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 sessions of getting knocked out, he finally woke up, and then started screaming. He yelled as much as a stingray could yell, and the sudden complaints he had were rather creative. He yelled out, “Fuck this shit! What kinda god thought that it was fun to punish mages who just wanna be better? I hate those kinky bastards, they're gross! Disgusting!” Afterwards, he arose from the sand, and immediately looked for Ortana the stingray. He recalled bringing her here, all for the sake of hiding her from the brewing dangers which floated from above. Naturally, he now expected to see her again. Tim looked for her briefly, and figured out that she was not here. She had escaped for some reason, and left Timothy to fend for himself here, in this unprotected, very fragile hole in the ground. If the sharks had discovered him, they would’ve eaten him alive, without fighting much in order to do so. Anyway, regardless of those faint hints of betrayal, Tim still wanted to remain trusting towards that lady. He figured that it would be too much to ask of a stranger, to risk her life for him out here; It was absurd, so he wasn’t really upset with her. Instead, he thought. “At least she upgraded her own mana, I think? She then probably took off when she got the chance, so… maybe the sharks are gone too?” Tim wanted to think positively about Ortana, positively only, because she had been really helpful to him before. For that matter, he peeked out of the hole, and wanted to figure out if his conclusions were right. He figured that if the sharks were gone already, then Ortana hadn’t really left him for dead out here, but instead, she may have gotten bored waiting for him to wake up. It was a possibility. He peeked out, and then unfortunately stood corrected, he was wrong. The sharks were still floating around, so Ortana had most likely escaped this place out of desperation! She had likely felt threatened here, and therefore escaped immediately. “I wouldn’t ditch her, that's not how I roll… but at least she didn’t kill me. She could have stolen a bunch of my powers when I was knocked out, but she didn’t. Now that's a friend, a goodish friend.” He thought. Tim was being positive, and at this point he was even leaning towards the delusional side in terms of positively, but he really didn’t want another enemy right now. He didn’t want to end up fighting another Harold-like character for the sake of honor and vendetta, or stuff like that, this was less than ideal. Instead, he focused on surviving this mess, or what was left of this mess. The sharks were still lurking around the mana roots for some reason, and he figured that this had to be a bad thing, somehow. The roots were supposed to be empty, and dried out of mana by now, so he didn’t understand why the sharks were still here, they were uncomfortably near the roots! He was stumped. Tim floated out of the hole again, until he got about a foot away from it this time, just to have a better look of what was going on. He was nervous about doing this, but he had to do something, as he couldn’t afford to wait here for hours on end. He took a peek, and then thought. “I don't smell any mana… so maybe these fuckers are upgrading their mana quality too?” Just as he thought about that, he then came to a sudden realization, one which made him panic a little bit. He hid right back in the hole, just so he could get excited about his realization, without risking his life. “I can smell mana now?!” He panicked. That was when the system followed along, as she transmitted a message in his head, which shed light on this phenomenon. She answered his question. [You bear Rustic mana now, Timothy, and it promises numerous perks. You can smell mana now, regardless if it resides in a mana root, a human, or your average flappy fish. So, congratulations, the insane risks you took were worth it!] She said. “That's nice,” He said, “So what other shit did I get? What else can I do with this rustic mana of mine?” The system, in her infinite wisdom, naturally bore a list. She had a list of all the recent benefits which Tim won over, and she showed this list to him. He could read them out clearly. “So… my powers cost more mana to cast now, huh? That's the last thing I wanted.” He muttered, after he read through a portion of the virtual list. [You understood that wrong, Timothy. It's more costly for you to use your powers now, yes, but that is so because of a very good reason. As of now, your powers are four times better than they were before, much stronger, so to say.] She followed along. Afterwards, she also added. [Besides, you can generate 80 points of mana an hour now, all by yourself. You won't be as dependent on mana roots as you were prior to this upgrade, you don't need to hunt for roots as much now. The upgrade is pretty balanced.] With that said, Tim came to another realization. He didn’t need to figure out what the sharks were doing, no. Instead, he just had to wait here for another hour, just so he could replenish more of his mana. His body could produce it naturally, and he figured that the sharks wouldn't be able to pick up on the scent of his mana, if the amount remained under one-hundred points. He wanted to replenish his mana just a little bit, and then dash towards the reef later on! If he was lucky enough, the sharks won't notice him whatsoever. Even if they did, odds were that he was more than likely to outswim them, because his flaming fins ability for example, was four times as strong now! He was really eager to put his powers to the test.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
