2024-10-18 19:58:19Tim 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. He didn't feel anything bad, but instead, he could suddenly see the dense cloud dissipating! Its rich pink color faded away quickly, as Tim had apparently swallowed this cloud wholly, just by flying into it. He got very confused, and grunted. "Huh… Were those system points or some shit? Is this how hunting works?" Almost immediately, the system answered. [No, that was just a cloud of phantomized mana. You reaped every ounce of it, and you'll definitely need this kind of mana.] "Oh, so ghosts have magical powers too? Yeah, that makes sense." Tim nodded his transparent head along. The system didn't have to describe things any further, because he experienced the power of this special mana immediately. He suddenly got this urge to shoot stuff, and then, right in front of his head, some sort of ball which was filled with magic, appeared and shot out randomly, across the sky! The ball was a foot wide, and it beamed across the air very quickly! Its confidence was as rich as its silvery color, Tim was impressed. "Well damn, that looks so cool! Did you see how it spun, system? It looked like a damn fighter jet for a little while!" He exclaimed. Tim was as excited as a child, which at this point was difficult to excuse, because his soul was that of a full-grown human's. He was excited beyond bounds, and couldn't wait to figure out what other kinds of powers that his mere, stingray-shaped soul had. He shot a couple of other magical balls, just for the fun of it. Immediately after, he was scolded by the system. [Don't be wasteful with your phantomized mana, Timothy! It's not limitless, and although that cloud which you dried out was dense with mana, you're still making expensive shots right now. These balls of 'silver razors' you're shooting, are very rich in color, and therefore, really rich in mana.] She said. The system took the initiative to explain that magic system as thoroughly as she could, because clearly, what Tim just did was a bit clumsy. He was out here to hunt for system points, and therefore, he couldn't afford to waste mana like that. For that matter, she also added. [You have 207 points of phantomized mana left in you, and each 'silver razor' you're shooting, takes 12 points of such mana away from you. Use them sparingly, please.] "Okay, okay, I get it now." Tim said. The system was very logical, he had to agree with it no matter what he thought. Though as far as math was concerned, he was oblivious to the fact that he just wasted thirty-six phantomized mana points, for fun. He ignored the math, even, and floated around the sky as happily as an unsupervised child would. There was more across the sky to explore! He spotted an area, perhaps five kilometers away, which seemed like what the system had described before, as a 'ghostly kingdom'. Tim assumed so, because there was an astounding variation of color there, even black, which intertwined with one another! From afar, it seemed as if three rainbows had clashed with one another; Scary, but beautiful. Tim wanted to go there, but the more he traveled, the further away this 'presumed kingdom' appeared. He flew for ten minutes, and got really irritated already! Even the clouds of mana were farther than he assumed they were, he couldn’t reach any of them. Now, he understood why the system scolded him about mana, because as it would appear, it was really lucky to run into a dense cloud of mana to begin with! "Bloody hell," Tim grunted, like a fish. "I should get back home… there's nothing for me out here, I'm too slow." His enthusiasm about this whole, 'explorative soul' business had dimmed down quite a bit. He was irritated, bored of flying, and grew this sudden urge to bite things. Of course, he couldn’t bite anyone right now, because he assumed the form of a transparent soul. Though, his aggressive attitude still idled by, it was there. Tim traveled for five more minutes, just for the fun of it, but then suddenly, he spotted what could've been mistaken, as a fast-flying flock of pelicans! A wide, pipe-like line of white, faded out souls flew off right in front of him. Well, it was about fifty meters away from him, but the scene was still accelerating and all the more terrifying! If he had flown across that spot, two seconds ahead of time, then his soul would've been destroyed! Tim didn't know what to think about this fast-traveling line of seemingly infinite souls, but the system on the other hand, had a thing or two to say. She exclaimed, [Shoot at them, Timothy!] He was confused for a moment, but, since this all-knowing system encouraged him to go rogue, then he had no reason to fight the urge at all. Tim started shooting 'silver razors' of mana against the crowd, as quickly and as recklessly as he could! Tim shot several razors within five seconds, and as he did so, the quality of his attacks decreased. That latter part wasn't entirely a bad thing, because his shots were still taking out handfuls of tiny souls at a time! The quality of the 'razors' decreased, yes, but in total, he should be able to shoot about thirty times! At some point, he even started laughing like a villain about it. "Muhuhaha, die, sperm souls!" The solid system points he won along the way, encouraged him to deplete every bit of phantomized mana he had. The system kept spamming him with notifications about the system points he won over, which in a sense, made Timothy feel high! He was on a murder spree, and shot 'silver razors' as if he was an automatic weapon! However, this spree met with an end. From within that crowd of seemingly migrating souls, a massive ball of fire shot out. Now Tim didn't know if it was fire, but the ball of mana got to him, as soon as he depleted his own phantomized mana. The fireball shot him out of the sky, and depleted his essence-based health bar almost immediately! He was shot down in 'cold blood'. Moments later, he suddenly woke up below the waters. It took little time to figure out that he was a stingray again, a physical form! Tim recognized his den too. "Bloody hell," He cussed, "That was fun… but the system did warn me about this, and now I gotta go through a damn cooldown timer, probably forever… stupid sperm souls!" The system intervened right after, she said. [Don't panic, the cooldown timer only takes a week. That aside, congratulations! Your murder spree was efficient, as you accumulated 192 system points throughout the wild shooting. In total, you have 216 points at your disposal.] "So that's all it took, huh? I had to shoot at stuff… damn, cruel world." He muttered.
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I'm a Stingray? Chapter 9 - Special Crabs?
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
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 10 - Fish Vendetta
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
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 11 - Upgraded Stingray
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
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 12 - Magical Stingray!
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!
I'm a Stingray? Chapter 13 - The great introduction!
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
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I'm a Stingray? Chapter 15 - "I hate you, Harold"
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I'm a Stingray? Chapter 16 - Sardines; Deadly, or not?
"Wow…" Tim gasped in amazement.He was astounded by the idea of magical, mana-oozing roots. He guessed that they'd only make him more powerful, but overall, he also got this explorative, adrenaline rush after hearing about them! This world had so much to offer, so he couldn’t wait to escape his current physical limitations, in order to explore things that were beyond, and greater than magical roots! He was desperately eager.Anyway, the system broke his train of thought shortly after. She announced a little warning. [Timothy, pay attention! Before you go near any roots, you need to unlock your mana pool at first, specifically, the most expensive upgrade available right now. Mana roots excrete mana, and in order for you to harvest it or accumulate it, you need to unlock your mana pool. You don't need to rush on about this task, however, you probably noticed that each of these tasks encourage you to explore the world more, so one way or the other, this hunt will be g
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Chapter 100 - "Eighteen-hundred log bolts a day!"
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-
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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
Chapter 98 - "100 points of mana an hour"
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
Chapter 97 - Flash upgrade!
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
Chapter 96 - The Molten Dwarves!
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
Chapter 95 - "The obsidian towers"
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
Chapter 94 - Stingray ink
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
Chapter 93 - Whistling mana munchers!
“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
Chapter 92 - 0.12 ton Stingray!
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
