I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 243: Patterns

It was difficult to understand just why this place was practically over-populated with fish, but nothing could be done if he stayed in one place and waited for information to come along.

So with a good motive, the young hero continued dwelling through the crowds. And eventually, he began noticing an annoying pattern.

Regardless of where he swam, it was an inevitable fate to crash against another fish and lose orientation. It can be considered as lowly impacting, as he didn't lose any health, but it was tremendously annoying.

Apart from that, it managed to raise a grand question. Why is it so easy to bump against them?

The first thought after that self-generated question, was that these creatures were just too annoying and dumb. It especially felt so, after another random fish had bumped up against him just a moment after!

Regardless, after he pushed anger and curses away, Timmy noticed what can be labelled as a little clue. The same fish that had bumped into him just now, had gagged out a chunk of dirt.

Normally that wouldn't be too weird, but in this place, every little detail should be paid attention towards.

He wanted to focus on this detail, but that was when a bundle of other fish had managed to capture his attention. josei

These fish were swimming straight up for some strange reason. This felt especially odd, after considering that the rest of the fish in this cavern, were not following that odd direction.

Whatever question he had about the behaviour of which these fish showed, was replaced by more questions. Because after he swam towards the cavern's ceiling for the sake of observation, he noticed quite a strange behaviour.

For some reason, these odd fish were biting through the ceiling; they were taking one tiny chunk after the other.

If he could approach any closer without standing out like a sore thumb: he would know that these fish were putting in work, for the sake of making the ceiling appear smoother.

Regardless of that little detail that had been missed, the sea-pancake could still connect the patterns that hid behind these actions. All of the fish in this cavern were working to make the structure look better, or at least more stable!

Considering that patches of silver had been spread around here and there, it proved a point about the need for stability in this place.

But then another itching question emerged, why were they trying to make use of this cavern? Why were they putting in this much effort to make everything look right?

That query had motivated the hero to dwell a bit deeper through this cavern, for the sake of discovering more clues. He eventually noticed that it wasn't dangerous to move around here, even though it became annoying with all these fish bumping against him.

The lack of danger gave the radiating perk of freedom. So he piled up a bit of bravery to separate from the masses, and search through what just had caught his eye!

On one corner of the cavern, there were a few openings that gave the preview of tunnel entrances. They were just a couple of feet wide, each; but surely managed to catch Tim's attention, he felt pressured to check them out.

It took just a couple of minutes to reach these tunnels, because this place was easy to move around, although it was large for an underground structure. So of course, this had made it much easier to instantly begin exploring this tunnel.

What managed to give him a sense of comfort, was how a few patches of silver were spread around these tunnels.

It almost assured that the structure won't collapse over him, because these plates of silver seemed enduring even though they were thin.

Upon a bit of thought, he decided to enter the tunnel that was at the very top of this bundle. Although the thought itself was a bit random, the tunnel at the top gave a small sense of order and safety.

What continued to give comfort, was the fact that if he could not figure out anything new from this first tunnel, the other ones below, could be thoroughly checked as well.

Illumination wasn't a problem whatsoever, that was something easy to notice once he dwelled a bit deeper towards the chosen tunnel. As there was another one of these large and white gems, who aided to provide a gentle ray of light towards this place.

This gem was located in the middle of the tunnel, quite easy to swim towards for the sake of observation; and now might be the best time to do exactly so.

Upon close-up inspection, he somewhat understood how these things worked. But at the same time, it was tremendously difficult to understand how it was possible.

The gem seemed to have just a couple of layers. The outer one behaved like transparent glass, and had a duty to guard the inner layer of the gem.

Because it was this inner layer, who provided this flawless illumination. This gem was like a lightbulb, except it had more sharp corners and seemed more expensive!

Regardless of how difficult it was to understand these things, the hero could still release a wave of appreciation. These things were beautiful for sure, and he wasn't smart enough to understand some weird gem anyway, so why bother making things even more complicated?

Instead, he began recalling the prior motive and mumbled it too. "Okay, I saw this lightbulb long enough. Now I must search the rest of this tunnel."

And afterwards he tried to attain a bit more focus, by repeating. "Must search, must search! Yes."

With that mindset, he continued swimming deeper towards the tunnel and enjoyed the amount of illumination that was spread across this area. It aided to figure out even the slightest details, which was a rather good blessing.

And after a few more meters, he met with what seemed like a dead end. But just a few more glances aided to figure out that it was not a dead end, but the tunnel curled directly downwards instead!

To swim down, he just had to stop moving around and allow himself to sink like a rock. He could have swam down here easier if he just took a sharp turn with admirable speed, but that wasn't a good idea.

This whole territory was foreign, and it was difficult to understand if there were any risk factors to be spoken of, so he had to be careful for the sake of feeding paranoia.

Contrary to all expectations, Timothy did not find any living being once sinking downwards.

What he found instead, was a true dead end that carried a stacking of brick-like items. These things were green in colour, and projected a faint ray of light that shared the same shade.

Within a slight moment, he figured out what these things were and felt his heart becoming heavy!