Elemental Cats

After the slow transformation into a flower bud, Mindle's wooden flame didn't look like it would change any more. Or if it did, it was doing so at an unnoticeable pace. But since both Scrael's and Mindle's experiments with the trees had shown almost incredible results, Toz and the cats didn't mind waiting to see if the flower would change.

Scrael's purple lightning fruit was certainly spectacular, but it was too early to determine if Mindle's wooden flame would turn into anything special if it continued to grow or if it would stay as a flower bud with leaves shaped as flames. And while none of the other trials and experiments of growing objects by giving the trees mana had born fruit, maybe it was merely a matter of time.

But seeing the void trees' nearly magical reaction with mana in different ways gave Toz a better feeling about giving his sword to the trees when it was finally reinforced to the point where it practically didn't change, no matter how much mana Toz poured into it.

Since it was his first experiment giving something so dense with mana, Toz didn't know what to expect would happen, and he thought he was prepared for almost anything. But he was still stumped when nothing happened, even after several days.

Even when Mindle had been using fire, the trees had pretty quickly started absorbing the mana and started growing in its direction. But the trees didn't show a noticeable reaction to Toz's sword after he laid it on the ground. Toz didn't let that bring him down, and he spent most of his time sitting close to the sword and while training, occasionally glancing at the sword to see if anything had changed.

The cats were a little worried about Toz's obsession with the sword, but since they were all also incredibly curious about what would happen, they didn't do much to dissuade him from constantly monitoring it.

Nil didn't mind being the only one working on the island, even if it got a little boring at times since, if he felt lonely, Toz would still take a break and spend some time with him. And if Toz didn't come to him, Nil would go to Toz.

Toz, spending so much time sitting still, training and watching his sword and the trees, had somehow managed to calm down the cats. After the discovery of the void trees' reaction to mana and with the purple fruit that had grown, the cats had been eagerly hoping for something similar to grow.

Lucy had proved that only those with the lightning attribute could eat the purple fruit. And after Toz and Scrael had admitted that it tasted heavenly in comparison to the void beasts that they were stuck with, the other cats also wanted a fruit of their own.

So far, Mindle's wooden flame had shown the most promise. She had even made a few more despite the tedious work it required. But when it stopped growing or changing, the cats started getting worried that the purple lightning fruit was something like a one-time event and that there wouldn't be any change to their meals any time soon.

But when Toz barely did anything for several days straight, the cats were forced to slow down their anxiety and take things as they came. Even if they stress out, the trees won't grow any faster. They had already tried feeding the wood with more mana and even the remnants of whatever void beast they killed.

The parts that were so unappetizing that they were impossible to stomach were dug into the roots of the void trees or buried by a layer of metal and then consumed by the trees' growth. Hopefully, the remaining void mana in the beast corpses would act as a boost to the void trees. But even if it didn't, it was a quick and easy way for them to give the island more mana without having to expend their own.

Even more time progressed as Toz and the cats waited for the plants and objects they had made from the trees to grow and show some type of change. But they didn't spend the time only lazing around and counting leaves or looking into the Void and daydreaming, even if Toz was beginning to find the darkness of the Void pretty alluring.

Since the most surefire way of controlling their travels and ensuring their continued safety in the Void was strength, a large part of their days on the island of trees was spent on training.

Although none of them were at the point of reaching the next level just yet, they made constant progress. Especially Nil, who was only lacking a final piece of understanding to completely learn the spell in his grimoire.

Nil wanted to learn the spell properly and catch up to Mindle and Toz, who had already learned theirs. But at the same time, he felt like he wouldn't understand if he rushed it, so he spent his days doing simple work as he reinforced the forest and trained his mana.

After Toz and Nil had expanded the island a bit, they had noticed the change in how often void beasts attacked the island. They also noticed that the void beasts that attacked them were usually stronger than the beasts that had attacked the island when it was smaller.

If the pattern continued and Toz and Nil kept on adding onto the island, the island might eventually become large enough to attract a beast Toz and the cats wouldn't be able to handle it.

Although the island had yet to attract a beast that required Toz's fireball, it was only a matter of time. And while expanding the island might be fun, the same thing with stronger beasts, Toz and the cats know nothing about what kind of void beasts might show up.

Considering they are already in a grave position, Toz and Nil didn't need to consider much before they decided to stop expanding the forest and instead focus on strengthening it. Also, there is no real reason to make the island bigger aside from attracting enough beasts to feed them, and when they have already accomplished that, there is no need for them to continue expanding.

Instead, whenever Nil and Toz felt like it, they would add a few layers or fill in the gaps between the tree roots with metal. Or if they didn't want to add metal they would pour metal mana directly into the trees.