Kai flexed his hand; his gauntlets had quite literally become like a second skin, and now he couldn’t figure out how to get them off. He would be lying if he weren’t a little worried.

  He, of course, had chosen to get changed into more appropriate clothing before anything else.

  Then knowing that his new raiment would allow his clothes to fit perfectly under his armour, he decided to equip his raiment next, narrowly avoiding an embarrassing moment when he accidentally absorbed all his clothes except his boots.

  Remembering what Trengor had said, he had put one of the bracelets on each of his limbs and channelled a little mana into them.

  As soon as one of the set items registered to his particular flavour of mana, all four of the bracelets bound to his core, forming a faint connection with him as all soul items do. Then, just like his mana cuff, they somehow sank into him and became almost indistinguishable from his flesh.

  The next thing he knew, his comfortable new loungewear was gone.

  Thankfully, Alicia had gone into the domain to gather all of her things and get ready for their imminent departure from the dungeon.

  That did, however, leave Syl to take a moment from admiring her new growth ring of runic regeneration to laugh at him and his sudden nakedness.

  His first reaction was to open the wardrobe Trengor provided and pull out one of the least flamboyant tops.

  Only the moment he slipped the top over his naked torso, it too was absorbed.

  That led him into a frantic five minutes of figuring out how the raiment actually worked without any assistance from the system.

  The same thing happened to the second, third and fourth items he chose.

  Syl’s laughter growing more raucous as he emptied the wardrobe.

  Realising maybe he wasn’t going about this the right way, he took a deep breath and tried to focus.

  The raiment was supposed to absorb new clothes. But it was also supposed to dress him in perfectly tailored clothes.

  Syl was starting to get control of her laughter, but her wandering eyes told him she might not actually have any control of herself.

  With Alicia due to return any moment and two ancient divine dragons most likely able to witness anything and everything within their divine domain, he was certain he didn’t want to put on a show.

  Trying to relax, he focused on the most important thing.

  His modesty.

  He thought about his boxers. The oversized boxers that had just been absorbed from under his loungewear by the traitorous magical item he had yet to figure out.

  Just as he thought of them, he felt a tiny amount of his mana get absorbed, and a snug pair of perfectly fitting boxers appeared, taking his surprise penis and hiding it away from a now-pouting Syl.

  It had been that easy, though after wearing that loungewear that Trengor had given him, boxers felt a little rough.

  Again, with a simple thought, his boxers changed slightly. The pattern and fit remaining the same as the material itself changed from a cheap cotton to whatever Trengor had said those clothes were made of, Arachne silk if he wasn’t mistaken.

  His balls and tackle secured in what was possibly the most comfortable pair of underwear he had ever worn, he moved onto getting dressed again, only this time he simply concentrated on items the raiment had already absorbed.

  Remembering his attempts to summon his armour and have it equip itself to his body, having his clothing literally wrap itself around him with a thought was, for lack of a better word, magical.

  Dressed again and wanting to avoid any surprises, he experimented with the raiment.

  He discovered that while he actively channelled a little mana into one of the bracelets, the set would absorb anything he deemed clothing so long as he had made physical contact with the item.

  While also dressing him in anything he thought about wearing, even allowing him to tweak materials and parts of the clothing design with another thought so long as a similar item of clothing had already been absorbed.

  Furthermore, if he stopped supplying the raiment bracelets with any mana, they went completely dormant and allowed him to look through Trengor's wardrobe without absorbing every item before he had a chance to decide if it was, in fact, something he wanted to add to his repertoire.

  With the wardrobe emptied, he moved on to equipping a fresh set of armour from his slowly dwindling supply of tutorial gear.

  Hoping to have his clothing adjust to his armour, he sent a little mana into his raiment to activate them; he was actually pleased to find out the raiment's abilities extended somehow to his pieces of armour as it too was absorbed, and with a quick thought, he reequipped for a slightly better fit over clothes that adjusted so they wouldn’t pinch or rub as he moved about.

  Ecstatic, he admitted to Syl that getting the item when trading with the dungeon master had not been a mistake.

  She just gave him a knowing look and went back to concentrating on whatever it was she was doing in the domain.

  Kai got busy absorbing all he could from his storage; even the plate and chain mail set pieces were eagerly absorbed by the magical item, as it turned out armour without any magical properties was nothing more than tough, durable pieces of clothing.

  This was confirmed when he realised he couldn’t figure out how to tie his boots.

