Ortana idled around near the entrance of the sect’s lair. One would get intimidated by her presence, especially considering her rotten past, a past which reeked with the severe lack of loyalty, but still it was pointless to fear her. She was a mere stingray, after all, and she didn’t have much firepower on her, if not at all so she couldn’t do any direct harm. Tim was aware of that, so he approached her confidently, and then scolded. “What the hell are you doing here? Who was dumb enough to let you get near the sect?”“John,” The other was quick to answer, and then she pressured. “Watch your tone there, Terrence, I’m a proud member of this sect, so you can’t talk to me like that! You can’t deny my long long membership.”“Don’t lecture me, you left me for dead! I could’ve been eaten by sharks, lady!” He countered.“But you’re not dead, so what are you mad about? You large baby you!” She yelled.Timothy wanted to scream at the lady in response, but he contained himself. Somewhere down
At the break of dawn, Tim, Skendus, and Ortana made their way to the south side of the reef, which was hours away. It was a lengthy journey, but their fins didn't feel the first half of the distance, because they were pretty sleepy. That kept them numb.The other half of the journey felt much more intense to them, however, because they started anticipating danger through every beating second. It was their understanding that the fish which were infected with that green stuff, often made very explosive movements, the anti-mana made them agile like that. They didn't want to get pounced on by a creature of such speed, so they kept an eye on their surroundings at all times, and hoped not to die so randomly!In the spirit of their potential predicament, Tim expressed. “If those motherfuckers managed to make more of those green pools, then we're already dead. They'll have us surrounded in no time!”“So? We'll fight!” Ortana added, uncharacteristically.“We're not the most efficient fighters,
Tim shot at one of the green, tubby fish that had emerged from the pool of anti-mana. He didn’t want to fight this particular battle, because he felt that he would lose, but it wasn’t like he had the option to pick his battles right now. The enemies were attacking the team, and in response, he attacked them as well, by paralyzing one of them with the nerve-splitting ability, his response was immediate! Tim’s attack was pretty effective too. Rabid or not, every creature seems to have responsive, and vulnerable neural nerves. He used that to his utmost advantage, that one fish couldn’t stand a chance! Anyway, since the two sides clashed all within seconds, it wasn’t a surprise how the enemies came up with an interesting attack of their own. They shot out these beams of light that seemed anything but holy!The beams swirled around a lot, as they traveled forwards, they even seemed like ribbons for a split second. The beams traveled very fast, however, so one wouldn’t even notice most o
Timothy had plenty of cognitive challenges in the past, this was a part of his characteristic charm, even, as it was often funny. However, regardless of those challenges, he could still piece some puzzles together very well, and the intelligence upgrade he went through certainly helped him with that matter, it helped him analyze things better, he was more than alert now!Specifically, he could see that a new wave of danger was developing in front of him, and the team! One could even say that he had a seventh sense for these sorts of things, he could very well sniff out any pending danger, especially if it was right in front of their naked eyes! He saw it best to point at the potential danger too, for alertness’ sake.“I’m no exorcist, guys, but there’s a soul floating around over there, and it probably belongs to one of those dead bastards that I just killed. This can’t be peachy, so maybe it’s time we get out of here, because it’s becoming harder and harder to fight these diseased, a
The concept of being resilient to fire and thunder seemed new to Timothy, and it seemed new to Skendus as well. They were aware that plenty of types of defensive magic existed, but this one that Ortana possessed, tipped the bucket in the power-scale! Fire couldn’t hurt them, thunder couldn't hurt them, and that was what helped them feel very special, they felt Immortal. They charged towards the enemies, with every ounce of confidence that immortality could offer to a fish! Tim put those fragile muscles of his into use, and pierced through the waters as efficiently as a disk-shaped fish could pierce it. He was excited, and he was ready to wave his tail around, as his tail was his only weapon for the time being, on the count that he lacked mana. Tim felt devolved when he thought about using his tail to fight, but the situation demanded it so!“Yiaagh!” He let out a battle shout, after two bolts of thunder clashed against his head.The bolts were ineffective, they couldn't stop him! Ti
Tim got his mana back, and so did the rest of the team. However, he felt especially defensive after he heard that loud, and unfortunately sexy, female voice talk to him and the team. He wasn’t so fond of mystery voices, so his senses were heightened, and he planned to shoot anything that moved!“Where are you?!” He demanded to know.“If I tell you that, you’re gonna try to kill me.” She answered, with a soft tease hidden within her tone.The conversations that followed along were mostly just mere, tight-arsed sessions of bickering. Both sides were intimidated by one another, but they were also willing to communicate, and this was what brought them some favorable results! The mystery lady revealed herself, and well, she was a fish, unsurprisingly.The mystery lady was a very blue, damselfish, and her name was Arvena. She was tiny, only about fifteen centimeters long (six inches), which was as small as Tim had been in the beginning, when he had reincarnated, so she was truly tiny, and h
Opportunity and progress often went together hand by hand. Those of the deepest willpower sought out opportunities of any kind, so it wasn’t surprising when their hunger ended up in raw, accelerating progress! In this world that was filled with magic, it was only expected. Timothy, Skendus, and Ortana strode the seas with the same kind of motivation in their minds! They were given a special invite to visit, and roll their lucky dice in this micro-universe called Valporovus, and they accepted the invite right away, of course! This was a universe where mana was supposedly very plentiful, and with that said, it was really easy for one to improve the quality of their mana there, so easy that some may even consider it as cheating!It was fair to treat this opportunity like a cheat-code, due to numerous reasons. For example, it would be a real blessing to escape the god’s punishment realm of mana, there was no debating that! So, if one escaped this realm quicker than others, the process in
Arvena was to guide the team across the micro-universe of Valporovus, she had taken over that responsibility. Now, regarding shapeshifting, she had to lead by example, because she was their guide!Arvena had to show them what a goblin looked like, in detail, in order for her guests to assume that shape accordingly. She started shifting on a spot where the waters were pretty shallow. It was safer to shift in shallow waters, because as her mushy, shifting body became heavier, she only sank a couple of feet below the waters, which wasn’t problematic whatsoever!It only took her a single minute to transform, so she managed to stand up at three feet tall in no time! She was only chest deep in the salt waters, so it was totally manageable for her, it was practically impossible for one to drown here.Anyway, her quick transformation hinted just how powerful she was. Sure she was only a few levels ahead in mana quality, but even that gave her such a grand advantage. Her guests won’t be able t
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