Opportunity and progress ofteogether hand by hand. Those of the deepest willpower sought out opportunities of any kind, so it wasn’t surprising when their hunger ended up in raw, accelerating progress! In this world that was filled with magic, it was only expected.

  Timothy, Skendus, and Ortana strode the seas with the same kind of motivation in their minds! They were given a special io visit, and roll their lucky di this micro-universe called Valporovus, and they accepted the invite right away, of course! This was a universe where mana was supposedly very plentiful, and with that said, it was really easy for oo improve the quality of their mana there, so easy that some may even sider it as cheating!

  It was fair to treat this opportunity like a cheat-code, due to numerous reasons. For example, it would be a real blessing to escape the god’s punishment realm of mana, there was ing that! So, if one escaped this realm quicker than others, the process iween had to be sidered cheating, and or unnatural too! Amongst other adjectives, that was one of the ways to describe such raw, accelerated progress.

  Anyway, the micro-universe itself washer easy to find nor easy to eo find its entrance portal, the team had to travel he surface of the open sea waters, for a long, fin-straining period of time. They traveled for three weeks straight, to be exact, and they hadn't been able to sleep much along the way!

  It was really unfortable for them to sleep in the open waters, because there was no solid ground right below them. They were far away from their natural habitats, so It felt weird, and unnatural for them to sleep out here!

  Tim pihe most about it, he often quoted that “something was tig his tail”. Something from the deep sea, apparently, so he wasn’t happy at all!

  They hadn’t slept much, and sihey traveled so far from home to find this ‘portal’, the team even started sed guessing if this promised, micro-universe eveed! The exhaustion got to them, it added up over time, so their boiling paranoia wasn’t surprising. Anyone would get paranoid uhese rattling, fusing circumstances, it was iable!

  However, Skendus mao keep his friends sane. As an illusionist, he had the ability to read minds, and he cluded that Arvena, their guide, was telling the truth about this micro universe, she wasn’t misleading them. This was really relieving!

  Skendus could read her mind like a boardless of how she was more powerful in parison, so in a way, he gave the final stamp of approval regarding what was true, and what was not. They trusted him, and this was what kept the team together!

  Furthermore, this journey had some bes too, it wasn’t solely tainted with despair. For example, they mao eat a lot of food, and this kept them especially calm from time to time!

  There were times when the open waters were very devoid of life, yes, but the team lucked out this time! Skendus soothed and killed a bunch of fat fish, tuna fish mostly, and this mao keep the team’s bellies full. The team did not pin as much when they had a full belly!

  Tim had even recovered from his anorexia along the way, mostly, so other than the ck of sleep, he was feeling really dandy! The sea was good to them for once.

  Anyway, in whatever state, be it dandy or horrid, they finally reached the portal after three weeks of swimming! The micro universe’s entrance portal was very well hidden, and this mao irritate the team a bit, they did not want to be challenged right now.

  The portal was hidden within the midst of darkness, out here in the open sea! Even Arvena was fused about its whereabouts for a moment, it took her a while to find it. Ohey did finally find it, the portal didn’t give them an easy ride either, so to speak.

  They were entering another universe, after all, so it was not some fun joyride to e! As soon as they swam through it, the team felt as if their bodies were getting stretched out, and spaghettified, and this was really painful, they almost died along the way. The portal acted like a tunnel of sorts too, so they could only look forward along the way, nothing else. This part of the journey was the very definition of having tunnel vision, they couldn’t look in any other dires, so they only had to be patient and hope for the best!

  Overall, it was fair to say that most of the journey had been very abusive to them, in multiple ways, traumatizing, even, but at least it was over after about fifteen minutes, after they passed through the portal!

  They made it to the other side of the portal, and although this other side wasn’t as visually impressive either, the team was still happy to get here, especially sihey were still floating in a body of water. The tter fueled their willpower, they were excited.

  “Okay… I know all that stretg wasn’t fun, guys, but we finally made it, we have arrived! Wele to Valporovus, the nd of the goblins!“ Arvena announced.

  “Land? Where in the sea or something, so, this is the sea of the goblins.” Tim added, though, it was obvious that he was joking.

  The team experienced a lot of disfort up until a moment ago, so this may not be the best time to cray jokes. It was inappropriate to joke, even, and Tim was aware of that, yet, he did not budge!

  Then, he had the audacity to tease one of his friends too, he asked. “Why the long face, Skendus? We made it!”

  “Yes, we did, but you have to stop talking about my nose, kid. I ’t help having a ‘long’ face, it’s a geic mark.” Skendus expressed himself, and it was obvious that he didn’t enjoy those couple of jokes at all.

  This was a tough crowd overall, no one was ughing. They were within dark sea waters as well, so he couldn’t really see their facial expressioher, but if he could see them, then he would act accly. Right now he decided to stay quiet for a while.

  Tim's bad jokes were lio his intelligence, ironically. About three weeks ago, he bought an upgrade which had massively increased his creative intelligeherwise called CQ, and the increase was a total of 50 points! He was fairly intelligent now, one could not refuse that fact, as Tim sported 150 points of CQ, and not everyone could say that about themselves, certainly not!

  The system had eveioned if he was a warlord in his past life, or at least an artist of sorts, as such creativity couldn’t be random, no, but he didn’t have an answer for that, he was clueless about his past life. heless, even though he scored high, his CQ mostly served him to crack goofy jokes for now, that was about it, he hadn’t been in any plicated battles for weeks now.

  The team was really irritated by him, but there was nothing they could do, so they swards in that irritated state, and were in search of some dry nd. They swam for a while, because even though Valporovus was a micro-universe of sorts, it was still pretty big for any mere creature to explore! Arvena called it half-a-p, so it was best not to uimate its size.

  The team s, and as they searched for nd, they were very expeg of the iable. They khat if they were tress here, they had to walk on nd for a while, and in order to do that, they had to turn into goblins, or an equivalent creature!

  This was quite a burden, because In order to switto such a creature, who was admittedly smarter, they just khat they had to sacrifiother level of their mana quality! They had to be sacrificial, in order to shapeshift properly.

  It was a grand sacrifice, but it was necessary as well, because they had to fit in around here, they couldn't afford to explore the world as is, like Tim had tried before, bae. In this micro universe, goblihe dominant species, so they couldn’t settle to be anything lesser during their visit, especially sihey had the opportunity to turn into a goblin. This form was less hecti parison t into a human, without a doubt!

  Anyway, uhe rest, Tim retty excited to be a goblin, it had been within his bundle of ideas for a while now! He was ready to walk, and he was ready to ugh too, as it should be iing to see his friends turn into goblins!

  MisterE05