So I’m a Fish, So What?

Ahhh... I gotta say, if I ever become a Fate series heroic spirit, my luck would have to be a minimum of A.

From the very beginning, my survival was 9 points luck and 1-point personal strength.

Why couldn’t I just be born somewhere on land...? At least I’d know most monsters’ information, and my reliance would be on my strength by then.

Of all the knowledge I stored on Earth, which is everything humans knew by the time of my death, the ocean is still mostly unexplored.

Humans just aren’t suited for such an environment, and technology is still far from allowing us to brave the dangers of the deep.

What’s more terrifying is that I’m still in the Twilight zone of the ocean, which is an area that can be considered over 90% discovered in the previous world so it’s still easy mode.

If I want to become stronger, I’ll undoubtedly have to venture down to the pitch-black Midnight zone... and even the Abyss zone below it.

My body shivers just thinking about what lives down there on Earth, yet they’ll all be transformed into even more horrifying monsters here.

Sigh... Well! Let’s leave that to future me to worry about! Good luck surviving, future me!

 

I don’t know if the blade-fish swarm has all been killed by the leviathan and whether it went back to sleep after that.

Sooo, the ocean is scarier than normal right now, clearly not a suitable time for hunting.

It’s prime time for skill leveling though, I can also get some of the skills I neglected before.

First off, the five sense enhancement skills.

Vision Enhancement’s importance goes without saying, a fish’s vision is just horrible, to be honest.

Imagine a fisheye’s camera, but 10 times worse as it’s underwater.

Even Kumoko, the spider had better vision than a human not to mention other reincarnations...

I feel like I’m being targeted with nothing but malicious intent...

Well, whatever, I need to get that skill up to max level as soon as possible and get stuff like telescopic sight.

Night vision works well combined with it as well, but I believe both skills will become useless as soon as I reach the Abyss zone.

Night vision and dark vision are two completely different things.

Dark vision allows you to see even if you’re in complete darkness, but night vision requires light to function even if it’s a very small amount.

Those skills can be used until the Midnight zone, but I’ll have to fully rely on Spatial Awareness after that.

Hmmm, the best way to level those two is to remove all lighting in my shelter, it can be done right now, and I can check on the outcome of the battle outside by the way.

Next up is Auditory Enhancement, but I can’t do anything about this one.

Even normal water blocks sound waves yet I’m currently over 200 meters deep underwater... Unless it’s a giant sea monster like the leviathan, no sound can be heard at all.

Skip!

When it comes to the next skill, things get a whole lot more complicated.

The next one’s Olfactory Enhancement, you see.

Underwater, you can’t actually smell in the normal way.

Marine creatures use the leftover smells to track their prey or escape from a predator’s territory the same way land animals do with physical tracks.

Like the way sharks smell blood, I believe it’s more tasting rather than smelling.

The blood itself has to reach the shark for it to be detected, so I believe this skill can be acquired if I focus on tracking prey through their injuries in the future.

Then there’s Tactile Enhancement.

I deem this one to be the most important skill to obtain.

As a fish, I can detect the water currents and also detect the movement of enemies.

Although the latter sounds useless with Space Awareness, it forms a very strong synergy with my super intuition.

Seeing the enemy in a fight doesn’t guarantee the win, being able to predict their actions increases the odds of winning, but it’s still not guaranteed.

Now add the mental skills Foresight and its evolution Future Sight. Yep, I’m either winning or running the hell away.

You are already dead! and I can read you like an open book! I can’t wait to say such cool words in my future fights, hehehe.

In conclusion, this one’s on the top tier must get skills.

Lastly, we have Taste Enhancement.

Now don’t be surprised when I say this, but I feel that it’s useless to get it now.

I don’t really have much in the way of food variety down here, it’s either raw seafood or crappy poisonous seafood.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely getting it in the future, but that’s gonna be after I’m able to survive on land for more than five minutes without suffocating.

My gills don’t work on land, y’know? You’d find me trying to ascend the sea layers instead of descending if they did.

Why would I go for the spooky black depths when I can just wait until I’m strong enough and then kill sea dragons?

I feel that my current path is better though, I wouldn’t settle for being mediocre by only fighting weaker dragons who rely on swarming to fight.

Going down deep... is something that must be done in the future anyways.

And although it’ll take a while, I will have the ability to leave the depths at any time sooner or later.

As long as I can use magic, get Spatial Magic, and have a humanoid body, I can easily teleport to my birthplace, kill the resident Stealth and Fear Resistance proficiency provider then go to the surface!

