The tuna fish had a quick death, most of its nervous system was fried immediately, so its brain died off moments later. It didn’t suffer any pain, because its pain receptors couldn't carry out any signals, hence, even though it was necessary to kill this fish, for the team’s sustenance, the kill was very merciful.
The tuna fish was then dragged towards the bony den, where it was later consumed. The fish was six meters long, so it just barely fit in their den, which in a sense was a good thing, because its fat body could keep the team fed for a week no doubt! Timothy and Skendus were the biggest fish, and the latter had decided to shapeshift into a sawfish in order to regenerate more mana a day, so the fact of the matter was that the two of them were to consume a lot more food on average. If they were to be healthy, the two of them needed at least twenty pounds of decent meat a day, just to sustain themselves!
Anyway, food aside, the team were still rather terrified by the display of power that Timothy had acted out. Refusing to use spoken-word spells, and still achieving good results were signs of a great, arcane mage, and they couldn’t wrap their heads around how he suddenly became this smart in all matters magical, seemingly overnight! They were stumped, well, apart from Skendus who could read minds - He chose to be quiet.
“How did you increase your MQ so fast? A score of 300 is a hell of a lot, it's even suspicious because it's impossible to achieve for most people! Are you worshiping some sort of demon!?” She asked the latter question rather bluntly.
Tim was quick to answer that question, he said. “No, I don't even know any demons by name. The demons never even bothered us, but the gods did, so maybe we shouldn't link this matter to either gods or demons… it's a deep rabbit hole.”
“You couldn’t have gotten this score naturally, hell, I should know! I had the library of Rempegana at my disposal for weeks, for fuck’s sake, but I couldn't get a score of 300 even after I crossed the Fintelus’ Apprentices realm of mana! I peaked at 200 points! Tell me how you did it, or I won't be your guide anymore!” She argued, and continued to press him on the matter.
Timothy wanted to tell her to ‘make like a tree and bounce’, but it was stupid to lose team members right now, on the count of how dangerous the sea was, so he had to bicker with her to convince her otherwise. Overall, he felt stupid for taunting her with his new intelligence of his to begin with, because Arvena was in a constant state of power-hunger, so it wasn’t bright to taunt her with such matters!
In order to calm her down, he added. “I guess I have a god helping me, or, a goddess to be exact! She tells me everything I need to know, and unfortunately, she isn't accepting any new worshippers.”
Everything he said was a lie, but it was better than explaining that he had a super powerful computer of sorts in his head. Pushing all the blame and or glory to a goddess, was a better idea, and considering that the team had learned to not anger the divines recently, they stopped pressing Timothy on the matter of his high MQ. Well, Arvena stopped pressing him.
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“Fine, then. I’m happy enough to understand that your progress isn't natural. Goblins with a high MQ are rare, but fish with a high MQ are nonexistent, that was mainly why I was asking you so many questions… appeal to your goddess, ask her not to punish me, haha.” She laughed awkwardly, though she was still really ticked off.
Anyway, they could put this topic aside for now. Everyone relaxed eventually, as the fat, uncooked meal really weighed them down, they started having mid-morning naps, even.
Timothy was about to nap, but then the euphoric train of thought regarding power merging, didn't let him fall asleep! He was very excited, and was eager to merge whichever one of his powers he saw fit to merge! It would be best if he didn't rush with the merging, because each of his abilities were really great individually, so he had to give this matter a long thought, rather than merging things just for the sake of experimenting with them. He had to be calculative.
Another good idea would be to try and create new powers, in this case, he wanted to create necromantic powers, on the count of how useful the pre-necromantic ones have been! It was a lot more difficult to work with this branch of arcane magic, especially if he wanted to create a new ability all together, but he wanted to give it a shot nonetheless!
Timothy summoned a transparent bit of light in front of him. This light didn't have a color, so essentially, it behaved as a container of a power that was yet to be created. If it assumed any shade of color in the following procedure, without that color dissipating into nothingness, it would mean that he had created a new ability out of nothingness, even if that ability wasn't very useful.
“I need slaves… cheap skeleton slaves.” He mumbled, and then he formulated. “When I made those Raptor Orclets fight each other, I had to control their every move, and that shit cost me an arm and a leg, it's not worth doing again… Maybe I can create something that'll cost me ten-points-a-second per slave, or wait… I think I've got it!”
Tim then let go of the blank light that he had summoned in front of him, and summoned the essence of his Bone Multiplier ability afterwards. He studied its color, it being as dark as the night, and he even started seeing a maze of mana channels within the ability - better yet, he started understanding these channels!
“So that's what makes them thicker, erg, stronger.” He mumbled, after he saw a wall of mana within the channels. “I understand.”
Afterwards, he put the essence of the Bone Multiplier ability back in his own body, and summoned that transparent ball of light once more. He then concentrated, and started knitting a strong wall of mana channels within the light, though the channels were still transparent, so he hadn't succeeded yet.
Afterwards, he started implementing a couple of other ideas that he separated out of the Bone Multiplier ability. One of the ideas assured that the skeleton would only need to be reanimated once, and be on its feet for weeks without being fed with any more mana, and if he could achieve this, then raising an army of skeletons was only a matter of time!
The second idea was a mixture of mana channel patterns that he stole from the Bone Multiplier, and whole new channels that he tried to create himself. He wanted to assure that each skeleton wouldn't take too many mana points to reanimate, but this bit was trickier, because he had to figure out how to make minimal amounts of mana, more amplified. The latter was an especially difficult task, even for himself and his upgraded MQ, but he gave it a shot anyway!
Moments later, the transparent ball of light finally started assuming a dark color, which stamped his success! Tim created a new ability!
“Hehe,” He grinned.