Timothy spent a thousand system points, and condensed his Blood Freezing ability right away! The process had been painless, which was always a good thing, and now he could focus on buying yet another upgrade. He had a few thousand more points to spend, and figured that it was best to buy the upgrades sooner rather than later, since they'd be facing that deadly dragon one day or the other.
“What else should I buy…” Tim pondered.
There were nine more purchase options in front of him, he could see their descriptions vividly through a screen that the system flashed. He was stumped.
“All of them look good, but I can't afford all of them now, can I?” He muttered, it wasn’t easy at all to decide on what he should pick next. “The mana pool upgrade looks pretty useful, but it would mean that I need to accumulate more mana in order to improve my mana quality later on. That's not for me, I’m a big spender, so I'd much rather enjoy an upgrade that gives me more mana per hour, but of course you aren’t giving me that option, system.”
[If you upgrade your mana pool, you'll also be able to generate more mana per hour. These two things come hand by hand.] The system pointed out, she was quick with her answers for once.
“Hmm, I guess it's worth the 5,000 system points, then? Okay, give me a bigger mana pool.” He requested.
[Confirmed. As of now, you have 3,000 system points remaining in your sum.]
Without so much of a warning, Tim then suddenly fainted. He forgot that it was very painful to upgrade his mana pool through the system's help, and this forgetfulness left him in a very awkward position now! In hindsight, he should've expected that an increase as large as roughly twenty-five-percent was bound to hurt, and yet he didn’t think about it at all.
John noticed what happened, though he didn't know that Timothy fainted, so he said. “Looks like your friend fell asleep, that's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?”
“I guess it is?” Ortana followed along, and then she said. “He's weird like that sometimes, but don’t mind him, we should continue scouting.”
…
Tim eventually woke up, but it was dusk now, so he figured that he was out like a light for about three hours now. This was not a good time to be unconscious for three hours, not with killer bugs on the loose, so he stood up as quickly as he could, but ended up crashing on the ground again! That upgrade really took a toll on him, he was a mess now.
“God, I'm so sore!” He grunted.
[Upgrade complete! You've successfully upgraded your mana pool by 25%, so you can now fit 52,500 points in your pool. Furthermore, you can naturally generate 800 mana points per hour now.] The system specified.
“Only eight? That doesn't sound like a 25% increase.” He pointed out, as he tried to stand up.
[It's not supposed to be. Your mana pool increased by 25%, and your mana regeneration increased in cooperation with your pool. Though, it's minimal in comparison.] She explained.
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“Either way, it's shit.” He complained, and he was very moody, because his head hurt as if it had been inside of a ringing, church bell, he was in pain. “At least I piled up a couple thousand points of mana while I was asleep.”
Tim had to put in some effort to stand up afterwards, and once he did, he figured out that he was alone out here. He saw his group at the bottom of another hill, about three-hundred meters away. The two of them were far, and after he saw them scouting that far away from him, he got really angry at them, and cited them as very irresponsible!
“How could they leave me here!” He grunted, and then tried to walk, but he was too sore to move a muscle. “What a bastard, eh?”
Timothy first decided to rest here, and wait for help, but then he remembered that he had to return to the main camp soon. If nightfall caught him here, it would look really bad for him, then later on the Guard Master back in the city could banish him without blinking an eye. He couldn’t afford to be banished, it would be too much of a risk, on account of what the bigger picture was!
“Fucking hell, looks like I'm gonna need to spend a bunch of mana points again.” He muttered, and then he summoned the Bone Multiplier ability.
The idea that was to follow was rather simple. Just like he did before in the Forbidden Caves, he wanted to make a surfboard for himself, entirely out of bones. He calculated that it would take less than a minute to fly back to the camp, so he may not need to spend too many points after all, though it was absolutely mandatory for him to fly out of here soon.
[21,000 mana points remain in your pool, use them wisely.] The system cautioned.
Tim acknowledged that warning, and he didn't say a thing, because he didn’t have the strength to be sarcastic right now. Using the Bone Multiplier ability, he found a whole sheep carcass buried two-meters below the ground, and considering the agricultural practices here, that wasn't too much of a surprise. These round hills were filled with skeletons.
However, once he had it unburied, the unthinkable happened. Something else came out of the ground as well, about two meters away, and it was a huge, living beetle!
“Oh shit!” He exclaimed.
It was apparent, Timothy had to get out of here a.s.a.p! At the very least, he should move out of the beetle’s way, because this thing was a stunning six feet tall, it was certainly taller than him!
Since he didn’t have enough time to make a surfboard out of bones, he just snapped four bones out of that skeleton instead, and had them lift him off of the ground. It wasn't comfortable whatsoever to fly like this, because he had to balance his entire body using those four bones, but he made due, he got out of the way quickly, and floated about ten feet above the ground! Due to the limited use of this ability, he was only spending about one-hundred and fifty mana points per second right now, so it wasn’t too costly.
Anyway, while he floated, he got a good look of the beetle, and figured out that it was just an extra large version of a rhinoceros beetle, though it was terrifying nonetheless! It was dark-blue in color, and had this huge, eight-foot long horn on its face along with a big, rounded spine to protect itself!
“What a fucking buffalo! Bugs aren't supposed to be this big!” He grunted, and then flew a few feet higher.
Tim couldn't afford to put up a fight here on the count of his current condition, but then he quickly discovered that he didn’t have another choice! The Demon Beetle could jump, it leaped towards him!
“Hell nah!” Tim grunted, and within a split second, he snapped several bone shards from that prior skeleton, and hurled them against the beetle.
The shards weren't strong enough to break its shell, but they did change its projected direction. The beetle was pushed to another direction, and landed on a lower portion of the hill afterwards, where it rolled a few times before it regained its composure in a matter of seconds!
“You ugly bastard!” Tim grunted, and summoned the Electro Nerve Splitter ability a second after, because right now, it was the only other thing he could depend on.