Elemental Cats

Having food to eat greatly helped Toz and the cats relax as they continued drifting around the Void. Although they had no control over where they were going or how far they were going to travel, they decided to enjoy the trip instead of worrying if it would ever end.

And after encountering another group of fish, it was beginning to look like the Void wasn't as empty as the group had feared before they ran into the first group of fish. Without needing to worry about food, Toz and the cats spent their days idling around and training mostly. There wasn't much else to do after all.

Though when Toz or Nil got bored, they started playing around with expanding their island of trees using metal. Even though it required regular resupplying of mana, it was nice having some more space to play around on and get some privacy.

Eventually, as the group continued floating in the Void and time passed without any signs of existence other than void beasts, the trees started growing.

The void trees used the mana in the Void to nurture themselves, but that didn't mean they couldn't use other mana as well. The tree roots began sapping away the metal mana that Toz and Nil had used to reinforce and expand the island. But instead of merely draining away the mana, the trees stretched and grew to replace the metal reinforcements that Toz and Nil had made.

Although Toz had at first been worried that the trees would only eat at the reinforcements and destabilize, the worry was quickly replaced with happiness when he saw the trees reinforcing themselves using the metal as a guide. After the trees completely replaced the metal, there wouldn't be any need for Toz and Nil to continue wasting mana on keeping the island stable and secure.

And since the trees seemingly followed the mana wherever it went, it also meant that they could create beautiful decorations or expand the tiny island of trees into a floating forest if given enough time.

Seeing the trees grow in the direction of where there was most mana, the other cats also started experimenting. Although it was beyond difficult for them to make permanent constructs like Toz and Nil could do, they could still do some things that similarly attracted the trees.

As long as Mindle didn't use too much power, she could sustain a tongue of flame for long periods of time, and if she made it really weak, she could, in theory, do it forever since it took as much mana as she could regenerate passively.

Lucy didn't have a spell or anything that he could use, but since the Void was filled with darkness, and the few sources of light generated several shadows on the island of trees, he could minimize his mana expenditure as he made tiny figurines of himself and the others.

Just like Mindle, he could keep the magic going for long since it used barely more than he regenerated. The only time Lucy was about to run out of mana and let the magic dissipate before the tree had finished growing over it was when he made his own figurine. Since it was significantly bigger than the others, it required a lot more mana and took longer to grow. But Lucy was very satisfied with being the biggest, even if it only was when looking at the figurines he had made.

Scrael was the one experiencing the greatest difficulty in creating something by letting the trees grow, where she was using magic. Lightning was inherently fickle and short-lived. The LIghtning Clouds over Sleepless Brights is an exception that's hard to replicate.

And Scrael was more used to enhancing herself with magic rather than actively using it to conjure lightning bolts.

When she couldn't find a way to make the trees grow, Scrael couldn't but feel excluded as she looked at the others. Toz and Nil were creating decorations, building houses, and expanding their island like crazy. Mindle was trying to grow the trees by feeding them with fire. Lucy had disappeared into a swarm of shadows he had gathered to increase the darkness and lessen the burden on his mana.

Meanwhile, Scrael was stuck trying to make unmoving lightning, which she had little to no success in doing.

It seemed like a futile attempt and for something that wouldn't be worth it, so Scrael wondered if she should just find a corner and focus on training instead. But before completely giving up, she wanted to try one last time.

Instead of trying to create a lightning bolt hanging in the air somewhere that the trees could grow on, Scrael sent lightning mana into the wood itself, hoping that maybe the influx of mana would stimulate the tree's growth.

The result wasn't quite what she had expected, but a tiny branch did sprout. The branch looked different from its surroundings with its darker, more purplish color and its thin, crooked structure.

Scrael figured that the only reason the branch had become different from the place it grew out of was due to her mana's attribute, but instead of showing off her finding to Toz and the others, she decided to inspect the places Toz and Nil had reinforced but that had become overgrown with the trees' roots and branches.

The places didn't exhibit such a clear color difference, but when she looked closer, she noticed that the wood had a slightly shinier surface. Further testing also proved that the tree that had grown from the metal was slightly sturdier and more resistant to Scrael's claws.

Although Lucy and Mindle were too busy with their own magic to come check, Toz and Nil found it interesting. Especially Toz since he could use several elements at once. Knowing that the wood was affected by the mana it used to grow opened up a whole new avenue of things Toz wanted to try out.

Toz had already been planning on trying to make a sword of wood by letting the trees grow around a wood of metal he had strengthened with extreme amounts of mana. It would also serve as a way to test how the trees' growth was affected by the density of mana.