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, which made the reef all the more expansive! So just like that, he got occupied for a solid two hours, within a puny, thirty-meter radius across the reef! He barely reaped any fruits from this labor. There were plenty of fish across the reef as well as other species, ones which may or may not give him points, but he couldn't catch either of them, as they were too fast and very good at hiding! "Bloody hell! Why don't they just give up? They can’t be having fun here!" Tim referred to those fish, he was very irritated. Throughout this time span, Tim only managed to find about seven marble shrimp, and four ignatius crabs. Such a haul wasn't too bad, but these creatures only gave him a point per kill, and that was what made things difficult. He didn’t manage to accumulate as many points as he hoped for, and that aside, he could barely even eat half of these critters either! Tim wasn’t so hungry, and the shrimp would put him to sleep if he ate them, so he only bit their heads off, and left their carcasses to float around. It was cruel, but a bit efficient. Considering the overall results, however, he wanted to call it quits here, and check out what upgrades he could buy from the system. Small-time hunting wasn't getting him anywhere. The system said that he had gathered 225 system points in total, and in hindsight, that amount did seem like a lot. He was eager to use them all, for progression's sake! Tim slipped through a bit of coral, and sought out a comfortable spot to rest on. He wanted to lay down on some sand, and have a layer of protection surrounding him as well. Safety was important, after all. However, it would appear that he slipped in the wrong hole. He swam into a wide place which was quite dark, but yet, it wasn't empty! Tim spotted a pair of light-blue eyes in the midst of darkness, and could only assume that these eyes belonged to some monstrous fish! He was getting stared at directly, and it was nerve wracking! "Hello, I'm Harold. Please, don't leave..." The inhabitant suddenly spoke out. "You can talk to stingrays… so, are you one? Let me see your tail." Tim followed along. Tim didn't trust this one, it was difficult to. That aside, he would only feel comfortable around other stingrays, so if this was another creature instead, then he planned to beam out of here! "I'm not a stingray, I'm an eel, kid. A shivering var-blood eel, to be exact." It said, and then added. "But please don't be scared, I'm not gonna hurt you… I need your help." Tim had tried to position his thunder-charged tail, the moment this thing said that it wasn’t a stingray. He wanted to burn the eel's eyes off, if not kill it, just to protect himself! Then again, a creature who pleaded for help wasn't so easy to kill or attack. He ended up asking, "Help with what? Also, how do you understand me? You're not a stingray… not even close." Harold got a bit irritated there, though he did answer. "I'm an eel, kid, and your language isn't that hard to understand. But please, listen and focus… I'm stuck here, have been stuck for months because this place really managed to fatten me up. I'm not as small as I used to be, and that's what's killing me now." With that being said, Tim was intimidated even more. He barely saw the eel's body, apart from small portions of its head, and yet he was still intimidated. If this thing was as big as it described itself to be, it could kill him in a blink! For that matter, he didn’t really feel comfortable about another eel being loose across the reef. It would be hazardous! Tim's better judgment convinced him to back away, and meanwhile he said. "I can't help you, Harold, sorry. Eat less and exercise… maybe that'll get you out of here?" "Oh, you'll help me." Harold insisted, and his voice sounded quite sleazy now. "You're looking for food, right boy? The sharks went on a feeding spree a few months ago, and they devastated most of the reef… damn, it's why I hid here to begin with, but, I do know where to find good food, special crabs, if you know what I mean…? Help me get out of this shithole, and I'll show you where the blue-clawed crabs are, I promise!" "Oh…" Tim sighed, and he was enthralled by this offer. "Well, how can I help you then?" With a hint of joy in his tone, Harold answered. "Look, sharks are assholes, but I did manage to make friends with a few of them. There should be a shark with flaming fins here, around the reef. Find him, and tell him to come and get me… his name is Drake, mention his name, and he won't eat you." "Shit… I saw that guy. This idea can kill me, Harold, so those crabs better be worth it." He sighed, and then left, by squeezing through a couple of short tunnels within the coral. On his way out, he even asked the system about these special crabs, but she didn't respond kindly. He would have to bite on those crabs himself, in order for the system to talk about said crabs. There could be many species of blue-colored crabs, and they couldn’t make any speculations without seeing, and tasting one of them, first hand. He couldn't cheat his way towards the good stuff. Anyway, Tim was very nervous about approaching a shark, as things could go horribly wrong along the way. He was excited though nonetheless, and couldn't wait to taste these special crabs as soon as possible!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
"The hell!? Why am I underwater?"[System reboot][Loading...][I'm your ocean survival system, you are my servant][Feed me points, and I'll show you the secrets of survival with the aid of body upgrades]"Oh for the love of..."...[Your first task = Locate and eat any small species of the crustacea ignatius family, juveniles are preferable… less steamy.]This message in his head was very confusing. That aside, he, Timothy Lake, a human, didn't have the slightest clue, regarding how he suddenly appeared underwater! It was nothing less than absurd.He completely ignored what the system said. In fact he wasn't even sure what the 'system' was, and thought that craze was creeping in. He could hear the system but not see it, which was a rather radiant hint of auditory hallucination, if not other things!"Who the hell are you? How did I get here?" Tim exclaimed, as his panic blossomed.[I'm your inbuilt, ocean survival system. You, Timothy, are the new owner of this newborn, stingray body
"System, I've been waiting for an hour now! Where the hell are those iguana crabs you talked about?" Tim complained, and the attitude he had was fueled by anger alone. The system didn't make things any easier for him, as she said. [You mean crustacean ignatius, not iguana? Also, you've been waiting for 37 minutes, and guests aren't supposed to lie. Please behave!]Before he could say anything, the system answered the prior question as well, though she was a bit vague about it.She said, [You should just continue waiting for a little while longer. Crabs will eventually crawl over here, so stop talking and rustling around, you're gonna scare them away. Don't let 'natural selection' be your worst enemy, please the oceans are already dangerous themselves. Don't do stupid stuff.]Ironically, right now, the system spoke more than Tim ever did. She distracted him, even, so he was set quite for a surprise, after he felt a couple of doting, hot steps on his soft, fishy stingray back!"Youch!"
