The upgrade he bought cost him six-hundred and thirty points. It was costly, but at least now he had a greater advantage, in terms of his overall hostility against the world. Under the right circumstances, he could attack anyone he wanted, and that was all that mattered in the end.
He didn't care that he only had two-hundred system points now, no, and if anything, he had a greater reason to explore the ocean now, because of how vastly depleted his points were!
Anyway, Tim still ended up wasting seven hours afterwards, because he had to wait for the sun to rise, so he had been less than productive. He found a couple of good ways to waste time, as the upgrade he bought, for example, had him obsessing over the mana points! He stared at a faded out computer-like window in front of him, for hours on end, and watched as the points increased!
He was absolutely mesmerized! For a stupid little stingray, he sure was obsessed with numbers for a good moment, it was an interesting reaction from his side. Tim also napped a lot.
Anyway, within this time span, he gathered up seventy points of mana. His body stored the mana, so naturally, it was also able to generate it on its own! Tim didn’t want to use this mana, unless he absolutely had to, but overall, he was happy that he could produce it to begin with, that expensive upgrade was worth it! This was a huge step towards some greater means of survival.
However, since his body could fit a thousand points of mana now, he needed a faster way to accumulate them, preferably within a few hours too, rather than within several days! He aimed to look for a cluster of mana roots, as mentioned, because it was mandatory to find some of them now!
Tim waited until the sun rose, and with a belly full of crab meat, he started floating across the waters, in search of the roots. He had spent a lot of time eating and or napping, so he was more than ready to put some work in right now.
"Okay… if I was a valuable mana root, where would I hide…? This is a stupid question. Hell, I'd hide in coral even if I was a fucking ostrich, I like this place." Tim bickered with himself, while he was on the search.
This massive, possibly two-kilometer wide coral reef, seemed like the best place to hide valuable stuff. He was convinced about this, regardless of how much the system encouraged him to explore places outside the reef.
He guessed that mana roots were somewhat conscious, and if they were, they wouldn't be stupid enough to be in plain sight, especially across the sand. That wouldn't make any sense! He was enthralled to sniff through the reef, and he did exactly so.
Anyway, about half an hour later, he ran into a couple of creatures that seemed more than odd. They were roundish, a bit bigger than him, and had this alarming yellow color on their skin! Tim's hunting senses tingled due to this flashy color, and he was put between a primal fight or flight response afterwards! He could be in danger over here!
"What the hell are those?" Tim asked himself.
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The system then answered him almost immediately, she said. [Those are pufferfish, and they seem to be toying with a couple of crabs. I'd recommend keeping your distance, as these pufferfish could be very poisonous.]
"Yeah, no shit." He said, and tried to back away from the scene, slowly.
Tim had a bit of magical power stashed in his tail, and every ounce of it was powered by his mana. He could use it against the pufferfish, but he didn't want to waste it on them. It didn't sound sensible, since they weren't attacking him anyway, so he just kept backing away instead. This was the best option.
"I'll save my mana… because I probably need to flee one moment or the other. My flaming fins are fucking expensive too, so I don’t have any mana to waste." He muttered.
Just then, he was eyeballed by one of the pufferfish. The said pufferfish approached him slowly afterwards, which hinted that it didn't want to pose a threat. It wasn't malicious.
Then, it vocally asked. "Are you a stingrat?"
"Sting-ray," Tim emphasized, "But yeah, I am one. What do you want from me, puffy?"
"I am Koob Tonon Bonon, very pufferfish. Do you want to join sex?" It asked.
Tim realized that Koob wasn't the most fluent, in terms of the stingray language. He couldn’t help but laugh, however, he was also intimidated, because he didn’t want to mate with a literal pufferfish! It was absurd.
For that matter, he countered. "Sir, that is rape! I am a child, so I will not have sex with you, not now and not ever!"
"Sect!" The other pufferfish came along, and corrected the other. "Forgive my brother, he stupid. I am Konon Tonon Bonon, also very very pufferfish, so, do you want join sect?"
"I'm glad you're a bit more fluent," Tim followed along, and then asked. "What's your sect about? Can you help me find cool shit?"
"The poopiest," Koob interrupted, quite shamelessly.
Afterwards, Tim spent ten minutes bickering with these pufferfish. He wanted to understand what they were rambling about, and eventually, he figured out that they truly were part of a sect. Koob even went far enough to fetch the sect's master, which surprisingly, was a reef shark!
Tim got intimidated by the idea of consulting with a shark, but since this one was only a single meter long, he felt less threatened. If things got bad, he could just nail the shark on the head with a lightning bolt, and then make his escape. He could also rot any enemy's flesh now, upon will, so he'd use every tool at his disposal if things didn't go the way he wanted them to. He was safe.
The shark seemed very friendly, however, it said. "Hello there, I am Marlo. I hope my friends didn’t scare you, as their stingray vocabulary can be wobbly sometimes."
"Well, they offered to have sex with me, so I'd say they could use a bit more studying." Tim followed along.
"Oh, yes, you aren't the first stingray they offered sex to. They can never really get the pronunciation right… Anyway, I'm the headmaster of the blistering mana sect, and I officially invite you to join us. We need guys like you, kid… I could smell your rage from the other side of the reef." Marlo said.