  He tried a couple of times only to have Syl stop him with an explanation that there was in fact something magical about the boots Thanric had given him and that they were in fact soulbound to him and as such could not be absorbed by the raiment.

  Amused that he had never examined the boots himself, he carefully put on his replacement Spectre’s shroud to feel a slight tug from his raiment, only for it to give up the moment the cloth linked with his mana and formed another minor connection to his core as a soulbound item.

  Thinking nothing of the fact he now felt the connection forming, he moved onto his most anticipated item.

  His new dragon scale gauntlets.

  Apparently Trengor had made these just for him; what was more, they had also been enhanced by his use of system energy. So there was no telling how much better they were compared to the ones that had been destroyed.

  His first issue, however, was that while they were within the divine domain of the two dragons, he couldn’t examine them to find out what had changed.

  On the outside they looked almost identical to his old pair, only they seemed more refined, the dragon scales somehow cleaner, sharper and, if he wasn’t imagining it, slightly more opaque. The dark, multi-hued black colour not due to some refraction of light but a faint, shifting shimmer of something within the dark scales themselves.

  He grinned; he certainly thought they looked cool and, without any concern or caution, slipped them on to complete his armour.

  The moment he gave them the slightest bit of his mana, they activated, as he felt something settle into his soul where his last set of gauntlets had been; the scales tightened. The pressure against his fingers, hands and forearms building to an uncomfortable level as the bulk of his mana supply just disappeared, his mana dropping from four hundred percent down to just over sixty percent in seconds, before they finally relaxed and he felt nothing from them except a slight pressure from his soul ring heating up.

  Curiously, he looked over to his ring finger to see that it had moved to the outside of his gauntlet. Taking off the ring, he tossed it in the air and watched it vanish.

  The ring returned to his finger, once again sitting on top of the gauntlets.

  Smiling to himself, he started to fidget with the ring, and he realised something else was new.

  He could feel everything.

  The scales on the back of his hand were giving him tactile feedback; even through the gloves, it was like he was touching things with bare hands.

  Turning his hand over, he gawked at his own palm.

  He wasn't wearing gloves.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Much to his surprise, scales were actually attached to his skin, the glove he had slipped his hands into to put the gauntlets on completely gone.

  He flexed his hands; the gauntlets, if he could still call them that, still provided all the same areas of protection apart from the palm of his hands.

  Smaller scales wrapping his fingers, then the scope and scale of the black dragon scales increasing as they protected the larger areas like the back of his hand and then up his forearm.

  It was an interesting change, and remembering the time he blew apart a mimic with a mana bolt, he had to wonder if they still provided any actual protection to his palms.

  Deciding he would investigate the changes further when they had more time, he stored the gauntlets so he could get at his greater runic regeneration ring and change it into a growth item using his rewarded growth stone.

  Except the gauntlets didn’t respond to his attempt to store them.

  Which was strange.

  His last pair just disappeared and reappeared whenever he wanted them to. He didn’t even have to use his storage ability, as the nature of them being a growth item meant he could just tuck them away into his core using their own connection.

  He tried again.

  They remained on his arms.

  He tried using his soul ring's loot ability to put them into his normal storage.

  That didn’t work either.

  Trying not to panic, he tried to physically take them off, only he couldn’t find where the gauntlets stopped, and he began.

  Alicia reappeared. “Ready,” she grinned. She hadn’t had to do much, just get her things in order and learn the new skills she had access to.

  She had her new colour-shifting cloak on, the hood down and the bulk of the fine material parted back over each shoulder like a cape so that it was well out of the way.

  Syl broke away from whatever thoughts had been occupying her and asked Alicia, “Any luck with Gift and the polymorph egg?”

  “No, I tried introducing Gift to it. He says he knows what to do, but he also said it will take some time before the egg is ready. I like what you’ve done for them; the nest you made looks cosy.”

  “Yeah, I’m hoping the dragon's egg's proximity to the prime polymorph egg might let them gain the ability sooner than dragons usually do.” Syl said,

  Thrum-Thrim-Thruuum, Gift chimed eagerly from where he sat, wrapped around Alicai’s hand like a glove.

  Alicia sighed, “I don’t even know if that is possible, Gift. I am sure Atheos made her suggestion for a reason.”

  Alicia looked over to Kai, noted him rubbing his forearm where his new scales stopped, and asked him, “Is there a problem?”

  Kai coughed nervously and asked, “How exactly do you store Gift?”

  Alicia shrugged as Syl came over to his side to look at his new gauntlets.

