Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

7. Engineering a Body - Nerves, Senses, and Skin

The System rated the organs of the upper body with an A, and Flora decided that was good enough.

The test went great, and the jumping avatars were still in shape.

"This character creation stuff is jangling my nerves! I have to do something about it." Flora's bad pun counter rose by one. "Please rate my nerves and aggregate a model."

Flora was in the flow. She cleaned, reinforced, and polished the nerves and thickened the myelin layers.

"Finished! Rate! Next, the brain! You know the drill, dear!"

"The nervous system of the avatar is rated A. The brain is not rated."

"Thank the heavens! What about endocrine glands?"

"Not rated."

"Just as well." Flora was pleased she didn't have to mess with her noggin and mood controls.

"Sensory organs?"

"Currently rated D."

"Come on!"

She understood the eyes and ears better than the squishy parts she had worked on recently. There were parallels to the electronic sensor technic she could tie in.

After the usual cleaning, smoothening, and fortifying, she began to experiment.

First, she enlarged the eye and removed age-related deformations. The System wasn't happy with radical changes but deemed a 5% increase in volume as better than before. Then she increased the density of the photoreceptors on the retina and the nerves tied to them.

Afterward, she thickened the cornea and reworked the tissue for maximal transparency without losing its structural integrity. She cleaned the lens and fluids again with the highest zoom active and removed every foreign particle.

The increasing pangs of hunger aggrieved her, but while she tested the avatar, they were gone. So she decided to stay in the avatar for the rest of her work. The ridiculously improved eyesight played another role in this decision. 'I never saw this well! I never looked so good!' Her bad pun counter rose again.

Next, she worked on the ear. She repeated the treatment of the eye fluids to the ear fluids. Then she increased the density of the hair cells.

Flora didn't improve the tactile sense, smell, and taste beyond the usual actions, but it was enough to get System to rate the sensory organs with 'S'.

For testing the modified avatar, she had to switch back to the hungry original avatar. She was dehydrated, and her stomach cramped.

'I can't bear it, and I don't have to! Let's get freaky!'

First, she copied the skull bones and formed a bowl. Then she filled it with blood and tears. She omitted the sweat with regret for the missed pun, but even she had her limits how far she was willing to go just for a satisfying joke.

Additionally, she lowered the sodium chloride level—no point in drinking salty beverages in her situation.

'Should I say a toast?' She pondered while staring at the red liquid in the white skull.

"Here's to it, and from it, and to it again, and if I don't do it when I get to it, I may not get to it to do it again! Prost!" She downed the blood and grimaced. It wasn't as bad as she feared, but not good enough to tempt a repeat. Her hunger and thirst diminished.

"How long until hunger death, System?"

"41 hours and 54 minutes."

"Alright, we proceed with the connective tissue."