Equipping
He tapped Material Shop one more time, and the display snapped back to the original status window. Step outside the zone, and the whole thing would vanish on its own. It reminded Minwoo of being a kid, wandering around hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot just so he could use his phone.
Just in case, he tapped Sell first.
As expected, there was nothing he could do with that.
"Hmm."
Of course he had nothing. He went back and tapped Buy.
So that was how it worked. He pictured each material in his head, searched, and bought. Unlike the Exchange, where people haggled and traded among themselves, only a single fixed price appeared.
So this is the official listed price, huh?
He'd been wondering how the market even formed. Now he understood immediately.
You've got to be kidding me! There's an extra zero on this! It's ten times more expensive!
The lowest-grade mana stones were marked up tenfold, too. With a gap that wide, no wonder everyone flocked to the Exchange. These were still cheaper than other materials, but for a broke guy like him every last coin stung. He clicked his tongue and bought them anyway.
If he'd really wanted to pinch pennies, he could have just bought them at the Exchange. But he wanted this ability buried as deep as possible, so that was out of the question. At the same time, he walked along as naturally as he could, pretending to be just some guy passing through the zone, and impulse-bought ten of each.
It only came to 130,000 won, but for him that was still a lot of money. He'd been expecting 13,000. Thirteen copper turning into a hundred and thirty — a miracle, of the worst kind. One silver and three hundred copper slammed into his assets as a negative. In an instant, his holdings flipped into the red.
−1 Silver 300 Copper
Failure to repay within one week will result in restrictions on shop and Tower access, and may cause physical complications.
The warning unfurled in blood-red text, grim as a threat. It was the same wording that circulated online. He settled his faintly trembling nerves and headed home.
I just have to pay it back.
The physical complications scaled with the size of the debt. It was the system's way of saying pay up — and with a measly one-silver tab, nothing serious would happen to him. It wasn't that he couldn't scrape together 130,000 won. He'd gone into debt because he didn't want anyone finding out about his ability. If he couldn't earn the amount within a week, he could just buy the currency with real money in front of the Exchange. Still, owing a debt to the system itself was a little terrifying.
He made it home somehow, looked at the items sitting in his inventory, and took a deep breath.
I'm finally making my first piece of equipment.
The moment he pictured summoning an item from his inventory into his hand, it slid into existence with a soft rustle.
"Oh."
Was it true, like the internet said, that items could only be summoned into your hands? He tried it a few different ways and confirmed it was. For small materials, summoning them out at home would probably be easier to manage. They were small enough to lose, so keeping them in the inventory wasn't a bad idea — but each slot maxed out at a hundred, which felt like a bit of a waste of space.
For now, he pulled out a Goblin Claw and a lowest-grade mana stone. The claw was longer than he'd expected, about the size of a pinky finger. The mana stone looked like a cheap glass marble from a stationery shop. Just as the ability manual had described, he held one material in each hand and thought the equipment's name to himself.
Uh. Okay. Coarse, prickly pussy-flesh after a shave! On top of that, beard-like heart-shaped pubic hair — craft!
Nothing happened. Had he gotten the name wrong?
Heart-shaped pubic hair grown atop a crotch that's been roughly shaved of a thick bush, then left unmaintained so the stubble is short, coarse, and bristly like a beard — craft!
He focused on getting every word right, even if he had to think it through slowly. The materials in front of him dissolved into powder, and a piece of equipment began to take shape in his inventory. Judging by how long it took to fully resolve, it was a solid ten minutes. Whether that counted as fast or slow was hard to say.
At least he didn't have to concentrate on controlling mana, and there was no chance of failure. That was a huge relief. It was basically click-and-craft — he could zone out and think about other things. The only real hassle was having to hold the same pose the whole time. All kinds of thoughts ran through his head over those ten minutes. Maybe this ability wasn't actually anything special. If it failed, would he be stuck working convenience-store shifts for the rest of his life? And so on.
He sat perched on the edge of his small bed, materials resting on both palms, and kept waiting. Then the ten minutes were up, and to his surprise a tingling rush ran through his body — a jolt of pleasure, accompanied by the instinctive knowledge that it was done.
"Yes!"
He swallowed the word so nobody nearby would hear, but hiding the thrill of his first piece of equipment was almost impossible. He checked the item that had appeared in his inventory.
"Niiice."
That absurdly long name sat occupying a single inventory slot. Just as everyone already knew, the inventory came with ten slots total. Equipment didn't stack, and while extra slots could be purchased from the shop later, the first five-slot expansion started at a hundred silver. Every five slots after that jumped denomination — one gold, then ten gold, and so on. Even rankers usually just sold things off as they went, or stopped buying expansions at the one-gold tier. Twenty slots was about as many as anyone used.
◈ HP ×2
◈ Kang Jia Unique Equipment
The unique-equipment tag was written right there. Next to it, it said Common. The manual had mentioned that rare gear could come out at a certain rate — though what actually distinguished it from anything else was hard to say.
"Hmm."
The thought followed naturally: he'd made it, so now he had to put it on her.
"Huh?"
It wouldn't come out of the inventory. Was that because it was Unique Equipment? Looks like it was stuck occupying a slot no matter what. That was a bit of a loss.
He swallowed the disappointment and wondered if he'd have to go find her in person to equip it. Then, thinking he might have missed something, he reread the ability manual — and it clicked.
"Ahh."
He'd definitely read that part before; it just hadn't come to him in the moment. Or maybe the manual had been updated. He wasn't sure. Either way, he'd found it now, so he let it go.
Following the manual, he looked — and sure enough, unlike everyone else, who could only see their own equipment window, he could see Kang Jia's as well. Compared to his own, or to the equipment windows people generally knew about, it was very different.
For one thing, it wasn't divided into slots. The manual had said that, in theory, there was no limit to how much you could equip, as long as the pieces didn't conflict or overlap. So that's what it meant. Regular equipment, as everyone knew, was split by body part — gloves, hat, shoes, and so on — and accessories were capped at ten total between rings and necklaces. Unique Equipment was a different story.
Following the equipping method he'd read in the manual, he enlarged her minimized figure to life size, then equipped the piece directly. The texture and shape of the pubic hair growing on her 3D avatar's crotch began to change.
"Ooooh."
It felt like he'd just dropped real money on a pervert-maker game. A strange, complicated pleasure washed over him. Was this actually updating in real time?
The modest patch of hair that had been growing on her clean crotch melted away, the same way the pajama image had vanished. The pubic hair that had at least given her a grown woman's look was gone, replaced by smooth, bare pussy-flesh — the kind of crotch that had never grown hair at all. Was this what she'd looked like when she was younger?
Then, as if goosebumps were rising on that smooth skin, little bumps pebbled across the surface. Next, like a time-lapse of a plant sprouting, hairs punched up through the center of each bump. It was a little fascinating and a little terrifying. What the hell kind of principle made this possible?
The smooth crotch was gone as if it had never been. The hairs jutting from those pebbled bumps turned coarse and dark, filling her crotch in irregular, bristling tufts. In no time at all, it looked as though she'd always had this — hairs as thick and dark as mechanical pencil lead covering her crotch. It really did look like a woman with a thick, coarse bush had forced herself to shave, then gotten lazy and let it go.
And right in the center, grown a little longer — about an inch and a half — sat a heart-shaped patch of pubic hair, so deliberate that anyone who saw it would know it had been done on purpose. Looking at the pubic hair alone, she was a complete pervert.
Just a moment ago she'd looked like a demure young lady, sleeping peacefully. Change one patch of hair, and now she was a woman who'd grown a vulgar bush, pretending to sleep like a lady.
What would happen if he made more equipment from here?