Hunter practically sprinted back to the armory. It was time to get geared up! When he re-entered the portal, he took a long look around and tried to think about how he wanted to develop his combat style. He took a look at his stat sheet to remind himself what his strengths and weaknesses were.

Name: Hunter Gold

Race: Human

Class: N/A

Level: N/A

Experience: 0/2000

Life: 210 (.6%/Min)

Stamina: 200 (.7%/Min)

Mana: 240 (.6%/Min)

STR: 15

VIT: 12

DEX: 14

END: 14

INT: 18

WIL: 12

CHA: 12

PER: 15

FTH: 0

Active Skills: 

Sprint (Lvl 7), Dodge (Lvl 7), Meditation (Lvl 2), Cleanse (Lvl 3), Covetous Eyes (Lvl 8)

Passive Skills: 

Running (Lvl 7), Sword Mastery (Lvl 3), Sneak (Lvl 4)

Resistances:

Fire (Lvl 5), Pain (Lvl 4), Shock (Lvl 1)

Paths:

Rift Walker (0/100), Archive Acolyte (0/25), Greed II (0/25), Common Thief (0/10)

His eyes widened when he checked his Paths. He hadn’t realized that he had gained a new one. Looking at the name, it was probably because he had stolen items from the armory. Even if there had been no one to give them to him, it seemed like the Archives didn’t care. It was a little frustrating that the system was smart enough to assign him new Paths, yet dumb enough that it didn’t care about the context of his actions. It had even given him a path in the very beginning that he had no hope of completing any time soon. Everything seemed so black and white in this world. 

He had enough Path points to complete out the Path, but he was only four away from finishing one of the others. He decided to wait until he completed one of those before coming back for the Common Thief Path.

Dismissing that thought, he checked his attributes. His greed paths had rocketed up his Intelligence and Perception. That meant that he would translate well into being a mage. Beyond that, he had already brought the rest of his attributes into some sort of parity. He was basically a blank canvas. He could do whatever he wanted. It was a frightening yet freeing feeling. So far, he had benefited from having both a short-range and long-range offense. His Flames of Avarice let him ambush his foes, while his Sword Mastery allowed him to fight up close.

Hunter had to admit to himself that he was a little bit of a coward. If he had a choice, he’d rather be fighting his opponents from a distance. He didn’t like pain—no one did—and throwing fireballs was a lot less intimidating the hacking and slashing up close. 

With that analysis in mind, he dismissed his stat sheet. He had the strength to fight close quarters and wear heavy armor, but he had no desire to. He walked over to an armor rack and perused his choices. They varied in material and coverage. There were lengths of chainmail that wouldn’t be much of a hindrance and massive metal plates that would turn him into a walking tank. Neither of the extremes felt like a good fit for him, so he picked something in the middle.

The first item he put on was a chainmail shirt that went down to his elbow, and the middle of his thighs. He shifted around until it fell comfortably on the padded areas of his tunic. After that, he selected a quicksilver cuirass that was thinner than many of the other pieces.

 It was a blocky piece that had overlapping plates that covered his chest, ribs, and abdomen. It took him a while to figure out how it buckled on, but once he learned the trick, he cinched it down until it wouldn’t shift but wasn’t so tight that it would restrict his movements. He picked up his sword and made a few experimental swings to test his range of motion. He didn’t see any issues, so he moved on. 

Below the cuirass, he belted on a thick leather belt that resembled a girdle. The top of it fell just underneath the bottom edge of his armor and extended until it reached the top of his hips. The edge of the belt curved down until it provided a small measure of protection for his groin, but he still felt like his twig and berries were a little exposed. That being said, there wasn’t a medieval equivalent of a cup that he could see, and even if there were one, it would probably restrict his movement too much to be worth it.

There were a couple of pouches on either side to hold miscellaneous equipment, but Hunter wasn’t sure what he would use them for while he had a Ring of Holding. He wished there was someone at the Sanctuary that could advise him on his choices, but he would have to go with his gut. He let go of his sword so that he could pick up more items.

Now that he had the basics, he wondered what else he should add. He scooped up a left-handed armored glove that had buckles for attaching a bracer in addition to metal protection for the top of his hands and fingers. He wondered if he could find one for his greed bracer and looked around the selection. He shrugged and decided to try it.

He stripped off his greed focus and then pulled on another glove. He pressed the gold focus against it and started to look for some kind of attachment that would allow him to secure it to the glove. He needn’t have bothered. 

