“So, the upgrade let me put a new stat on my linked equipment. Def2? I wonder what this will do? Will I get to increase my shield’s defense every time I use a magic crystal on it?” thought Cade.

“And iron? If I choose this, will my cardboard turn to iron?” thought Cade again. It might not be a bad idea to turn his cardboard to iron. It will help him a lot especially if he was dealing with fire or water.

Cade made his decision and chose to add the iron stat. The system immediately acknowledged his choice and a new stat was added to his cardboard round shield.

Cade checked his new cardboard round shield’s stat.

Name: Cardboard Round Shield (iron)

Level: 10

Durability: 250

Defense: 250

Iron: 0 [1 iron magic crystal]

Upon opening the stat of his upgraded cardboard round shield, ‘iron’ stat was added to the shield.

“There is not much change from this upgrade other than the iron stat,” said Cade.

“I wonder what this iron stat will do? To increase the iron stat, I need the iron magic crystal… They are quite expensive compared to the magic crystal related to stats,” said Cade.

Cade did not know what the iron stat can do. He just assumed that it would turn his shield to iron the higher the iron stat was.

After Cade was done inspecting the stats of his shield, it was time to see his new shield. He closed the stat and saw the picture of his new shield. He could see that his shield had changed color. Maybe it was not cardboard anymore.

Cade took out the shield from his storage and to his surprise, there was quite a change happening to his cardboard round shield.

The most obvious changes were the color of the shield. Cade’s shield was usually brown, the color of cardboard. From afar, it was obvious that it was cardboard.

The shield’s color had now turned from brown to gray. It did not look like iron but it just changed its color to gray.

Cade thought that the shield’s composition would change to iron but that did not happen. The shield was still cardboard but instead of brown cardboard, it was now gray cardboard.

It did not turn heavier and it was light as usual. It also still had the foamy characteristics of cardboard. The composition was the same as before.

Thanks to the changes in color, the cardboard looked like it was made from slightly expensive cardboard.

Other than color, the shape of the shield had changed a bit. The shield had now turned slightly larger compared to before.

Before the upgrade, the cardboard round shield was flat. It was just a circle shape of cardboard. It was no wonder people were laughing at Cade and even Cade himself knew how ridiculous the shield looked.

After the upgrade, however, the cardboard was not flat. It was now slightly concave like a real round shield. It still looked obviously like cardboard but it had better shape now.

“This looks better than before,” said Cade while smiling. He was happy that his cardboard round shield looked much more reliable compared to before. Even Cade himself sometimes had doubts that his shield can last longer during a fight.

“I should start upgrading my other linked equipment,” said Cade and he started inspecting his storage for other things he can use to upgrade his other linked equipment.

Cade decided to use the iron short sword he used in the slime dungeon and the iron body armor he had been using since entering the dungeon to upgrade his cardboard short sword and cardboard body armor respectively.

There was a reason why Cade upgraded them using the iron equipment. He wanted to give his cardboard linked equipment the iron stat.

While inspecting his new cardboard round shield, Cade found out that it resisted water and fire better than before. It was still cardboard but it can resist water like a piece of normal equipment made of iron.

His cardboard main weaknesses were water and fire. Whenever water or fire was involved in a fight, his cardboard equipment’s durability will decrease like water flowing out of a bottle. It was really fast.

The fire was much more severe as it will easily burn his cardboard because it was just a stack of paper.

The waiting for the upgrade to finish continued for a few minutes. After the waiting had ended, Cade chose the iron stat to be added to his sword and body armor.

For his body armor, the choice of stat was the same as the shield but the sword was slightly different. There were three choices, two were different from the shield and body armor.

One of them was the iron stat that Cade had decided to choose. The other one was the atk2 stat. The last one was the sharpness stat.

The sharpness stat was a new stat that Cade had never heard of before. Cade could guess what it could do based on the stat name.

As Cade had aimed earlier to choose the iron stat, he ignored the sharpness stat. If he can upgrade his equipment again, he will surely choose the sharpness stat.

Since he can upgrade his equipment at level 10, Cade deduced that he could upgrade his linked equipment one more time when he reached level 20.

He was still far from level 20 and thus he chose to upgrade his equipment to cover the equipment's weaknesses.

Cade checked his upgraded cardboard short sword and cardboard body armor stat and all of them were the same as the cardboard round shield.

All of them needed the iron magic crystal to increase the iron stat. Cade did not need to worry much about buying the iron magic crystal because he had many skill books that he can sell to get enough money to buy lots of them.

Cade wanted to farm the iron magic crystal by himself but unfortunately, from his knowledge, there was no dungeon in Biscuit Star System that dropped the iron magic crystal.

He needed to travel to another star sector to be able to farm the iron magic crystal. To Cade, it will be a waste of time to travel that far when he can farm lots of skill books for more money and then use the money to buy the iron magic crystal online.

Cade took out both his newly upgraded cardboard short sword and cardboard body armor to see their new appearances.

Just like the cardboard shield, the cardboard sword was flat too. It had a cross shape and that was it.

After the upgrade, it was not flat. The flat cardboard short sword had now changed its thickness to that of a normal sword. It took the appearance of the sword used as its material to upgrade.

The handle was easier and comfortable to hold. It looked like a proper sword and was gray. However, it still looked like cardboard but with better craftsmanship applied to it.

Cade’s cardboard body armor’s new appearance made him gasped. It had changed. Cade sloppily made the body armor but the upgrade fixed that completely.

When Cade made the body armor, it was just two big rectangle pieces of cardboard joined by a strip of cardboard on the shoulder. It looked hideous and silly but after the upgrade, all of that had changed.

Just like the shield and sword, the color turned to gray. It was still made of cardboard but the appearance of the armor was amazing.

It took the shape of the armor Cade used as the material to upgrade the body armor. It was not a rectangle and had a nice shape. When Cade wore it, it fit perfectly and he kind of looked cool with it.

The craftsmanship applied to the cardboard body armor was extremely higher than the sword and shield. Cade was totally happy with the new shape of his body armor.

He was not creative enough to craft the cardboard properly and just made do with it as long as it can link and be useful to him.

“With this, it will not be too embarrassing,” said Cade while smiling. Compared to the rectangle armor he made, the upgraded body armor was like heaven and earth.

With Cade fully equipped with his upgraded linked equipment, he looked cooler than before. Cade tried to get used to his upgraded linked equipment.

There was nothing much he could test with his shield and body armor. He just tried to slam the shield and his body equipped with the body armor on the wall to test their durability and they were much more durable than before.

As for his sword, he tried to slash on air to get used to the new shape of his sword. It was still as light as before so Cade had not much concern on the weight of the sword.

Cade tried to slash the sword at the wall and he can feel it was better than before. After a few more tests with them, Cade sat on the ground again and checked his other linked equipment.