George considered himself lucky. He has improved his body significantly today. Realistically, he barely remembered how this journey started, since his original IQ had been a single point, so he couldn't make many comparisons based on his original, and current body, but he felt lucky nonetheless.
His muscles burned with strength, even post-upgrade, he could feel it. He felt strong, far stronger than an assfish should, or could ever feel, and it was empowering! The new, pink patches across his body were stamps of his new, toned strength! Paired with the fact that his bones had also become more dense, he was essentially a deep-sea battering ram now. He was a small beast, with an IQ high enough to challenge most of fish kind. A stone-cold, killer assfish.
Anyway, despite all that, he had almost run out of essence points. He only had a few more Mana Essence points remaining, and he was about to use it to buy one of the three available magical powers that the system offered him.
"This is a hard decision, system." He said. "I want all of them if we're being honest."
[You will buy all of them eventually. The purchases I offer aren't optional, they're the best purchase decisions you could wish to make, and as far as magical abilities go, you will need to buy all three of them at some point, if you want other abilities to unlock.]
"Oh, how many magical abilities do you have for sale, or locked away?" He asked.
[6,422]
[It's unlikely that you will ever manage to buy them all, but that number is humbling, isn't it?]
Irritated, he asked, "Is that a real question?"
[No. Evolutionary upgrades matter more anyway, so don't worry about magical abilities too much. Right now, however, you must pick one of the purchases, as it'll give you a chance to survive whatever lurks beyond the first barrier you crossed.]
Despite his upgraded IQ, George had forgotten about the potential dangers of this new environment, so now he was even more stressed about his purchase options. He had to make the decision count, so he looked over the purchase options for a while, scanning the blue system tab, consulting the system as well in order to narrow his decision down.
The first purchase option featured a small fireball of sorts, simply called Fireball. If he decided to buy it, it cost one Mana Essence points to cast. This looked like a good power to have, however, the system described that at its base state, the fireball wouldn't be strong enough to truly hurt enemies. It was a foot wide, with a travel distance of twenty feet, and it only burned for a second upon contact, which often isn't enough to kill bigger enemies. The fireball would need to be upgraded a few times in order for it to be useful, so he decided that it wasn't the best idea to buy the fireball ability right now, as he didn't have enough Mana Essence to his name to make the purchase worthwhile.
The second purchase option, costing two Mana Essence points to cast if bought, was an ability which best fell under the branch of illusion, and it was called Fear Weaver. With it, he could create a terrifying illusion against any target that's stupid enough to fall for it. Its effectiveness is capped to creatures who have an IQ of 20 or lower. Relatively speaking, if the intelligence bell-curve is measured collectively across all sea creatures instead of separately, this power could work against thousands of species. Fish, crustaceans, or jellyfish weren't exactly smart. Jellyfish don't even have brains. This second option didn't get him anywhere closer to a decision, though.
The third purchase option was perhaps the most violent one. It was called Molecular Torsion, and although the name sounded fancy, in actuality it was used to wipe small creatures out of existence! It works best against small, non-complex organisms, and it would work especially well against a sardine, but it didn't deal a lot of damage against bigger, more biologically complicated creatures. If bought, it cost three Mana Essence points to cast.
"Molecular Torsion looks nice," He thought. "I guess it can't kill an anglerfish in one blow, but if I erase an anglerfish's muscles, or spine, they'd become a lot easier to kill."
George was aware that any one of these three powers were weak, and mostly useless, but in terms of tactical value, Molecular Torsion was the leading candidate, so after a bit more thought, he decided to buy it.
[Confirmed]
[-60 Mana Essence points]
[Remaining points…]
[Blood Essence = 0]
[Bone Essence = 0]
[Mana Essence = 12]
"I can't put my fin on it, but it feels like I should have more points…" He thought.
[Ideally you should, but I've put you through numerous physical, evolutionary upgrades. You're now smarter, stronger, tougher and faster than you originally were, and even have a venomous dorsal fin on you. You're harder to kill now, relatively speaking, so yes, the process of improvement ended up draining most of your points.]
"Fair enough," He said.
Ideally, he wanted to try his new ability against a target, but he didn't want to rush into things. Odds were, he'd run into a creature larger than him hours before he could find a small creature that he could kill in one blow. Molecular Torsion was a good ability, but the sea was wide, and terrifying, so it was best not to take a risk if he could help it, and therefore not rush to use his new ability. He had to try and give himself the luxury of picking his battles.
Nevertheless, George was on the move again. He had rested enough, and his new body upgrades had already settled in, so he could move freely, without fearing of being completely wiped out in seconds. Despite the common dangers past the first magical barrier, he was stronger now, so he was harder to kill even if an opponent was stronger. He was observing the deep, dark sea.
"I guess we gotta see what monsters we can find, and kill around here. Preferably an easy kill, cause I gotta get points somehow." He thought. "What was I rambling about when I was dumber, system? Did I want to walk, or?"
[Something like that. You wanted to cross the three magical barriers, and escape the deep sea, essentially. What happens after you achieve that goal is a flexible topic.]
[However, focusing on the now, if you're to cross the second magical barrier, it is best if you familiarize yourself with the current environment. It is true that you need essence points, a lot of them, actually, because by all odds, the 'dungeons' throughout the second barrier a few hundred meters above you are filled with even stronger monsters. You're going to need a few more improvements stacking to your favor, be it body, or magic upgrades.]
Nodding along, he added, "Well, I remember missing parts of my body a little while ago, so yeah, you're right about the monsters. I don't wanna be fish-food."
George had to hunt, it was as simple as that. He was happy that he and the system could agree on the matter.
Anyway, he swam across the deep sea carefully, and stuck close to the magical barrier. He stuck close to the barrier, because he figured that only two types of fish may be around here; Those dumb enough to swim close to the barrier, and those smart enough to hunt near the barrier.
George figured that bigger species of fish essentially camped near the barrier, which on this side was considered the exit, in order to prey on fish who had managed to cross the barrier. They were looking for easy game, because unlike George, most fish come out of those dungeons injured, or at the brink of death!
He figured, "I don't wanna fight any of the big guys, but if they look too stupid to fight strategically, I could try and kill them. It would be a good chance to stack up on points quickly."
Thirty minutes later, he finally ran into a couple of brown fish with dark spots, but they were five times smaller than him, about fifteen centimeters each. They appeared to be related as well, they were siblings, and he figured that out over their bickering.
"What are those, system?" He asked. "It looks like they have a mean jaw on them, but they're not anglerfish, right?"
[Those are Fangtooth fish. They're not a dangerous threat to you, as you may have noticed, but they can leave a nasty bite.]
"They're not worth the trouble," He followed along. "Why kill them over a couple of points? Sure I want easy kills, but there is a line I gotta draw, right? I mean they do look stupid, like I was hoping, but still."
[Those fish aren't worth the argument, so I won't comment on the matter.]
George decided to observe them a little while longer. A minute later, he figured out what they were bickering about. They were arguing if they should turn around, and dive into the dungeons to look for their friends and family. He figured this out, because five more Fangtooth fish came out of the dungeons, and from the looks of it, more of them could come out of there.
"Are you sure they're not a threat, system?" He asked. "If I get jumped by them, I'm gonna get eaten alive for sure."
Seconds later, six more Fangtooth fish came out of the dungeon of the magical barrier. They rushed out. Now, they started to look like a big problem, especially since a couple of them started eyeing George down, which intimidated him quite a bit, because although he had proven himself successful against groups of attackers, he didn't want to join that dance again so quickly.
Nevertheless, he stood his ground, metaphorically speaking, and shouted, "What are you looking at, fish face?"