The quality of Timothy’s mana was flash upgraded to level three, he bore decent mana now, that was its literal name. He was still shocked about how it happened, it had been painless and quick, hence it being a flash upgrade, but despite being shocked, he was also really happy! This was the easiest mana quality upgrade that he had ever gotten, his friends were congratulating him quite a bit too, they were excited! Well, everyone congratulated him, apart from Arvena, who was fixated on her scrolls.
Anyway, then things got even better! The system came with a great announcement.
She cited, [Congratulations, Timothy. Apart from all the benefits you got from that flash upgrade, your mana pool has also expanded. As of now, you can accumulate up to 3,000 points of mana in your pool, in this goblin form! As a stingray, however, you’d be able to accumulate a maximum of 8,000 points, that is, if you chose to swim in your full, gigantic size! You have great options overall.]
“Eight thousand points, huh? That would take forever to fill up, I definitely won’t be four-fucking-meters long anytime soon.” He thought to himself.
Then, the system corrected him. [Don’t let these bigger pools intimidate you, Timothy, because the rate at which you can generate mana naturally, has also upgraded. In this goblin form, you can generate 100 points of mana an hour, and again as a stingray, if you choose to be gigantic, you could generate 220 points of mana an hour! These rates are to your favor, that is, they’re significantly higher to what you’re used to, and that’s just one of the perks of upgrading the quality of your mana. Congratulations!]
Those rates of mana regeneration were great indeed, Tim was very excited! From what he understood, if he avoided spending mana all together, then he could get another mana upgrade shortly, after a day or so! He felt very lucky because of that, and since the gods were less likely to kill him during a mana quality upgrade in this universe, then he truly felt like he had struck gold here! Tim could propel through several levels rather quickly, and this reminded him that this was the religious charm of Valporovus, this was why he was here to begin with!
“Gotta collect my mana, I gotta play it smart!” He thought to himself, “Let’s hope these dwarves don’t attack us, otherwise it will take me forever to fill my mana pool afterwards! A single fireball probably costs thirty points now, that’s less than economic.”
Anyway, after considering his stroke of luck, his friends Ortana and Skendus then got motivated to read a few more scrolls themselves. They picked up several of them, in the hopes of getting a flash upgrade too, but they didn’t seem to be as lucky on the matter. The scroll that Tim had grabbed, only offered a single flash upgrade from the looks of it, he confirmed this, because the scroll didn’t work on his friends!
This demotivated his friends a little bit, but then they kept searching through other scrolls regardless! The two of them tried their best not to damage the scrolls in the meantime, as most of these things were old and fragile. They tried to be careful, but such carefulness may take a lot of their time, because there were about five-hundred scrolls in this library! Their search for power was a daunting task without a doubt, they had their work cut out for them for sure!
About two hours later, their search ultimately led them to the lower parts of the library. The scrolls that they had gone through so far, either featured a bunch of history about goblins, or demanded for the whole scroll to be read in exchange for a ‘surprise’ of sorts. The later part sounded intriguing, but since they had a timer on their heads, they’d rather not spend hours reading through a single scroll in exchange for a mysterious surprise, as it didn’t seem so productive.
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Plus, they didn’t know how to properly roll a scroll back together anyway, so if they were to read through a couple of them, they wouldn’t be able to put the scrolls back in their original position, no. They’d rather not risk it, instead, the two of them wanted any sort of instant progress!
For that matter, they were at the lower parts of the library now, and as a result, Arvena basically started hissing at them! She wasn’t so happy that the ancient scrolls were being touched. At first she spoke to them in the ancient tongue of the goblins, as the insightful blessings she summoned were still pretty active, but then she noticed what she did, and switched to her original language pretty quickly!
“You’re gonna tear them!” She hollered, “You better fucking know what you’re doing!”
“Don’t worry,” Ortana answered, “We’re barely opening them anyway.”
Ortana then picked up another scroll, despite the prior harsh warning, and it was perhaps good that she did. Apart from the ancient dust that got in her eyes, something interesting actually happened this time!
Someone suddenly whispered in her ear. The voice was that of an old man, but she couldn’t make out what he said, his language must be undoubtedly ancient! Regardless of that, she still understood what was going on.
A huff of pink smoke went in her nose, and as it did, she felt the presence of a new power! She wasn’t possessed, thankfully, neither did she obtain any sort of upgrade, but she did obtain a new, magical power!
“Shaman’s grip, huh?” She muttered, as she felt the presence of a ghost right in her personal space.
Ortana couldn’t see the ghost, but she was well aware of what was going on! The aforementioned shaman guided her in some way, he kept her calm.
Then, she expressed. “Thank you, shaman, I’ll squeeze the life out of my foes one way or the other. Thank you!”
Ortana got lucky, or she forced luck on herself at least. There were several ways to describe this occasion, but the truth of the matter was that she had an offensive magical ability now, that was what mattered the most! The Shaman's grip was quite a literal power, she could literally try and crush her enemies to death with a grip of sorts, and if the quality of her mana was good enough, she could take on more massive foes too! This was very beneficial for her, because she was rarely dangerous before.
Skendus didn’t manage to drink out of the same well, unfortunately, he wasn't as lucky. The two special scrolls that his friends found, were seemingly ‘depleted’ of their gift-giving abilities now, even the prior scriptures that were written on them had disappeared! The latter part was pretty spooky, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.
Anyway, moving on, it would appear that their guide Arvena had been the busiest here so far. She had gotten to the point where she was reading all three scrolls at once, seemingly effortlessly, and this had a sort of resulting triangular effect! It was triangular, in a sense that three bulbs of light were now shining in front of her ~ Two on her hands, and one near her forehead!
These bits of light were fist sized, and their colors were white, gray and black. Since there were three of them, it was more than likely that each of these wisp-like lights represented each of the three scrolls that she was reading!
With that said, her situation was getting quite symbolic now, it was spooky, especially because she exclusively spoke in that ancient, goblin language as well! She was whispering some kind of incomprehensible spell to herself, and that may be where the ancient language came in handy, but all-and-all, the trance-like state that she had gotten herself into, was terrifyingly unpredictable!
Timothy took one look at her, and then he instantly complained to himself. “Jesus… this looks familiar. Hell, this is no different from some possessed fool speaking clean latin! I have a feeling that she's gonna get us all killed.”
Timothy might be right, because a moment later, the three bits of light that floated near Arvena, got together and turned themselves into a single, shiny, and flat triangle for some reason! The triangle was pitch black in color, and its purpose was rather unpredictable at first.
When Arvena stood up and somehow stepped in the triangle, its purpose then was very clear. She had created a portal for herself, and considering the portal's ancient undertone, it was unlikely that she had done something noble here!