"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 than hunt pelicans. Don't waste time, Timothy!] "Fair, fair." He nodded along. Tim didn't care about pelicans to begin with, but rather, in his own way, he asked a trick question. He wanted to know if his soul could fly out of the sea, and apparently, it could. He was so excited about that, because in a weird way, if he got out of the water today, then he could embrace his human upbringing a bit more! He'd love that. So far, he swam through salt for less than a day, and he was already sick of it! Tim craved to be on land, or at least out of the water, at least for a little while. His human soul craved it more than anything else! With all of that considered, the following steps were a no-brainer. He had to buy this fourth option first, and then check out every other option in due time! He didn't care about the other upgrade options as much. He said, "I want to fly, system, give me the good stuff! Don't worry, I won't bother any pelicans." [Confirmed,] The system said. A moment later, the waters around him suddenly stirred up. A white, aura-like entity surrounded him just for a few seconds, and throughout that time-bracket, it spun around him so quickly, that it stirred up a little, visible dust cloud! That was about it, this upgrade wasn't as intense. It wasn't painful like the previous upgrade, for example, but it was spooky! Thankfully, it even disappeared before things could get uncomfortable to the slightest. Tim was fine, he wasn't feeling any pain, and the system came along with a relieving message quickly after. While the dust-cloud calmed down, she said. [The upgrade was implemented successfully, and it took 40 of your system points in exchange. Now, 24 system points remain in your total sum.] "That's… not a lot, but I did buy two cool things, so it's okay." He muttered. After this point, he felt the urge to activate this new ability right away, he was enthralled to do so. He needed a bunch of points anyway, and since this new ability promised points, then there was virtually no reason to avoid giving this ability a shot. Tim was ready to separate his own soul from this little stingray body! The system encouraged him too, ever since the beginning, but now she had to give him a couple of warnings. One warning was about the dangers, and the other warning was for the sake of efficiency. Tim couldn't waste any time, no matter what the circumstances were. She said, [Timothy, if you want to try out this new ability, I have two suggestions. First, find the best hiding spot possible, because quite literally, anything can eat you or hurt you, while you're in that hibernation-like state.] "Right," He nodded, "That makes sense." The system felt that Tim wasn’t listening, so she insisted. [It's imperative that you hide properly, because if your body gets destroyed while you're in this explorative mode, then your soul can't return to it. You'd have to find a new, non-occupied body, which is a really rare occurrence, it's less than achievable!] "Well shit," He muttered, "I'll bury myself as best as I can, then… sharks can't get in here either, so I should be fine for a while. What's the second thing, though?" [Other souls can attack you,] She said, [Although that won't hurt your body directly, it still has negative sides. If your soul receives enough damage, it would be sent back here into your stingray body. After that, you'd have to go through a cooldown timer, before you can explore again. Try not to get banished too quickly, it would be really inefficient.] "Okay, well that's not so bad, then. Banished or not, at least I'll be alive." He followed along, and continued to bury himself within the sand of his den. He didn't want to suffocate, and from what he understood, as long as a third of his head was out of the sand, then he'd be fine. Tim didn't have any room for mistakes right now, rather, he only had room to reap points! Progress was inevitable, and he was willing to chase it. After Tim covered himself with sand, he said. "System, I'm gonna sleep now… when I wake up, I better be flying." This wasn't a threat, it was quite the opposite. He didn’t know how to 'hibernate' himself and hoped that the system would cover that part. The system did as she was asked, it was her job after all; Tim sunk into that hibernation-like state, in no time at all! … "Bloody hell, when did another stingray get in here?" Tim panicked. He woke up, and saw a light-blue stingray's head, right underneath him. This scared him shitless at first, but a moment later, he caught up with what was going on! "Holy shit, that’s me!" He exclaimed, and then celebrated. "It worked, muhahaha!" [Indeed,] The system added, [You're free to explore, as far as your soul permits.] "You'll be joining me too, huh?" He asked, and right then, he noticed that his soul had a mostly transparent, light-blue color. [Of course,] The system answered, [I am embalmed in your soul, for good, you can't get away from me, hehe. Okay now pay attention… as a wandering soul, you'll have a different health bar. It's called an 'essence bar' and you only have thirty points of it, so, if you lose those thirty points in battle or anything like that, your soul will return straight to your body! So, be careful.] That was a lot to take in, all at once, but Tim felt ready nonetheless. He felt agile, and had this intense urge to explore the world. If the sea had explosive urchins, then he couldn't wait to see what interesting things the rest of the world had! In excitement, he started floating right through the coral, to head towards the water's surface, as quickly as he could! Moments later, however, the system gave him another warning. She said, [Timothy, your body back there is equipped to stay two days at most, without food, you should know that. Try to keep track of time, or else your stingray body could starve itself to death!] "Okie dokie," He said, and finally escaped the sea.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.