Timothy wasn’t the brightest fish in the world, not by a stretch, but under any hostile circumstances, he knew what had to be done. He listened to the system, and bought the upgrade that she recommended. Since he could afford it too, there was virtually no reason for him to avoid this upgrade.The extingus breath upgrade, was implemented into his arsenal of powers in a snap. It was quick and painless!The system confirmed, [The extingus breath upgrade, has been implemented into your body successfully. You can now shield yourself from a certain degree of elemental powers, which in this world, is a very good attribute to have, congratulations.]Furthermore, she said. [The upgrade cost you 600 system points, so now a total of 70 points remain in your sum. The upgrade was expensive, admittedly, but that's only because you recently upgraded the quality of your mana also. I have adjusted the upgrade and it's power-volume, for it to fit that said, rustic mana quality.]Tim liked the sound of
Tim floated into a colorful, ghostly cloud. The average fish or even mammal for that matter, wouldn’t be able to see this cloud with their naked eyes because the cloud was virtually invisible, it wasn’t meant to be seen by physical creatures. However, he was traveling around as a soul right now, and he was exploring the world to find specific clouds like this one.The air was rich with these gas-like clouds that only souls or ghosts could see. In other words, whoever floated out here, floated around either because they had to, or because they were in a hunt for phantomized mana, in order to strengthen themselves. Phantom magic was a branch of magic itself, after all, so mere souls urged to cultivate the quality of their phantom mana, all for power’s sake!Tim managed to find a purple, gaseous cloud, and since the color of it was so thick, he unsurprisingly found phantomized mana in there. His soul started absorbing the mana right away, and in turn, the same cloud’s rich color, started
Timothy's soul was enslaved. He did not like it, no, but there were also certain aspects that worked to his favor. For example, he didn’t have to worry about flying anymore, because he couldn't control where he moved towards. Now that seemed like a bad thing in hindsight, but since he was a lazy and greedy guy, he could really abuse this situation!In simple words, he could explore the skies, without putting in any effort in himself. He'd figure out where gaseous, mana-filled clouds were located, for example, without having to look for them himself. These slithering plague snakes that enslaved him, were bound to fly across some of the said clouds eventually, and Tim, in turn, would figure out where these precious clouds were!This way, he was bound to be rich in phantomized mana, by amount, it was inevitable, that is, if the said clouds were too huge for these snakes to harvest. He didn’t care about the smaller clouds.Furthermore, as far as he understood, even though these snakes ens
Tim and his slave masters noticed a huge entity. The entity wasn’t only big, it looked really weird too, and from what he could understand, these ghostly snakes feared the said entity a lot! Even though the snakes were transparent, he could see how they in a way, shivered in fear!He couldn’t help thinking, “Hmm… maybe this can be my way out, towards freedom, cause these fuckers look really scared. It’s weird that they are scared, because this big motherfucker looks a lot like them, except it's green. I’m no scientist, but maybe she’s their mother, a big ass mother or something? It's possible.” There were a lot of things to think about here. Tim was not a thinker inherently, so his conscience was really strained right now as he tried to figure things out. The said, green entity wasn’t making any sudden moves either, so he didn’t really know what to make of this encounter, as he was not in danger. He could only guess that this encounter was either parental, or hostile, but that on its
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
[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'
“There is, huh? Looks like there's a fucking upgrade for everything!” Tim partially celebrated.He was also angry, however, so he then added. “Why didn't you tell me about the upgrade before, instead of making me eat a bunch of panzer crabs just to get bigger!?”[The upgrade wouldn't have done you any good before,] The system answered, [It's pretty expensive, and it can only make your body smaller than it already is. The upgrade wouldn't help you become larger, and it would have stunted your already impressive progress. I'm sure you would've wasted a lot of time, if you went around fighting bacterias rather than mages.]Tim was still irritated, however, he was also somewhat reasonable, he embraced common sense. He didn’t argue with the system, but instead, he became solution oriented about the issue.He asked, “Okay then… how much am I supposed to pay for the upgrade?”Tim asked that question while he swam. The situation he was in had multiple problems, and thanks to these problems, h
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-
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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