That’s it for the sensing skills, perception skills are useless except for Magic Power Perception.

Others can all be replaced by upgrading Spatial Awareness to Spatial Sense and using my super intuition.

Guess I could try going for Camouflage as well. I can merge with the surrounding corals If I angle it right.

Then... there are only mental skills and stat skills left.

Mental skills must be obtained and elevated to level 10, then they would evolve and get integrated into Sage, netting me five maxed out highest tier skills.

Memory, Arithmetic Processing, Parallel Thinking, Prediction, Thought Acceleration, and finally, Concentration.

They are all very practical skills that could be applied to both combat and out-of-combat situations.

In fact, they are all used unconsciously in our everyday lives, even Prediction and Concentration are used for the current planning session.

Both just reached level 9 and they might gain the last level at the end of this little session by the way.

I should’ve already acquired them, but I was too busy surviving... It’s a harsh life out here.

As for stat skills, I should’ve gotten the ones for speed and stamina by now, but for some reason I have none.

It can only be attributed to my race affinity, maybe I can gain them all at once after a future evolution.

My stats aren’t bad compared to my progress, but it certainly could be a lot better.

That’s all for now, I’ve been in think mode for way too long, a couple of hours if not days.

Normally, I get knocked out of this state by my mother’s call for lunch or some outside factor, but... I’m alone over here.

For the first time, I actually miss something related to the boring modern world...

Coming here was my choice... I must survive and gain enough strength to return and relieve their worries.

Okay, enough of that, I should go get some Tomoko’s special anti-depressants AKA food!

Overeating’s stocks are nearly out, so I must hunt for my next victory banquet!

Peeking from under the corals, I see the leviathan’s unmoving body in the distance.

My vision’s too bad and my sphere can’t detect that far so I’m not sure if it’s back to sleep or not.

Going the opposite way, it is then!

 

It’s been a few days since that planning session, and it’s nearly a month since I was reborn into this world.

By now, Kumoko should’ve already hatched as a taratect in the Elroe Labyrinth and may even be close to getting her first evolution.

As for how can I know how much time has passed? Well, Manager-san works great as a substitute alarm clock!

Also, consciously paying attention to the passage of time while moving about and hunting does wonders for Parallel Thinking and Arithmetic Processing.

I’ve mapped the area around me in a one-kilometer radius except for one big blank spot where the leviathan is located.

And I have to say... this cave system is a whole lot more complicated than I thought it would be.

There are hundreds of passages branching everywhere the eyes can see, from dragon sized to small critter sized and they’re all in different directions.

It’s not an exaggeration to describe this place as a mini-sized Elroe Labyrinth.

My intuition goes haywire as long as the thought of going in any downward passage pops up in my mind.

Obviously, the deeper I go, the stronger the dangers I’ll have to brave.

I actually don’t mind fighting life-and-death battles just like the one with the first blade-fish, but going into a battle with a 0% chance of winning is just stupid.

Kumoko was able to do such things because she can rely on her poison and threads to leapfrog levels.

However, I only have bites as an attack method, so it’s downright suicidal to try the same even if my Stealth skill is at max level.

To overcome this problem, I’ve been eating all the poisonous creatures I could find.

Assassin, Foul Feeder, and Poison Resistance, I can only hope that this combination unlocks some sort of poisonous species for my upcoming evolution options.

I did level up twice during my exploration process, and I was even able to integrate some skills into Sage!

My reincarnation skills are stupidly broken... I can feel it even though only one of them is active, imagine what it would be like when the other two are added.

Prediction evolved into Foresight and got integrated into Sage right away, you can think of it as me having a max-level Future Sight, it’s honestly ridiculous.

Normally, Future Sight lets you can see the future image in front of you through your eyes but combining it with Spatial Awareness lets me see the future happening in my sphere’s range.

Such a large amount of information was so overwhelming that my smol fish brain was nearly fried from an overflow!

Luckily, concentration evolved into Thought Acceleration and cooperated with Parallel thinking to save the day. That was close, phew.

Really... To think that Sage had such a downside.

There’s a solution though, getting Heretic Resistance and letting it integrate into Soul Seeker to get Heretic Nullification.

I’ve gone a long way on the road of the strong though, so I’m very happy right now.

Although my strength is still very weak, my intelligence gathering and danger avoidance are among the best in this world.

From here on after, I can wholly focus on increasing my combat power!