2024-10-17 22:44:05"The hell!? Why am I underwater?"
[System reboot] [Loading...] [I'm your ocean survival system, you are my servant] [Feed me points, and I'll show you the secrets of survival with the aid of body upgrades] "Oh for the love of..." ... [Your first task = Locate and eat any small species of the crustacea ignatius family, juveniles are preferable… less steamy.] This message in his head was very confusing. That aside, he, Timothy Lake, a human, didn't have the slightest clue, regarding how he suddenly appeared underwater! It was nothing less than absurd. He completely ignored what the system said. In fact he wasn't even sure what the 'system' was, and thought that craze was creeping in. He could hear the system but not see it, which was a rather radiant hint of auditory hallucination, if not other things! "Who the hell are you? How did I get here?" Tim exclaimed, as his panic blossomed. [I'm your inbuilt, ocean survival system. You, Timothy, are the new owner of this newborn, stingray body.] It answered. But, it didn’t stop there either. [As for me, I have knowledge equal to one world and beyond it, I can help any oceanic creature survive this cruel, magical environment.] "Damn this thing has a lot to say." Tim thought briefly and privately, as the system's disruptive voice annoyed him shitless. [I heard that,] It said. "Oh so you can read my thoughts too, perfect." Tim added, he felt embarrassed, especially since the system sounded like a lady, though her tone was computerized. [Yes,] It followed along. Silence stretched after that point, for a whole minute, as Tim was given a lot to think about. The system eventually broke the silence, in a way that was a bit annoying; Basically, she started spamming some information. [Available system points = 10] [Purchase options = 1] Tim would rather not interact with the system, but she was persuasive. Since he was almost convinced that what he was experiencing was a dream, he saw no harm in playing along for a while. Dreams must end eventually, even nightmares, and this felt like a nightmare! He said, "Let's hear that option out, I guess." There was no harm to that, as everything about this truly felt like a dream. He even tried to swim fast, as fast as he could, but that effort was dimmed by slow and pale results. Just like in other nightmares, he moved really slowly! [Option number one, and the only option right now = A brochure, explaining the details of your new body, and species in depth.] [Price = 3 system points] "Kind of expensive for information that is solely about 'my' new body." The little stingray continued complaining, though he knew that he was becoming a bit annoying. He knew that he wouldn't be here for long, so he gave in completely. There was no point in being all grumpy, he started playing nice-er. He sighed and said, "Whatever, okay. I'm purchasing the first, and only option." [Purchase confirmed,] The system said. [Loading…] [Species = Bluespotted Ribbon-tail Ray] [Family = Dasyatidae extingius] [Gender = Male] [Age = 29 days] [Length = 15 centimeters] [Width = 7 centimeters] [Weight = 0.3 kilograms] As a closing sentence, she [Your purchase is complete, and as a result, 3 system points have been consumed. Due to this subtraction, only 7 points remain in your total sum.] Tim ignored all that talk about points, and said. "Sounds like I'm very small." He expected an answer, but the system wasn't very responsive. Instead, it continued spamming information that may only be interesting to her and her alone. She said, [Because of your most recent purchase, three more purchase options have been unlocked.] [Option number one = Learn your current location] [Price = 14 system points] "A geo-tagger?" Tim recalled this modern, human phrase. Afterwards, he joked. "Yeah, fish definitely need that. Nothing like a good old GPS to get you across the Pacific Ocean." He started being more and more sarcastic, because he was getting nervous. Everything that was happening didn't feel like a dream anymore, so he had to cope somehow. The system, however, didn't respond to such sarcasm whatsoever. She continued going on with her business, by spamming more of her information. She said, [Option number two = View