2024-12-09 19:59:27Tim helped Ortana get out of trouble. He lifted her away from plain sight, and hid her in some random hole on the ground. There were plenty of such holes surrounding them, and they could hide within any of them, just because they were very small-bodied stingrays. They were safe for the time being, or at least, Tim wanted to believe that he and Ortana were safe.
He muttered, “Those fuckers are probably coming after the mana roots, so, if we’re quiet enough, then they won’t bother us.” “They will bother us, Thomas, they will.” Ortana suddenly added. She hadn’t spoken much for a while, as the upgrade session took quite a toll on her. She had been preserving her energy, but now, the situation demanded otherwise. She had to add, “You’re full of mana, so they’re gonna sniff you out, and then try to eat you whole! Your mana is pretty weak, but that doesn’t matter for them; Those sharks will still benefit a lot from eating you…” “Well that’s fucking peachy,” He whispered. Timothy was in danger, because apparently bigger animals ate smaller animals, for more reasons than one. Ortana briefly explained that if one ate an animal that was full of mana, their bodies would absorb and then amplify the said mana. With that said, Tim was at risk of being sniffed out and eaten, even if the sharks were several levels above him in mana quality! They wouldn't spare him, as he’d be a great snack. WIthin seconds, Tim came up with a solution against the possible dangers, but it wasn’t a solution that he really liked. In order to escape the scent of those sharks, he had to do a mana quality upgrade, which in turn, would deplete every point of mana he had! This would deter the scent of mana off of his body, and since he couldn’t go out there and that bundle of sharks, this was his only solution! “I hate to be vulnerable right now, but this has to be done! Let’s hope that the sharks waste a few minutes on those roots.” He added. Afterwards, he took a couple of safety precautions. Tim assumed that his body would glow a lot throughout the upgrade session, which in return could attract even more unwanted attention. He wanted to avoid that, so he buried himself within a couple inches of sand, just to be completely out of sight. This idea made him feel safer! After that, he felt ready to upgrade his mana quality, or at least, he felt just a little bit more ready. He was still a nervous wreck for the time being! He then asked, “What’s that spell again, plant woman? The one about a mana upgrade.” Marlo was supposed to teach him this spell, but he hadn’t gotten the chance to do so. With that considered, he had to depend on Ortana for the spell instead, regardless of how occupied she was right now. “I don’t remember mana upgrades being this rough, this feels worse than giving birth.” She muttered to herself first. Afterwards, she mustered up the strength to give a solid answer to the boy. In the utmost detail, word by word, she eventually explained the spell to Timothy, without accidentally recasting the spell on herself in the meantime! She didn’t want to make a mistake like that, so she took her time. Tim understood and memorized the spell eventually, and once he did, he casted it on himself immediately. He had to handle a long, spoken-word spell, and these were the kind of spells that he had to believe in himself in order for them to work, so it took him a while to mentally prepare for that. He had to bring himself in a very sour, emotional state, in order to believe in the spell, and he also started depending on it in a very desperate manner. He then casted, "My will is but mana, and mana is life! I call upon the gods to bless me with purity, even if punishment is the means to my end!" The gods were really responsive, or at least, the spell was. In response to the spell, every fraction of Tim's body started twitching! Throughout these first few seconds of distress, he figured out that magic could be extremely physical, even though that was hypocritical to magic as a name itself. "Fucking hell… I'm steaming!" Tim muttered, as he noticed that he was even making the waters warmer, at least by a few degrees. The mana quality upgrade was taking a real physical toll on him, but the reason behind it was at least a little bit logical. Mana was a magical substance that had to be stored, and processed through organic bodies, as that was how mana typically worked in this world. With that said, the upgrade was simply preparing Timothy's organic body to accept a better quality of mana. His veins may be twitching, his muscles and organs may be changing forever, but if he was successful with this upgrade, then he'd be able to harbor a better quality of mana as a result. It was a tough process, but the results promised multiple rewards and advantages! Tim twitched for about five minutes, and then the twitching and bodily spasms stopped. His pain halved immediately, but now, he couldn’t move all that much. Timothy's body remained dormant for a moment, until suddenly, he started radiating a luscious, blue light! The light would've been blinding originally, but he buried himself in sand for the same reason. The sand was coating most of the blue light which he was radiating, and this in turn provided him with a simple advantage; Mainly, the mana quality upgrade session could go on without any interruptions! It was really advantageous that he wasn’t to be interrupted, as he wouldn’t be able to protect himself in the slightest. Tim couldn't concentrate much, as the burden of this upgrade was both crippling and overwhelming. He didn’t want to remain like this for long, so with every bit of strength he could muster, Tim tried to trick the gods to accept his attempt at a mana upgrade, even if he had to pretend like he was begging them along the way! He could put up an act.
