Elemental Cats

The place Toz found showed how little the Alliance of Kingdom's military cared for the unaffiliated combatants participating in battle. Or maybe how little they could afford to care for them.

The large tents were barely enough to protect the inhabitants from the outside weather, and there was no way it could dampen the ruckus outside to let anyone get a semblance of rest. The bunks were rickety, hard, and only a few had drapes around them for privacy.

But it didn't look like the poor sleeping conditions troubled the combatants as much as their memories of the battlefield. Those who could sleep slept, whether it be peacefully or wracked with nightmares. But those who couldn't sleep were trapped with their consciousness fully alert, vividly going through scenes of comrades, new and old, getting torn to pieces in front of them.

Looking around, Toz had a fleeting thought that not everyone was suited for battle, but when he found an empty bunk that seemed to be relatively decent, he stopped wasting his brainpower on useless things. Toz didn't know why no one had claimed the slightly better bed, but since everyone in the tent appeared to be too traumatized to think even, it wasn't too weird.

Toz sat down on the bunk and, after confirming that no one had claimed it in any way, began practicing his automatic training. Although training wholeheartedly would probably help him refine his mana a second time before he had to return to the battlefield, he didn't feel safe enough to occupy the majority of his concentration.

He was in a place made for rest, but he was still on the battlefield, and there were a lot of people around him. Even if everyone looked preoccupied with their own things, Toz couldn't be sure nothing would happen after he started training. And if something did happen, he didn't want to be caught by surprise.

Instead, it would be much better if he could improve his automatic training so that he could do it all the time without having to worry about anything. If he could do that, he would never have to think about training ever again. However, it would likely take a while until he reached that level, but Toz was hopeful.

But as with most things, he had to take it one step at a time. He was already at the point where he could absorb and convert the mana around him at the same time as he did something else. But that required him to assume control over the mana and then shape it into something he could more easily take into his body. And while doing that, he would easily stop his training if he lost concentration or couldn't keep his mana vision active.

When he helped Hassandra, Toz got more used to mana vision and could keep it active for longer, so he wasn't as worried about that as he was about the part where he would stop training if he lost concentration. The whole idea was that he didn't have to concentrate when training.

He had first come up with the idea because he wanted to walk and train at the same time. But after his success, Toz realized that something as simple as that was merely the beginning. The endless possibilities of the automatic training had Toz's motivation soar through the roof. However, all the things that might be possible would be nothing to Toz if he couldn't improve the way he trained automatically.

But before he started aiming to be able to train no matter what else he was doing, Toz first wanted to learn how to moderate the amount of mana he absorbed. Who knows. Maybe doing that would make it easier both on his eyes and his concentration.

Thankfully, he might have figured out a way to achieve his goal, thanks to Hassandra.

When he first succeeded, Toz shaped the mana around him into an incredibly long wire that his own mana automatically sucked in like a noodle. After hanging around Hassandra and her strings and ropes for a while, Toz realized that he could change the wire's thickness. Doing that should, in theory, change how much mana he absorbed in one go.

Although he was in the middle of a bunch of people, it didn't look like any of them would care if he disturbed the mana in the air a little. And since he was sitting in a meditative position, they would only think that he was training as usual, so it didn't really matter, even if they noticed or cared.

The only thing that might make people think twice about it was that Toz had to have his eyes open while grouping and shaping the mana into a hair-thin string. Hopefully, people would only think it was his inclination at work or something.

With his eyes practically wide open and mana vision active, Toz spread his will to the mana around him. While doing that, he also realized that he could limit the amount of mana he absorbed by changing the amount of mana he shaped into yarn. Though, that probably wouldn't change how quickly he absorbed it, only the total amount before he had to begin anew.

With the experience from last time and the improvement of his mana vision, Toz had a moderately easy time shaping the mana in his immediate surroundings into an unraveled ball of yarn. However, it was a lot more difficult to make the string thinner than last time, so that was something he had to do gradually while straining his eyes and mind.

But eventually, Toz had made the string thin enough to be satisfied, so he began absorbing it. With a bit of gentle force, Toz squeezed the end of the string into his body. After that, he didn't have to do anything but observe as his body and mana did the rest.

However, it didn't take long until Toz realized that his idea was a total failure.