the chart of your current capabilities. This one is essential to have and memorize, therefore it's priced cheaply, 3 system points.] "That sounds interesting." Tim thought, he felt intrigued. "I want to buy that one." [Purchase confirmed,] The system said. It was nice to hear her respond instantly for once. Considering the circumstances, he'd love to be distracted right now rather than face the problem at hand. Somehow he was a fish, and he wasn't quite ready to accept that. [Loading…] Afterwards, the system described. [Your capabilities will be listed shortly. Levels state just how strong a specific capability of yours is, with level zero being the lowest.] [Hunting, jaws, and natural camouflage = Level two] [Barb, and barb venom = Level zero] [Bodily strength, and speed = Level one] [Sight, scent and overall senses = Level one] [Intelligence of either, four forms = Low] [Mana = Pathetically low] [Magical powers = None] [Sex appeal = Level zero] "Wow, pretty low. Looks like anything can kill me, though." Tim pointed out, and tried to ignore the devastating fact that his 'sex appeal' was down to level zero. [Everything can kill you, yes.] She confirmed. Afterwards she said, [Your purchase is complete, and 3 system points have been consumed in exchange. Now, only 4 system points remain in your total sum.] Tim was given a lot to think about. This world started feeling more and more real, and the salt water hinted at it so, but that wave of realization wasn't the worst part. If everything was real, and as it appeared, it was, then he was given the worst cards to play with. He was just a tiny, weak, stingray! He didn't know how his soul ended up in this body, but it would be embarrassing to die in this same body, as much as it was embarrassing to own it and live in it. In the meantime, the system didn't care about his feelings whatsoever, and continued making her sales pitch. She said, [Option number three = Upgrade Hunting, jaws, and natural camouflage to level three. This option is priced at 28 points.] "Kind of expensive for a pair of jaws, don't you think?" Tim asked. Now he didn’t have any idea of how these points were attained, but they seemed like a lot. Part of him considered suicide, rather than to go through with everything a fish had to do on a daily, but the rest of him was curious. Sure he was also terrified, but if this world truly had magic within it, then it was worth exploring! The system decided to respond to his question for once. In fact, she even wanted to help him become a bit more practical. She said, [Let me show you some statistics, free of charge. The following consists of your current state of overall health and well-being.] [Health bar = 87/100 points] [Hunger bar = 3/15] [Sleep, and stamina bar = 11/35] [Mana = 0/0] At last, she sealed the deal off by adding. [You need to be a good hunter in order to survive. Now you can't afford 'purchase option number three' for the time being, but you can still hunt. As I said before, find a crab that you can kill, you need it and you definitely need the points that it can give you in exchange, once you kill it. Good luck, Timothy Lake.]
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I'm a Stingray? Chapter 2 - Enemy
"System, I've been waiting for an hour now! Where the hell are those iguana crabs you talked about?" Tim complained, and the attitude he had was fueled by anger alone. The system didn't make things any easier for him, as she said. [You mean crustacean ignatius, not iguana? Also, you've been waiting for 37 minutes, and guests aren't supposed to lie. Please behave!]Before he could say anything, the system answered the prior question as well, though she was a bit vague about it.She said, [You should just continue waiting for a little while longer. Crabs will eventually crawl over here, so stop talking and rustling around, you're gonna scare them away. Don't let 'natural selection' be your worst enemy, please the oceans are already dangerous themselves. Don't do stupid stuff.]Ironically, right now, the system spoke more than Tim ever did. She distracted him, even, so he was set quite for a surprise, after he felt a couple of doting, hot steps on his soft, fishy stingray back!"Youch!"