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
What Timothy was about to do, took a lot of guts. He was about to encounter that big mako-shark, and this encounter could end up badly, but he was simply mesmerized by the idea of ‘special crabs’! He wanted them.He found the shark lurking about fifty meters away from the reef, and then approached him. Tim felt uncomfortable about this plan, but he had to get close in order to catch the shark’s attention."Hey, flame-ass! Harold the eel needs your help, he sent me to find you!" He shouted.However, a stingray’s vocal cords were very limited, so he couldn't make any loud noises. For that matter, he had to approach even closer, and then yell out once more. He called out, “Hey, fish face! Harold needs your help! Can you hear me?”Tim was about ten meters away from the shark now, and this was as close as he could get. If he swam any closer, then Drake the shark may attack, and he surely didn’t want to get bitten today. Thankfully though, the shark seemed to have heard him. It turned aro
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
Tim woke up after about five hours, and he was fully rested. However, the recent upgrades have tampered with his body quite a bit, so he felt really weird right now. He felt lighter, quicker, and had this urge to explore the seas and hunt anything that moved! This was how he usually behaved, yes, but today this behavior was amped up tenfold for some odd reason! Tim felt powerful and capable, but thankfully, the coral that surrounded him managed to cage his deadly enthusiasm. He couldn’t move much down here, and while he tried to slip out of the coral layers he had hid in, he found the infinite wisdom to calm himself down. Well, his wisdom was very finite actually, but that was not the point. The point was that he could reason with himself a lot more now, it was fascinating! In due time, Tim figured out what was happening with himself; This jolting temperament had something to do with the brain upgrade he had, just a few hours ago, he was sure of it!
Tim was astounded by the concept of magic. The fact that it was available in this world, was the only thing that kept him from being suicidal. This world simply promised a lot! The talk about magic brought back some memories, even, he said. “A protective spell, huh? I think you mean a deflective spell, system. When I was a human, I remember playing a video game of some sort, one about dragons, and it had a bunch of these deflective spells, they were pretty cool.” Tim was feeling nostalgic, it was difficult not to be. However, the system snapped him out of it right away, as she made another promise. [Video games? Oh, they’re available in this world too, in the mildly advanced civilizations at least. This world is very vast, and it’s difficult to get into a good civilization, however, if you do get into one, then you can play plenty of video games there. The highly advanced civilizations have even better games, hyper-realistic ones.] The s
Tim was intrigued by the new purchase options. He and the system discussed them for a long time, just so he could pick the best option there was. They came to the conclusion that the cheapest upgrades were the best option, as though they weren't as effective as the rest of the upgrades, they still were the most accessible! Accessibility, on its own, was really useful in terms of ensuring survival. Tim was convinced about what he was supposed to buy, and now, there was only the matter of getting system points, a bunch of them. For safety's sake, he waited until dawn, just so he could see and analyze his surroundings better, as it was really stupid to hunt in the dark, and he simply wanted to avoid getting killed. Tim took a couple of naps, just to kill some time, and when it was finally the break of dawn, he emerged from within the protective layers of the coral reef. Tim swam for a few meters, and then mumbled. "God damn… I am really hung
Tim searched the reef for any other kind of creature for him to kill. His belly was full, so he wasn't really desperate for food, but he did need to gather up a bunch of points! The panzer crabs he had killed gave him plenty of points, yes, but they weren't enough. Some of the upgrades were really expensive, and if he was to afford them, then there was no benefit in slowing down right now. Tim wanted to hunt for a few more hours at least, and then get back to those panzer crabs afterwards, once he got really tired. The idea was to get points, and then to find a safe spot where he could rest afterwards. He could eat a few mouthfuls of crab meat as well, to encourage his growth sprout. If the area near the crabs was safe enough, then he planned to buy an upgrade or two as well. There were a lot of things on his plate today, but he didn’t mind it. Tim enjoyed working under pressure, it gave him this overwhelming, and constant adrenaline rush