Elemental Cats

Orange mana bubbled through Toz's body and into his mana pool like lava and forced its way inside with enough might to make Toz feel like he had a volcano inside his chest. The fierce waves of fire mana were only strengthened by the flames across his body that flickered in tandem with his loudly beating heart.

The rush of mana, the heartbeats ringing in his ears, and the fire enveloping his body clouded Toz's mind, and his sense of self grew hazy.

But Toz still held on to his consciousness as he used even his heartbeats to put more pressure on the mana inside his mana pool that threatened to overflow and shatter his mana pool as soon as Toz fainted.

Toz was so out of it that he was slowly losing his sense of pain, which meant that he could no longer use the pain of his body and flesh burning to keep himself awake. However, he found a last smidgen of energy to clamber onto the last piece of consciousness, threatening to be swept away by the fire of the mana inside him and the fire of the flames burning him.

However, he was quickly losing his ability to control his mana pool. But that was the one thing he couldn't afford to do. Instead, Toz gave up on trying to suppress and resist the flames eating away at him.

In order to increase the pressure and speed up the rate at which he condensed his mana, he had to stop it from leaking out of his mana pool. Just like when he invited all the mana into his mana pool at once, it would lead to his mana pool risking to flow over even more. But Toz didn't even have enough mental clarity to care about stopping the fire ravaging his body. What was plugin his mana pool to try and break through to the seventh level compared to that?

With his mana pool sealed tightly, the pressure rose even further, and the waves of lava didn't even have a chance to rebel before they were squeezed into the solid ball of orange mana in the center of Toz's mana pool.

The mana quickly threatened to begin filling up the mana pool again. But thankfully, not faster than Toz's mana pool could handle. Toz had finally found a balance between the surging mana and his ability to condense it into the solid mana that signified a high level mage. He almost wanted to breathe a sigh of relief.

But just the thought of relaxing almost had Toz falling asleep. And since he wasn't anywhere done yet, he would probably die if that happened. If anything, he had just begun.

Now that he had found a decent balance between how fast he could condense his mana and how quickly the mana storm pumped more into him, Toz figured that he might as well use that balance to make a perfect breakthrough. When his ball of solid mana reached the same size as his mana pool, he would condense the mana as quickly and tightly as he could before letting his mana pool take some of the pressure and expand before he did another round of condensation.

Just because he had achieved balance didn't mean that Toz could spare any thoughts for the rest of his body. If anything, he had to maintain his concentration solely on his mana pool, which meant that he was oblivious to the flames that had grown to devour and cover his entire body.

Ignorant of his body's fate, Toz continued condensing and controlling the lava flooding his mana pool. When he became comfortable enough in the process, Toz quickly realized something.

He had found balance and could do it for quite a while, most likely until his mana pool couldn't handle it anymore. But he had temporarily forgotten one thing due to the state of his mind and how hazy it had been. He wasn't in control of the mana entering his body and mana pool. That was in the hands of the mana storm.

Toz didn't know much about mana storms, and he didn't know how they worked. But he was pretty sure he was to blame for its appearance. Toz was also the reason that it was drawn into him since he had used his mana vision to create a cloud of mana that his body would continue absorbing even after losing focus.

Unfortunately, the mana had spiraled out of his control. Even after regaining focus, Toz didn't have any confidence in stopping the mana storm. But that was a matter for another minute. Toz had to focus on solidifying his mana before his thoughts also spiraled out of control, and he lost his focus again.

Toz wholeheartedly focused on condensing his mana by using the pressure of the incoming waves and his own remaining crumbs of willpower. Eventually, his mana pool filled up with solid mana, which meant that Toz was moving on to the voluntary part of breaking through to the seventh level.

He didn't have to expand his mana pool by increasing how much mana he forced into it. But doing so would lead to a larger mana pool to could hold more mana, which meant Toz could use more magic without running out. The added pressure of the process would also force his mana to become even denser, which would increase the power and quality of his mana. It would also make it easier to break through to the next level if he had a large mana pool filled with high-quality mana.

Toz naturally didn't have any intentions of having a mediocre mana pool, especially when he had six attributes, all of which helped expand the mana pool and increase the quality of his mana each time he refined his attributes.

Making a perfect breakthrough where he pushed himself and his mana pool to its limit would compound each time he refined his mana as much as he could. And as Toz walked further along the path of magic, he would continue growing exponentially stronger.

There was also the fact that Toz still hadn't figured out how to escape the mana storm. So, he couldn't stop his breakthrough even if he wanted to.