Elemental Cats

The original blanket method that Toz came up with wasn't extraordinary or useful. It was the potential in the blanket method and what he derived from it that was what made it stand out.

Toz began by shaping the mana into a blanket-like sheet that he then wrapped around himself. He would then push on one area of the blanket until it entered his body, and after that, the rest of the blanket was sucked in as well. Aside from the added coziness of being wrapped in a blanket, the method didn't differ that much from the string method.

But right before Toz was about to give up on the blanket method, he absentmindedly looked at the Adaptation Trees crossing the battlefield some distance ahead of them.

The blanket method was obviously very different in terms of how it functioned when compared to the Adaptation Trees' bark. But they looked quite similar, which was why Toz remembered the bark and realized that it was quite similar to what Toz wanted to do.

The Adaptation Trees quite passively took in the mana in their surroundings. And if there was enough of one element, they adapted to that element and absorbed only mana of that attribute afterward.

Toz wasn't interested in the adapting. He was interested in how the trees only absorbed the mana that came into contact with their bark without them actively doing anything. Of course, as trees, maybe they couldn't do anything requiring coherent thought in the same way Toz could. It might even be why they could use their own mana to absorb the mana in their surroundings while doing other things at the same time, which was something Toz couldn't do.

Toz couldn't replicate their bark method perfectly, but he could use it as inspiration for his own method of passively absorbing the mana around him. Substituting the layer of mana that created the bark with a layer of his consciousness might work, so that was what Toz tried first.

When Toz first began experimenting with moving his consciousness outside his body and using it to control the mana in the surroundings, he had to shape his consciousness into hands for there to be some kind of progress. But after Toz successfully created his miniature clone of consciousness, he could easily manipulate the mana with a formless heap of his consciousness.

However, he was once again trying to create and maintain a solid shape, so Toz sharpened his concentration. He slowly moved his consciousness out of his body. Doing it with so much care and concentration was incredibly stupid, considering he was in the middle of a chaotic battlefield. But Toz was caught up in his surge of inspiration, and he trusted the cats to take care of him and indulged in his trial.

The shapeless stream of consciousness slipped out of his mind, just like when he trained passively. But unlike when he used it for training, his consciousness coiled around his body. And since he didn't attempt to touch the mana, the mana around him remained unaffected.

But when his consciousness wrapped around his physical body, Toz sensed how the mana was pushed away. He had succeeded in isolating his body from the surrounding mana.

Keeping his entire body covered in a layer of consciousness was strenuous, but it wasn't as difficult as Toz thought it would be. He saw hope for success, so he gladly moved on to the next step.

After covering his body in a layer of consciousness, Toz now had to somehow make that consciousness accept, instead of reject, the mana in his surroundings and then guide it into his body.

The Adaptation Trees could use their own mana to do that, but Toz only had his consciousness, which made things a lot more difficult if he wanted to train and move around at the same time.

Thankfully, his experience with all the passive training he had already done made Toz quite comfortable with manipulating mana with only his mind.

Unfortunately, he wasn't simply using his consciousness to move his mana around. He wanted to be able to put the layer of consciousness in place and then forget about it while still being able to train mana.

Toz felt that instead of using his mind to control the mana around him, he had to change his mind. Or at least the stream of consciousness wrapped around his body.

The only lead he had was that he had to change it in a way that the mana absorbed was converted into the attribute he wanted to train. Thankfully, he already knew which element he was going to use to break through to the seventh level.

After deciding on an element, Toz retracted most of the consciousness he had layered atop his body. It didn't take as much of his mental strength as he thought it would, but it was still draining his stamina unnecessarily. And since it would probably take a while before he achieved success with his experimenting, it would save a lot of effort if he limited the amount of consciousness he used.

Toz only used a sliver of consciousness and wrapped his hand with it. He could easily see and move around the consciousness with his mana vision. And he could also see how the mana and his consciousness interacted with each other.

Toz quickly realized what the first roadblock was.

When he first began moving his consciousness outside his body and using it to manipulate mana, Toz trained it in a way that increased its resilience and ability to grasp mana firmly. Mana had an extraordinarily tough time moving through his consciousness because of that.

What Toz wanted to achieve now was the opposite of how he had trained his consciousness. He wanted the mana to pass through the consciousness around his body as easily as birds flying through the sky.

Changing the structure of his consciousness wouldn't be very easy, but Toz was sure that he would be able to do it before long.