Stingray to Godly Magus

Chapter 36 - Small fish in a big pond

Timothy's soul was enslaved. He did not like it, no, but there were also certain aspects that worked to his favor. For example, he didn’t have to worry about flying anymore, because he couldn't control where he moved towards. Now that seemed like a bad thing in hindsight, but since he was a lazy and greedy guy, he could really abuse this situation!

In simple words, he could explore the skies, without putting in any effort in himself. He'd figure out where gaseous, mana-filled clouds were located, for example, without having to look for them himself. These slithering plague snakes that enslaved him, were bound to fly across some of the said clouds eventually, and Tim, in turn, would figure out where these precious clouds were!

This way, he was bound to be rich in phantomized mana, by amount, it was inevitable, that is, if the said clouds were too huge for these snakes to harvest. He didn’t care about the smaller clouds.

Furthermore, as far as he understood, even though these snakes enslaved him, they still couldn't steal his phantomized mana! For that matter, he still had a bit over seven-hundred points to his name, and was bound to collect more! If Tim was lucky enough, he could become powerful quickly.

That prediction was only a sample of the benefits he could win over, and there were other benefits too. Tim guessed that since these enslaving entities were several, if not tens by number, then they were far more well-traveled than him, they understood the skies far better than him, in comparison. Since they were well-traveled, odds were that they knew how to locate more prominent, ghostly clusters, such as a ghostly kingdom!

If Tim could learn how to find one of those, then utter soul-shaking progress was inevitable for him. One's soul could be upgraded too, and he was eager to do just that, it wasn't impossible!

He thought, “These bastards are gonna help me become the toughest fucker out there, even if they do so accidentally. They don't know what I'm capable of, hell, even I don't know what I'm capable of, hehe!”

He was enthusiastic, however, he couldn’t really ignore the odds and ends of his current situation either. The only, and rather prophilic downside of this situation was that he was enslaved, rather thoroughly, and he couldn’t really do much about that either.

He couldn’t taunt or harass his slave masters, because for now, it seemed impossible for him to do so. He could only follow them, regardless if he respected them or not.

Under that setting, he and the slithering plague snakes managed to travel quite a bit. There was nothing stopping them either, since a soul or an entity of any sort, did not get tired at all. He and the snakes wouldn't get tired physically, they wouldn't get fatigued, and thanks to that fact, they managed to travel for two days straight, without taking a single break! This pace of traveling was interesting to say the least, Tim felt like a migrating bird.

Throughout this time bracket, these snakes obliterated a bunch of other entities, and they even ended up enslaving some of them. In the very least, it was fun to watch such battles unfold, but that was about all of the entertainment Timothy could get along the way. He was enslaved, so he couldn’t move around on his own, and also, he hadn't even been used by the slithering plague snakes so far whatsoever, no; He only followed them around, but that was about it.

That latter part made life especially boring for him, and it was disadvantageous too! He couldn't participate in any of the battles, he couldn’t get into any action at all. This part was disadvantageous, as mentioned, because it further robbed him of his freedom. Tim's soul had a health bar, just like his body did, and in order to escape this weird enslavement, he would have to deplete that health bar, otherwise known as the bar of essence points!

That was the easiest way for him to be set free of this enslavement, yet he couldn’t deplete this health bar himself. That aside, these snakes weren't planning on lessening the amount of their slaves, they weren't using Timothy in battles, so for now, he was quite stuck as a slave! That was one of the reasons why the past couple of days had been frustrating, but that wasn’t all.

Tim hadn't made any significant discoveries within this time bracket, which was the most frustrating part about this forceful trip, because he was really looking forward to discovering anything important. Sure he saw a couple of ghosts along the way that seemed interesting, but that was about it, those were the spoils of his lengthy trip across the sky, nothing else! He didn't discover any ghostly kingdoms, or anything like that.

They found a few tiny clouds that were filled with phantomized mana as well, but he couldn't harvest those, so it did not matter that he saw them. The snakes devoured the gaseous clouds instantly, so they were gone by now!

“No mana, no kingdoms, and no fucking system points either. The skies are not fair, damn it!” He complained.

Furthermore, he added. “If I have to look at this blue sky for one more day, I'm going to fucking loose it!”

Timothy was really frustrated, and rightfully so. He hated the idea of being so isolated, and controlled. The sky out here was so massive, to the point where he felt isolated out here in the open sky, and he would feel similarly so, even if he hadn't been enslaved by these snakes. The sky was just too large, and he floated too slowly to make any good discoveries, so he was literally a small fish in a big pond, with the pond being the whole sky!

With that considered, he then thought. “Soon as I'm free, I'm gonna try to upgrade my soul. Dunno if that'll make me faster, but it sure as hell will make me stronger. I'll be a fucking slave master too, if that's what it takes to make some progress out here!”

Timothy was frustrated, but just then, he saw something that immediately distracted him from all of this frustration. He saw an entity that was too big for comfort!