A Weird Fusion

Whoosh! Whoosh!

As he dashed towards the outside of the boundary, the group that was watching him came closer and closer to him as the distance between them shortened, audibly hearing their screams of excitement after seeing that the one they called the 'Rabbit-killing Demon' successfully kill a wolf without even getting injured. But instead of stopping by the group and listening to their words of praise, Jean started to run farther from the group, leaving the group with their heads turned and tilted in confusion, wondering as to why Jean ignored them.

"Eh? Why'd he ignore us?" One of the people watching Jean a while ago asked.

"Don't know. Does he have something important to do?" Another person in the group spoke up.

"Maybe he has the runs?" Another person could not help but think pessimistically.

"You saw him fight a while ago, right? Do you think he'd have the urge to shit during that cool fight?"

Although the conversation in the group turned from talks about why Jean ignored them to talks about the runs, in actuality, the reason why Jean ignored them was due to the face of the wolf he killed lingering in his mind. He stopped running when he had reached an area filled to the brim with rabbits rather than wolves, leaning on a trunk of a tree near where he stopped. He closed his eyes for a bit, and begged for the wolf's forgiveness in his heart. It was around two minutes later that his sense of guilt had calmed down, opening his eyes that glistened with the intent to grow stronger once more.

Standing up from where he lied down, he opened up his inventory and looked at the new piece of equipment he had obtained from killing the wolf, identifying it through the system.

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[Wolf Fur Boots]

Grade: Starter

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Defense +4

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"Oh? It increases my Defense stat by 4 points? That's a lot when compared to the equipment I have right now," Jean could not help but say after seeing the improvement in stats given by the new piece of equipment he obtained. Either way, even if it gave the same amount of improvement like the equipment he obtained from the rabbits or not, he would still equip it since having a full set of armor would undoubtedly be better than only having a few pieces to protect the body, even taking equipment rarity into consideration.

Whoosh!

Not long after, the boots disappeared from his inventory, covering his feet up to halfway his shin in what seemed to be thick wolf fur that was sewed quite roughly. Nonetheless, after equipping the boots, Jean felt that he could run faster with the boots due to the comfort it gave, unlike the boots given by the World Net at the start.

After that, Jean sprinted back towards the area filled with wolves without hesitation, which seemed to be a 180 degree turn from his attitude before. Of course, being that it was only a few minutes since Jean left the area filled with wolves, he ran past the group that was watching him one more time, their faces filled with confusion and curiosity after seeing the 'Rabbit-killing Demon' come back not long after leaving.

"I told you he has the runs!" The person who suggested that Jean had diarrhea a while ago could not help but shout out.

"Would a person that has the runs only take a short time to relieve themselves?" One person refuted the other person's opinion, continuing, "I'm pretty sure this guy just allocated his stats outside the Azure Forest for a bit."

"Yeah, I think so as well." Another person agreed with the previous person's statement. "Seriously, why are you so fixated on him having the runs, Zund?"

The man named Zund had no words in mind to reply to the person's question, remaining silent as he looked at the silhouette of Jean's back gradually fleeting away.

…

On the other hand, while everyone in the group were berating Zund for indirectly badmouthing what seemed to be the person they admired the most within the Azure Forest, Jean headed towards the center of the area filled with wolves, his focus being at its peak due to the tuning he did while he was begging for the wolf's forgiveness, returning to his original state of aiming to becoming the strongest.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Due to the speed at which he was moving, it was inevitable that he would obtain the aggravation of some wolves, triggering the aggro of a few wolves here and there. Unfortunately for them, due to his speed, although only being slightly faster than them, combined with his knowhow of how the Assassin class worked, he was able to remove most of the aggro from those wolves, stopping in front of a stray wolf that was a bit distant from the other wolves.

Of course, he only stopped for a short while, his goal was to aggravate the wolf, and aggravate the wolf he did. Doing taunting gestures, emanating the feeling that he was looking down on the wolf, and so on aggravated the wolf very well as the wolf pounced towards Jean without hesitation, opening its mouth wide agape as it aimed to bite at Jean's head.