The shark reacted immediately. Once it got stung by Tim, it jerked its head left and right, then it quickly swam away. A two-inch deep stab was quite effective from the looks of it, very painful. "Feels like I stabbed that fucker with my ass," He joked, while in utter stress. However, he couldn’t have killed that shark with one stab alone, it was impossible. So necessarily, Tim was still in danger! The shark circled back, within half a minute. It was either looking for trouble, or a meal, but either way this was really problematic! The shark had to be at least two meters long, and it seemingly had powers too. Its fins left a line of fire across the water, regardless of how fire wasn't supposed to lit up down here. It was scary, and overall, Tim didn't stand a chance! He stabbed the thing, by pure luck to begin with, it had nothing to do with skill. Seconds later, it charged towards him! The shark exploded with speed within a couple of seconds, and it would be a terrible idea to s
Spiders always looked creepy, the ones of the sea even more so. However, Tim tried to put his discomfort aside for survival’s sake. He did so, and ended up eating seven whole ‘sea spiders’! He ate so many of them, because they weren’t so filling, they didn’t have any fat on them. Their long legs were inedible, so he only chomped through their small, red main bodies. He didn’t have to fight them in order to eat them, as these ‘spiders’ were as stupid as one would assume! This was an easy, but surely creepy meal. The system spammed him with some information afterwards. [You successfully killed and consumed seven marble shrimps, so in total, you get 14 points of health out of them. Of course, your hunger needs have been fulfilled as well.] “Health, huh? So that’s why I was feeling better… This isn’t temporary, right? I don’t want to feel like crap after an hour or, whatever.” He asked. His concern was valid. A tiny stingray didn’t have a complex system of pain receptors, but the few
Tim squeezed within the reef and its many contents, in search for easy points. He swam around for three hours, quite carefully, but hadn't managed to find as many creatures as he hoped to find. He just found a few more marble shrimps, and half of them had been in his den. They seemingly were the most abundant creatures in a fifty-meter radius, but their numbers weren’t infinite. He only killed twelve of them, but avoided eating most of them, because he didn’t want to exhaust himself too quickly with their negative side-effects.Tim avoided utter exhaustion as long as he could, but yet again, swimming around slowly and carefully for three hours straight, wasn't easy at all. He got tired, and used his last bit of energy to swim back to his den. Then, he fell asleep.It was a good idea to relax for a while. Tim wasn’t hungry, and his health went up by six points too, because of the few shrimp he ate. For that matter he could sleep peacefully.He went to sleep while hearing a brief notif
Tim searched the flat sea-floor for about five minutes, and within this time bracket, he found three urchins. Each of them had different colors, one of them was even purple, so without risking his own health in the process, he had to figure out which urchin was the bubonic one.He wanted to charge towards one of the urchins like a barbarian, but he had to resist those fishy urges. The urchins couldn’t crawl away, after all, so he didn’t have a reason to rush things. He approached one of the urchins, and almost took a bite out of it. Common sense advised him otherwise, however, at the very last second. The urchin’s spines were spiky, so undoubtedly, it would be dangerous to put his mouth on its spines! It was beyond dangerous, actually, it was stupid.“Hmm… can’t trick me!” He exclaimed. Tim debated on how he should approach this urchin, and after half a minute, he remembered that his tail was practically charged with thunder! It may be useful against an urchin, but only if this shoc