Elemental Cats

After Nil, Lucy, Mindle, and Asilean left the tent, only Toz and Scrael remained. Toz looked at Scrael after he sent the others away, but she was too absorbed in the grimoire to care much about her surroundings.

Thankfully, the tent had privacy and security enchantments. They weren't completely impenetrable, but it was enough for Toz and Scrael to concentrate on their training without worrying about any interruptions. Though even if they supposedly didn't have to worry about anyone intruding on their tent without their permission, they still wouldn't completely let down their guard.

Scrael, especially, didn't let down her guard. She had spent her whole life facing constant threats to her life, so she couldn't relax enough to be caught by surprise even if she wanted to. However, her instincts didn't quite reach Toz, so she wouldn't be able to warn him if he was attacked first.

Fortunately, Toz had impeccable reflexes and acute senses, so it would be difficult to surprise him as well.

Relying on each other and on themselves, Toz and Scrael let themselves be absorbed in their training and studying.

Since it didn't look like Scrael had any intentions of even moving her sight away from the grimoire, Toz wholeheartedly sank into the world of mana as he focused on refining his lightning mana in order to bring it to the sixth level as soon as possible.

His mana vision had done a lot of things that improved Toz's magical capabilities. Most notable was how it helped him train automatically. But that wasn't the only thing regarding training it did.

Toz usually trained with his eyes closed, so he hadn't noticed it before. But following the thought that it might be easier to train with his mana vision active, Toz did just that. He left his eyes open as he spread his mana sense to the world around him and began absorbing and converting the mana around him.

He was worried that he wouldn't be able to keep the mana vision active while training since both things required some degree of concentration. He had failed to walk and train at the same time previously, after all.

But possibly because both things were mind and mana related, unlike one being mana and the other being his physical body, Toz could have his mana vision active while training.

However, it still came at a cost. Toz couldn't see the mana in as much detail as before, and it also put a more significant strain on his mind to use it to do two things. Toz wouldn't be able to maintain the mana vision constantly while training. But he didn't mind.

As soon as he began training with his mana vision active, Toz noticed an incredible difference.

Toz would usually rely on his mana sense and mana to select, gather, and absorb the mana in the air around him, and he would then proceed to convert it into the desired attribute.

But with mana vision active, the first two steps, the selection and gathering parts of his training, were improved immensely. Mana vision replaced and bolstered his mana sense and made it easier for him to use his own mana to control and absorb the mana in the surroundings.

The process wasn't very different from when he trained automatically. The difference was that he did it manually and used his own mana to bring the surrounding mana into his body instead of coaxing the mana inside his body after creating a string, which would make his body pull the mana in on its own.

But the effects of manually doing it were incomparable to having his body do it automatically. He didn't have to shape the mana into a string before he could absorb it, which removed the limit on how much he could draw into his body in one go. And he also didn't have to gently coax it with nothing but his mind since he used his own mana to control the mana in the air around him.

Those two things turned Toz into a mana-devouring monster as he almost completely drained all the mana in their tent before he reached out beyond it.

The amount of mana rushing its way into Toz's body made him hazy, and it almost felt like he was about to explode. However, before anything so drastic could happen, Scrael tapped his forehead and snapped him out of the mana-hungry trance he had inadvertently entered.

As soon as he stopped absorbing mana, Toz keeled over.

The rush of mana taking up all of his senses prevented Toz from sensing the state of his body, so when it finally calmed down, the pain came all at once.

His head, body, and mana pool ached and throbbed with fist-clenching and teeth-grinding pain.

Gathering and directing that stupid amount of mana put a tremendous pressure on his mana vision and mind, so it felt like his mind was on the verge of turning into porridge. The same amount of mana had rushed through his body like a tsunami. And his body was almost torn to shreds.

Finally, his mana pool felt like it was about to shatter since it had dutifully fulfilled its purpose by converting and accepting all that mana in one go.

Toz laid down on the bed with the backside of his hand against his forehead. After apologizing to himself and his body and thanking Scrael, he fell asleep like a baby after throwing a tantrum.

Scrael was worried about Toz since he had done something like that and, before he could explain what happened, fell asleep. But she could tell through their bond that he wasn't in any serious danger.

However, since his stunt had drained their tent of mana, they no longer had any enchantments guarding them. And if someone wanted to investigate what had happened, the tent wouldn't stop them.

So while Toz slept without a care, Scrael guarded him until the tent recovered enough mana to reactivate the enchantments.