Unfortunately for the wolf, Jean was a person that was used to fighting against animals in the past games he played, only testing the waters a while ago since the World Net had effectively different properties for animals when compared to the various TIMMORPGs he had played. Before the wolf could close its jaw on Jean's head, Jean hastily crouched down and moved forward slightly, raising up his sharpened bone before slashing out and about at the wolf's legs. Not only that, he even let out a few slashes on the wolf's neck, thereby reducing the wolf's ability to retaliate to a minimum. After that…

You know what happened.

And so, with that kind of tactic, Jean was able to kill wolves without a problem, albeit taking a longer time when compared to the rabbit due to the amount of health and defense it had. Nonetheless, he knew that he would be able to kill these wolves in one hit as long as he reached a higher level. For now, he was quite satisfied with the fact that he had been able to find a way to fight against the wolves without getting injured.

Since the wolves gave a bit over three times the experience as the rabbits, the speed at which Jean filled his experience bar was faster than before, achieving Level 4 after killing his seventh wolf. Normally, Jean would have allocated his status points by now since it would increase the speed at which he killed Stray Bits, but instead, Jean decided to reach the next level first, seeing as the increase in the experience needed was not much, only needing him to kill around 60 or so wolves to achieve Level 5.

Of course, he also delayed his allocation of status points in order for him to improve his efficiency in killing the wolves at a lower level, which would allow him to take even lesser time once he reached a higher level. As for the equipment that dropped from the wolves, he did not mind if a piece dropped after 5 wolves or 30 wolves. If it came, then it came.

With that kind of mindset, another hour has effectively passed since then, with the sun now a decent distance away from the peak of the sky. Nonetheless, most of the rays of the sun still shone down on the users and Stray Bits, making the users gasp for air every once in a while. Jean was no exception to this as well, although he was trying to suppress the feeling as much as possible a while ago.

Leaning on the trunk of a tree that was outside the boundary of the area filled with wolves, Jean could not help but look up at the sky and let a smile gradually creep up his face, feeling genuinely happy that he was now able to enter the World Net. With the smile still on his face, he opened up his inventory and looked at the two new pieces of equipment after he had killed over 60 wolves.

"I'm already Level 5," Jean muttered to himself, slightly surprised at how slow he was gaining levels. In the various TIMMORPGs he had played back then, he remembered very vividly that a player could obtain around 10-20 levels within the same span of time he took to reach his current level in the World Net. Nonetheless, he was not complaining about it since the World Net was ultimately work and knew why it was hard to level up.

"I have 16 status points to allocate, I'm pretty sure I can improve my speed and attack by quite a big notch after that," Jean continued to mutter, before adding, "But before that, I should check what these equipment do."

Whoosh!

———————

[Wolf Skin Leggings]

Grade: Starter

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Defense +3

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[Wolf Spine Ring]

Grade: Starter

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Attack +1

(Can equip 5 rings at maximum)

———————

"Well would you like at that, a piece of equipment that increases Attack other than weapons," Jean could not help but say, before proceeding to equip both equipment on himself, replacing his shabby trousers with pants made out of tanned wolf skin while a ring made out of dried bone appeared around one of the fingers on Jean's right hand, giving him the feeling that he could attack with greater force.

Jean stood up after that before moving around in his new equipment, gradually adapting to the feeling of his new equipment. It only took a few seconds of slight movement for him to adapt, before Jean darted towards outside the Azure Forest, increasing the three stats he had to increase as usual.

'4 points have been allocated to Vitality. The Vitality stat is now at 18 points.'

'4 points have been allocated to Strength. The Strength stat is now at 18 points.'

'8 points have been allocated to Agility. The Agility stat is now at 34 points.'

After that, he went back to the Azure Forest yet again to continue killing wolves, eager to find out new pieces of equipment he could obtain from these wolves. So far, he had only obtained 3 pieces of equipment from the wolves, while he had obtained 5 pieces of equipment from the rabbits. He had a hunch that there were two more pieces of equipment he could obtain from them, it was just a matter of time and luck until he could get them.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

At this point in time, the group that was watching him a while ago had dispersed and returned to their usual grinding in the Azure Forest, slowly but surely increasing their levels. Nonetheless, they still stole glances every once in a while to look at what Jean was doing, even going so far as to upgrade his moniker from the 'Rabbit-killing Demon' to the 'Wolf-killing Demon', seeing as how he could kill wolves without breaking a sweat.

