A new man.

As he walked to the shower, having stripped of his gym clothes, John realized how much he and his life had changed in less than a a week.

Thanks to the various little augmentations he had performed on himself, he was no longer ashamed of his body. Each time he looked around, he could see his reputation towards the rest of the students being a bit higher. He was no longer a lonely, virgin nerd, running to his room to masturbate looking at porn or playing video games as soon as he had any free time. His adventuring was more thrilling than any game, and then there was the other thing.

The sex! Even if he hadn‘t gone all the way with most of them, he had got some pretty hot encounters with no less than 4 different girls, and more fun could be had with all of them. He also had his art project with Kim the next day, but he wasn't sure of what would come out of that. His afternoon with June on Saturday and with Anna on Sunday though were very alluring, and he barely could wait for them.

He had got back at Frank Dickinson and Vanessa Hawthorne for what they did to him this year and in high school. He also had started to help a few people and planned to continue.

From quest rewards alone or selling extra stuff at the auctions, he could make a living, so the prospect of having to find a job was no longer a thing to worry about. Once he'd have Craft at a high enough level, he could even mass produce hard to make stuff from cheap materials and sell it online on regular websites.

None of the jocks were showering yet, since the Coach had them stay an extra hour for more practice. John looked around at the more regular students, and while he felt on the low range even of this group before, he was now better equipped than all of them. He gave a slight bump up to the ones that were on the smaller side that he didn't help yet. (It was a single charge without having the belt on, but he used the at rest size modifier to make it look better in normal condition.)

He didn't know if karma was really a thing or if he would ever get something from this apart from lvling his skills, but it was a good use of his mana if it made people that were like he was before have a better life.

While getting dressed he started checking the closed lockers. His Observe skill that allowed him to see the inventory of people also worked on containers, and he was pretty sure that Theft would work on them too.

Without much surprise, a few of them had steroids and other performance enhancing **** in their gym lockers. John was thinking about how he could make it so that they would get caught.

Taking the **** out of the lockers wouldn't work as they would deny them being theirs.

John started fiddling with his phone while sitting on a bench in his boxers; he was waiting for the others to leave. After a few minutes the last boy had left, and John had just succeeded in what he was trying to do.

He had spent that time using Move on the mechanism of one of the locks and trying to get it to open. And finally a loud click rewarded his efforts, the small door standing slightly ajar.

New skill, Unlock lvl1: 20mp
You can now try to magically unlock simple locks. Each try has a 40% to 80% chance of success depending on the lock's complexity. There is a 5% chance of the lock getting jammed and becoming impossible to open even with the correct key or combination. +10% success chance if you have lock-picking tools on you.

Not touching anything in it, he removed the **** from their hiding places and laid them down on the front of the shelf using Move. He then set an alarm on the phone for 10 minutes later on the highest volume of the loudest music piece that was on it.

He dressed himself by equipping his uniform on and left the locker room. He walked out of the school and once out of sight from it used his Hearthstone to go and retrieve his bike from his castle. The problem with his adventuring gear was that it no longer looked like normal clothes, so he picked a set of fresh clothes out of his storage chest to avoid having his uniform damaged.

Before leaving he had a few things to check. He went out of his small stone hut (castle only in name) and started running, jumping, and climbing. The new shoes were impressive, and he saw how they would help in combat. He could effortlessly run faster now than he could at his max before, and the silent steps would greatly help to get some sneak attacks.

He got a zombie tooth, a unit of junk rat bones and a Shadow cat hide out of his inventory to look at them closely now that he had absorbed the Alchemy book.

Zombie tooth, exotic crafting material.
A favorite of necromancers and dark mages this tooth from an Undead monster can be used to decorate items.
Weapons made with these gain +2 **** elemental damage.
Can be processed through alchemy to create Undead essence. 200 teeth for 1/10 Undead essence.

"Yeah, sure. I think I will burn the stuff if I can't sell it on the auction site. No way I will get cursed handling Undead essence again. What's next?" he remarked.

Junk rat bones, exotic crafting material.
The bones of these crafty little creatures have many uses.
Armor made using it gains +10% bonus to Dodge.
Weapons made using it get - 2 durability on armor per hit.
Extraction tools made using it get +10% extra extracted materials.
Production tools made using it have - 20% penalties when using inappropriate materials.

"Fuck, these things are awesome. I definitely have to go back to farm some of them once that I get a bit better at this. I would have to go to the junkyard to get materials for my kingdom anyway," he noted.

Shadow cat hide, exotic crafting material.
The tanned pelt of the dreaded shadow cat. This nocturnal predator walks nearly invisible to leap from the dark at its prey.
The leather is very soft and flexible. Armor made with it grants medium armor protection with light armor movement penalty.
The fur absorbs ambiant light when the user is stealthy. +30% effectiveness on Stealth.

John put his armored hoody on his crafting bench with a few hides and some of the half metalic bones.

Upgrade Excellent Armored Hoody of Stealth: special item.
+35 armor torso, arms and head (if hood on)
+2 Agility
Advanced stealth: becomes darker when in shadows and counts as camouflage/disguise if the hood is on when using Stealth.
Pockets: +4 inventory slots when equipped.
80/80 durability.

Into Shadow Stalker Armor: unique item.
+50 armor torso, arms and head(if hood on)
+10% to Dodge
+5 agility
Free move: no movement penalty.
+30% to Stealth
Advanced Stealth: counts as camouflage/disguise if the hood is on when using Stealth.
Pockets: +6 inventory slots when equipped.
140/140 durability.

Cost: Excellent Armored Hoody of Stealth, 20 units of Shadow cat hides, 10 units of Junk rat bones, 1000$.
ACCEPT REFUSE

It even showed the end result: the dark green and (fake) burnished gold was replaced by dark leather with matte grey metal and inserts of the strange ivory colored bone and their copper stripes.

Lots of money, lots of materials, but you can't be cheap with armor, and it is hard to spend money when you're dead. John knew that very well. Still, it would use all of the junk rat bones he had, and he wouldn't be able to upgrade other stuff until he got more. With what he had planned for the rest of the day, it was a drawback.

He accepted the craft and admired the results. It was still a hoody in essence but a new, awesome one. Some of the outside was simple leather while some of the rest was made of pelts with hair still on them. There were still the various plates and metal reinforcements to add some protection, but once he had it on, he could barely feel it.

He knew he was wearing some tight armor but could move around like he had some simple clothes on. It would be perfect.

"Ok, time to continue. I can't leave this place empty forever. Time to go get some tools and to farm materials," he said, putting his civilian clothes back on and exiting his realm mounted on his bike with a backpack on his back.

He started pedaling and then used some mana to charge the battery; it would be a short ride to the Hardware store on the way to the Forest.