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Alright then! Time to upgrade my clothes.

Yeah, you hear me right.

How to upgrade though?

Big question.

And the answer is… through the System (duh).

I discovered it just now.

You can give users a variety of items over equipment or clothes, and after spending enough resources, you can trigger an upgrade.

However, for the upgrade to be possible the item has to be strong enough or something, so I can’t do this infinitely, at least I have to let the equipment/weapon grow a bit with its new upgrade before upgrading it again.

And it seems that my clothes are okay to upgrade.

What item will I use? The mantle of course.

Here’s the equipment as of now, the stats have increased, and it offers a nicer defense boost.

…

[Accursed Ordinary Clothes of The Frustrated Web Novelist (F-Grade)]

[Durability: 246/246]

[Physical Defense: 95]

[Magical Defense: 57]

[Traits: [Cursed Equipment (F)], [Evolving Equipment (F)], [Automatic Repair (F)], [Status Effect Resistance (F)]

…

I guess I could keep killing the monster and let it upgrade by itself slowly, but the mantle can hasten this by a little bit more.

As I will it, the System answers.

[Do you wish to upgrade the [Accursed Ordinary Clothes of The Frustrated Web Novelist (F-Grade)] by using the [Wizardly Mantle of Mana Gathering (F-Grade)] Item, 2500 Gold, and 500 Hero Feathers?]

<Yes> <No>

Yes, of course.

Flash!

Suddenly, my clothes fuse with the mantle in my hands, and I see my gold and hero feathers dropping by a few digits.

My clothes begin to glow with bright white light, as their complete structure changes slightly, they don’t look ordinary at all, and gain some of the silky texture of the mantle, alongside various, purple-colored decorations resembling magic circles.

The whole set becomes a hybrid between normal clothes and wizard ones, and it honestly looks quite good, I like it!

Way better than my normal clothes, a lot, in fact.

[Upgrade successful!]

I quickly decide to check my new equipment.

…

[Beginner Street Sorcerer Set (E-Grade)]

[Durability: 305/305]

[Physical Defense: 110]

[Magical Defense: 75]

[Traits: [Cursed Equipment (E)], [Evolving Equipment (E)], [Automatic Repair (E)], [Status Effect Resistance (E)], [Mana Conductivity (E)] (New!)

…

After the upgrade, the set looks even better when I see its stats.

It got a nice upgrade, and it is way more durable as well.

Alongside that, all the traits got to E-Grade, and Mana Conductivity was acquired.

…

[Mana Conductivity (E)]

The Ability to infuse mana into your equipment and enhance its durability or strength.

If the equipment posses magic runes, it will activate them when you infuse mana to generate special effects.

…

I see, it is a good thing to have, I suppose. Though, it doesn’t have any runes?

Maybe I can infuse Mana Blast into it, and it can unleash a Blast of Mana when I infuse mana… No, that might not be good if it ends up damaging the clothes instead.

Anyways, I decided to consume the Dexterity boosting item right away, which can give me 20-100 Agility randomly.

It was a sphere of green color, and when I consumed it, it turned into light which merged with my body.

And then…

Ding!

[You gained +70 Dexterity!]

Oh nice, that’s way better than I expected.

And with that out of the way, the last thing on the list is… the gacha ticket.

I will save it for later, for now, I want to convert Cuco into a monster (I know it sounds fucked up).

I will probably summon after this ordeal is done… and then pick some new Skills as well.

Now that I am done, I put on Cuco a collar and then grab him with my arms. Good thing that I usually carry him like a baby sometimes, so he didn’t mind this that much.

However, it was still rather curious about who these two new people at my side were, but didn’t seem scared of them, luckily.

“Let’s bring him to the Skill Points Dungeon, the rabbits are easy to catch,” said Ervas.

“Alright!”

I led the two into the dungeon as Cuco became startled by the change in environment, beginning to meow at me rather nervously.

“Meow…!”

I pet him as I let Kireina and Ervas capture most of the rabbits alive, Kireina shapeshifts her various fingers as long tentacles of flesh, entangling and wrapping the creatures alive, while Ervas encapsulates them into small barriers of telekinesis.

“Alright Cuco, don’t get nervous… Err, how do I tell him to kill a rabbit?” I wondered.

“Hm… Let me drop its HP to 1,” said Kireina, slowly torturing the poor rabbit until its HP Bar was close to 1, at 4.

“I think that if I touch it with my nails it will surely die…” said Kireina.

“Alright then…”

I grab Cuco’s claws, which he is rather unwilling to put over the struggling half-dead rabbit, but I manage to force him to slash the flesh of it a few times.

It took more than I imagined, and his feet were filled with blood but… it worked.

The rabbit died and turned into black smoke.

And Cuco was the same…

He began to lick his paw with blood though.

After that, we continued doing the same with every room… but Cuco was still the same.

“Err… I think this won’t work…” I sighed.

“Come on! Don’t give up yet, we can try some more,” said Kireina.

“Yeah, and it’s not like it bother us, we are also getting done with the runs of the day, so we are not really wasting time either,” said Ervas.

“I suppose you’re right…”

Cuco was still scared, but with each room and each rabbit he killed barely, he seemed a bit calmer… he got used to it quicker than I would have expected.

At the end of Run 3, Cuco once more was bathed in monster blood and had already previously willingly bit the neck of a half-dying rabbit.

After the boss dropped dead by his paw (which I moved around), something finally happened.

Wait, it actually happened?!

Cuco suddenly dropped into the floor, as his yellow cat eyes began to flow with crimson light, and his entire body exuded this same aura…

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