[The various three upgrades that you just bought, cost you 59,000 system points. As of now, 100,000 points remain in your sum.] The system flashed yet another tab.

  Throughout most of his life in this world, spending this many points on upgrades had been unimaginable to him. It was a lot, but then again, he did make tremendous progress throughout his journey in the micro-universe of Valporovus, so the amount of points that he was spending now, was up-to-date! Come to think of it, the Tame Illusions ability alone cost him seventy-thousand points, so he didn’t mind spending less than that amount on four important upgrades that would help him in the long run! He gladly spent those points.

  Better yet, the system points that remained in his sum were plenty, so he had the option to buy several more upgrades if he chose to! After the system finished implementing the three upgrades that he bought, he felt content. The IQ upgrade made him feel just a little bit sharper, and a lot more competent, so he didn’t feel the need to upgrade his intelligence anymore!

  The latter was good, because most of the intelligence upgrades were incredibly expensive anyway. They weren't affordable. Instead, he focused on a few upgrades that had gotten little to no attention from him before; The Durability & Bodily Upgrades tab.

  Sure he got a bunch of durability upgrades before, but the bodily upgrades section could be better. It featured aspects that had nothing to do with mana, and therefore, they hadn't been improved as much over the past few months. He was behind on such upgrades, but the good news was that these upgrade options were very cheap because of the same, prior reason! He could make massive improvements today, if he chose to.

  ~ Hunting, jaws, and natural camouflage = Level Six

  ~ Barb, and barb venom = Level Two

  ~ Bodily strength, and speed = Level Three

  ~ Sight, scent and overall senses = Level Five

  ~ Sex appeal = Level Four

  Most of the levels featured on this tab were not significant, and Timothy had managed to survive with these statistics, only because he had focused on magic more throughout these past few months. Magic had kept him alive, but he figured that it was time he caught up with his bodily upgrades as well.

  “It kinda feels like I'm wasting points here, considering that these levels are gonna change the moment I turn into a stingray, but, happy days I guess? If I get them all above level ten, it won't matter if they change by a couple of levels- assuming that it's worth it to get them all to level ten.” He thought.

  The more he thought about it, the more he believed that buying just a few upgrades was more sensible. He didn't want to rush, regardless of how cheap these upgrades were.

  At first he thought about upgrading his sex appeal, because as an Aqus Goblin, he had the body of the average twenty-eight year old, therefore he was technically mature to breed, and could make use of a higher appeal. But then again, there weren’t many goblins around here that he could court, female ones especially, so he decided against such an upgrade. He didn't want to hump some random fish, or crab either, he was past that, so romance was definitely out of the question for now!

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  Instead, he decided to upgrade the one thing that made sense to upgrade; His Strength & Speed.

  This aspect of his bodily features was still at level three, and it was good, but he wanted to be stronger. On the occasion where he ran out of mana, he wanted to be able to smack the life out of his enemies through raw strength alone!

  The odds of him fighting anyone barehanded was low, but it was best to be prepared. He expanded the option on the tab which would allow him to make an upgrade, and then confirmed to upgrade his overall Strength & Speed to level four, in exchange for just a mere twelve-hundred system points! It was an exceptionally cheap upgrade.

  The system started the process immediately! He started having muscle spasms, and fell to the ground.

  The upgrade didn't constitute any episodes of crippling, unbearable pain, but he wasn’t exactly comfortable either. The spasms led to several, simultaneous muscle cramps, and a weird feeling in his bones, but even though this was uncomfortable, it wasn’t anything that he couldn't handle.

  The upgrade finished after thirty minutes, but Tim's pain threshold was far greater than this, so he upgraded this aspect of his body two more times! The upgrades remained cheap, and his muscle-mass was bound to increase by thirty-percent too, so all the mild discomfort that he felt was worth his while!

  In the end, he weighed a total of forty kilos, or seven kilos more, because of all of the added muscle mass alone! As a three-foot tall goblin, forty kilos was a lot for him, and the muscles he had now contested the average Aqua Goblin significantly!

  “It appears that I don't need to have level fifty strength in order to break the bones of my enemies with my bare hands? This is enough.” He thought, as he admired his muscles. “Three levels of this, feels like I crossed an entire realm of mana!”

  The example he made was a bit exaggerated, but the upgrades were still very effective! His bicep was twelve inches in girth now, so in human terms, he had the muscles of an adept bodybuilder, and he also had the strength to match his biceps! As a goblin with level seven strength, he could single handedly lift a boulder of his own weight, without hitting the very limit of his strength! Not to mention, his agility was up to par as well, because it was part of the three upgrades.

  [You spent 4,500 system points in total, on those three Strength & Speed upgrades. As of now, 95,500 points remain in your sum.] The system helped him keep count.

  “Worth every point!” He celebrated, “Looks like I'm done for the day, cause I don’t know what else to spend my points on.”

  Initially he wanted to upgrade his fireballs as well, in order to make them more lethal instead of less expensive, but he got discouraged by the prices. His own mana quality was what made his fireballs bigger, hotter, and overall more destructive, and this was a natural way of things.

  If he chose to upgrade his fireballs beyond what his mana quality was capable of, it would be expensive in all ways imaginable! The upgrade itself cost tens of thousands of system points, and it would also be very expensive to shoot fireballs after the upgrade, so he chose against it. He had to be savvy. He decided to spend the rest of his system points later on, whenever he found it sensible to spend them.

  For now, since he was done with the upgrades, he wanted to create a destructive, fire-based ability of his own, rather than spending thousands of points upgrading what he already had! He had thought about this for a while, he wanted to create something special, and terrifying all at the same time!

  There was an example where he based his idea on. The powers that Guard Master Zedim possessed, Zedim from Valporovus, was his inspiration behind the power he wanted to create. Zedim killed Iron Claw the Wicked, so his name was to be respected, his powers were surely exemplary, so it was easy to draw inspiration out of them!