Grinding Wolf Fur
Jean was left at a loss for words after noticing the improvement in terms of stats a single fusion would give. Although he was expecting a slight improvement like an increase of 1 point in the Defense stat, he was not expecting the addition of another stat being boosted like Endurance. Thanks to this occurrence though, he now had the urge to make sure that all of the equipment he was currently wearing had fused with at least a single piece of Wolf Fur.
"Then again, how many wolves would I have to kill just to get a piece of Wolf Fur?" Jean could not help but think about how many wolves he would have to kill just to obtain enough Wolf Fur in order for him to enhance all of the equipment he currently had equipped. He didn't know how often the Wolf Fur would drop. Was it one piece every 100 wolves? One piece every 1000 wolves? He had a feeling that he would be killing a lot of wolves for quite a long time.
"Nevertheless, once I put my mind into it, I'm gonna do it!"
After that, he jumped down from the branch he was resting on, entering the boundary filled with wolves one more time. This time though, due to the knowledge he had of how many wolves he had to kill to obtain a piece of Wolf Fur, even though it was quite vague, it removed some sort of limiter on Jean's mind, making him fight against 3 wolves at once.
Fortunately, thanks to his movement speed, as well as his attack speed increasing after reaching Level 5, the difficulty of fighting against a single wolf had lowered to a level near the difficulty of killing a rabbit. In other words, this meant that Jean was able to handle 2 wolves at once without a problem, while 3 wolves was pretty much his limit.
And that was exactly what he was doing, pushing himself to the limit. By pushing himself to the limit, he would be able to handle situations like these with a better chance of victory in the future. Either way, even if he failed to fight against 3 wolves at once without getting injured, he could still run away quickly with his fast movement speed.
Whoosh!
In front of him were three wolves baring their fangs at him for intruding in their territory. Rather than take the initiative like usual, he was currently testing the waters as he was used to fighting against a single enemy instead of multiple ones at once. It was only when he knew that there was a large gap in strength between the two of them did he have the confidence to fight against multiple ones at once.
"Grrr…" One of the wolves made the first move, pouncing towards Jean from the front, wanting to bite off his head as fast as possible. Unfortunately for the wolf, Jean already knew what to do when faced with a situation like this. Modifying his previous plans of fighting when faced with a wolf that moved like this, he waited for the wolf to get closer to his head before taking a few steps back to narrowly dodge the wolf's head. Then, using the blunt edge of the sharpened bone he was using as a weapon, he put in all of his force towards the blunt edge of the bone to whack it on the wolf's head, giving the wolf a concussion.
Thud!
Thanks to what Jean did, the wolf's momentum fell in an instant, falling to the ground with its vision moving to and fro, allowing Jean to go ahead and pierce his sharpened bone on certain spots of the wolf's spine as usual. Of course, since he was fighting against three wolves at once, he wasn't allowed to do so. Just as he was about to plunge his sharpened bone for the first time on the concussed wolf, the two wolves that had not made a move yet, made their moves as they went into a pincer formation, attacking Jean from both his left and right side.
Looking at the agape maws of the two wolves, he could not help but slightly chuckle inwardly as he moved with ease at the very last instant he could escape. As for the two wolves, since their bodies were still mostly in midair, they could not stop their momentum, colliding with one another as the colliding force between the two forced both of their maws to close shut, inflicting damage on each other rather than on Jean.
Not letting the chance slip, while the two wolves were still biting against one another, he took the initiative to hit the two wolves on the head with the blunt edge of his weapon as well, giving the two of them a concussion. Just as he made his way towards one of the two wolves to plunge his sharpened bone towards the one of the wolves' backs, the first wolf that attacked had recovered from its concussion, prompting Jean to go and hit the first wolf on the head one more time.
After that…well…just like how Jean fought against a single wolf, he did the same thing…but just had to do it two more times.
Nevertheless, since the proximity between the wolves had become closer, the speed at which he had been killing had increased substantially, allowing him to kill around 90 wolves in an hour instead of the usual 50 to 60 wolves an hour. This in turn allowed him to obtain equipment at a faster rate, as well as obtain the Wolf Fur he yearned for at a faster rate as well. This wolf killing had lasted for a total of 5 hours, bringing the total amount of wolves he had killed to over 500 wolves.
Normally, at Jean's current level, a user can kill 500 wolves in the span of about a few days or so since the user did not have the advantage of dodging very easily and attacking very quickly unlike Jean. Of course, there are some that can kill 500 wolves in under a day, even if they were not in the Assassin class, relying on their wit, their advantages, as well as the environment surrounding them. But of course, all common sense would need to be removed when looking at Jean's killing speed, killing about 100 wolves an hour. It's definitely a value that would shock any user who did not know Jean's past before entering the World Net.
