Picking a new upgrade is especially nice now that I know more about how things work for me. Not only do I now know that resistance upgrades are my friends, but due to unlocking my first form, I now understand that upgrades are pretty much unique to my ‘basic’ form.

  Although it might be a bit precocious to assume with full certainty, it seemed like the point of having different forms was to be able to gain abilities and powers of great potency, but that these powers came at the cost of momentarily giving up pretty much all of my upgrades and innate abilities.

  I could collect negative emotions whilst in my molten state, but I could not channel them to use ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’, nor was I able to access the furnace room whilst transformed.

  It was like I became a completely different being whilst transformed.

  So this was why, despite the obvious strength of my molten form, I couldn’t just remain transformed all the time. After all, there was no time limit on how long I could keep the transformation up, but if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to look into curses and spirits at all.

  In short, I believed that my base form was akin to a tool that could serve many different purposes, whilst the forms were specialised tools. I would need to unlock at least one more to be certain of my assertion, but I was rather confident.

  The options are as follows:

  Larger Limb (Arm R) - Your right arm increases in size, gaining higher strength and durability

  Infectious Maw - Your bite becomes especially effective at causing infected wounds

  Jaw Of Ignition - When shutting your maw, you can decide to manifest a great amount of sparks

  Industrial Sander - The inside of your palms becomes capable of grinding down what they touch

  Smoke Machine - Your body forms a machine capable of manifesting smoke, allowing you to make a quick escape

  Chain-Jaw - Take a page out of the book of Goblin Sharks and propel your maw forward

  Copper Wires - Your body forms copper wires, capable of conducting lightning through them

  Huh… Quite an array of choices this time, and the first one offered to me actually went along with what I was just thinking about. An upgrade that changed or modified one of my arms should actually be one of the few things that were carried along to my molten form, since I retained my arms.

  But still, I remained attached to my current limbs. It is just like the buzzsaw or whatever. It might be exceptionally powerful in a fight, but it simply sounded horribly crippling in pretty much all other situations.

  There was a reason why harpies and beastfolks who had their animal-like limbs did not, or only very rarely, produced craftsmen of renown. They lacked opposable thumbs! Trying to craft or manipulate anything with dexterity when you had to use paws, hooves, or talons would normally result in nothing short of a show of comedy.

  And besides, just how ridiculous would it be for me to have one arm way bigger than the other? I may be monstrous, but I didn’t want to be deformed.

  ‘Infectious Maw’ was very much like the other upgrade that would make my bite cause excessive bleeding, nice, but not really something I had an urgent need for. If I encountered something that I couldn’t simply use my bite alone to kill, I doubt giving them an infection would prevent me from being instantly beaten into a pile of scrap.

  The next jaw upgrade was interesting, though. It went perfectly well with ‘Machine Blood’, allowing me to make the process of burning someone or something much quicker and sudden as anyone without the range of my flammable puke would definitely be within range of a hail of sparks as well, but I had already gotten the hang of just using a blade to create sparks using my arm.

  This upgrade was thus also not very urgent.

  The ‘Industrial Sander’ is quite alluring. Grinding down anything I touched seemed like a handy ability to have, as I assumed that even if I couldn’t crush something within my grasp, the sander would be able to deal damage nonetheless.

  Mostly, though, I was imagining grabbing someone’s face and just ripping everything to shreds for a few moments before letting go. Watching someone die from such an injury would certainly be glorious…

  As for ‘Smoke Machine’, I have to admit, I have become quite fond of those upgrades that just add something within my body. None of them has disappointed so far, and since they are additions, even if they aren’t that good in the end, they don’t get in the way of other stuff.

  The idea of being able to manifest smoke at will was interesting, though. Especially useful if I needed to slip away, as the description specified, but it could definitely be used to attack or frighten as well.

  The only question I had was just how much smoke it could produce in a short amount of time. As far as I am aware, it could either create a cloud several meters high and wide, or it could only spew a little bit of smoke and require time to actually build up.

  The second-to-last option seemed to offer me the option to strike from range by allowing me to propel my maw forward and then drag it back to me. I could think of a few ways to murder someone using my jaw this way.

  Nara, what in damnation is a ‘Goblin Shark’? Some sort of deep-sea goblin variant?

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  It is a shark deep-sea variant, let me project an image inside of your mind…

  …Nara?

  Yes?

  Don’t show me that thing again, and certainly not whilst it's unhinging its own freaking jaw! Seriously, what sort of abominable beast of hell is this?

  It is but a mundane animal

  I don’t believe this for a second.

  Anyway…

  The last option is somehow the best one, mostly because it gives utility to a previous upgrade I picked, ‘Faraday Box’. With these wires, I can conduct lightning straight into an opponent, and as far as I am aware, lightning is not something even a trained knight can just shrug off.

