“Asking a woman to undress before taking her out to dinner even once,” Jamie said, fainting in distress. “Where are the manners of this generation? Back in my youth, men wouldn’t have dared such a thing, nor would they have pressured fair maidens such as I to do such frivolous acts.”
“My sister in Christ… This was your idea,” Max sighed, before deciding to indulge Jamie. “How scandalous. How ungodly of you to show your ankle in such company. Think of the rumors you might cause Lady Jamie. Your licentiousness shall be the downfall of all upcoming generations. Your father would turn around in his grave. You’re revealing attitude an affront to all generations before you.”
“My brother in Christ, neither of us is religious. Get a grip,” she chuckled. “And if this doesn’t at least disprove 90% of Earth’s religions, I’m gonna eat your hat.”
“Hey, why my hat… Wait, I don’t even have one. Get your own hat to eat,” Max groused. “Anyway, stop stalling. Do you want your clothes enhanced or not? And if so, please choose the three shards you want to use.”
“Not the two that might have to do with acid, that’s for sure. I’m thinking, more durability sounds good,” Jamie mused for a second, before continuing. “The bears had that; I think. I don’t want to ask too much, but I feel like the wolf might work in combination with them. Otherwise, we do have a couple of monster shards that might work well in combination. Are you sure, though, that you don’t wanna go first?”
“I’d like the wolf shard as well. Especially if we go for the rest of the pack. What about the Tautos shard? It might work well with the bears’. Remember how some parts of its body sometimes shone metallic and made similar sounds on impact?”
“All the four Tautos were pretty tanky anyway, as you’d say. Sure, let’s go with that. Stone one the boots and pants and metal on the chest?”
“That’s what I would do. No cushioning, but we might be able to address that later. Regardless, protecting your upper body certainly has priority. Let’s try it.”
Jamie pulled off her boots, overalls, and pants, throwing judging looks at Max who was doing his best not to look.
“Please don’t make this awkward, Max. Just look me in the eye like a normal person,” she grumbled something about underwear, too quiet for him to understand, but he didn’t give in to her teasing. If he looked at her now, there would be endless jokes about him peeping.
“Don’t you think the sky looks especially fascinating today? I could look at it all day, honestly.”
“You won’t be able to keep this up for a day.”
“I don’t have to, I’ll just go fight more monsters and then take a long nap.”
“We have eleven monster shards. Why would you fight more monsters, Max?“
“Reasons. Manly reasons. Good reasons. Uhm… The best reasons, really. I’ll let you in on a secret but promise not to tell ok. There is this old crone close by who is doing her best to impress on me by undressing. While I’m immune to her charms, I don’t want to experience her wrath should I actually say anything implicating.”
“That wasn’t funny Max. Just sad.”
She handed him her clothes while Max kept staring at the sky.
“I think I should at least alibi wear it. And then I’ll slowly take it off to see what the limits of my trait are. Trying out what works will be a priority.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Sure, whatever you say, babe, you don’t need to justify yourself for wearing girl clothes.”
“They are gender-neutral,” Max exclaimed. “What’s wrong with that anyway?”
“Nothing really. Just looks unusual,” she said shrugging.
Max pulled the clothes on with all the gentleness he could spare.
“Haha,” Jamie laughed for a solid minute, trying to get more words out. “You look like a sausage. I needed to see this.”
“Great that at least someone gets amusement out of this. Here goes nothing.”
He accepted each of the prompts in his mind after one other. Checking over the notifications once he was done.
> Equipment Mastery:
>
> Standard Human Workman Attire (Common) – An attire common for the humans. Slightly more resistant to damage. Equipment Mastery Bonus: A slight bonus to the effects of Endurance.
>
> -> Steel Overall of Wanderflux (Salient) – Level 0 – Formerly a part of the Standard Human Workman Attire the workman over-alls have now become their own piece of equipment.
> Passive: Sheets of steel constantly cover your body, not staying in the same spot for more than a five seconds.
> Count: 3
> Attributes: Endurance + 1
>
> -> Warding Trousers (Uncommon) – Level 0 – Formerly a part of the Standard Human Workman Attire the workman trousers have now become their own piece of equipment.
> Passive: Webbed with earth that breaks before it can be pierced. Slowly regenerated with time and soil exposure.
> Attributes: Endurance + 1
>
> -> Ground Breakers (Uncommon) – Level 0 – Formerly a part of the Standard Human Workman Attire the workman boots have now become their own piece of equipment.
> Passive: Slowly breaking up earth they tread on, they enhance themselves to protect the wearer slightly from external forces.
> Attributes: Endurance + 1
> Equipment Mastery Bonus: Passive abilities extend throughout the entirety of the set (3/3).
“Holy cow, if I could actually move in this, I might be able to take some serious hits.”
“You certainly look like it. Though I’m not a huge fan of the look. Uhm, but why are there metal sheets over all your clothes? Shouldn’t that only be the case for you’re the overalls?”
Max might have chuckled a bit at that. Feeling how the metal and earth increased the constriction was not a pleasant sensation. Endurance was not a stat he’d previously had increased; the feeling was one of familiarity though. He knew his body’s limits better, and felt it toughen and grow in resilience as he pushed a nail into his skin.
“Ok, no. This is too restricting. I’ll just chill in my underwear instead. Everything worked out more or less as we’d expected. The passives on the boots and pants are slightly different but seem to potentially do the same. The overalls became Salient by the way. So, I think I’ll have to keep them for twenty-four hours.”
“Yeah, as if,” she said rolling her eyes. “Come on, you’ve got to give me more than that.”
“Nope, I don’t. Are you gonna do the first watch or should I?
“You will if you don’t tell me what they can do.”
“Guess I’m taking the first watch then.”
Jamie went to bed with the ivory white tower now dominating a significant amount of their surrounding world. They were just four hills away from the structure that spanned between four hilltops – the size of an entire valley.
“I hate to do this, but do you think, I could have my pants back? I want to use the wolf’s core on them, while we have downtime anyway.”
“Sure, If I end up sick though, it’ll be your fault.”
She pulled the pants off and handed them over. Max excitedly brought pants and core together, hurrying the system along.
> Equipment Mastery:
>
> Standard Human Workman Attire (Common) – An attire common for the humans. Slightly more resistant to damage.
>
> -> Trousers of the Divide (Salient) – Level 0 – Formerly a part of the Standard Human Workman Attire the workman over-alls have now become their own piece of equipment.
> Passive: Chasm divide the world, you cross them. Empowers leaping and jumping. Leaping, Jumping, and similar abilities and skills are passively boosted by a small margin and can be amplified further with additional energy expenditure.
> Attributes: Agility + 1
> Equipment Mastery Bonus: As they were once part of a set, the other parts of the set can only be enhanced with similar cores. Equipment Mastery Bonus suspended until set completion (2/3).
“Ok wow, that sounds strong. Similar to Dung Sweeper it’s only passives. But I think this is a genuine power-up. Also, more agility. Makes me wonder if my trait sort of aligned the energy closer to the swift striders. I really wanna try with the overalls as well. Hey no, don’t undress further, or you’re seriously going to get sick.”