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I'm a Stingray? Chapter 32 - Rustic Mana upgrade
Tim endured various bodily challenges. The mana upgrade session was very tough on his body, as it basically was a painful restructuring of everything that slushed under his flesh. Although the said restructuring wasn’t too drastic on its own, it and its definition was still spiteful against mother nature, and in exchange, mother nature knocked Tim out two times, through raw pain alone! He didn't have fun.The whole process wasn’t easy, not at all, but at last, he was seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The upgrade was nearing its end, and from the looks of it, he survived it, as the gods believed his plea for power, or, supposedly they did. Tim thought that the spell itself had been humiliating, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t one who preached the contents of that spoken-word spell all that much, he wasn’t a worshiper, so he could live this humiliation down eventually! He progressed, and that was what mattered the most.However, he was still really angry! So after a few sessio
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The risks that Tim took, came hand-to-hand with advantages. The quality of his mana was greater now, so he managed to pave an escape route for himself as a result. He beamed through the waters at an astounding speed!Tim swam low, pretty close to the sea-floor even, so he managed to escape the danger zone successfully. The sharks didn’t notice the commotion he caused across the waters, and since his mana pool was scarce of points too, they couldn’t smell the mana on him either. The scent on him wasn’t noticeable, not at all.“Peww… I made it. Fuck those sharks, I ain’t fighting them, and odds are that they’ll never find me either.” He mumbled.Tim had reached the coral reef in seconds, and he was relieved. He had swum towards safety, with the aid of his flaming fins ability, which had allowed him to swim at a speed of up to 24 km/h! This part of the experience was intense, due to numerous reasons. The said speed was the reason why he had caused a tiny commotion across the waters a mo
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I'm a Stingray? Chapter 38 - %?
Timothy didn't expect to communicate with this green, dragon-shaped entity whatsoever. In fact, he hadn't communicated with any entity at all so far, so he was surprised when this green one answered his call. Of course, he was the one who provoked the green one to begin with, but he was still surprised!He thought, “Well shit…”This situation was a bit of a surprise, so he didn’t really know what to do. He felt stumped at first, but within seconds, he figured that the best plan here was for him just to act natural, this was his solution. He only had to be himself, in order to manipulate the situation to his favor!Tim only had to annoy the entity, so he then transmitted a very coherent thought, citing. “You heard me right, and I won't be taking anything back, green weirdo. Mana is your sun, huh? That's nothing new in our magical world, so don't consider yourself holy and shit, don't act all unique, cuz you're just another stupid ghost, hahaha!”The idea was to irritate the entity as m
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 39 - 382%
[Congratulations, Timothy. According to my calculations, you've had a 382% growth in bodily size. Something that's worth pointing out, is that this increase in size didn't go parallel with your previous bodily statistics. Specifically, a good portion of the growth sprout was concentrated on your body-weight, for balance's sake, you’re pretty heavy now. The crab meat really knew what it was doing.] The system said.Tim was still feeling an adrenaline rush, so he didn’t process the other's words so carefully, no. He focused on a couple of things only, specifically, the aspects of the upgrade that he didn’t like, and he formed a question based on that.He asked, “So the crab meat made me really chubby? That's nothing to be happy about, system!”Slowly and punctually, the system explained. [Actually no, that's not what I meant. The sprout focused on your body weight, because otherwise you would end up looking really weird. You used to weigh a pound only, and a 382% increase in weight isn'
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Chapter 370 - Dark Moon
“Freedom… it outweighs everything in the world, be it mana or gold.” She thought, as she breathed in the crisp air at the crack of dawn.Fortana was up in the sky, along with her dragon, and she was now about forty-kilometers away from the City of Fik. She decided to leave the city for a short while, for two reasons.Firstly, she and her team were stuck in the city for an undetermined amount of time. Timothy said that they’d be stuck in the City of Fik for around a month, but she figured that they’d be stuck there for several months, and she could not remain stationary for that long. She spent most of her life stuck in the Dungeons of the Old, and now that she had gotten a taste for freedom, she could simply not remain in one place for long, otherwise she would either sink into depression, or suffer through wave after wave of anxiety. She didn’t like it.The second reason why she left the city was primarily related to her self-absorbed need to improve her arsenal. Most Expert Mages ha
Chapter 369 - Bored