  “I just ask him, and he goes. Though I have not actually done so since Lady Atheolin- sorry, Lady Atheos recommended I let him experience as much as possible…” Alicia said, trailing off as she gave him a curious look before her eyes narrowed slightly, and she asked, “Why?”

  “Because I can’t get these off, and I can’t store them.” Kai said, trying not to let his growing panic show.

  Syl was tapping her lips as she examined his arm.

  Mumbling to herself, she reached out and stroked a delicate finger along the scales before then jabbing one with a perfectly polished red pointed nail.

  He pulled his arm back, expecting to feel the jab, only he had barely registered the poke despite feeling her finger brush against the scales intimately, her gentle touch sending shivers down his spine.

  “Interesting, it’s fused, acting more like a natural treasure than an actual item.” She mused as she went back to tapping her lips in thought.

  “What's a natural treasure?” Kai asked, his fresh perplexion only helping to dampen his panic a little.

  “Incredibly rare items that typically enhance the body, mind or any other aspect when consumed by an individual.” Alicia supplied it as if reading a brief description memorised from some textbook.

  “Think of a stone that you can consume that will permanently make your skin tougher or a fruit that makes you smarter…” Syl said as she continued to think.

  “I just put the gauntlets on and gave them my mana…” Kai said as there was a knock at the door.

  Atheos let her in before anyone could acknowledge the sound. Looking about, she settled on Kai. “I’m sensing a heightened level of distress.”

  He didn’t need any more prompting than that, and he thrust his arms out towards the god. “I can’t get them off. My runic ring is still trapped on my finger, and I haven’t turned it into a growth item yet, and the scales are coming out of my skin.” He rambled, hoping the god had a fix for his situation.

  Atheos's eyebrow rose slightly as she leaned in to inspect his arms.

  “Interesting…” Atheos's eyes flickered off to the side. Trengors on his way back-“

  The door slammed open, and Trengor burst in, taking Kai by the arms before anyone could react. He looked at Kai’s scales for a moment before a huge grin spread across his face. “This, this is a first for me.”

  “What is?” Kai asked nervously.

  “Well, for one, you're supposed to bond with growth items, not absorb them.”

  “I absorbed them?” Kai asked again, not understanding what that meant.

  “First Gift now this… I wonder if it is his Alitarri nature, or the energy changing them,” Atheos said to Trengor.

  Trengor shrugged. “Probably both.”

  Kai coughed, “How do I get them off?” He was hearing a lot of conjecture but no actual answers to his predicament.

  Both Atheos and Trengor gave him a good long look.

  “What is it?”

  “You can’t take them off.” Atheos, said seriously.

  Trengor showed a feral grin full of sharp, pointy teeth. “Congratulations, you’re part dragon now.”

  Alicia squeaked, the sound drawing the attention of Atheos, causing her to take a step back.

  “Your telling me I am stuck with these scales… for the rest of my life…” Kai felt his knees weaken. “Glowing eyes and scaly hands… I am totally fucked.”

  Trengor clicked his tongue. “Hardly, just stop feeding your eyes with mana, and they should stop glowing… the scales, however.” Trengor looked off to the wardrobe. “I see you cleared me out. Did you know after a certain tier, dragons are natural polymorphs… Just like how you can now change clothes, you should be able to change your scales.”

  The man took a pointed sniff in Kai’s direction. “You certainly have a bit of my scent on you now; come here, and we will see if you can change those fabulous scales into something more discreet.”

  Kai went off one side with Trengor, only looking over his shoulder to see Alicia standing like she had a stick shoved up her backside and Syl gesturing to the other god, the empty wardrobe and then to her clothes with an eager look in her eye.

  “Now, we don’t have much time, but if you figured out the basics of the raiment, this should be like teaching wyrmlings to fly… only less frustrating, once done.”

  Despite Kai’s fear that the god was oversimplifying things, he actually managed to pick up the mental trick of simply wanting the scales to shrink down and become part of his pale perfect, normal skin. Within just five minutes of practice, he was looking at the back of his hand, noting the skin over his knuckles seemed a little more durable than the last time he had really looked.

  Noting the old saying that said something like knowing the back of your own hand, Kai looked at his perfect, pale perfect skin and couldn't help but ask something that had been bugging him for a while now, “Why is everyone so pale? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone with a tan since the system started up on my world.”

  Trengor chuckled, “Oh that, it’s simple really.”

  “Give it to me straight; Syl likes to probe me with questions until I figure it out myself.”

