Timothy, and the team returned to the waters. Once they swam a hundred or so meters, he released the Sea Orc from the crippling set of extra bones that he had riddled it with. The beast was free now, well, its spine was still messed up, but the hundreds of Albino Scavenger Leeches that lived within the dragon, said that they could heal the dragon’s spine, so it was far from dying!
It was expensive for Timothy to let the dragon live, but he didn’t want to upset those little guys either, because he feared that his head would be split in two, if the leeches chose to get violent! The albino leeches possessed flesh mana, a kind of mana that even Arvena was unaware of, so it was best not to anger them! The dragon was spared, and it was also in no condition to chase the team, so this was a win-win, and lose-lose situation.
Anyway, since the team was in the water, they could continue their seemingly insane motive of chasing after the Ruins of Aqumus! It was looking more and more insane to go after that place, especially once their recent circumstances were considered. It hadn't even been an hour since they submerged in The Old Sea, and yet they tip-toed with death twice already, and it was stupid to ignore this fact!
This was not a place where they should be stubborn in, regardless of what waited for them at the other side, or symbolically, at the other end of the tunnel. For all they knew, the light at the end of the tunnel could be another, greater dragon coming towards them, rather than great amounts of mana, so they might be risking everything for nothing! Optimism was dangerous in The Old Sea, but pessimism might kill them too.
Either pessimism or optimism had to be put aside for now, and they had to embrace realism instead. Realistically, it was extremely stupid to enter the sea without a full mana pool to begin with, so now, they have to camp somewhere, and replenish their mana for a while!
In his humongous, Stingray form, Timothy could replenish roughly fifty-thousand mana points a day, so he wanted to shapeshift into a stingray again, as soon as he had the chance. Skendus could turn into a huge, three-meter long sawfish as well, which would get him up to par with his friend, in terms of natural mana regeneration!
The rest of the team chose to remain as aqus goblins, so they could only replenish forty-three thousand mana points a day. This was a bit of a disadvantage, but they didn’t mind it much, because being in this sea was the greatest disadvantage of all, and they tended to focus on the latter! They had to camp their problems away, at least for a week, or else they might die today if they decided to push forward, and against mother nature's indirectly expressed will.
Hiding was mandatory, and they couldn’t turn back right now on the count that they wanted to avoid the rest of those Sea Orcs, so they had to camp here, in the middle of the sea. The sea wasn't known to feature decent, warm campsites, however, so the team had to make use of what was available in their surroundings. They had to build an advantage for themselves, or more specifically, Timothy had to build an advantage for them!
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The team dove towards the bottom of the sea, at a depth of four-hundred meters, and thankfully they weren't attacked once they got there. This freedom allowed Timothy to initiate his plan, that being, he started abusing his most overpowered ability yet - The Bone Multiplier!
Timothy used this ability to find a couple of old bones first, and then he quickly expanded those bones into huge beams. This didn't take much mana, so he started duplicating them into tens of beams, and then started pushing them against the ground, ten at a time! With thinner bones to act as a flat ceiling, he ended up creating a bunker of sorts, a very roomy bunker even, because at the end he could move around in it, even as a stingray with a two-point-seven meter wingspan! He did so easily.
The bunker was ten meters wide, four meters deep, and it had been altered to ignore the water pressure around it as best as it could. He did the latter by allowing many, foot-wide gaps across the structure, and these in turn wouldn't let the structure implode or explode, because he wasn’t trying to create a dry haven for himself here, no, there was plenty of water flowing inside the bunker. He didn’t need to seal it shut, as that would be unnecessarily dangerous! They had a fabulous place here, where they could regenerate their mana without fearing the ongoing hazardous elements of The Old Sea.
Once they got comfortable, Tim pitched. “I'm thinking that we should camp out for a month, that should be enough to fill a… very dependable portion of our mana pool. I can give these bones all the juice they need, for months, even, it's inexpensive, and most bones are seven foot thick! They’ll protect us, we'll be safe...”
“Let’s not exaggerate things,” Arvena argued, “Why months? We only need a week at most, maybe five days?”
Quick as a flash, Timothy argued. “Five days for you, maybe. I just spent three-hundred-thousand mana points up until I crippled that bastarding Sea Orc! You'd think that a larger mana pool would last you more, but it doesn't - This is bullshit!”
With that said, everyone was convinced that they had to stay here for a while. They hadn't run into a single thing that would help them regenerate their mana so far, so this was where they had to stop, and be a bit more realistic! Spending more one-hundred-thousand points of mana in a single battle, and not being able to regenerate as little as half of that amount in a day, was scandalous, it was not the best formula! It certainly wasn't the formula for success, because Timothy spent thrice as much mana compared to his friends.
The team had to slow down, and the whole team finally made peace with that. They may only go out to hunt for food throughout the following days, but that was about it!
Anyway, Timothy made this bony camp, because he also wanted to buy the rest of the available purchase options. He wanted to go to the ruins as prepared as possible, he wanted to be like a battle tank, so he decided that it was about time he spent the seventy-eight-thousand mana points that he had accumulated!