Elemental Cats

Toz put on the white coat with a smile forming on his face. The buttons closed up the front automatically, and the coat enveloped Toz in a feeling of comfort.

"What do you think?"

"...It's awesome."

Toz responded to Joan's question with a smile. The black and white coat contrasted and complemented Toz's pale face and black hair. Coupled with his radiant smile and bright eyes, Toz looked even more handsome than usual. If Joan had been able to see anyone other than her husband as a man, she might even have blushed.

"That's great! I was a little worried since it's so different from your old one.

"I did what I could to use as much of the scraps, but any more than this would have compromised the coat's defenses and the enchantments' effects."

In a burst of relief after knowing that Toz liked the coat, Joan went on to describe the coat's various functions. The coat had the same spatial storage pockets and temperature-stabilizing functions as his old one. Joan had improved the self-cleaning function since it was white, and Toz fought in a way that usually led to blood splattering on him unless he faced void beasts.

Since the available materials limited what Joan could do, she hadn't been able to improve the coat's defenses. Instead, she added a self-repairing function that used excess material stored between the coat's outside and inside layers.

The main use of the coat was still the pockets, and those were what Toz was the happiest about the coat having.

Toz was happy with the coat, and Joan was happy that Toz was happy. It was an overall joyous atmosphere. But it didn't stop there.

When the cats came in to celebrate and shower Toz in compliments, Joan brought out another surprise. Five of them, to be exact. She had made tiny half-coats for the cats from the leftovers of Toz's coat.

The cats' coats weren't as exquisitely made as Toz's and were more for appearance than usefulness, but they still had self-cleaning and storage functions.

The cats didn't bother too much about the coats' functionality. They were overjoyed just matching with Toz. And if they ever ran out of storage space, they only needed to ask Toz, so they didn't mind that their spatial pocket wasn't very spacious.

Toz and the cats left the workshop and lined up outside to the applause of Hods and Stitches. The six of them gave off a surprisingly majestic and imposing air with their matching uniform-like outfits.

After showing off their coats and doing various poses for a few minutes, Toz and the cats started getting embarrassed since it was obvious that Stitches' clapping had gotten increasingly sarcastic.

With a few coughs of embarrassment, they dispersed and went back to what they had been doing before Joshua woke up. Except for Asilean. After hearing Taienra's compliment directly in his head, he headed for the front of the island so he could be as close to her as possible.

Ever since Toz had made his sword, Taienra had been busy, forcing Asilean to spend most of his time training or hanging out with the other cats. He wasn't too bothered, but he hadn't been able to talk much to her lately. It was only natural that he missed her.

Hopefully, she had managed to control Toz's sword or whatever it was that kept her busy.

After he asked her, Asilean found out that Taienra had indeed been managing Toz's sword. That was the reason she hadn't been so talkative lately. Asilean was naturally confused since even if he expected it, it was still unreasonable for a single sword to require Taienra's entire concentration to control.

Taienra herself didn't fully understand Toz's sword. The only thing she knew was that unless she controlled the island's mana flow, the sword would ravenously devour it all in one go, which would leave the island dry, Taienra tired, and the sword unsatisfied. With Taienra managing the mana flowing into the sword, she could limit the intake and regulate it. Instead of devouring it all in one go and emptying the forest, the sword got a little mana, bit by bit. It would take longer for the sword to finish transforming into wood, but it also meant that the process would complete evenly.

The sword's hunger for mana was all that Taienra had figured out regarding the sword's capabilities. Since she had to use most of her concentration to control the island's mana flow, she realized of ravenous the sword was. But that told her nothing about the sword's actual power or how powerful it would become when its transformation finished. She could only lament that Toz had created something monstrous. But so far, Taienra and Asilean were the only ones who knew about it.

Toz suspected he had made something outrageous due to the trees swallowing the sword and Taienra's remark, but he didn't have anything to confirm those suspicions. However, his gut feeling told him that the sword, once completed, would be pretty neat.

But Toz had no way to tell, or when to expect, the sword to finish, so he busied himself with training and practicing his magic. He wanted to continue trying to figure out a way to train passively, but since he couldn't find a clue on how to proceed, he decided to spend his time more productively by training his mana.

During the breaks he took, Toz pondered and tried things he thought might work or simply practiced his elements.

While Toz didn't make any progress with his passive training technique, he learned how to use his latest elements more proficiently. Although he couldn't use it quite as well as Asilean, Toz had learned how to ignore the constraints of space and shrink the space between himself and the place he was moving toward.

Toz had also gotten more used to dispelling other magic with his void magic. He wanted to brag by saying he was better than the void beasts, but when he thought of how the void beasts were and how they used magic, he realized it wasn't worth using them as a comparison.