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 3 - The momentum
The shark reacted immediately. Once it got stung by Tim, it jerked its head left and right, then it quickly swam away. A two-inch deep stab was quite effective from the looks of it, very painful. "Feels like I stabbed that fucker with my ass," He joked, while in utter stress. However, he couldn’t have killed that shark with one stab alone, it was impossible. So necessarily, Tim was still in danger! The shark circled back, within half a minute. It was either looking for trouble, or a meal, but either way this was really problematic! The shark had to be at least two meters long, and it seemingly had powers too. Its fins left a line of fire across the water, regardless of how fire wasn't supposed to lit up down here. It was scary, and overall, Tim didn't stand a chance! He stabbed the thing, by pure luck to begin with, it had nothing to do with skill. Seconds later, it charged towards him! The shark exploded with speed within a couple of seconds, and it would be a terrible idea to s
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 4 - Pinpoint
Spiders always looked creepy, the ones of the sea even more so. However, Tim tried to put his discomfort aside for survival’s sake. He did so, and ended up eating seven whole ‘sea spiders’! He ate so many of them, because they weren’t so filling, they didn’t have any fat on them. Their long legs were inedible, so he only chomped through their small, red main bodies. He didn’t have to fight them in order to eat them, as these ‘spiders’ were as stupid as one would assume! This was an easy, but surely creepy meal. The system spammed him with some information afterwards. [You successfully killed and consumed seven marble shrimps, so in total, you get 14 points of health out of them. Of course, your hunger needs have been fulfilled as well.] “Health, huh? So that’s why I was feeling better… This isn’t temporary, right? I don’t want to feel like crap after an hour or, whatever.” He asked. His concern was valid. A tiny stingray didn’t have a complex system of pain receptors, but the few
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 5 - Just in time
Tim squeezed within the reef and its many contents, in search for easy points. He swam around for three hours, quite carefully, but hadn't managed to find as many creatures as he hoped to find. He just found a few more marble shrimps, and half of them had been in his den. They seemingly were the most abundant creatures in a fifty-meter radius, but their numbers weren’t infinite. He only killed twelve of them, but avoided eating most of them, because he didn’t want to exhaust himself too quickly with their negative side-effects.Tim avoided utter exhaustion as long as he could, but yet again, swimming around slowly and carefully for three hours straight, wasn't easy at all. He got tired, and used his last bit of energy to swim back to his den. Then, he fell asleep.It was a good idea to relax for a while. Tim wasn’t hungry, and his health went up by six points too, because of the few shrimp he ate. For that matter he could sleep peacefully.He went to sleep while hearing a brief notif
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 6 - Health, -10
Tim searched the flat sea-floor for about five minutes, and within this time bracket, he found three urchins. Each of them had different colors, one of them was even purple, so without risking his own health in the process, he had to figure out which urchin was the bubonic one.He wanted to charge towards one of the urchins like a barbarian, but he had to resist those fishy urges. The urchins couldn’t crawl away, after all, so he didn’t have a reason to rush things. He approached one of the urchins, and almost took a bite out of it. Common sense advised him otherwise, however, at the very last second. The urchin’s spines were spiky, so undoubtedly, it would be dangerous to put his mouth on its spines! It was beyond dangerous, actually, it was stupid.“Hmm… can’t trick me!” He exclaimed. Tim debated on how he should approach this urchin, and after half a minute, he remembered that his tail was practically charged with thunder! It may be useful against an urchin, but only if this shoc
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 7 - Essence Points?
"Explorative soul, huh? What's that for?" Tim asked.He was stumped. In fact, for a good few hours he even believed that stingrays didn't have souls to begin with, he had been convinced about that. For that matter, he didn’t have the slightest clue now, regarding what a little stingray could do with a soul of their own! He was confused.Thankfully, the system shed a bit of light on the matter, she said. [The explorative soul ability, allows you to go into a hibernation-like state, and after that you can detach your soul from your body. Overall, it's a very good method to accumulate system points quickly, and explore this expansive, magical world as well, without hurting yourself in the process.]"The world… you mean, I can float out of the sea, and hunt birds or some shit?" He asked.[Yes, although that would be unproductive.] The system followed along, [There are whole, invisible kingdoms made out of souls and soul-based energy, so it's best if you go visit one of those spots, rather
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 8 - Semi-automatic Stingray!
Tim was astounded by what this world had to offer. The air, apparently, wasn't as bland as he imagined. It looked clear, yes, but further away the sky had more to offer!"Fucking hell, everything looks like a rainbow…" He thought.Tim could see multiple colors across the sky, and these colors were spread randomly. They looked like clouds, even, and each of these huge clouds were divided by color. Some clouds appeared softer, while a smaller percentage seemed very concentrated, and dense. They were interesting.Tim eventually flew into one of the latter! He flew into a pink, five-meter wide cloud which was dense in color, as it was fairly concentrated into that limited, five-meter wide space. He was really curious about it, and at that pace, he figured out what it was for!One would assume that it was stupid to fly towards a funny-looking cloud, but it wasn't so bad after all. Tim experienced the cloud's effects first hand, and thankfully, it didn’t kill him, neither did it try to.
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 9 - Special Crabs?
