Elemental Cats

Toz had been frustrated and irritated with how the general and his subordinates had led him to the secret room and what they, especially the general, had done when he finally arrived at the secret room. But emotions didn't cloud his judgment enough to make him miss how obvious it was that they were testing him and his capabilities.

The flashing light went right past the alleyway where the tunnel was several times. If they noticed that Toz's magic was faltering or that he was about to run out of mana, they would have directed him straight to the magic circle instead of continuing to lead him around the base.

And forcing him to wait on the circle and slide through the unnecessarily long tunnel was probably a test of his character and mental abilities. They had to see if he could withstand psychological pressure and whether or not he was claustrophobic.

And the general's dismissal was probably to see how good Toz was at thinking for himself and how he reacted in unexpected but enraging situations. If he had just blindly obeyed and asked for the way out, it was very likely that Merr wouldn't ever send a message with the details.

But the general likely hadn't expected that Toz would slip into the tunnel and slide back to the surface. So Toz now held a slight advantage over the general in their conversation.

After several moments of silence, where the general and Toz looked at each other, the general finally spoke.

"I'm General Scoll. Nice to have you on board, Toz. I won't apologize since it is a necessary procedure to verify the abilities of those we are recruiting. But I hope you can be understanding."

"Sure."

"Great. For security reasons, there's not much I can tell you at this moment. Miss Hassandra has already told you the gist of my plan. I will spare you the repetition. But I can tell you that you should focus on increasing your strength until you get another letter from Merr. Is there anything you would like to know?"

"Yeah, why did you tell me not to bring the bracelet?"

Toz's question seemed to take the general by surprise since he took a few seconds before answering. Not that it showed on his face. Aside from the moment where he raised his eyebrows when Toz tried to leave, the general's face hadn't so much as twitched.

"In short, it is because of security reasons. Our enemies can breach them and use them to steal information."

"Isn't it bad that Hassandra told me about your plan, then? Since she, her friends, and I were all wearing our bracelets at that time?"

"It's fine as long as there aren't too many of them in one place. If there's nothing else, it is time to send you back."

Since the general seemed busy, Toz satisfied himself with what he had found out and agreed to leave. There was something he had noticed but wasn't able to understand, but since it was probably part of the general's plan, he didn't notice it and just let himself get pushed to the surface through a hole in the ceiling by Braxton's magic.

Surprisingly, by going straight up, he arrived at the same place where the entrance to the tunnel was. It really was unnecessarily convoluted.

Toz reactivated his stealth combination magic before he even got to the surface, and he kept it up all the way back to the bed in the tent he rented.

Toz spent a few minutes sitting in silence with his thoughts after he returned. The general's invitation had been fruitful but not as promising as he would have liked. The only thing it really did was let him know that the general was watching him. At least it had let him notice that he was being tracked by one of the general's subordinates.

He hadn't noticed anything, even with his mana vision, until he stood in the same room as Cooper. But after leaving the tunnel the first time, Toz saw a faint, barely perceptible string of mana connecting him and Cooper.

If it hadn't been for his mana vision, he would have never sensed it. Even with mana vision, the string was almost impossible to see. The only reason he first noticed it was that it was a single uniform shade of green in a sea of color. And when he looked closer, Toz noticed that it connected him and Cooper. After sensing the connection, Toz felt like Cooper could tell his existence and location with it.

Toz was naturally curious about it, but he wasn't going to ask Cooper or the general about it. Fortunately, he figured out a way to sever the connection, thanks to his void and metal combination magic that covered his body in a layer of silvery armor.

Toz had confirmed previously that the suit of armor shielded him against magic. It didn't completely block Cooper's tracking magic, but it blocked some of it out. When Toz noticed that, he only needed to add a bit of fire magic to the mix to burn away the connection.

Toz could have probably used another attribute to achieve the same or something similar, but he was kind of hoping that the magic would follow the string and punish Cooper for his trick. Unfortunately, the combination of metal, fire, and void wasn't as aggressive as the combination of only fire and void. Toz's magic severed the connection, but before he could attack a tiny spark of grey flame to Cooper's string, it had already dissipated into thin air.

When Toz thought back to how domineering the grey flame could be, he realized that it might have been for the best that he didn't attack Cooper with it. Toz didn't know how powerful the grey flame was, but if it were as strong as he felt it could be, it wouldn't be good if he revealed it to the general. And even more so if he did it and accidentally burned one of the general's men to ashes in the process.