Arvena finally leveled up! A magnificent blue glow erupted around her as well, and now, she was at level three in the Fintelus Apprentices Realm of mana!
It was a spectacular achievement for most, but in this case, this level-up managed to only lessened her overall depression by a nudge. This was a good level to be in, but once she remembered that she had been beyond the Fintelus’ Apprentices realm of mana just a few weeks ago, it became difficult for her to be happy about this level-up.
A few weeks ago, within the Forbidden Caves close to the city of Manape, Arvena had sacrificed an entire realm of her mana quality, just to kill an opponent that was stronger than her! She had summoned a Celestial Spear just to kill that dragon Saranax, and although she had succeeded, the loss of such grand mana quality was still gnawing on her conscience. She wasn't happy, and even though they found plenty of mana roots here, it was very unlikely that anyone would cross the Fintelus’ Apprentices realm of mana today! In fact, it was impossible, and her expanded mana pool hinted so!
Anyway, after Timothy and the rest of the group saw the glow, they were hoping that Arvena's mana pool wouldn't start overlapping even more violently. The arms of mana roots that everyone had poked, were close to withering, so it was only a matter of time until they had to poke at the other root arms, in order to encourage even more flash upgrades!
Timothy had already poked another one, and Ortana was close by, yielding the benefits as well. In a short time, the first few root arms that they had poked, withered completely, so everyone had to slice through yet another root arm, in order to sustain their progress!
[+3,500 mana points]
[+2,744 mana points]
[+1,490 mana points]
[+4,034 mana points]
The system kept on counting the mana points, she did so automatically. Each member was harvesting a great amount of mana! Unsurprisingly, the weaker people of the bunch leveled up again just a minute later!
Then, the system beeped. [Congratulations, Timothy! Your mana quality is now at level two, and this level is otherwise known as The Fool's Gambit. Its name is also very descriptive, because with this level, you can technically challenge far greater enemies, but you'll also have a great chance of dying in battle against said, greater enemy. You’d have to gamble with your life, thus making you a fool.]
“Very descriptive,” He remarked, and then he said. “Funny that you call it The Fool's Gambit, because I'm about to do something very foolish, hehe!”
A root in front of him had withered entirely, and the couple other ones he sliced were also thinning, so now, he was free to move. Timothy then stood up, and called out for Arvena's attention.
“Hey, can I de-root a couple of these bastards?!” He yelled out, and Arvena confirmed that it was very easy to de-root them.
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In response, Timothy grabbed two whole rools, used up all of his strength to pull them out of the sand, and then he started swimming upwards! He had a charitable plan in mind.
“Gustav could use a couple of roots, we can't have that poor bastard be stuck in the same level!” He said, and headed towards the surface with the giant roots on his hands.
It took him little time to swim towards the surface, and it was great that neither of those huge fish didn't bother him along the way. He tossed the two whole mana roots on the dry stone afterwards, where Gustav and the dragons were waiting at, and smirked proudly!
“Enjoy!” He said, “Poke one root arm at a time, and you'll be able to go through a few flash upgrades. We found a bunch of roots down there, and we're harvesting them, but I didn't want to leave you out.”
“Thank you…” Gustav nodded, his heart felt warm. “I was wondering why my mana was shooting up, you little bastards are messing with mana roots, haha!”
Gustav appreciated this grand gesture, he understood how greedy the common mage could be, and yet Timothy broke all those stigmas. He swam all the way from the bottom of the sea, with two whole roots on his hands, avoiding monstrous fish along the way, and he did all of that willingly, no one asked him too! Such loyalty and good will was far more precious to him, than the mana roots were. Gustav didn't know what else to say, he was stunned.
Regardless of that, Timothy didn’t stick around to have lengthy conversations, he didn’t wait to be thanked again. He dove in the water, and activated a couple of his abilities so he could swim faster, as he wanted to get to the bottom of the sea again!
The speed he gained along the way, managed to split the water even within the deeper portions of the sea, and this wasn't a surprise, once considering the recent flash-upgrades that he experienced. Tim dove down at 50 km/h, and since he had assumed the form of an Aqus Goblin, this speed wasn't too much of a surprise, as this was a species of good swimmers!
[+220 mana points]
[+744 mana points]
[+1,500 mana points]
[+3,506 mana points]
The system kept showing these little notifications at the corner of his eye, and he felt accelerated to see them, because he had a pretty huge hole in his stomach that he had to fill. His mana pool could fit three-hundred-and-fifty thousand mana points now, and this grand hole wasn't easy to satisfy!
Along the way, before he hit the bottom, Timothy noticed something weird. He was certain that he saw another creature down here, walking on its two feet, and it wasn’t one of his friends, because this creature was far away from the roots. His friends were deep within the patch of mana roots, and they were harvesting its properties, it couldn’t have been them who stood up.
Timothy scanned the area, but he didn’t see another living soul in the vicinity, so now he was even more confused. Either his vision was distorted from all the speed that he mustered, or there was something spooky going on. Being his paranoid self, he didn't bother sitting near the roots now, but stood guard near them instead.
This area had to be patrolled, but since his mana pool became more and more difficult to fill, he then started poking the other mana roots as well. He poked another arm of every single root, and enjoyed half of the great quantities afterwards, without fearing repercussions! He knew that this great amount of mana couldn't kill him now, because regardless of how each root arm was nearly nine feet long, they were to deplete quickly since they were facing the virtually bottomless pools of the four goblins in the vicinity!
Half a minute later, Tim experienced another flash upgrade! He was now at level three!