Tim returned to his stingray body, and now, he had a lot of time to kill before he could explore again. The wonders which were sandwiched between the sky enthralled him, so he couldn’t wait to get up there again, a week from now! Exploring the skies may get boring at some point, but the rewards were plenty! Tim gathered up a bunch of system points while he was up there, for example, and that was the best reward of all. He intended to use those points fully, but he wasn't in a rush right now. Upgrades were expensive, so he hoped to find a couple more critters to kill first, before going on a shopping spree later on! It was a responsible idea. "Ah, this'll be more than boring, it'll be exhausting…" He sighed. It wasn't easy to swim for extended periods of time, but right now, he didn’t really have anything better to do. Tim stretched his fins a bit, and then started exploring the reef! This place was massive, especially since it had complimenting cracks and tunnels within it, whic
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Chapter 100 - "Eighteen-hundred log bolts a day!"
The second check-point that Arvena so treasured, wasn’t as easy to get to. It had these perplexing issues behind it, and the main issue was that they had to reach a portal of some sort, in order to get to this said second check-point (or location).It wasn’t easy to get to the portal, as they had to pay for their transport, in literal gold coins. This was perplexing for them, it was the main issue, because the team had to get actual jobs in order to afford the means of their transportation! In other words, they couldn’t fight like cavemen any longer in order to progress, as it wouldn’t work as often in a civilized society. It was true that they usually got what they wanted through such fighting and slaughtering, but they couldn’t behave like that this time around, no. They had to pay twenty-five gold coins each!Now in any universe, that amount of gold was pretty sizable, it was expensive. The average goblin family had to work four months straight in order to accumulate around twenty-
Chapter 99 - Flash-fix
Arvena had gone through a portal, no doubt about it. Timothy wanted to go after her to make sure that she was okay, but then he realized how a terrible idea that was, he realized that it would be too dangerous to follow her, and that was what made him reconsider things! Arvena had read those scrolls for hours before she opened that portal, she was prepared in other words, and Tim feared that if he charged into that portal ‘heroically’, then he might get vaporized one way or the other because he was severely unprepared. It was simply stupid for him to go in there. Tim even looked at the scrolls close by, to figure out what was going on, but it was hopeless. He couldn’t make out a single word out of them, and with that said he simply backed off, he couldn’t get involved.“That crazy bitch wasn’t up to anything good anyway,” He tried to console himself.It was great that Tim backed away, because moments later, that portal started generating a suction of some sort. It tried to suck the t
Chapter 98 - "100 points of mana an hour"
The quality of Timothy’s mana was flash upgraded to level three, he bore decent mana now, that was its literal name. He was still shocked about how it happened, it had been painless and quick, hence it being a flash upgrade, but despite being shocked, he was also really happy! This was the easiest mana quality upgrade that he had ever gotten, his friends were congratulating him quite a bit too, they were excited! Well, everyone congratulated him, apart from Arvena, who was fixated on her scrolls.Anyway, then things got even better! The system came with a great announcement.She cited, [Congratulations, Timothy. Apart from all the benefits you got from that flash upgrade, your mana pool has also expanded. As of now, you can accumulate up to 3,000 points of mana in your pool, in this goblin form! As a stingray, however, you’d be able to accumulate a maximum of 8,000 points, that is, if you chose to swim in your full, gigantic size! You have great options overall.]“Eight thousand point
Chapter 97 - Flash upgrade!
The team had made it to the ancient library of Rempegana, which was amazing, especially since they made it here in one piece! Now the dilemma was that the elevation drop in front of them was too intimidating, it was concerning. They could quite literally fall to their death because it was a twenty meter drop, and in a world full of magic, this may be one of the most embarrassing ways to die. It would be tragic!For that matter, Tim asked. “How do we get down there, Araduli? I think your friends stole all the ladders from here.”“The ladders withered away, they were made out of wood I presume. I believe that’s what you call it, wood? Besides, you don’t need any ladders today, because I’ll just cast a light-wing spell on the lot of you. It’s very effective, you’ll be flying.” He answered.“That sounds useful, cuz you don’t hear much about flying goblins out there! You must be a pretty powerful guy then, Araduli?” Tim asked, he was a bit curious.“Yes, I would say so. Calidum mana lets u
Chapter 96 - The Molten Dwarves!
