adventurers could get here without at least some armour enchantments to help them out so it wasn’t exactly a big leap to assume you already had some was it?”

  Greez didn’t look up once whilst he spoke. Instead, he took out a magnifying glass and began squinting through it as he examined my armour.

  “I guess that means you don’t get a choice in your stat upgrades then,” Panda said quietly.

  “I’d have chosen those three anyway,” I replied with a smile. “Strength governs my stamina which is how I attack, vitality is just a no brainer and agility… well, honestly it was a tossup for me between agility and intelligence.”

  “Because you don’t have any?” Panda sniggered.

  “No,” I said flatly, “because intelligence is used on my armour’s special move. The full set bonus lets me turn invisible once a day, but the time allowance is dictated by my intelligence stat. Just imagine the possibilities if I could be invisible for ten minutes, I could take on rouge quests!”

  “I know,” Panda replied, “but agility is probably more useful overall. You don’t want to spend 100 grand on upgrading a parlour trick when you don’t even have the basics down, kid. You’re a skirmisher, you need good agility to… you know… skirmish.”

  “Yeah,” I relented, “moving faster would be useful, especially now we’re using all these new tactics in battle. My cardio must be going through the roof. I was all over the place in that last fight.”

  “You’re telling me,” Panda said, “having to command the whole squad is hard work.”

  “You’re a sage, it should be easy for you.”

  “My specialties lay more in the realms of facetious observation and unwarranted advice.”

  “Well you wanted to be more useful,” I smiled, “now you’re an integral part of the team. A strategist… and our taxi driver.”

  “I am not a taxi driver!”

  “True, taxi drivers get paid,” I patted him on the head and winked at him.

  “Just wait until the next fight,” Panda bit back, “I’ve been nice so far, but now I think I’ll be more of a drill sergeant.”

  “A fluffy drill sergeant,” I muttered under my breath as my attention turned back to Greez.

  Holding up my torso piece, he smiled to himself satisfactorily and then closed his eyes. The armour glowed for a moment, then flickered, then began to glow even brighter.

  This continued for a few minutes and the longer he held it, the brighter it got. Sweat permeated his brow, dripping over his eyelids and landing in his bushy beard as his smile turned into a concentrated grimace.

  Then, opening his eyes, he breathed out loudly and turned to me.

  “That’s one down and three to go!”

  ***

  “Ok, the increases to my stats are insane!” I said merrily as we left Easy Greezy and I opened my HUD to check on the status of my upgraded armour.

  Shadow Armour (epic)

  The Shadow Armour set is an epic rarity ensemble of black armour that appeals to emo kids and fans of rich orphans turned vigilante.

  Here’s a tip, try speaking in an unnecessary hoarse voice to really add to the effect.

  Full set:

  Shadow Cloak: a cloak that blends into the shadows increasing stealth. With the hood up you can shield your aura from others.

  Shadow Light Armour: +100% vitality.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Shadow Pants: +10% vitality (NEGATED)

  Shadow Boots: +100% agility.

  Shadow Bracer: +100% strength.

  Full Set Bonus: When all pieces of the set are equipped, turn invisible once a day for an amount of time dictated by your intelligence stat.

  *Equipping 100% stat increased items will negate all other increases effecting these stats. This includes how they work in relation to HP, Mana, and Stamina*

  The increases were incredible, suddenly my stats had doubled. It would have felt OP as fuck if Freja hadn’t already explained that everyone in the capital had fully upgraded equipment.

  I was, however, a little shocked at how it changed my HP and Stamina. In the early days I had started with no class, that meant that my HP and stamina increased as I levelled but my stats didn’t.

  It had always meant that even though my strength stat dictated my stamina and my vitality dictated my HP, the two numbers never quite married up. However, now they did.

  The HUD notification explained this as negating all other boons which effected those stats, as 100% was the maximum I could have, but I wasn’t sure that getting early level points counted as a boon.

  With a sigh, I asked Panda.

  “Well, kid,” he explained, “the upgrade system is pretty pay to play – welcome to the continent – but the system itself is usually very fair, or as fair as it can be. Ever notice how there are no really bad classes?

  “In the early days the system gave you increasing HP and stamina with each level, likely because you were brand new to this world and it didn’t want you starting with too much of an unfair disadvantage.

  “Now though, you’ve bought an upgrade that directly effects those stats, and it’s the highest possible one to boot. That places you firmly in the mix with all the rest of the Celestians. You don’t need that initial help anymore so it’s been taken away to level the playing field and prevent you from being the one with an unfair advantage.”

  “But it barely made a difference anyway,” I complained.

  “It would have done if those extra fifty points, or whatever you had, were under the effect of a 100% bonus.” He argued.

  “Yeah I guess, well, either way, I’m OP as fuck right now!”

  “You and everyone else who doesn’t live in the fringe towns,” he winked, strolling along swinging his arms merrily.

  Sighing I checked my stats.