  “As you enrich your core and level up your skin, it naturally gets more durable and is able to repair itself more easily. The effects of the sun, radiation, and time; they all diminish to a point they have no noticeable effect on most people.”

  “So no one has a tan in the multiverse?”

  Trengor smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t be stupid; you just need to go somewhere that there's more radiation and damage your skin that way. Your body will react, and you will have a tan faster than you can now retract those scales.”

  Now that it had been explained to him, it made sense, but rubbing the back of his head, he grumbled, “I think I might stick to Syl’s line of questioning in the future.”

  “Now I really do have to go,” Trengor said, ”Remember, you should still think of those as an actual growth item; feed them my scales, and you’ll have yourself a full set of scale armour that is quite literally part of you… which is funny when you think about how I destroyed your last pair; no one will be able to take them from you now. Maybe that is why this pair got absorbed, to avoid what happened to the last pair... Just don’t rush the process.”

  Trengor turned and waved to Atheos and the others as they stood absorbing garment after garment; upon receiving a smile and a nod from Atheos, he vanished without so much as a ripple in space and time.

  As Kai walked over to the three women, Syl asked, “All sorted, panic over, my scaly lover?”

  “Almost, just need to turn my runic ring into a growth item, get my cloak on, and we should be good to go.” Kai said as he looked down at his runic ring as he summoned his growth stone.

  He froze, tried checking his storage, then checked his fingers again.

  “What is it this time, dear?” Atheos, she said as she turned to him.

  “My runic ring, it’s gone.” He looked at his wrist. “And my mana cuff!”

  “Calm,” Atheos said softly.

  Kai felt a tickle in his mind, but he ignored it. “I had them before I put the gauntlets on!”

  Atheos smiled at him gently, “They most likely got consumed by the gauntlets when you absorbed them.”

  Kai blinked as his jaw went slack.

  Atheos tilted her head, then in a flash flicked out a hand and tore a shallow gash into Kai’s now-exposed forearm.

  Alicia and Syl moved to react, but Atheos turned and gave them a look that must have magically frozen the two of them in place as they both came to an abrupt stop.

  Kai just looked at the injury as it healed on its own, a faint blue-purple glow working to knit his skin back together.

  He barely even felt a draw on his mana, feeling out his status, and couldn’t help but grin.

  Mana: Kai-721% / 100%-Syl

  He had lost the mana cuff that gave him extra mana storage, but somehow his mana capacity had grown, and it was regenerating at an incredible pace.

  “It seems they were absorbed; either the gauntlets needed more energy to make the transition when you absorbed them, or the gauntlets are just hungry for a growth item.” She sniffed, “I detect no ego thankfully, but like my husband said, you have a distinctly draconic smell to you now. My kin on Alea won’t know what to make of you; you’ve already slipped into the high tongue a few times.”

  That was a lot for Kai to absorb, more problems for him to figure out, but one immediate problem remained.

  “I was going to turn the runic ring into a growth item… I can’t do that now; I will not be able to enhance its regenerative abilities anymore.” Kai said, not trying to hide his annoyance.

  Atheos gave him a look that made him feel like an idiot.

  Narrowing his eyes, he cautiously asked, “What am I missing?”

  Syl stepped forward as she quietly put her hand on a stack of clothing in front of her, making it disappear.

  “Kai, the gauntlets absorbed the properties of the ring. Those properties will grow as the gauntlets do, just as your mana storage will increase.” She paused for effect, “You just got two free growth items with a grown stone to spare.” She shifted her stance, placing a hand on her hip. “Honestly, I’m getting sick of you and Alicia getting all the good stuff.”

  “Yes, as your new draconic side grows, you may even find you’re able to absorb other items to take on their properties…” His eyes narrowed. “I recommend caution whenever you get the opportunity to soulbind an item, especially if that item interacts or has some kind of synergy with the draconic parts of you.” Atheos said sternly, her words serious, “Whatever was done to those gauntlets gave them both the properties of a growth item and a natural treasure. Once you discover the requirement, who knows what you might be able to do? It could be both a boon and a curse.”

  “Draconic side?” he asked, the words catching in his mind. He checked his status; sure enough, there was something there.

  Name: Kai

  Race: High-Human, High-Vei (Draconic aspect)

  Level: 8

  “Trengor wasn’t kidding when he said you were part dragon now.” Atheos smiled. “Less than one percent. But still, all the perks, none of the drawbacks.”

  Kai looked down at the growth stone in his hand and stored it; he might use it on something for Syl when she had her physical projection sorted.