Elemental Cats

Toz had figured out from nothing but a glance what could be the trees' weakness. But that was only valid if he used his void magic. If he only used lightning, Toz would have to do more than look at the trees with mana vision if he wanted to find a way to defeat them, especially the Fire Tree that he had separated from the others.

Only a rain of purple lightning sparks remained where Toz had stood after he shot off like a lightning bolt toward the fire tree. One of the greatest advantages of lightning magic was its speed, and even more than that was the instantaneous acceleration.

Toz felt like he was running through syrup in the slowed-down world, but in reality, he barely even left behind a single afterimage as he flashed forward in a blur.

With that speed, it took less than an instant for Toz to cross the short distance between himself and the Fire Tree. When he arrived in front of his target, Toz stopped running, and he transferred all of his momentum to his fist as he smashed it into the trunk of the Fire Tree.

His fist, enveloped in purple lightning, collided with the tree's trunk, which was covered with orange flames. The collision sent a shower of purple and orange flames scattering all over the clearing.

The coat of lightning across his body shielded Toz from the damage. And the magic reinforcing his hand and arm helped him withstand the impact of his fist piercing into the sturdy bark and shattering the trunk.

Toz could tell that the tree was already beginning to regenerate the hole in its trunk, even before Toz could retract his hand. If he didn't pull it out before the tree finished, he might get stuck with his fist inside the tree, which would undoubtedly make it a lot more challenging to beat the tree.

But instead of pulling his hand out, Toz showed it in deeper, all the way to his elbow. He pushed his hand as far inside as he could. Thankfully, his strike had destroyed some of the tree's insides and allowed him to go as deep as he did.

When he couldn't move anymore, Toz noticed that the tree was already about to close up on his arm, trapping it inside. If he wasn't careful, he could possibly lose his arm.

But Toz was pretty sure he had figured out how to take down the trees. It was risky betting his arm on it. But even if he didn't defeat the tree, he would at least be able to free his arm.

Not willing to wait anymore, Toz channeled all his magic toward the fist that was inside the tree's center. It left most of his body exposed to the tree's branches and the leaves of fire that came with them. But he had refined his fire mana, which made his body accustomed to fire. It definitely wouldn't be enough to ignore fire magic, especially not from an opponent at a higher level than himself, like the Fire Tree.

But it would be enough for Toz to hold out until he discharged all the magic inside his fist.

With the light from the tree's fire reflected in his eyes, Toz grinned and let loose.

It was unnoticeable from the outside at first, but it didn't take long for the amount of magic Toz poured into the tree to show its effects. Purple sparks jumped out of the hole Toz opened up. And right after that, lightning struck the tree with incredible force.

It wasn't a lightning bolt from the sky. It was an explosion of all the lightning Toz pushed into the tree. The tree couldn't handle it and started showing cracks all over its trunk and branches after the initial shockwave that took out its fire.

It was still a Fire Tree, and it could have reignited them since it was finished with its adaptation. But only if its insides had been intact.

With a final rain of purple sparks, the cracks grew, and the tree collapsed in a pile of splinters, revealing its charred insides.

Toz shook his hand and pushed back his hair as he turned to the cats with a smile on his face.

Toz's fight with the Fire Tree had been short, almost instantaneous. The thing that took the most time was tangling the other trees and pushing them away from the Fire Tree so that they didn't also adapt to fire. Dealing with the Fire Tree itself barely took a moment for Toz, so he couldn't help but gloat to the cats.

The cats, who hadn't taken down a single tree, were both awed at Toz's display and a little irritated at how he showed up out of nowhere and took their prey. Though most of all, they were motivated, and their spirits blazed as they charged toward the Adaptation Trees, who were slowly untangling themselves.

Toz had shown them how to defeat the trees. It was surprisingly simple, in theory. Asilean was the only one somewhat confident he could defeat a tree. But he had no plans on doing it the same way Toz did.

Toz had used overwhelming force and an incredible amount of mana to bypass the tree's bark, the thing that made magic useless against them, and then blast it apart with more power than it could withstand. The damage was too severe for the tree to regenerate, and it died.

Thankfully, they hadn't fully adapted to the death mana that hung around them. Toz wasn't sure what would happen then. But he was sure it was a good thing that there was only enough death mana to put the trees halfway between Adaptation Trees and Death Trees. That was probably also the reason that the Fire Tree needed such a ridiculous amount of Mindle's mana before it adapted.

If it hadn't already been on the way to adapting to death, the tree would have likely transformed into a Fire Tree much quicker, along with the rest of the thicket. Maybe the partly finished death adaptation was the reason behind the trees' resiliency.

Toz was curious about the trees and began injecting the remaining ones with the different attributes he had.

He began with void mana to see if his guess had been correct.