I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 24: IQ

After piling up a bit more stamina, Tim made his way out of the deep hole he fell into earlier and took a peek of his surroundings for the sake of spotting Alba.

Fair to say, no luck. The lady had enough time to get out of here even if she swam slowly, all odds were to her favour except one, Tim knows where she's going.

The far north of this coral reef, that's the prime goal at least but chances are they won't meet each other as this reef is at least a few kilometers wide... although there is no exact geometrical shape to determine which side can be wider.

This reef has a heavy ecosystem, this is where most life is at... or at least was before the hundreds of sharks came for a feeding and stayed here for 6 months!

Now, it feels like an abandoned town, the odds of meeting with either predator or prey has been largely reduced, while the smallest beings are the most common considering larger sharks didn't manage to reach those.

Those thoughts going through his head, Tim could understand a bit better why Marlo wants to increase his tribe's size.

This reef has faced a mass extinction already, the last thing they need is for the inhabitants to hunt each other for food.

Furthermore Marlo wants to stop the big bullies who feast on the reef, that demanding a higher number is understandable.

Surfing a couple hundred meters more above the coral at full speed, covering about 30 meters every 5 seconds, Tim's mind primarily went through the attempt to raise confidence.

"You can kill her, you got this! She doesn't even have a system now hahaha! You killed a god damn barracuda muhahaha! You got this Tim, you got this." That's a sample of thoughts that ran through his head under a short few seconds.

It's fair to say that it made the young stingray a bit more confident, but we can't ignore that his speed and rants caused a disturbance through the coral reef.

As he finally passed through the huge mass of blue coral, something started chasing the boy.

Sensing the water behind him having an unusual disturbance, Tim immediately sunk down towards the coral reef that illuminated light grey in colour.

But in the meantime, he unleashed what the stomach has carried so far... poop. It wasn't a surprise to do so, his speed most definitely over works the body, which in another way gets things moving.

The poop flung through the water and Tim heard the system inform. [Hunger bar = 7/35]

As if an airplane, Tim tilted his body to the left and started swimming in a 45 degree angle with one prime aim, to hide in the coral.

And so, he slipped through what looks like a crack in the coral but is just a weird natural formation that stretched about 12 centimeters wide.

Right after, he felt the coral walls too close to his body, rumble violently for a few short seconds. Afterwards he heard a familiar tone demanding, "Come out of there you little bastard!"

Turning around, he saw none other than Drake's nose trying to break in the coral.

And of course this is a golden opportunity to tease the 2 meter long enemy. "How did my shit taste? Having a good time Drake?"

"Don't worry, you'll figure it out." Drake thundered from the other side and began to hit the coral with his head.

Trying to observe his surroundings better, Tim noticed that there is no way out of here... and Drake doesn't really have trouble breaking through this little bit of a crack Tim has slipped through which makes the situation all the more alarming.

[Total system points = 91]

[You have enough points to increase your personal IQ.]

"And how will a bigger IQ help me here?" Tim murmured, but the system did surely hear.

[You'll have more chances to hide from the shark.]

[A bigger IQ also helps form quicker thinking.]

"Okay okay, upgrade my IQ." Tim requested, feeling the coral walls around him shift, laid on his back too.

[Purchase confirmed.]

[Purchase loading...]

[Your personal IQ has been upgraded by 5 points.]

[Total IQ = 50 points]

[90 system points consumed.]

[1 system point remaining.]

"Oh that didn't hurt." Tim spoke out, surprised and happy about it.

Right at that moment, he heard Drake bashing against the coral once more.

It's impact was strong enough to shift everything around the young Stingray, but also forced the boy to turn around somehow.

Seeing the other side of the coral, he spotted a little hole, perhaps about 7 centimeters long.

Most definitely small but as Tim swam closer and took a peek at it, he could see pitch darkness from the other side. Basing it on common logic, he figured out that it's darker because it's larger.

And so before Drake could strike the coral again, he sunk towards that little hole after squeezing his fins closer to each other.

And afterwards he heard the coral reef getting bashed once more, due to it a 1 meter wide chunk of coral fell behind him.

Heck, if Tim didn't swim away the moment of which the chunk fell, he would have been most definitely crushed. His puny size can't take that size and the system couldn't dig him out of such a foul situation either.

Turning around, he spotted Drake bashing through the ceiling and managed to chase Tim as well.

Circling around the wide opening that doesn't seem to have walls or a bottom, Tim made for the exit for the sake of not becoming shark food.

Drake took a few seconds to make a 360 turn and that was all Tim needed to make a proper escape.

The young stingray speeded out of this large place, and getting out of the coral was easier considering the large hole Drake caused.

Grasping his surroundings after escaping the coral, Tim spotted Harold the eel rushing towards him, intents are easy to predict.

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