Did Jean notice any of this while he was grinding experience, Bits, and equipment from wolves? In fact, yes. Since it was quite boring for him to just monotonously kill wolves while seemingly mumbling to himself, he decided to become friends with some of the users in the Azure Forest. With that, he was able to chat with them while they were fighting their own fights, talking about their experiences in the World Net, how they could improve, and so on.

It was around half an hour later after allocating his stats did something new happen to Jean's monotonous routine. At this point in time, Jean was fighting against a wolf, with the wolf charging towards him at usual. This time though, unlike before where he would wait for the wolf to get closer for him to debilitate it, he would instead charge the wolf and plunge his sharpened bone towards the neck of the wolf with all of the momentum he has built up, sending the wolf's momentum to a halt as it was pushed downwards.

Soon after that, he continued to pierce through the wolf's body with his sharpened bone, making sure to pierce through where the wolf's spine was, effectively debilitating the wolf as well. And of course, the wolf's death would soon follow.

Whoosh!

'You have obtained 35 Bits.'

'You have obtained 25 XP.'

'You have obtained an item: [Wolf Fur].'

"Eh? Not a piece of equipment?" As the usual holographic screen that showed Jean his rewards from killing a Stray Bit appeared, he noticed that there was something different with the information listed on the screen this time, with him obtaining what seemed to be an item rather than equipment. "You can actually obtain something useless from this area?"

"But wait a second…" Just as he was talking about how items that didn't do anything were useless, something clicked in his mind. If an item was useless, then it would be dropping randomly, right? If so, then why did this item drop only now?

It was then that he hastily leapt towards a branch of a nearby tree and landed on it, before opening up the inventory and reading the description of the item. After reading through the item's description, his eyes glistened as he muttered, "Is this how users in the World Net enhance their equipment?"

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[Wolf Fur]

A patch of fur from a wolf. Can be fused with Starter grade armor and accessories to enhance their properties.

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Not long after that, he asked the system how to use the wolf fur he had in his inventory. Surprisingly, the answer of the system was very simple.

'For the user to use items to enhance equipment, please say the word 'Fuse', then the name of the item, and the item of the equipment the user wants to fuse it with. Of course, for items of higher quality, it could only be done with the help of a blacksmith that can be found in cities.'

"Since it's an item I can find in the starting area, surely I wouldn't need a blacksmith to help me out, right?" Jean lightly chuckled as he was confident that he did not need to head towards a city, before closing his eyes and pondering for a bit as to what piece of equipment he would enhance first.

"Hmm…since I can't enhance my weapon…I'll just enhance that for now."

Soon after, he opened his eyes before softly muttering, "Fuse Wolf Fur with…"

"Rabbit Ribcage Chestplate."

Whoosh!

After Jean was finished commanding the system, the chestplate covering his body seemingly teleported to a distance that was not far away from Jean, gradually rotating as a faint light glowed from it. Not long after that, a piece of wolf fur appeared a decent distance away from the chestplate, glowing a faint light as all before gradually getting closer and closer to the chestplate.

Eventually, the wolf fur touched the chestplate, transforming into a large piece of a fur that covered almost every inch of the chestplate. The transformation only took a few seconds, allowing Jean to witness the chestplate that was made out of bones transform into a savage-looking chestplate made out of wolf fur, with bones reinforcing the inside.

Whoosh!

A few seconds later, the floating chestplate disappeared from Jean's field of vision as a holographic screen appeared in front of his field of vision.

'Fusion successful! The equipment [Reinforced Ribcage Chestplate] has been created.'

After that, he went to his inventory and found the new chestplate lying there. He then identified the new piece of equipment, looking at its description before muttering, "What an improvement."

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[Reinforced Ribcage Chestplate]

Grade: Starter+

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Defense +4

Endurance +2

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