Upgrade Plans

*Yaawwwnnnn~*

Two groggy green eyes surrounded by black sclera crack open as Juniper pushes herself into a sitting position with her multitude of arms.

The camouflage tarp had fulfilled its purpose and kept the sleeping demon moth hidden from danger.

Twitching her antennas and scratching her cheek with a chitin covered finger, Juniper's mind slowly starts to kick into gear.

"Hnng~, really should have invested into a bed or something." She mutters while stretching her limbs that feel stiff from having slept on such a hard ground.

"Heh, who would have thought that sleeping on rocks is not very nice."

Once finished with stretching, another sound was heard in the cavern.

*groooowl*

Looking down at her chitin-plate covered stomach, Junipers already less than stellar mood declines even more.

'Right, haven't eaten anything since hatching. All that running through the caverns to reach the first layer of the abyss drained quite a bit of energy that I now need to replenish.' Thinking this, she calls upon her system and momentarily stares at the two options.

'I can either spend some of my hard earned souls to get myself a proper meal via creation menu, or…' Her gaze trails away from the panel with an empty page waiting to be used and wanders to her inventory instead, where a neat stack of demon infant meat is just waiting to be utilized.

'… … But then there is also the question… do I really wanna eat that?' Unsure she pulls out one of the already hatched specimen which she had slain, not interested in the gooey mess that would come with a shattered egg.

Looking at the vaguely humanoid demon spawn, she sniffs the air that slowly gets filled with the smell of blood that oozes from the spear wound that had ended the creatures life.

Juniper finds her appetite suddenly lacking.

Poking the limp red and coal-black skinned demon with a finger, she ponders for a moment before her expression lights up.

"Hoooow abouuuuut… this!" Quickly switching to the creation menu, she projects her idea onto the blank page and fills in the description and hitting save.

[All good Shaker: This shaker contains a seasoning that makes any meal taste and smell "good".]

Inspecting the shaker that appeared in her hand upon pressing save, she nods and turns back to the demon corpse.

Looking at the thing resembling a classic imp, she grabs one of its arms and rips it off, filling the cave with the sound of tearing flesh, splashing blood and dislocating joints.

The moth doesn't even scrunch her nose at her crude and brutal action and instead calmly uses the [All good Shaker] on her soon to be breakfast.

Spreading the brown seasoning across the entire limb, she then stored the shaker away and takes a lung full of the new smell in the cave.

'Wow, that actually smells pretty nice. Now let's hope it tastes the same.' Steeling herself, Juniper closes her eyes and opens her mouth wide before biting down on the human looking appendage.

Her fangs pierce through the red and black skin and rip off a piece of flesh which she then chews a couple of times before swallowing.

Snapping her eyes open wide and blinking a couple of times at the butchered piece of demon, all she could do was stare for a while.

"Holy shit, this works way to good!" The strangely chewy meat and metallic taste of blood combined under the guidance of the system created seasoning turned into a weirdly pleasant experience.

'With an item like that, cannibalism doesn't seem that bad actually.' Sinking her teeth once more into the meat of her brethren, Juniper soon ate the whole limb and moved on to the rest of the demon.

A while later, the demonic moth finished her meal and stored the remains in her inventory.

Picking her teeth with a bone splinter, Juniper leans against a wall with the creation menu of her system open before her.

"*Buuuuuuuurp!* Damn that was good." She sighs in satisfaction before flicking the splinter away.

'With food taken care of at the lowly price of five souls, it is time to move onto bigger things. One of the most important items to make is the Horadric Cube. It will allow me to transmute low-grade souls into high-grade souls that can be used for skill creation.' Projecting the image of an ornamented box onto the page, she also writes in the description before looking at the cost.

[Horadric Cube: Transmutes low-quality souls into high-quality souls.]

[Save (400 souls)]

'Nope, too early. I got 423 souls right now. It would be very inefficient to invest it all into the cube. Better spend it on something that will help me gather more souls, which I then can use to make the cube later on.' Shelving the page with the cube for now, Juniper begins to think about what else she could get.

'There is the Perfect T-Virus. A very good item that allowed Roy, the original MC of CMDK, to skip the whole growing up phase and jump all the way to the peak of his body's potential. Additionally, it comes with the added bonus of infected blood that can evolve later on with my bloodline into interesting and powerful variations, and the skill psychokinesis of course.' Nodding to herself, she projects the image of an injector holding a vial with the blue DNA strand onto the page and adds the description, which includes the perfect infusion and no side effects definitions.

'114 souls, doable and worth it.' Hitting the save button and bringing the injector up to her eyes, she looks over it before placing it into her inventory.

'I'll first get some body modifications before enhancing myself. Like that my new addons will also receive the bonus of the Perfect T-Virus.' Diving back into the task of coming up with ideas for upgrades, Juniper spends a few hours drawing them out.

The first thing she came up with is something that fits her overall vibe pretty nicely, [Mantis Blades].

Inspired by their cyberpunk 2077 counterpart, these extendable and retractable hidden biomechanical weapons of great sharpness and strength embedded in one's forearms would serve as Juniper's main weaponry for close combat.

There is also the option of adding them not only to her main arms but also to the other two, it would serve as a backup and surprise factor.

The second one, also inspired by the same game, would be [Subdermal Armor].

While a large area of her body is covered in black chitin armour, including her decently sized bust and private parts, there are places not, or to little covered, something that could be taken care of without ruining her aesthetic by adding the armour underneath her skin.

Thirdly and lastly, something she almost forgot to add since she technically already possessed it but at the same time it failed to fulfil its purpose, wings, or more accurately, the ability to fly.

She thought about it and got the idea to give her wings already on the back of her head the ability of [True Flight].

It should work more like levitation or anti-gravity than normal flight, which would counter their problematic location as well as give the added bonus that her ability to fly would only be offset when the wings in their entirety are removed.

As long as they're only damaged or even a single part of them is left, Juniper would still be able to utilize their ability.

Adding everything together caused her expression to twist in pain as it would leave her practically broke again.

Pulling a few more grimaces before resigning herself to her fate and make the investment, all for a brighter future, Juniper pulls the first design of the four mantis blades onto her image and hits save.