  Status Sheet:

  Name: Kaleb Akabane

  Race: Outworlder

  Class: Apex Predator (unique)

  Adventurer Rank: Bronze (battlefield promotion)

  Level: 50

  Map Pieces 2/10,000

  HP: 692/346

  Stamina: 852/426

  Strength: 426 (852)

  Agility: 173 (346)

  Perception: 172

  Vitality: 346 (692)

  Intelligence: 83

  Personal Skills: Speak English Damnit!, Eat Anything, Minor Poison Resistance, Usurper (unique), Health Sense (common), Eye of the Dragon (rare)

  Class Skills (Passive): Newly Qualified Bowman (72.4%), Newly Qualified Apex Skirmisher (Dual Wield) (0.6%), Acidic Dhampir Weapons (rare), Environmental Hazzard

  Active Skills: Perception of the Apex Predator (rare), Soul Shot (ancient), Scales of the Apex Predator (ancient), Acid Rain (uncommon)

  Blessing: Blessing of Wealth

  Familiars: Panda (Daemon), Asmodeus (Soul Bond)

  Titles: Audacious Soul Expander, Dragonslayer

  Admission: Pentagram [Right hand (Morningstar Hotel and Spa)]

  “Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff,” I breathed like a crack addict after a hit.

  I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as we headed towards our next stop: an arms dealer – or weapons crafting specialist as I’m sure they’d rather be called – that Greez recommended.

  ***

  Hack & Slash was a quaint little store, located in a building made of the dark metal which was typical to Forge Town. It housed a lot of personality in its walls, which were splashed with crimson paint – at least I hoped it was paint.

  The interior was little more than a small, single room complete with a countertop, a few weapons lining the walls; axes, spears, swords and the like, and a chubby dwarf with an odd beard.

  Shaved everywhere apart from the soul patch, his beard consisted of a single, thick patch which was braided and dangled so low that he had to tuck it into his belt to stop it from trailing on the floor.

  It reminded me of a cartoon character of a wise old Chinese man I’d once seen, though that was where the resemblance ended.

  “Welcome to Hack and Slash, where your murderous dreams are made a reality, my name is Leroy, how may I help ye?” The dwarf said in a Scottish-sounding accent which was quite uncharacteristic for their kind – at least in these parts. I was used to them all speaking with a west country accent.

  “I’m looking for a second dagger, I lost mine in a fight a while back, and then I want to upgrade two daggers as much as I can,” I said, approaching the countertop and retrieving my dagger from my inventory, placing it in front of the dwarf with a metallic clang. “I have some crafting materials I’d like to use.”

  “Crafting materials ye say?” He replied, stroking the length of his braided soul patch, “a man after my own heart, I dare say.”

  “If I remember rightly,” Panda began as he jumped and clumsily grabbed the countertop, pulling himself onto it with the aid of his kicking legs. “He’s got: a slime core, some spider silk, something called a venomous sack, a full bottle of refined kraken ink and one kraken’s eye. I don’t know much about crafting but I’m sure some of those will be interesting additions to the weapons.”

  “Did ye say a full bottle of kraken ink?” The dwarf exclaimed, seemingly ignoring the fact that Panda had begun lighting his bamboo pipe, spilling ash onto the counter.

  “I certainly did my good fellow, quite the find isn’t it?” I replied, trying out my best upstanding citizen voice – I’d heard that people tended to give better prices to those they thought fondly of.

  “Quite the find? It’s a venerable gold mine, that’s a top tier item.”

  “Out of interest,” I said as a tingle itched at the back of my mind, “how much would a bottle of kraken ink be worth?”

  “Oh, it’s worth plenty laddie,” Leroy replied, his eyes gleaming with interest, “why, d’you wanna make a deal?”

  “That depends… how much kraken ink would I need to use to get the full effects, whatever they are, put into both daggers?”

  “About half a bottle should do the trick,” the dwarf said thoughtfully, “if ye gimme the leftovers I’ll give ye the second dagger for free and I’ll perform ye upgrades for half price, how does that sound?”

  “How much are we talking then?”

  “Hmm,” he said, scratching his chin thoughtfully and tapping his foot. “With the discount, you’d be looking at a little over 300 grand. That’s mighty cheap for all the ingredients you want adding, my services are top quality.”

  “Knock it down to 200,000 and you have yourself a deal, that’s all I have at the moment.”

  That wasn’t quite true of course, I technically had 212,000 gold pieces, but I needed to hold something back for emergencies. You never know when a tyre is going to blow or you need to pay for an inn for the night.

  Besides, I hated being at the mercy of others and a man with no coin is always at the mercy of others.

  “Ye drive a hard bargain there, laddie,” Leroy grumbled as he continued to thumb his beard. “I don’t know if I can go that low, I have to make a living ye see.”

  “I couldn’t go any higher if I wanted to,” I replied diplomatically, “and seeing how excited you were about the ink, I’d imagine you’ll turn a hefty profit with half a bottle of the stuff. It is pretty rare after all.”

  “Hmm… alright fine, ye have yourself a deal,” he said, spitting in his calloused hand and offering it out for me to shake. I took it without hesitation, despite feeling icky as our clasping hands squelched together. “Leave ye dagger and the crafting items with me and I’ll get right to it. It’s not the fastest process but I reckon I can have it done by tomorrow if I work through the night.”

  “That would be brilliant,” I said, suppressing the urge to smile victoriously. “Nice doing business with you Leroy.”