I'm a Stingray?

It took a few hours for the team to orientate themselves, but eventually they got on the right track. The best navigational tool that aided them, was the long border that separated the drastic differences of under-water elevation.

Once they found that border, they were quick to understand that they only need to follow it, in order to reach the reef they call home.

Timmy had an inbuilt compass on his vision, but it only played little in value ~ instead, the borderline could drastically help them.

The travel itself has taken them a handful of weeks, especially since they were over a hundred kilometres away from home.

But even though it was tedious to travel that much, the group had at least kept productive ~ Timothy especially.

It was a fact that he had quite a few things to deal with, health issues were one of them. But eventually he managed to heal every bone in his body.

The prior collision they had with those sharks was truly impactful, but the team has fully recovered ~ not to forget, they have survived as well.

The healing process was a bit tedious. For example, Gerlach had to pinch extra wounds on the hero's other fin, just to cause health-loss.

And when those health-points were replenished afterwards with the aid of certain foods, the sea-pancake's bones healed just a little bit more.

The process was nerve-wracking, but at least it eventually proved helpful. Gerlach's arms were powerful, so he tried to be especially careful. Because the last thing they needed was for another bone to crack.

Osira could have been of aid through this process, but she was shy to fit an entire stingray in her mouth, and land a soft bite through that same gesture.

Such embarrassment was a bit odd, but it didn't really matter. The hero was completely healed, which proved especially useful in terms of having to travel tens of kilometres.

Throughout the long journey, the sea-disk managed to handle a few other mandatory dilemmas, such as completing the system given tasks.

He managed to handle all four of them, and accumulated a total of thirty completed tasks.

Such a number felt excruciatingly small, especially after considering how long he had been in this new body, but progress was still progress.

And in exchange for completing all of these tasks, the system has blessed the young man with a boost in his primary bars.

The upgrade wasn't exactly massive, as the bars only increased by a tenth of the previous numbers, but it could most definitely prove useful.

A few days ago, he was quite excited when the system gave out an accurate overview of how these primary bars looked like, right after they were increased.

He could still remember most of what the system had said, and that little recent memory aided to make him a little happier, from time to time.

[Since you've completed thirty tasks, your bars have upgraded and are now the following...]

[Health bar = 133/133]

[Hunger bar = 21/21]

[Sleep bar = 47/47]

[Stamina bar = 21/21]

At this point, most of these stats didn't matter quite enough; as they were just looked at when the hero was feeling tired or hungry, but it was still nice to see them increase.

Such gains led back to the original thought, this group had surely been productive one way or the other.

Dana was one of them. Ever since she touched the crystal shard, her sensory capabilities felt a lot more tamed.

Her senses were strong before, as she could even sense tiny vibrations that any brain made, in order to inevitably read the minds of other fish!

Such a capability would definitely come in handy. But prior to touching this big shard, she was inflicted by sensory overloads; especially if she swam close to massive groups of fish.

She would get knocked out cold, because she couldn't really control when or where her senses worked ~ which proved a problem from time to time, because these senses never stopped working!

But now, after what could be considered an upgrade that was given from the shard, she had quite a decent control over her senses.

Not only did she have the capability to control these attributes, but they could also be improved now as well!

Which was why she had been very productive. Throughout the trip, she managed to figure out paternal procedures that directly led to more control.

The greatest method that she managed to figure out, was to have a grasp of control regarding where the purified radiation travelled, and how dense it was around her body.

It was true that radiation was keeping her soul attached to what remained of her body, but there were more uses to this same invisible substance.

For example, it could be flung around in random directions ~ well at least a few meters away from the dark-green stingray.

And once it was expanded upon will, she could sense what the waters carried, even if she couldn't exactly see in all directions all at the same time.

Such a method proved especially helpful in terms of locating prey that hid in various holes. But the overall idea of being able to control when or where to unleash these senses, was simply useful.

However. At the moment they have almost reached the coral-reef. In fact they were just a few hundred meters away from it.

Noticeable senses of joy managed to grow across the group, as they truly felt happy to get back to the place they called home.

But...

There were specific details that managed to unleash strings of worry across their hearts. Necessarily, these beams of discomfort eventually managed to suck the joy out of their conscience.

The reef seemed darker than it used to be. Originally that should not be a great concern, since they were literally hundreds of meters away from the aimed location.

But still, the reef seemed too dark.

Timothy tried to make sense out of it by focusing his eye-sight towards the same location, but he couldn't really figure anything out.

After a moment, Osira questioned. "Is the reef supposed to be green?"

"I don't remember. But everything looks green to me." Dana reminded.

And as they got tens of meters closer towards the location that they had been eyeing until now, the team began noticing that the very sand around them, has begun taking a deep-dark colour!