The eight-hundred Expert Mages that joined the frontline were quite capable. They were very useful on the count that Timothy and his team spent a few hours nudging them in the right direction, and once they got a hang of what to do, there was no stopping them!Ten more shapeshifted Ancient Sea Orcs had tried to attack the city before sunset, and the Expert Mages, otherwise known as the city's soldiers, had killed them all! They killed them without losing a single man or woman in the exchange of attacks.They discovered that the giant orcs had this odd ability to toss exploding fireballs around almost randomly, but they worked around it. Ten mages shot fireballs at the giants to overwhelm them, essentially blind them, and then twenty mages snuck below the line of fire, and froze the giants solid! This method worked like a charm, and Timothy had helped them develop it, so the mages didn't lose arms and legs during their many fights.The dark giants helped them. Fortana insisted for the
Chapter 368 - 800 Expert Mages
Timothy needed about ten minutes to explain to Cornelius everything that had happened over the past hour. It was quite difficult to explain such a complex matter to a man that did not care, but he got through to him eventually. At the end, Cornelius bluntly added, “I understand. You accidentally killed what, like five-hundred soldiers? It happens.”Furthermore, he added, “But if you want to mask your mistake properly, you best add a couple more frozen giants. You can sell your story easier to the city officials if you say that five giants went neck to neck with the city’s best mages.”“Right,” Tim nodded, and then he communicated with Fortana telepathically, and got the tip across to her, even though she was forty meters away. “Add two more frozen giants. It’ll be more believable.”While Fortana got into work, he turned to Cornelius, and asked, “You don’t care about this city at all, do you? Genuine question. Are you only loyal to yourself?”“I’m only loyal to my pool progression, an
Chapter 367 - Ablutions
“What the hell was that! Aren’t your giants supposed to be under your control?” Tim pressured.Rattled, Fortana answered, “They are under my control. However, if hundreds of people charge at them, they’re gonna defend themselves no matter what I say. Those stupid bastards dug their own grave.”“We have a big problem here,” He said. “Anyone who can put two and two together will think that we killed the soldiers. We cannot afford to be banished from the city.”Fortana was aware of that, and for a moment she felt helpless, however she then came up with an idea that sounded plausible. She swiftly created a giant, one that looked a lot like the Ancient Sea Orcs that they’ve been killing, but she avoided giving life to the giant, and just froze it in place.Afterwards she created two more of these replicas, and placed all of them in front of the soldiers along with the first, frozen giant. By all means, she was trying to fake a battle scene.“There you go,” She said. “The sea orcs froze the
Chapter 366 - 10 Dark Giants x 700 Humans
The barricade of ice that Timothy had created was holding strong. Now the barricade wasn’t much taller than the sea itself, but it was dense, it reached almost at the bottom of the ocean for the most part, so it was a great tool in terms of keeping the Ancient Sea Orcs away. The ice barricade may even last several days, on the count that the temperature around, and within the ice was quite low. The mild summer rays would need days to melt through it.Anyway, Timothy had hoped that the system would inform him that he had successfully killed one of these sea orcs, through the barricade alone. He was hoping that he had frozen one of them solid, but this did not appear to be the case.By all odds, any of the remaining sea orcs who originally planned to walk their way out of the sea, were scared off as soon as the temperature of the water around them dropped significantly. When Timothy thought about the matter this way, he further confirmed his theory that the creatures he was dealing wit
Chapter 365 - Hydro, tainting
Timothy initially wanted to take the battle to the sea, and kill every last Ancient Sea Orc out there. That was his idea this morning, however, they had barely thought about what they would do if the sea orcs brought the battle up here beyond the shores!It was normal that they hadn’t thought about it, because in a normal situation, sea creatures shouldn't walk. It wasn’t natural. Timothy was dumbfounded, however, he also understood that it was imperative that he and the team stayed here, in front of the beach, so as to prevent any remaining sea orc from attacking the City of Fik. They had to stay, until backup arrived.Today, the city had proved themselves utterly unprepared when it came to managing a disaster. It was evident, so the team couldn’t, in good conscience, leave their spot until a bunch of soldiers arrived here on the beach, and manned the frontline. “Don't be discouraged, guys.” Tim tried to motivate his team. “Remember all the gold we're gonna make. At the very least,
Chapter 364 - Timothy Tentacles
The team killed a shapeshifted Ancient Sea Orc a moment ago, and they were proud of it, as the battle had been swift, and their moves were effective. However, they did not expect to see four more of these giant monsters pop out of the sea! They were petrified.“Dragons, cover fire!” Timothy yelled out again.The dragons understood what those words meant now, so they didn’t have to be taught as much this time around in order for them to contribute. They started blasting fireballs towards the giants, and even though it was more difficult to push all four of them away, the contribution the dragons were putting into the battle was worthwhile! If not anything more, it served as a great distraction. Timothy then gathered his team of goblins, and the two giants that were also on his team, them being Garry and Gustav, and then they rushed into battle! The giants were less than forty meters away from them, and they wanted to take control of the situation before these monsters got the chance t
