“The open waters were no joke!” Tim exclaimed, as he tended to a bunch of kids within the sect.He wanted to give them a fun story, as Marlo requested such, so he then added. “There are hundreds of fish out there, thousands of them that we can eat, but they’re crazy as shit! There’s no fighting them, so stay here, and listen to your elders until you grow big and strong… or at least until you can shapeshift into something bigger, cuz the oceans aren’t so friendly towards tiny fish. I know all about that first hand, I used to be very tiny too!”The small fish (some older than others) loved his over-dramatic storytelling, but at some point, he had to put an end to those same stories. There was a lot going on here, in the sect, so he didn't want to waste anyone's time. He didn’t want to distract these folks.That aside, he was yet to see Ortana, a female stingray whom he considered to be a lousy traitor! It was imperative to meet her, so he wanted to spend a moment looking around for her.
“The green stuff drives fish mad, yes.” Tim emphasized, “Anti-mana thing is no joke, then, but is there a cure to it, Marlo, a fix? I wasted a lot of meat today, because I couldn’t eat all those crazy dolphins that I ended up killing, and now, I can see that you're losing your home too, all because of this anti-mana shit! It’s no fun, and that's why we need to do something. Is there a fix to this?”“We’re already doing something about it, we're fixing it.” Marlo said. Afterwards, he went into more detail about what some would consider a rather boring topic. The topic itself wasn’t entirely boring, but for one to understand the concept of anti-mana thoroughly, a one-hour long lecture was mandatory. Marlo didn’t hesitate to lecture the other, regarding everything one needed to know about anti-mana, or at least everything that he knew of, so that was exactly what Marlo did. Tim listened to what Marlo had to yap on about, and at the end, he was confident to boast about remembering a who
[Congratulations, Timothy. You found me some information about all that ‘green stuff’ and therefore, you completed system task number six!] The system suddenly announced.Tim did not expect this. In fact, he had completely forgotten about this specific task, and had spammed Marlo with questions about the anti-mana, only out of curiosity! He hadn't done it for points, or for the task’s sake, not nearly.For that matter, he was in a mild shock, when the system then further announced. [Due to the completion of this task, you've won 250 points as a reward. So as of now, you've accumulated a total of 3,263 points.]“That's nice,” He added, “I should take a moment to spend all those, right? I have this nagging feeling that I'm running behind on upgrades, it’s a really annoying feeling.”[In an imperfect world, you'd be far behind, yes. But this is a perfect world, in a magical aspect, at least.] She followed along.Furthermore, she added. [You need to remember, every upgrade offered from my
Things went down within seconds, trouble multiplied as the enemy attack enveloped into something greater! Marlo and the sect had tried to form both a defensive and offensive line in order to protect what they held near and dear, but that wasn’t enough. The sect was literally within a rock and a tight spot, as a proverb would encourage. The green-coated enemies weren't as reckless as one would imagine them to be, no. They pierced within the lines of defenses (and offenses) with minimal casualties along the way, their efficiency was terrifying! The attackers barely suffered any losses, and this itself was very concerning, because it said a thing or two about the power they were packing! There were just a few lifeless bodies floating around here and there, and most of these bodies didn’t belong to the enemies either.These attackers dismembered rather powerful sect members, whose mana quality had been up to level three! This hinted that the enemies didn’t want to fight to begin with, b
Tim endured quite the explosion there. The lair had been blown to bits, and he would've suffered a similar fate, if the system hadn't used every fraction of a second to get him out of trouble! She saved his life, and although this seemed uncharacteristic from the system's side, she still did so, her success was radiant. She saved his life, in exchange for tens of mana points; That’s all she took throughout her intervention.Tim couldn’t care less about the mana points. Sooner or later, he could replenish any mana he lost, naturally even, so it was more important that he was alive to do so, he didn’t complain. Most of the sect didn't have the same luck as him, after all, and he could see that. The sect members were vaporized by that explosion, they were dead, while Tim himself, he only withstood a bit of damage, he was in one piece.“My belly is fucking steaming…” He naturally complained, but then he thought. “Then again, my belly was burning for food a few hours ago, so steaming can't
Tim had quite the day. He wouldn’t have ever guessed that he would have to endure such an explosion, at any point of the day, and yet he did experience it, endure it, and survived it too! Though he survived it, he was still shaken to the core! The extreme attributes of this experience had scarred him mentally, and there wasn’t much he could do about that either, other than live with it. He had to endure the shock and trauma of it all!Life at sea wasn’t designed for the weak, after all, and come to think of it, it wasn’t entirely designed to serve the strong either, as the anti-mana had so visually proven, as it killed some of the strongest fish within the sect, in a split second! The surviving members, who were supposed to be pretty tough, were equally terrified without a doubt. They felt a fear that they had abandoned a long time ago, this explosion had revived their fear, and it was to stay in their conscience for good! John the barracuda, thought. “We shouldn’t have been that vul
Tim was more than enthralled to spend a bunch of points right now. He wanted to implement the durability upgrade in his body immediately, because the literal explosion that he survived a couple of hours ago motivated him to do so. He was petrified, and wanted to feel safer once more!He thought, “I need upgrades, immediately. Hell, I might get paralyzed for a day or so, it could happen? I don't remember if durability upgrades hurt, maybe they do, but that’s a risk I'll have to take! Shit… I can't mess around and ignore this upgrade for too long, that would be dangerous as shit.”This was perhaps the best time to buy an upgrade too, as the team of ten were resting right now. They had found a five-meter wide cave to hide in, and odds were that they wanted to stay here for a few hours, to replenish their mana, mainly, and to hide away from any and all danger for a while. Tim planned to use this break to his advantage.He sank within the sand, to act like he was resting, and then he went
“Sex appeal, huh? Wasn’t it level zero before? I specifically remember being embarrassed about that level.” Tim followed along. He barely understood why fish needed to have sexual-appeal levels to begin with, so it was difficult to follow along with what the system had to say. Furthermore, the offer she made wasn't as appealing as she thought, because he was still pretty young and couldn’t care less about being more appealing to other fish, especially in a sexual manner. The system picked up on his train of thought, so she then corrected the other, she said. [You bear the body of an adult now, Timothy, that’s how growth sprouts work in this world. With that considered, certain hormones will settle in your body in the following weeks, and in order to cooperate with these hormones, you need an adequate sex appeal level, to do your bidding. Buy this upgrade now, boy, don’t leave it for later.]While Timothy pondered over what she said, the system then also answered his first question.
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