Everything was dark except for the rotating model of the dragon. Vesuvius felt his consciousness floating around as if he was in the water.
A bright light flashed, and all of the items that were originally lying on the ground, plus a pulsing black heart, appeared in black space, orbiting in wide circles around the model of the dragon.
‘Let’s start with generic modifications. System, activate the pro mode.’
Ding!
//
The professional mode was activated, turning off limitations.
//
Metamorphosis was a complex process as one could modify every aspect of their body, where a single mistake could cause a chain reaction that would lead to catastrophic collapse.
So LOMM implemented lots of limitations that prevented casual players from messing with things they shouldn’t, such as their vital organs.
Vesuvius floated closer towards the model of himself, and just with a single thought, all of the armour, scales and flash turned semi-transparent.
For the first time, Vesuvius could see his internal structure. His two glowing hearts connected to the glowing veins. His skeleton was covered in glowing runes. And his massive lungs connected to multiple places with air ducts. There were channels leading to his snout and a brightly glowing organ in his throat.
The organ looked like a weird blob of organic tissue with glowing crystals growing all over it.
‘My breath glands, this is what I was looking for!’ he had more than enough time to plan it, so he went directly for what he wanted.
He floated right towards the pulsing organ in the dragon’s neck, and with just a single thought, a second identical organ formed in the flash of light right next to the original one.
Ding!
//
The modification added to the list: Second Breath Glands
Cost: +250 meta points
Material cost: Any mana-sensitive material.
//
All the items orbiting in the darkness started to glow, marking them as usable material to pay for the modification.
Vesuvius looked through all of them before picking an ingot of angelic steel as it was the cheapest.
‘Quality doesn’t matter. It is not like my new glands will be made out of it. It is just to pay for it with material that has the required properties.’
The ingot immediately turned semi-transparent as it became unusable.
‘Price is good, but sadly I need to modify more things to make this work. To fuel this up, I need to connect it.’
The tubes from the lungs grew wider instantly, with a new path forming towards the new glands. At the same time, glowing veins prolonged, connecting the organ to the mana source.
Ding!
//
The modifications added to the list: Widened air duct, Additional veins
Cost: +100 meta points
//
‘I guess I need to improve my lungs. That will gain lots of small benefits, and also it is needed to accommodate my two breath glands.’
With a flash of light, the massive lungs of the dragon grew even bigger, with the air intake from his snout and mouth growing wider.
The powerful muscles used to squeeze lungs grew more pronounced, turning into a muscle that could likely crush a human skull like an egg.
Ding!
//
The modifications added to the list: Empowered breathing system
Cost: +200 meta points
//
‘The pressure of my breath will likely grow through the roof. I need to contain it.’
This was one of the reasons why the process of the metamorphosis could quickly go wrong, as a tiny change could easily disrupt the balance in the body, leading to suboptimal modifications.
Vesuvius focused on all of the bones in his neck and jaw, making them thicker together with the muscles bounding them.
Ding!
//
The modifications added to the list: Strengthened head and neck skeleton and musculature.
Cost: +100 meta points
//
‘Now is time for one small trick.’ the dragon slightly pushed both of the hearts out of their position.
It was such a minuscule change, but Vesuvius laughed when he imagined the surprise that this change would give someone.
It was no secret that the heart was the weakest point of any dragon. They worked as pumps and mana generators powered by their souls.
At the same time, they were like a fountain of life force keeping dragon’s supernatural bodies working, making them even more critical than a brain to dragons.
He could already imagine someone powerful penetrating through all of his defences and aiming for his heart, but instead, he would hit empty space.
‘For now, this should be enough internal changes. Maybe I will add something later.’
(AN: If you can think of more interesting body modifications and optimisations, write them up in the comments, and maybe I will use them.)
Vesuvius moved his consciousness further away from the model of the dragon turning back from its semi-transparent look.
His eyes fell upon the massive crystal wings covered in glowing runes with fiery veins enshrouded within the crystal material. They were large, each larger enough to cover more than a quarter of a football field.
‘They were always my weak spot as they lack the powerful armour.’
Vesuvius started thinking about how to fix his wings, ‘I can’t just cover them in armour as that would make flying harder.’
He could devise only one simple solution: ‘ Why not make them larger? That way, any damage and hole in them will have much smaller effects on my flying abilities. At the same time, the greater size will make it easier to keep me in the air.’
Both of the dragon’s wings started to glow, their size quickly growing, their massive crystal structure becoming big enough to cover half of a football field.
The runes on them evenly spread through the whole wings, each letter growing in size while keeping the same pattern and arrangement.
‘Now that I think about it, my runes grow with me as I grow, but they are becoming much less optimised. I will likely have them get a makeover.’
Ding!
//
The modifications added to the list: Enlargened Wings
Cost: +100 meta points
//
Vesuvius looked at the three majestic crystal horns growing from his head. Tendrils of lightning surrounded their glowing surface with traces of gold.
‘My horns always get strained after long usage. It is time to finally fix it.’ Vesuvius started to think about how to fix his horns, but to do that, he first had to identify where the problem was.
Luckily, he already had more than enough time to think about the issue, ‘Too much mana is flowing through them for a long time. Likely causing damage to veins and the horns.’
He already came up with a few possible solutions, ‘Maybe I can add more horns to distribute that load between more horns. Or I can make them bigger, which would make them sturdier.’
Then it hit him, making him almost start to laugh maniacally, ‘I have so many points that I can do both. Horns are one of my most important tools, so there is no need to be cheap on them.’
The dragon pushed with his will, and instantly, all three of his horns started to grow thicker and longer. Their shiny crystal material prolonged as they grew in size and curled up.
Then two smaller crystal horns grew on both sides of the dragon’s head, curling slightly backwards.
It didn’t stop as veins started to grow in the dragon’s tissue and connect to all of the horns.
The instant the veins connected, all of the horns began to glow brightly, with lightning dancing around them.
Ding!
//
The modifications added to the list: Enlargened horns, Four additional horns, and Additional veins connecting the horns.
Cost: +500 meta points
Material cost: Any mana-sensitive material X 6.
Please choose.
//
Vesuvius felt like cursing, seeing the cost that the greedy system wanted from him. Still, he grunted his teeth and selected random garbage items around him, such as angelic feathers and ingots. All of them immediately dimmed down.
‘These angelic materials are at least good for this… it is waste. But I am not planning to use them to gain angelic traits anyway.’ Vesuvius could easily imagine some players going nuts for him using precious material from angels in a place of cheap mana-conductive materials that were abundant and common.
‘I will rather keep all these cores for something that requires more unique properties.’
The dragon once again looked through all of the changes before nodding, ‘Damn, more than a thousand points are gone, and I am just starting. Well, I should move to the more unique additions.’
Vesuvius looked at all of the material that still remained. His eyes stopped at the pulsing black heart, ‘Should I start with this? Maybe, it looks important, so it will be better to plan with the changes that it will bring.’
With just a single thought, the heart floated out, leaving the ring of orbiting items as it floated closer to the dragon’s vision. It started to pulse, magical energy radiating out of it.
Ding!
//
Do you wish to sacrifice 5 at least C-grade mana affinity items to unlock potential upgrades from item: The Heart of Curse?
(Yes/No)
//
‘Yes!’ in an instant, five of the blue ball-shaped mana generators orbiting around the dragon vanished, and a freezing feeling accompanied by a neon-red light flooded everything.