Elemental Cats

Toz and the cats left Sleepless Brights, hoping that the purple cat would show up eventually.

But aside from a few short moments where the gaze following them vanished, like when they passed through the city gates, there were no signs of the purple cat.

Since the purple cat didn't want to approach them yet, even if they left the city, the group could only be patient. Forcing things by tracking the purple cat down could have the opposite effect, after all.

However, to the group, the purple cat following them even after they left Sleeless Brights and the surrounding areas was a good sign. Although, they couldn't be certain that the purple cat would really follow them beyond the Tumbling Thunder Forest and the Lightning Clouds until that actually happened.

When the group completely escaped the Lightning Clouds' overbearing light and came to the wilderness where darkness existed, the group was finally able to relax their eyes and store away the protective eyewear.

They were also happy because the purple cat was still trailing behind them from a significant distance. It didn't look like the cat was trying to hide, but it also didn't look like it wanted Toz and the other three to notice it. It was slightly contradictory. But as long as the purple cat followed the group, there would be a chance to recruit it.

After a few days of travel, Toz decided they could charm the purple cat into joining them by leaving it delicious food. Even if he didn't know what the purple cat would like or if it would accept the food, he decided to give it a shot anyway.

The first thing he did was to make patties, as he had done for Nil, Lucy, and Mindle with the mammoth meat back on First Ignition. It was an effective way of breaking down higher level meat and making it both easy to eat and tasty. Following the patties, he made several types of food, like skewers and steaks with various seasonings.

Despite leaving a trail of food behind them, Toz and the cats had no idea if the purple cat ate it. While they could sometimes see the cat off in the distance, it was never so close they could see it clearly. At most, it was a tiny silhouette right by the horizon.

However, the food seemed to have brought some success in charming the cat since it appeared more frequently and closer to the group.

Toz and the cats kept walking, gradually closing the distance between themselves and the purple cat. But no matter how much food they gave it, it didn't seem to be willing to get too close to the group.

Though the group wasn't especially worried as there was quite a distance between Sleepless Brights and Treblor Forest. There would be enough time to get it to come around and join them properly.

So aside from occasionally leaving food for the purple cat, the group focused on enjoying the sights all around them and reading their grimoires.

They didn't make much progress with their reading and learning the spells, but as long as they felt like they were making progress, they were satisfied.

And since they were walking through the wilderness, even if there were roads on some parts, there were bound to be wild beasts around. Although the group rarely had to go all out when attacked by the wild beasts, Toz and Lucy were the only ones at the fourth level in their group. Against sixth level wild beasts attacking them, the group often struggled a fair bit before defeating the beasts.

Thankfully, none of the beasts that attacked them were comparable to the sixth level Demonic Spark Bear, even if they were at the same level.

And their struggles lessened quite a bit when Nil also finally broke through to the fourth level, leaving only Mindle at the third level.

Nil's breakthrough was, like most breakthroughs to the next division, quite the spectacle. During the breakthrough, he practically turned into a radiant ball of polished silver as he hovered slightly in the air due to the mana fluctuations pushing him off the ground.

Lucy and Toz made sure to keep the light shining from Nil contained so it wouldn't attract wild beasts to attack them and disturb Nil.

Nil focused on condensing his mana as much as possible, forming a lump of liquid metal in his mana pool and squeezing his talent to its limits as he forced the mana pool to expand and fit more mana.

While Nil broke through and Toz and Lucy were hiding the group from the outside world, Toz was pretty sure he heard sounds of fighting pretty close to where the group had taken cover.

Nil, while reading the grimoire, had abruptly felt like he should break through, so the group had rushed to find a large rock and its shadow to use as natural cover from their surroundings.

Toz couldn't be sure since the shadows containing the light radiating from Nil also hindered their sight, but he was pretty sure that there were sounds of lightning and combat on the other side of the large rock that towered above them.

Nil finished his breakthrough with flair as he spread tendrils of metal through the ground that grew and transformed into a tiny forest of silver trees. By chance, a beast who had been attracted by the initial commotion Nil had stirred up, that Toz and Lucy hadn't been quick enough to block, was close to the forest.

The beast was a tiny fourth level desert lizard that was unprepared for the silver forest that sprouted around it. As it tried to flee in panic, its movements alerted the trees. The leaves on the trees started falling down and, like knives, cut open the lizard. And then, when a tree ran out of leaves, it collapsed and fell on top of the lizard.

Although what Nil had just done wasn't quite at the level of a spell, it was certainly beyond what ordinary magic could create in such a short period of time.