It wasn’t easy to get to the ancient library of Rempegana. The tunnel that they found was pretty, yes, but it also featured a lot of danger! Danger in this case, was no different from a textbook barricade, as no one would willingly engulf themselves in the utter darkness that the tunnel featured.Apart from this path being poorly illuminated, there were other issues to it as well. Some kind of creatures lived here, and this part was pretty predictable, however, these creatures were especially dangerous because they had a genetic advantage, they were mammals!After the team swam about ten-meters forward, something swam past them, right within the tunnel! Aside from the initial scare of being spooked in the dark, Timothy also picked up on a very important detail.“Was that a fucking foot I saw?” He asked, and their guide just nodded.That’s how they discovered that they were entering mammalian territory. With that said, what was to follow was bound to be a challenge, because even though
Chapter 95 - "The obsidian towers"
Timothy wasn’t going to buy a mana quality upgrade anytime soon. He couldn’t afford it, first of all, but that wasn’t the main reason behind his decision. He didn’t feel like spending them due to various reasons, so he’d rather accumulate any and all system points for now, and spend them later on, perhaps on more sensible purchases. Since the quality of Tim’s mana was at level two now, he felt like his normal self again, he felt confident! He was powerful enough to do plenty of damage, independently, and that was the second, more important reason behind his prior decision. He didn’t feel the need to upgrade the quality of his mana again so quickly, he wasn’t in a rush.Despite the main reason why they’ve entered this micro-universe to begin with, which was to improve the quality of the individual mana they bore, he wasn’t in a rush. Level two was plenty for a crafty rascal such as himself.“I went through thick and thin with this rustic ass mana, and most important of all, I survived
Chapter 94 - Stingray ink
Timothy and Arvena hunted the whistling mana-muncher eels. It was evident that the team reigned victorious in this battle already, the enemies were fleeing, but if they were to assure their personal safety even further, then it was best to kill these sneaky, potentially invisible eels, they couldn’t spare them. It would be stupid to let these few vengeful munchers roam free, as they could come back for revenge in any given time later on! It was safer to kill them!Arvena ended up doing most of the work. The fireballs she shot out from the front of her forehead were massive, hot and dangerous! She managed to scorch an eel whole with a single shot, and this spoke volumes of the amount of power that she bore! It was understandable how she was the main contributor here. In the meantime, Timothy managed to kill a single eel, purely by accident. He had spammed lightning-bolts and fireballs against the enemies, and it so happened that he hit one of them at the same time when Arvena had stru
Chapter 93 - Whistling mana munchers!
“A demon? Hell no, I don’t want to meet a demon! The gods hate me enough already.” Timothy refused, he joked partially, then again he was really curious about the matter. Arvena helped maintain his curiosity, as she added. “It’s a caged demon, so don’t worry. Your gods have punished this demon a long time ago, so I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you talking to it.”“Oh shit! You’re serious, aren’t you?” He followed along, “I thought you were talking about a statue or something? I didn’t expect a living, er, unliving demon!”After that part, they swam towards the bottom of the pool without much of a debate. Considering that this demon somehow illuminated a big area, the team expected to see a huge beast, the thing of nightmares, even! They expected a lava-encrusted monster, and rightfully so, but that wasn’t nearly the case!When they got there, the team got really disappointed, Timothy especially! He noticed that the ‘demon’ didn't even have any horns, so it was inappropriate to call it a
Chapter 92 - 0.12 ton Stingray!
Arvena and the team started shifting. It came to them as a bit of a surprise when she asked them to shift, because they were very deep underground right now, so it simply was the worst place to turn into a fish! Their utter confusion was mostly Arvena’s fault, because she hadn’t been too specific so far, regarding why this pool of water would be helpful to them. She didn’t explain it to them yet, but just told them that their visit here would be a great check-point in their journey to mana quality ascension! It might be a great check-point, however, they were yet to discover the pool’s contents.The team was cooperative, but then the most annoying part about her idea was that they had to disrobe first, in order to shapeshift afterwards! This was really uncomfortable for them, socially speaking at least. As goblins, neither of them wanted to walk around naked in front of their friends, even if it was for just a minute, so they dimmed their torches while they took their armor off, for t
