Tim had quite the day. He wouldn’t have ever guessed that he would have to endure such an explosion, at any point of the day, and yet he did experience it, endure it, and survived it too! Though he survived it, he was still shaken to the core! The extreme attributes of this experience had scarred him mentally, and there wasn’t much he could do about that either, other than live with it. He had to endure the shock and trauma of it all!
Life at sea wasn’t designed for the weak, after all, and come to think of it, it wasn’t entirely designed to serve the strong either, as the anti-mana had so visually proven, as it killed some of the strongest fish within the sect, in a split second! The surviving members, who were supposed to be pretty tough, were equally terrified without a doubt. They felt a fear that they had abandoned a long time ago, this explosion had revived their fear, and it was to stay in their conscience for good!
John the barracuda, thought. “We shouldn’t have been that vulnerable, it doesn't make any sense. Our mana isn’t weak at all, it's not supposed to be considered weak, yet it is… Decent Mana my bullocks! What kind of world did we come to, where level three mana doesn’t mean shit anymore?! It feels like I’m a beginner once more, yes, this day painted a grand picture for us! We must hide, much like every beginner does throughout the delicate period of their mana accumulation! We are mere fish once more…”
There was a lot in his mind, which was something interesting to say about a barracuda. John was scared, petrified even, and with that said, one could only imagine how scared Timothy was, whose mana was a whole level weaker! He felt as if he was a single speck of dust, in a cruel desert.
Trauma and fear were tough on one's conscience, but in a way, these couple of things encouraged one to move forward with their lives. Fear itself didn’t guarantee survival, no, but in this case, what remained of the blistering mana sect, knew one thing for sure, they had to move on!
They knew that they could either flee from here, and try to progress, survive, elsewhere. It was either that, or, they could face what the pool of anti-mana had created in their lair, and this option sounded a lot worse to them. Fear encouraged them to know better, and pick the first option; If they were to progress, they had to survive first!
They suffered defeat today, yes, but inwardly, they hoped and aimed to be strong enough in the future. If they were to survive a disaster of this similar magnitude in the future, they had to focus on progressing power-wise, and mana quality-wise, regardless of how they felt shamed and humbled by the anti-mana right now! The next time around, they wanted to survive such a spontaneous disaster through raw strength itself, not just through luck.
The death of their many friends, made them feel angry and devastated enough, to the point where they reaped motivation out of their sour emotions! Some fish had such strong, complex feelings, apparently!
Tim shared similar emotions. Except, he didn’t picture himself doing a one-hundred year long, secretive, ninja-like ‘training montage’ like these fish pictured themselves doing, no. Instead, he was more motivated than ever, to look into those upgrades that he had left unattended so far. There was a whole bundle of new purchases waiting for him, and he wanted to buy them immediately!
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The system insisted that he wasn’t behind in upgrades, but Tim thought otherwise, he didn't want to take any risks! He wanted to buy as many upgrades as possible, as soon as he and the team of fish found a discreet place where they could rest properly at. He wanted to feel protected first, before he tried any potentially paralyzing upgrades!
He thought, “I need upgrades, some good ones… Maybe something that's gonna make me explosion-proof too? The system has to have something that'll make me explosion-proof, cuz I can't keep floating around all willy-nilly, it's too dangerous! Eh, we'll see, I'm hopeful.”
…
Tim and his nine friends swam out of the reef, and they made it out in one piece too. Although the latter fact sounded like a blessing, to them, it didn't really feel like enough of a blessing, as survival itself wasn’t as great as they thought it would be. They lost a lot of things today, things that had to be replaced in order for these survivors to feel whole again. They were out in the open now in search for such a life, or in the very least, they hoped to find a better lair, where they could hide and develop their mana quality at!
Everyone in the team felt as if they were a bunch of newborns right now, as if they had nothing to their name, be it in a materialistic sense, or in a wealth-oriented sense. Mana was ‘wealth’ to them, and without a team of smart mages and wizards to help them ascend further in terms of mana quality, and its respective realms, they felt quite poor as a result. No one could help them, not significantly, at least!
The reef was desolate, in terms of housing other powerful fish, most of the reef was empty, at least. They knew this to be a fact, because the sect had explored this place thoroughly before, as they had progressed that way, in a magical sense.
The sect had hunted down and killed most of the powerful fish within the reef, fish that did not want to cooperate. With that said, they knew enough to search outside of the reef for any plausible, new lairs, or at least, at the very edges of the reef where no one really lived on, at any point of history!
John the Barracuda led the team of ten fish, and so far, he had led them half a kilometer away from the lair. They browsed the side of the reef which had more shallow waters, in hopes of avoiding any random but powerful fish along the way. The reef wasn’t supposed to have any powerful fish, but they didn’t want to take any chances!
Anyway, two kilometers later, they had to take a break. All the swimming wasn't quite easy on their fins, so they had to slow down. They haven't found anything significant yet, so there was no point in pushing forward so stubbornly, there was no benefit to it.
Tim used this break as an opportunity to buy an upgrade or two! There was a whole new wave of purchase options waiting for him to explore them, options that he had avoided to check out so far. He avoided them, because he feared experiencing any sort of intense pain, such as paralyzation, or sharp brain sparks, and rightfully so. They weren’t fun!
Anyway, he asked the system to list out the purchase options that were available, and she obliged immediately. In fact, she highlighted the most important upgrade for the time being, which was a very helpful gesture!
She said, [You've unlocked seven new purchase options, Timothy, you've unlocked them a while ago. However, I recommend that you densify your bodily durability by another 120% first of all! Although it's an expensive thing to buy, it'll help you escape otherwise deadly situations easier, that is, you'll take less damage! This upgrade costs 1,100 system points to implement.]