In fact, thanks to this spree, his moniker among the users that frequented the Azure Forest had upgraded once again, changing from 'Wolf-killing Demon' to 'Wolf Slaughtering Monarch'. The reason why they chose the word 'Monarch' instead of continuing with 'Demon' is that they could not help but think from their point of view that the wolves Jean fought against try to aim for his weapon rather than his body, allowing him to kill a lot of wolves in a short span of time.
Of course, with a lot of wolves killed meant that he had obtained a lot of equipment from them as well. Surprisingly, Jean's idea was correct, obtaining 2 new pieces of equipment from the wolves, bringing the total to 5 pieces of equipment, the same amount of equipment obtainable from a rabbit. He opened up his inventory and looked at the description of the 2 new pieces of equipment he had received, with his eyes slightly widening at the latter.
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[Wolf Fang Necklace]
Grade: Starter
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Defense +2
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[Sharpened Wolf Fang]
Grade: Starter
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Attack +3
(Can be used as an item to enhance Starter grade weapons)
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Jean had no hesitation when equipping the former, a necklace with a small wolf fang in the middle appearing around the neck. As for the latter though, after reading that he was able to use the piece of equipment as an item to improve other pieces of equipment, he could not help but ponder as to whether he would use the newly obtained wolf fang or the sharpened bone he was used to for quite some time now.
Fortunately, it did not take long for the idea of fusing a wolf fang to another wolf fang to click in his mind as he looked at the few copies he had of the wolf fang, prompting him to equip the wolf fang without hesitation. Other than increasing his Attack stat by one more point when compared to the sharpened bone, the shape of the wolf fang had been modified for it to be comfortably gripped by a hand while the pointy tip of the fang had been sharpened even further than before. Nevertheless, he still could not fathom how such a large fang could come from the wolves he had just killed.
"Fuse Sharpened Wolf Fang with Sharpened Wolf Fang," Jean softly muttered as the wolf fang he was holding just now disappeared from his hands, appearing quite a distance away just like what happened with his chestplate. Unlike before though, rather than the two items that were being fused glowing a faint light, the two wolf fangs collided with one another instead, breaking off parts from one another as an aura of greater power could be sensed coming from them. Eventually, due to the numerous amount of times the two wolf fangs had collided with one another, at one collision, the two wolf fangs had melded into one wolf fang that glistened a faint silver light, giving anyone the feeling of intense sharpness when one looked at it.
Whoosh!
Just like before this better wolf fang appeared in his inventory as a holographic screen appeared in front of his field of vision soon after.
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Silver Fang Dagger] has been created.'
Closing the holographic screen at the very instant it popped up, Jean then identified the piece of equipment before equipping it. As the holographic screen containing the equipment's information appeared in front of his field of vision, he hastily skimmed it before becoming satisfied with the improvements given by the fusion.
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[Silver Wolf Fang]
Grade: Starter+
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Attack +5
Strength +3
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Just as he was about to move onto his other equipment, a greedy thought instantly entered his mind, wondering if he could fuse another wolf fang to his improved wolf fang. He then commanded the system with a bit of expectation, only to receive a reply through a holographic screen.
'Starter grade equipment can only undergo item fusion once. The user must obtain higher grade equipment in order for multiple fusions to be possible.'
"Guess I got too greedy," Jean muttered to himself as he engraved the tidbit of information to the back of his mind, moving on towards the other pieces of armor and accessories he currently had equipped.
Of course, since he had killed over 500 wolves, it was a given that he would be obtain a couple of pieces of Wolf Fur, but what surprised him was obtaining the knowledge that if he killed 70 wolves, he would certainly obtain a piece of Wolf Fur. In other words, obtaining a piece of Wolf Fur back then was not due to his luck, but rather it was actually guaranteed.
He looked at the list of equipment he was wearing and muttered to himself, "Thanks to the amount of wolves I've killed, I've obtained 7 pieces of Wolf Fur I can use to enhance my equipment. Unfortunately, it's getting close to dinner time so I have to leave the World Net pretty soon. If I had a bit more time, I would've been able to enhance the two new rings I've obtained as well."
"Then again, there's always another day to grind. After dinner, I could continue grinding, or continue grinding when I wake up tomorrow. Tomorrow's Sunday anyway, which is still a weekend," Jean continued to talk to himself, before commanding the system to fuse up all of the equipment he hadn't enhanced yet with the pieces of Wolf Fur he had.
Whoosh!
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Reinforced Skull Helmet] has been created.'
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Padded Rabbit Kneecaps] has been created.'
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Refined Fur Leggings] has been created.'
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Refined Fur Boots] has been created.'
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Wolf Rabbit Cape] has been created.'
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Wolf Pendant] has been created.'
'Fusion successful! The equipment [Chiseled Spine Ring] has been created.'
After being bombarded to the brim with holographic screen after holographic screen, he equipped all of the enhanced pieces of equipment he had obtained before deciding to identify one by one. Unfortunately, before he could actually do so, a sudden thought appeared in his mind, prompting to make a run towards outside the Azure Forest at full speed.
"Ah! I haven't allocated my status points yet!"