CHAPTER 251: NEW GEAR

He took his time under the boiling water, letting it soak into every inch of his body, washing away not just the grime but the exhaustion and the weight of everything that had built up inside him.

Only when he felt completely renewed did he shut off the water and step out, leaving footprints on the misted tiles behind him.

He stood in front of the mirror, wiping a streak through the fogged glass, and met his own gaze.

"I’m really becoming something, aren’t I?"

The reflection that stared back no longer fully belonged to a human.

His face was still youthful, messy black hair clinging to his forehead, damp with steam. But his eyes had changed. The pupils were pitch-black, so deep and vast they looked bottomless. Within them, subtle threads of starlight swirled and shifted, as if constellations were drifting behind a veil of darkness. Not glowing—but alive.

His skin was unnaturally smooth and pale, untouched by sunlight yet perfectly healthy. Not a single blemish. It looked synthetic, almost porcelain, but pulsed subtly with life beneath the surface.

Then there was his musculature.

That was where the real transformation had taken hold.

His entire body was wrapped in lean, razor-defined muscle—no fat, no softness. It was as if each muscle fiber had been carved by hand and laid under his skin with surgical precision. Every detail, from the ridges across his abdomen to the tendons in his forearms, stood out like a polished statue. Yet he didn’t look bulky. He looked engineered.

When he moved—lifted an arm, shifted a shoulder—his muscles rolled beneath the skin like fluid machinery, every contraction smooth and efficient, like the calibrated movements of a machine. There was no waste, no excess. Just motion, refined to its purest form.

Veins like steel cables ran across his arms and down his legs, most prominent where the muscle density was highest. They didn’t pulse grotesquely. They stretched and curved in perfect order, like power lines etched beneath a transparent shell.

He looked part-man, part-something else entirely. Something artificial. Something made.

And yet... There was nothing monstrous about it.

No distortion. No wrongness.

He looked like art.

As if someone had drawn him with purpose—stroke by stroke, line by line—with the steady hand of a master who knew exactly what they wanted to create.

"I’m really curious what I’ll look like after my next evolution step," he murmured with faint amusement, running his fingers along the contours of his body, imagining the changes to come.

He was still just a Rank 2 practitioner, with a long road of evolution ahead. In the end, what would he become? A monster... or something that still resembled a man?

These fleeting thoughts weren’t born of anxiety. They were simply a momentary distraction, a light curiosity meant to loosen the weight pressing on his mind. After letting them drift away, he wrapped a towel around his waist and returned to his desk.

With a few quick taps, he brought up the Shop interface on his terminal. As expected, a new tab under the name J.T. Ripper had appeared.

He clicked it.

Fresh gear greeted him.

This time, the selection wasn’t as wide as before, but everything he needed was there. A new uniform, tailored with better material and enhanced mobility, alongside a pair of swords meticulously designed based on his movement patterns and combat technique.

Adyr didn’t bother with previews or item descriptions. Without a second thought, he ordered two full sets—both the custom-designed swords and the upgraded uniform. Whatever the details were, he trusted the research division enough to know they’d outclass his old gear.

Even with the double 50% discount, the purchase cost him 12,000 merit points, leaving him with 19,860.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.

When he opened it, a delivery officer stood at attention with two sealed boxes in hand.

"Sir..." the man began—then stopped.

He stared at Adyr’s face as if something in his mind had short-circuited. His expression froze, eyes wide, as though he’d forgotten what he was holding, why he was there, or even who he was.

Adyr chuckled softly. "Thank you."

He took the packages and closed the door, leaving the man outside, still paralyzed by the surreal realization that he’d just stood face-to-face with a living legend—a man some now whispered about as a god.

Adyr put the boxes on the floor and chose to start with the larger one—clearly the uniform.

He unlatched the seals, and as the lid lifted open, a faint hiss of pressure escaped. Inside, folded with machine-like exactness, lay his new combat suit: a sleek, jet-black uniform that almost shimmered under the dim light.

"Just from the case alone, my expectations went up."

The fabric looked like matte obsidian—smooth, silent, yet unmistakably reinforced.

As his fingers brushed over the fabric, it felt cool and pliant, moving with an eerie fluidity. This wasn’t any standard issue material—according to the specs he skimmed earlier, it was built from smart-weave: a cutting-edge blend of adaptive polymers and impact-reactive gel.

In idle states, it draped like silk, whisper-light and breathable. But the moment it registered a high-velocity strike, thousands of microscopic liquid-armor nodes embedded in the weave would instantly harden, dispersing force across the surface, much like a non-Newtonian fluid snapping into rigidity under sudden pressure.

"They really managed to decipher the Agumeslime Spark’s properties and integrate them into the suit. That’s seriously impressive."

The self-repair layer underneath was equally impressive. A molecular memory mesh, woven between the thermal lining, allowed the uniform to patch minor tears and abrasions within minutes, drawing from a thin reserve of embedded nanothread stored along the collar. It wouldn’t survive catastrophic damage, but for anything less than direct incineration, it would keep going—and keep him away from harm.

Even the stitching had a purpose. Reinforced joints allowed a full range of motion, making it feel less like armor and more like an extension of his body. The interior lining was responsive to body temperature, regulating heat and moisture with near-perfect efficiency.

A thin silver trim traced along the cuffs and shoulders—barely visible, but laced with EM shielding in case of directed energy attacks or interference pulses.

It wasn’t just a uniform. It was a next-generation exo-skin built for war.

"They improved this in such a short time," Adyr muttered as he began putting the uniform on.

Its overall durability wasn’t yet on par with his current physical resilience, but the technology was still impressive. It was enough to boost his overall defense by roughly 20%.

When he glanced at the mirror, the difference from the previous model was immediately clear. This one clung to his body like a second skin. Every unnaturally defined muscle beneath the flexible fabric was on full display—a perfect showcase for the physique he had evolved into.

After inspecting every seam and joint and finding no flaws, he turned his attention to the twin blades.

Unlike last time, the research team hadn’t provided multiple options. They didn’t know his sword techniques or preferences back then. But now, they had analyzed his previous purchases—and more importantly, studied his fight against the mutant army.

The result was a custom-designed dual-blade set. Both swords were forged from a material that absorbed all light, making them vanish into shadow. The one for his right hand was slightly shorter, optimized for control, while the left was longer, built for aggression. It suited his current combat style perfectly.