Chapter 3 - The World Outside The Cave.

[Mission accomplished: Survive the Tiger Shark's attack!]

[Mission reward: You have gained 1 Skill point; information about the system is now available.]

[After completing a mission: You have earned random Experience points]

[Congratulations for completing your first mission: You have earned additional random Adaptation points {5-10}.]

[Points randomizing…, randomization complete.]

[You have gained an additional 5 Adaptation points.]

[You are under the mild bleeding status; you'll lose 0.01 health points every 2 seconds until you fill your stomach with food.]

[As a shark, most especially as a great white shark, you need food to survive in Oceania. Without abundant food to sustain yourself, your chances of easily dying to hunger are greater than dying to a predator.]

"Oh, shut up!"

Only a little bubble came from his mouth, but in his mind, Sebastian felt that he just yelled angrily at the interface thingy. He didn't know what to call it yet, so he just called it whatever he liked.

Though the bubble that came from his mouth was bȧrėly noticeable, he still freaked out as he tucked himself tighter into the hole while secretly praying in his mind.

"God, help me please. If I survive this, I'll sacrifice anything for you".

After running from the scene of the carnage where the enormous Viper snake swallowed the tiger shark, he sought a place to hide his small body from the shining eyes of the predators in the ocean.

When he was escaping, he really wished he had a map to navigate the cave but unfortunately for him, no genie was here with him to fulfill his wishes.

In the end, he had to grope his way downwards with no prior knowledge of his location nor if other predators like the Viper were below.

With trepidation and a rapidly pounding heart, he continued his SpongeBob-like swim downwards, trashing the water left and right until he finally got to a different location of the cave.

Through an opening that looked like a tunnel, he finally saw outside the cave for the first time since he came into this world.

With just one look, he confirmed all his conjectures, he was in a real ocean.

From the tunnel-like opening, he saw that the cave outside surface was a long slope that led all the way from the top to his current position, and it still went deep inside the darker parts of the seawater.

At a distance away from where he hovered in the water, he saw a large rock surface that towered up into the sky like a mountain. He couldn't see where it started from, he could not see its end also.

He remembered that these were called Seamounts.

Though in his position, the water was a little darkish blue in color, he was still able to appreciate the ocean bed surface before him.

He saw trenches that led deep into the ground. After seeing past a certain point, he only saw darkness inside the trenches.

Inside the trenches, he saw abnormally huge eels going up and down. What actually shocked him was that the biggest eel that he saw had electric sparks spiking and snaking around its smooth body eerily.

"Holy moly!"

He exclaimed but only bubbles came out of his mouth without a sound.

Looking a little farther into the distance, he saw a place looking like a coral forest. From time to time, he saw marine creatures like sea urchins swimming about at a leisurely pace there.

The phenomenon that fascinated him most about this sea was that from what he saw, there was clearly no sunlight shinning down here, but some blueish-green mysterious light illuminated the ocean constantly.

He already tried looking for its source but he could not find it.

"Is this magic?" He thought.

"A sea lion!"

He shrank immediately on seeing this, subconsciously moving back towards the tunnel that led him out of the cave.

The sea lion didn't notice him, but all his enthusiasm to explore the ocean directly evaporated on seeing it. He finally remembered his number 1 objective, which was to find a hiding place.

Outside here was clearly too vast for a young shark like him, he figured that there would be better hiding places inside the cave.

Struggling with swimming again, he turned his body before finally trashing it left and right into the cave again. When he got back inside, he was relieved to see that the Viper was not coming yet.

Encouraged by that, he continued his trashing journey downwards to find a better place to hide.

Counting in his head, he noted that he was swimming down for a few minutes already and the deeper he went the narrower the cave walls became.

Another few minutes later, he was surprised to find the cave leading him into a 3-way crossroad tunnel below.

Seeing the 3 tunnels, his gut feeling deterred him from entering any of them.

Shocked and spooked, he started searching for an alternative to hide immediately. With the speed of the snake relative with his speed, swimming back down was not an option.

He didn't know if it was dumb luck, but he surprisingly found a shallow hole at the side of the cave wall. His eyes lit up as he quickly shoved himself inside and tried to squeeze himself in.

Paired with his dark blue skin which was a natural camouflage under the ocean, he easily blended with the dark grey color of the cave walls.

Now, here he was, trying to make the interface thingy keep quiet while secretly praying for his life.

He was silent, his body was motionless, but his mental state was as shaky as a volcano on the verge of erupting.

His breath seized as he suddenly saw a shadow come closer. He could hear the hissing sound of the snake as its tongue flickered left and right, feeling the water surface like a detective Conan snake.

As all this happened, Sebastian felt like he was in a hot pot of soup.

The enormous Viper spent about 4 minutes hovering around the place before it finally turned back, it couldn't go downward because of its size in relative to how narrow the tunnel was below.

As it finally started swimming away, Sebastian peeked a glance.

Sebastian wondered if it even digested the food before moving again.

"Phew! It left". He felt like leading a praise song immediately.

He was not exactly the church boy, but after surviving a life-and-death situation, there was nothing impossible that he can't do right now.

He took 10 minutes to calm his rapidly beating heart and his mental state before finally giving attention to the interface thingy again.

"I'm sorry for being rude, interface thingy, I was kind of in a pinch there. And it's not like you helped matter's either".

"So…, I received a bunch of gifts for surviving, right?"

"How does this even work? Is it like Santa Claus gifts, Merry Christmas, it's that how it's done?"

[System Reminder: You're under the mildly bleeding status.]

"…"

"Ok…, that's progressive. You said you'll tell me more about yourself". He decided to try another approach.

[Host is finally qualified to know the basic information of the system and Oceania. To get information, spend 5 Adaptation points.]

"F*ck, that's basically robbing me of what you just gifted me. What type of Santa Claus are you?"

Grumbling but not getting any response from the system, he finally gave it the approval to take 5 skill points. It's not like he even knew their use, they may be useless so no problem.

[5 Adaptation points have been taken: System-host information exchange unlocked.]

Yes, he was a baby shark now, but Sebastian still found a more comfortable angle in his small nest to rest at to better listen to the story.

"I wish popcorns are here, they're the best for movies and stories".