  I have the feeling that you greatly enjoy debating which upgrade to pick, even though you almost always know which one you are going to pick from the very beginning

  What can I say? A girl needs to pass the time somehow, and it is good training for when there will actually be multiple upgrades that I really want to pick.

  I picked the copper wires without hesitation. As nice as some of the other options might be, it feels important to actually give utility to a previous upgrade that has been collecting dust for a long while…

  Long while? I don’t actually know how long I have been here, actually.

  Time is a bit of a foreign entity to me now. It isn’t like I can die of old age. I don’t sleep, so every waking second of every single day is never wasted, and my very perception of the passing of time is warped, something that is further enhanced by the fact that I spend my time underground, away from sunlight.

  Oh…

  The growth of the copper wires was deeply… Well, it was technically unpleasant, but the pain of having what felt like my non-existent veins ripped out and then replaced turned out to be quite pleasant to me. I guess I was too far gone now, my agonising existence had turned into a very fulfilling one as the pain had become a source of satisfaction rather than discomfort.

  Living my life whilst constantly enjoying pain and slaughtering en masse, what else could I ask for?

  Oh, I know what else I need.

  I need a bastard brother and a dragon bitch dead.

  Only then will I truly be able to lounge around without any worry. I’ll just be able to stay in my tunnels and maybe build myself a cult to worship my existence. Yes, that sounds good.

  Though my current priority is checking out the copper wires. They feel… Odd, they aren’t like the rest of the upgrades that add something to my body. They are attached to me, many of them taking root directly into the ‘Faraday Box’, but not all of them. Some seem to grow out of random places across my body…

  Could I grow more by consuming like I naturally grow flesh?

  That wasn’t the strangest part. I had expected to be able to control them in some way, but it almost felt like I had gained many new limbs all of a sudden. They could move, they could bend, and they could accelerate at my whims… They barely even felt like they were made out of copper. These wires responded and moved according to my thoughts without any problem.

  It didn’t seem like they would break, no matter how much I bent and twisted them around, they held firm.

  Mmh… I wonder if…

  Curious, I directed my gaze toward one of the many wooden furniture I had brought down in my underground, commanding one wire to shoot straight at it with the most power I could. The wire barely penetrated the wood, but it did manage to lodge itself in it.

  Interesting. How about this?

  Next, I controlled several wires to wrap around one another. The process was quite pleasing to the eye as they moved exactly according to my command without any snafu.

  I then repeated the same action, and this time, the furniture was definitely damaged more extensively.

  Even without getting the lightning involved, the wires could serve as a genuine weapon! Right now, I simply used it against an inanimate piece of wood, but even just a single wire, if aimed directly at someone’s eye, could cause tremendous damage.

  Not to mention that with how thin they were, they could get through basically any gap in an armour.

  Ohoh… This is good stuff, magnificent pick on my part!

  This makes me wonder, though… I remember hearing that automatons used such wires, but not just that. They were also said to use silver and golden wires. In fact, during my time at Harvey’s Diner, I had seen the complicated mess that were the automatons beneath their jolly costumes.

  And for some reason, they seemed to use many different types of wires throughout, more than the three types I could recognise, as a matter of fact.

  I was not knowledgeable enough in that area to know why there was a need for different materials in wires, but it made me wonder if I could acquire different types of wires beyond copper ones? And what would be the difference anyway? Would some be more durable? Would some conduct lightning better? Mmh… I wonder if-

  Mara, I would like to inform you that you have satisfied some conditions for acquiring a new form

  Oh… So it obviously has to do with the wires I just got.

  I checked the forms that I had apparently taken at least one step toward getting for myself, and it turned out to be rather easy to identify which form the wires were related to, not just because a new one had popped up amongst the list…

  Wire Mess Form

  The name spoke for itself, much like my ‘Molten Steel Form’, it wasn’t cryptic in the least.

  Though if I had to guess, this form is going to take a while to fully unlock. If the idea I was just thinking about is correct, then getting this one should involve gathering the different types of wires, which–As far as I was aware–Could only be done by choosing the correct upgrades, which I could only get infrequently.

  Furthermore, there was no guarantee that I would even get the option to pick wires. The upgrades offered to me were random.

  Mmh… That seems oddly luck-based… Maybe there is a way to gain certain upgrades without having to go through the system?

  Nara?

  I am not allowed to answer this question

  I figured as much.

  Then I guess I’ll be-

  A translucent being poked its head out of the ceiling and groaned twice at me.

  Oh, is it day already? Or did the knight establishment realise that they had lost some of their trainees?

  You can look for them all you want. I didn’t leave any evidence.

  And I'm definitely not going to look for problems with a bunch of knights from an establishment…