Chapter 210 - The Monument

Performing covert actions was never easy, and it was especially difficult for a scheming anglerfish. He was having a hard time here!

Nevertheless, it was best to be covert given the circumstances that they were in. Since a massive wyrm risked its own neck to keep Timothy, and his team away from the ruins, it was easy to put two and two together, and take the wyrm's warning seriously!

It was absolutely stupid to attack the dark mages here directly, not unless the team knew what they were dealing with, and this was what brought Timothy here. He came alone, and as for everyone else, he created a temporary den where his team, and the platoon could hide in, as they didn't have to tag along! They were half-a-kilometer away from the ruins, and they were absolutely safe.

Timothy's slaves have been ordered to protect his friends, and they were to carry out those orders to the end, regardless of what Timothy shapeshifted into today. Even if he turned into a mere ant, the influence he had on those slaves would still last for weeks, as he fed them with plenty of dark mana already. His command was their most important thing in the world up until their last, artificial breath!

“Those bastards better keep my friends alive, or else I'm going to fry them one by one! They're practically useless to me now, with me doing all the work here in the ruins, so they better do a good job at being my guard dogs!” He babbled, though almost no one could understand him, because he was speaking in the slurred tongue of the average pufferfish.

Anyway, since he managed to sneak into the old city successfully, he continued exploring its ruins! Eventually, he managed to figure out what building these humanoids were working in, and unsurprisingly, they were below the tallest tower of the city.

This tower was tall, thin, and monumental. It couldn't be accessed from the inside, so whatever business these guys were carrying out, they were doing it below the tower.

Once Timothy found this spot, he figured that he had to shapeshift again. Though he was a little anglerfish for the time being, his stare was still very human-like, so he didn’t want to end up staring down one of these people accidentally, as it would blow his cover rather quickly! He wanted to avoid stare-downs, because he was performing a covert operation here after all, so, as one could guess, he had to remain covert.

This was why he decided to turn into the tiniest creature he could think of, and he used one of the many tiny creatures in the vicinity as an example. He was certain that he could assume its form effortlessly!

Within half a minute, on the count of how simple this species’ body was, Timothy successfully shapeshifted into a two-inch long, Sea Pig! This species was a type of Sea Cucumber, except it was a lot more mobile in comparison, and it bore pink skin.

Well, he couldn’t swim anymore, because this species wasn't known for swimming, so he landed on the floor and started crawling. Slowly but surely, he was bound to make progress, because even though he was tiny, he had six legs to help him move!

“No one's gonna find me now, hehe! Hell, even Rempegan Lus couldn't find me in this form, even if he tried to!” He giggled, and then snuck across the old, ruined stairs that led him below the monumental tower.

Timothy’s intelligence has withstood a significant decrease, on the count of how uncomplicated his current form was. He was down to twenty IQ points, and although that was considered crippling, he was still a lot smarter than the average, plumpy Sea Pig if comparisons were to be made, so he could remember what he was here for. His lowered intelligence also explained how his jokes got a lot worse by the second, or in this case, he was cursing at every humanoid he saw walking by!

“Can't see me, ya worthless bag of dicks!” He shouted, though no one could hear him, so he continued crawling without a worry in the world. “Your dick is smaller than a plankton’s!”

When he was sure that no one was looking, Timothy even used a couple of his powers in order to move faster. He paired the Freezing Blood ability, with the Flaming Feet ability, and moved across the floor at up to twenty centimeters per second!

“My mana pool can only fit five-thousand points…” He muttered, “It's embarrassing to think that I had even less than that when I started out as a stingray, damn, it is really embarrassing! Mana quality can be a bitch!”

Anyway, the powers he used weren't as luminous while he was in this tiny form, so it was very easy for him to avoid suspicion as he traveled at speeds that no other Sea Pig had achieved before! Eventually, after about fifty blue mana points spent, he made it to a spot that seemed really important.

There was another staircase which led down to a big hall-like room. The hall was huge, about twenty meters wide, and although half of it was ruined by the passing of time, it still appeared to be functional for the many humanoids here.

Timothy didn’t bother crawling down the staircase. He just floated down from the stone balcony, and landed on a huge helmet of sorts later on.

Afterwards, he laid his eyes on what these people were working on. Specifically, he saw three small pyramids, and he got spooked by this because more often than not, pyramids seem to be associated with power across this universe!

Pyramids were the thing one would find on an altar, typically, and this case was no exception, as the pyramids were laid on a fat slab of stone right in front of him! No one was praying around these three, foot-wide pyramids though, so their use may have gone beyond the common prayer corner by now! These pyramids were tools, rather than symbols that one could pray to!

Timothy could even see these linear waves of mana heading towards two of the pyramids, while the one in the middle was exerting this dark, evil-looking mist! With his mere Sea Pig brain, he managed to figure out a decent theory as to what was going on here!

“They're converting blue mana into dark mana!” He yelled out, in panic, but no one heard him as he remained a tiny Sea Pig.

Seconds later, as if she tried to mock his unfortunate discovery even further, the system popped a notification in front of his eyes. It featured a few of the words that he never wanted to hear, or read about.

[Your mana pool has been depleted,] She beeped.