As soon as the focus was on the glove, he felt it attach itself. Small rings formed on the metal, and then the leather straps laced themselves down. He was awestruck as the silvery metal on the glove began to turn gold to match the bracer. Once the metal had wholly transformed, the leather started to change as well. It shifted from an earth brown to black as midnight. It was a cool effect, but Hunter was slightly peeved that it didn’t match the rest of his armor. He knew it was a stupid gripe. This wasn’t a fashion show. Still, he would’ve liked for everything to match. When he attached the left-hand quicksilver bracer to his glove, he was ready to move on.

The next choices he had to make would affect his combat style. He considered grabbing a shield, pauldrons, greaves, and a bow and arrows. The shield and bow would definitely affect how he fought, so he took the time to imagine how those items might have helped him in the past. The shield would have been useful in his first fight with the imp, and the bow would be another ranged option that he could use if he ran out of mana.

Eventually, he decided not to go with either. He had never learned how to use a bow. In the modern era, there weren’t many who did, and those who used a bow typically did it for hunting. Since his own dad had been locked up in prison for most of his life, he never had the typical father-son interactions that would’ve led to learning how to hunt. He was regretting not trying to learn on his own, but it couldn’t be helped now. 

The reason he decided not to use the shield was that he would have to strap it to the same arm that he used to summon fireballs. The shield would restrict him from using that magic. He could probably work around the inconvenience, but when things were a matter of life or death, he wanted his ranged weapon to be easy to use.

While he was thinking about the different weapons, he decided to go through with the pauldrons and greaves. The pauldrons were to give him some protection on his shoulders and upper arms. The type he chose were similar in design to his breastplate. There were three bands of overlapping metal that covered the tops of his shoulder and part of his upper arm. After he had buckled them to his chest armor, he swung his arms around and was pleasantly surprised that they moved with him and didn’t restrict his range.

The greaves were little more than basic shin guards. He buckled them over his leather boots and was happy that he wouldn’t be banging his shins against any dropped trekking poles in the future. 

The only parts of his body that weren’t protected were his thighs and his head. He spotted a pair of silver metal pieces that looked like they would cover his thighs. He couldn’t remember what they were called.

Maybe a cuisse?

It was hard to recall. The fantasy novels that he had read didn’t talk about them often, and there was only so much of the history channel that he could watch. Either way, he knew there were thick arteries in his thighs. If one of those were punctured or slashed, he would bleed out before he had time to curse the Archivist’s mother. 

His last decision was whether he should wear a helmet or not. There were multiple types of helmets. There were full-faced covered with tiny slits for vision to brown leather shakos. It might be a stupid decision, but he didn’t really want to wear any of them. There was a reason he had picked basketball over football, and half the reason was that every time he wore a football helmet he felt claustrophobic. Not being able to see around him would limit his significant Perception. It wasn’t a good reason to go without protection for his head, but he was sticking with it. 

Now that Hunter was as armored as he wanted to be, he picked up one final item—a sheath for his sword. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find any cool looking back scabbards. He wondered why they only had the hip variety. Every game he had ever played let characters strap swords to their back. It probably wasn’t practical, but it was awesome. 

Grumbling, he found a quicksilver and leather scabbard that looked about the right size as his Sword of Avarice. When he tried to put the blade inside, he realized that he had made an error in his estimate. The scabbard he had picked was too narrow to fit his sword all the way. He sighed and was about to toss it away to find another one when the blade started to vibrate.

The same transformation that had affected the armored glove began to overtake the scabbard. The metal became a matching gold, and the leather faded into inky black. The scabbard started to subtly shift until it fit the blade perfectly. Hunter slid the Sword of Avarice into its new container and it made a pleasant hiss. He grinned at the result. The best part was that once the sword was sheathed, he didn’t sense the overpowering hunger that he felt when it was within his hand. Things were finally looking up.

Why is demonic gear so damned useful?

Hunter buckled the scabbard on his right side so that he could cross draw with his left hand. He experimented with drawing and sheathing it until he was confident that he could do it quickly. He even earned another level in Sword Mastery for his efforts. It seemed like the leveling boost from the Sanctuary was no joke.

Alright, I’m done, Hunter thought happily. Now it was time to go absorb some demonic weapons and see if he could level his greed equipment further. They had already been a great resource, and he wondered what they could with more fuel.