Elemental Cats

Toz wondered if he should simply smash the Rat King's brain but decided not to be rash since it could be worth a lot to alchemists or scholars intent on studying the Scorched Earth Rat King or using its body for some funky experiment.

However, killing it in an elaborate way would place further suspicion on Hugh's story. Sure the mysterious expert might have helped him kill it. But intentionally killing it in such a way that Hugh could make as much profit off of its dead body? Far-fetched. There was also the option of intentionally killing it in a gruesome but simple way to further collaborate the story, but that would risk upsetting Hugh.

Eventually, Toz looked at Hugh and asked,

"Hey, can I borrow your axe?"

Hugh could almost guess what Toz needed it for and summoned the axe that, upon him losing consciousness, had returned to the inclination's storage.

"Here, but be careful. It should be pretty heavy."

Although Hugh knew Toz was indeed pretty capable, he held pride in the weight of his axe that he wielded as an extension of his body. Unfortunately, that pride was pretty bruised after Toz easily received the axe and then proceeded to play around with it a bit.

After acquainting himself with the axe for a few moments, Toz jumped down into the pit where the Rat King was continuously losing its blood. A few slicing and squelching sounds later, Toz left the pit with more than a dozen spatial rings in his hand. He had used Hugh's axe to chop the Rat King apart and store the different parts in a bunch of spatial rings he had lying around in his coat. Some of them were empty, some of them filled with small stuff that was easily gathered in other spatial rings or pockets.

Since Hugh was still pretty injured and completely drained of mana and energy, Toz had to do it himself. Although there might be some differences in how they used the axe, it wasn't something that could be noticed by the marks left on the pieces of the Rat King's body.

"Here you go. I also put in a few liters of blood just in case," Toz said as he handed the rings and axe over to Hugh. Hugh's original ring that Toz had taken earlier was included in the pile.

When Toz handed over the axe, both of them saw that the symbol on Toz's right hand flashed for a second before the color deepened. It wasn't the first time his symbol had done something like that, so although it was unexpected, it wasn't a reason for Toz to panic. Hugh had also seen similar things several times.

But the timing was a little weird. Why would handing an axe back to its rightful owner a few moments after it was lent out strengthen the inclination that was obviously cat related?

The cats also felt the inclination getting stronger, but unlike the two humans, they looked first toward the bloody pit and then toward the bunch of rings in Hugh's right hand. It felt like it made more sense for the inclination to have grown stronger because Toz killed a Rat King. The king of a species that is often seen as a cat's primary prey.

When Toz noticed how the cats were looking back and forth between him, his inclination, the blood-spattered pit, and the spatial rings filled with the Rat King's body, he also made the connection.

The inclination reacting when he handed over the axe was most likely a coincidence. At the same moment Hugh got his axe back, the Rat King officially died due to the wounds and dissection it suffered at Toz's hands. That made a lot more sense to Toz than what he first thought had happened to his inclination.

But if the inclination reacted to the Rat King's death, and at the same moment that the Rat King died, it meant that the Rat King would still have been somehow alive even after being diced apart and stuffed into separate spatial rings.

Spatial rings worked differently from Toz's coat pockets in that the object shoved inside didn't need to be smaller than the hole. The object only needed to fit inside the space within the ring. Most spatial rings, however, blocked the entry of living things and things containing a soul. Something that went for almost every kind of spatial transportation object.

The Rat King, despite being inside the spatial rings, had still somehow managed to retain a spark of life for a few moments. If not for the state the Rat King was in, it probably wouldn't have died or been that adversely affected by the distortion that happened to things entering a magical space like the ones in a spatial ring.

Toz let out a sigh of relief at how fortunate his decision had ended up being. If he had just smashed the Rat King until no signs of life were left and then let Hugh deal with the rest as he took off, the Rat King would very possibly have resurrected and continued wreaking havoc.

Aside from it ending with the Rat King's death, the fact that Toz killed the Rat King at all even strengthened his inclination. While the strengthening wasn't anything over the top, Toz could feel the bond between him and his cats growing more solid and tangible. Although he couldn't sense it in the same manner, there was also the sensation that the talent, that the inclination gathered and shared, had grown stronger.

Even if the more talented ones in the group of four didn't get as much benefit from that change as the others, it was a way to equalize the standing between all the different parties while at the same time helping everyone grow stronger. The inclination didn't just take the talent from one cat and give it to another. It shared that talent and resonated it with everyone else's talents, leading to everyone getting better at converting, absorbing, using, and controlling mana.

Although some bad feelings of jealousy could arise from the fact that they had to rely on someone else's talent to progress, it would be fine as long as Toz was the one held responsible. Instead of jealousy, it would be gratitude.