The team of seven stingrays were on the move. Marlo directed them to a spot, which was a whole kilometer away from the hidden lair, and it was laid out on a stretch of sand. Originally this spot would be really unassuming, but Marlo taught them how to find the good stuff!
He told them to follow the edges of the reef, in a very straight line, until they couldn’t anymore. This, in turn, would lead them directly towards the designated area.
After separating themselves from the reef, the team were to look out for holes in the ground. The place which may contain mana roots was very well hidden, so they had to check on every noticeable hole on the sea-ground, in order to find the place. Of course, they also had to be careful, because an animal could be living in any one of the random holes, and swimming into them could be dangerous!
Marlo described that they should be searching for a shrine-like, hidden temple. Religion was a thing across fishkind, apparently, and oftentimes, religious sites were built around magical items of great value, such as powerful mana roots! In a sense, mana wasn’t such a bad thing to worship, as this world revolved around magic, after all.
The site which the group was trying to find was rarely visited, and almost forgotten too, which also meant that any seed of mana root had the opportunity to grow there! Tim was counting on that, he was really enthusiastic!
However, he also got a bit irritated by now. Half of the stingrays in his team swam very slowly, just about as fast as a stingray could swim, so the one-kilometer trip had stretched for over an hour now. If Tim was alone, he would've gotten here in ten minutes, but for the time being, he simply couldn't separate himself from the rest of the group!
"Can't believe that I'd swim that slow too, if my fins weren't magical…" Tim thought to himself.
Anyway, they separated from the reef by now, and as the other stingrays were poking their heads in random holes, he felt entitled to advise them for the better. Tim knew from experience that eels loved to live in holes on the sea ground, in holes much like the holes they were seeing here! With that considered, he didn’t want his group members to be brutally pounced on.
He yelled out, "Watch your head, flat asses! You wouldn't believe how many animals could hide in holes in the sand."
Tim wasn't their leader by a stretch, but he still felt responsible for them! Also, he really didn't want to report any casualties back in the sect, especially since he had the feeling that he'd be the sole survivor, if any real fight occurred! That latter part wouldn't be so easy to explain, without being called a murderer in exchange.
He was right to be cautious. Five minutes later, a rather unlovable creature emerged out of one of the holes which were scattered across the sand. It was a blue sea-snake, and it bit a light-brown stingray, right on and over the face!
"Holy shit!" Tim yelled out, "I told you to be careful, god damn it!"
The unfortunate stingray was killed. He had been a bit bigger than Tim, but he didn’t necessarily have enough endurance to withstand a bite from a one-meter long snake! That one stingray was dead, but it was important to protect the rest of the group, so Tim went into action!
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He knew that it would take a lot of effort to kill this thing with lightning strikes or fireballs, and he didn’t have enough mana for that kind of an approach either, as the snake was simply too big! Instead, he depended on the next best thing, which was to freeze the enemy's blood.
Tim acquired this power only recently, by killing Harold the eel. He hadn't used this magical power all that much, since it was expensive to do so, however, this situation called for drastic, and efficient measures! The snake in front of them wasn't too fast, which was relieving, but if he gave it enough space to attack the group, then it might kill off the rest of the stingrays one by one, and that was less than ideal.
Tim didn't want that to happen, so he approached the snake. He approached slowly at first, just to study its moves a little bit, as he didn’t want to rush towards it just yet. Ortana the stingray noticed what he tried to do, so she joined in.
She said, "We have to divert its attention, kid, don't do this alone unless you want to get your face chewed off. Listen to me… I may have been a plant before, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to fight!"
"We don't need to fight it," Tim answered back, "But yes, we need to confuse it, so swim that way, to the right. Use your extingus breath if you suddenly have to protect yourself, but try to keep your distance at all times! This'll be quick."
With that little plan in mind, they approached the snake together, and took two different directions. Ortana approached it first, and got all of its attention, the snake wasn't so smart!
Tim found a blind spot, about five seconds later, so that was when he charged forward with every bit of speed he could muster! He used his flaming fins ability to speed up, and the blood freezing ability gave him a bit of a boost too! He approached the target, at 10 km/h!
The water itself started freezing up in exchange, as Tim's fins unleashed a steam-like substance, because he had activated the latter ability! Whole chunks of ice started sinking towards the sea ground, and when Tim met with the target, that icy wave clashed on the target and beat it shitless!
He froze the snake's blood, quite literally! It was a three second job, and within these three seconds, he managed to paralyze the snake severely! The abrupt halt of blood flow restricted most of its movements, and in return, a bunch of its organs started failing as well. Its heart got damaged the quickest!
The system later announced, [You just spent 24 mana points in three seconds, slow down! As of now, 240 points of mana remain in your bodily mana pool.]
Tim heard that, but he didn’t care about the expenses right now. He then left the snake alone, and just watched it suffer for a while. In about five minutes time, it died off, and he reaped every benefit that came with killing a far bigger opponent!
The system said, [You successfully killed a blue menace sea-snake, and won 350 system points in exchange! This snake is powerless, as it's just a normal sea snake, so you won't be able to steal any magical powers from it.]
Furthermore, she added. [In total, you now have 550 system points at your disposal.]
Tim was a bit upset that he couldn't steal any powers from this snake, but yet again, he had too many powers to begin with. He didn’t need a new ability, so he humbly started celebrating instead.
He thought, "Hah, look at all those points! I didn't even have to use my rotter bite… it was totally worth the mana!"