Sitting at the entrance of a small cave in the cliffside, under which a large river of lava made its way deeper into the abyss, our moth lets her chitin thigh high covered legs dangle off the side while looking down at the box she spent a total of 400 souls on.
'Time to unlock a new feature of the system.' Pulling out souls from her system, Juniper places them one after the other inside the Horadric cube until it pulsed with golden light after she placed the 198th soul inside.
Opening the cube, she looks inside and sees two souls floating there.
One of them is completely transparent with a crystal-like surface and the other one black with smoky edges.
Grabbing the noble and fallen soul, which were created by separating all the positive and negative energy of 198 souls and then fused together, Juniper wipes away a trail of salvia that escaped her lips when her nose was hit by the intoxicating smell wafting off the two souls in front of her.
'Damn, they smell absolutely delicious.' Fighting her instincts that come with being a demon, she manages to store the two souls in the system which luckily got rid of the smell and allowed her to calm down again.
But that didn't mean that all the other demons in the vicinity that had also smelled the aroma of a high-grade soul were the same.
Multiple grotesque flying monsters are rushing towards the small cave in which Juniper is sitting.
Seeing the approaching figures, the moth growls in annoyance. "Bloody pests." And stores the cube away before she also took to the air.
Mood quickly declining as her body continues to hurt while blending the brainless demons and monsters into gory bits, she made quick work out of all those that dared to even think about snatching from her.
Luckily, the massacre was sufficient in sending the message and all the demons that witnessed it quickly bolted into the opposite direction, fearing that she would set her eyes on them next.
Ignoring the fleeing ones, she returns to the small cave with a bunch of extra souls and bodies.
"I need to get rid of that soul addiction issue at some point, and maybe a way to isolate the smell of souls…" Muttering this, she opens the system and looks at the new feature that got unlocked when she placed the two high-grade souls into it.
'With this I can now create skills, allowing me to expand my repertoire of abilities.' Looking over the new window, excitement starts bubbling up and uplifted Juniper's mood again as she enters her first idea for a skill together with a description.
[Draining Touch: Drains the vitality of a target upon touch and uses it to heal, recover and enhance the user. Ignores physical resistances like armour, clothes, scales, fur or hide.]
This is what she had come up with for her first skill.
[Draining Touch] is a three-purpose skill.
It can serve as a true damage skill that ignores armour and most resistances as it drains the life out of her target, or as a healing skill allowing Juniper to quickly recover from damage and exhaustion by replenishing her own reserves by draining someone else, and lastly as a buff to enhance her physical capabilities by overcharging herself with vitality.
Looking at the cost, Juniper nods in acceptance and presses save, spending an entire high-grade soul on the skill.
It has to be mentioned that a single high-grade soul would have been enough to make a decent buff and teleportation skill, showing that [Draining Touch] is quite the powerful ability.
Seeing the new skill appearing on her status page, Juniper nods and turns her attention back to the creation menu.
'Still got plenty of souls. The cube and the two high-grade souls barely costed me 598 souls, leaving me with 2'686 to go.' Pondering for a while, she came up with another idea.
Entering the idea and description into the system, the moth furrows her brows.
'Hmm, it would work… but is it what I want it to be?' She thinks while looking over the result.
What Juniper tried to make is a skill that practically gave her access to the so-called Haki from the world of one piece.
And the system being the nearly omnipotent entity that it is of course allowed that.
But there is something that made the moth hesitate.
'Can system created skills be trained?' She wasn't worried about this with a skill like [Draining Touch] as its purpose is clear and simple, but for something like haki which was so versatile, and had so many different levels of power based on skill and training, she has to seriously consider this.
Before losing herself too deep in her thoughts, she first tried the simplest solution and added different growth type definitions to the skill, things like that it grows stronger through training or usage.
But that failed as the creation of a growth type skill came at the cost of a superior-grade soul, meaning either a holy or evil soul, both currently out of Juniper's reach.
She could simply make other skills with similar effects as haki, but the sheer versatility and potential kept her from abandoning her idea just yet.
'I can't make the skill directly in the system…then…what if I make an item that gives me the skill? It worked for the T-Virus and in the original story, Roy was able to gain powers from a devil fruit, so why wouldn't it work with other powers too?' With a new train of thought to follow, Juniper draws out the idea onto the system.
[Haki Awakening Pill: This pill when consumed will awaken the spiritual power of both normal and conquers Haki, allowing the consumer to train and strengthen them with the right methods and effort.]
Nodding at the description, the moth traces her gaze down to the save button and freezes.
'O-one thousand five hundred!? HOLY SHIT! That's expensive as hell!' She curses with wide eyes while looking at the number.
"Is this really worth it? I will have to train it myself before it really gets useful… but on the other hand… I still got over 2'000 souls left." Muttering to herself, Juniper weights her options.
'Before I recklessly spend my souls, lets prepare the whole set first and look if I can get everything at once.' Tearing her eyes away from the large number of souls she would have to spend on this simple looking item, the moth opens a new page on which she designs a simple looking book.
[Juniper's Haki Training Manual: This book contains detailed instructions and explanations for the training of Haki and all its techniques. The methods are tailored to Beherit Dagea Fenzri … Kalim Sedit's needs in order to master Haki. It is not flammable and regenerates damage when infused with magic power.]
With this manual, she will not only be able to smoothly learn the basic three haki's, but also the different techniques associated with them.
'120 souls, a lot but easily manageable.' Moving to the skill creation menu, Juniper makes the last addition to the set.
[Focus: This skill enhances one's learning and comprehension ability, as well as calming and sharpening the mind. Strength of the skill depends on the amount of magic power used to cast and the duration is fixed at 10 minutes which have to pass before it can be cast again.]
This one is necessary because, as confident as she may act, the moth is very aware of her own limits in regard to learning and remembering shit.
So it is vital to get something that will steadily strengthen and enhance that part of her.
'Huh, only 1,5 high-grade souls. Kinda expected it to be more expensive, but maybe the limits made it so affordable.' With the whole set ready and the price well within her budget, a grin starts making its way onto Juniper's face.
"Losing so many souls at once is going to hurt, but the benefits are well worth it, not to mention that all these souls are only a bit more than a month worth of effort to get." Having convinced herself, Juniper quickly threw another 198 souls into the Horadric cube, generating two more high-grade souls that she immediately chucked into the system before the scent even had time to spread.
Pressing the save button on all three designs, the moth watches how her reserves drain away.
[Number of Souls in Possession: 868 low grade, 1.5 high-grade]