Chapter 11 - Upgraded Stingray

Tim's sense of vengeance went down, as soon as he found a place where he could rest at. The hard outlay of coral was his best friend around here, and he used it well, as he hid beneath about four layers of this hardy coral. Nothing could get to him at that point, nothing dangerous at least, he was deep within these natural barricades!

He thought, "Harold can't get me here… and fuck that guy! Who tricks a kid by promising spooky crabs? That was borderline pedophilia there, or at least, in the real world he would've gotten in trouble for tricking a child! I'm only like twenty-nine days old, god damn it."

Such accusations were way out of line, but this little outburst had a simpler outlay. He cared less and less about either Harold or Drake, the more he talked about them, and as long as he avoided them from now on, he'd be perfectly fine with forgiving them. Forgiving was an exaggerated word, even, as he simply did not care to get involved with them at all. He had a life to live.

Here, deep within the coral, he found a few marble shrimp and ate them. They were about to put him to sleep, but he got four more system points out of them, and thought that now was the best time to put them into use.

The system had announced, [You've accumulated a total of 233 system points. It's a decent sum for you, especially since you've only used this stingray body for a day now.]

"Well, thank you. Getting into trouble all the time has its rewards, right?" He joked, and at this point he was half asleep.

[High risks do have high rewards, yes.] The system agreed, and then said. [Anyway, your health bar is looking better too. It's at 79/100 ~ It could be better, but you won't be feeling anything more than a headache from now on.]

"Yeah, shrimps help… but I'm falling asleep, system. Can you tell me about the stuff I can buy?" He followed along.

[Certainly,] The system said, [You can upgrade your barb, and barb venom as a start. This is the cheapest option available, and you'll need your barb in the long run.]

"Okay, let's go with that." He said.

[Confirmed,] The system followed along.

Almost immediately after, Tim felt a sudden sharp pain on his whole tail. This took a toll on him, as the pain spread like the plague, it was simply unbearable! He didn't understand why upgrades came hand-to-hand with intense pain, but it wasn't fun whatsoever!

About two minutes later, the pain stopped, and the results seemed decent.

The system said. [Congratulations! Your barb and barb-venom has been upgraded from level zero, to level one. In exchange, 45 of your system points have been consumed.]

"That's nothing… the pain consumed me entirely, though." Tim joked.

Anyway, in regards to the barb, he wasn’t really able to see it, because his eyes didn't roll that way, but truthfully, his tail was really looking better. It was fatter, sharper, brighter and had the capability to store more magic in it now, as well as utilize the magic all the more efficiently!

In this world, Tim's tail was his main weapon, and he was happy that he could upgrade it so cheaply. His barb and barb-venom had been at level zero before, and now that its level was higher, he was hoping that the venom could deal some decent damage, against anything that moved. He did understand, however, that it wasn’t strong enough to kill any monstrous fish whatsoever, just small ones.

He moved on quickly after, and asked. "Okay, let's keep the fun stuff going, system. Tell me about that intelligence thing? Can I afford it, and do you think I should buy it?"

[You can afford it, I priced it at 90 system points. Considering your recent blunders, you definitely should buy it… ten points go a long way when you're a fish.] She said.

"You are very… right." Tim added, "Okay then, spray me with brain juice or whatever!"

[Confirmed,] The system said.

Immediately after, she added. [Congratulations, your IQ successfully went up by 10 points. In exchange, you spent 90 system points, because as you know, upgrades like these are a bit expensive.]

Tim didn't care about the price right now, no. Instead, he was offended by how quickly this upgrade was implemented into his brain, it only took a second. Tim's little headache remained the same too, he didn’t feel anything new whatsoever!

"I guess I'm too dumb to feel brain pain," He sighed.

The system didn't care to console him about that. There was just one other upgrade available, and she was quick to re-introduce it to him now, rather than talk about feelings.

She explained, [Okay, do you care to feel a little bit more pain? I want to tamper with your organs a little bit, hollow them out by 10% maybe? Here and there, tit and tat, it'll only take a moment, and you can afford it.]

"As long as it'll knock me out, I want to sleep for a while." He said.

[Confirmed,] The system added.

She didn’t fail to deliver. Tim started feeling weird right away, as if there were bugs running around his blood vessels! It wasn't quite painful, but along the way, he got more freaked out than ever, and even started twitching a little bit.

A medieval peasant would consider this procedure to be necromancy, but in actuality, the system was doing some work that would need both a doctor, and a scientist to perform! She was optimizing Timothy's body, so he could endure water pressure for about 50% more! This was no simple task.

She was quick with it too! The upgrade only took about five minutes, but Tim got knocked out half way. The system did her job thoroughly, and announced things, regardless of how Timothy was fully unconscious.

She said, [Congratulations! You can swim up to 300 meters deep now, without receiving any damage from water pressure. This'll aid your explorative nature greatly, for every next adventure to come… I'll tell you about this, again, after you wake up. This upgrade cost you 75 system points, which is a bit hefty for a beginner such as yourself.]

Furthermore, she added. [At least math isn't your trump card, though, you probably won't notice that you only have 23 system points left, after all the upgrades. These three upgrades cost you 210 points all together.]

Afterwards, the system started talking to itself. [Eh, he'll be a little bit mad, but he'll get over it once I tell him about the new upgrades… Besides, he's making great progress already, the explorative soul ability he used a few hours ago, will have him inching towards humanity soon enough. Free-flying is the first, essential step to shape-shifting…]