Chapter 8 - Semi-automatic Stingray!

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.

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.