Elemental Cats

Toz's mana pool was quickly getting filled to the brim due to the ever-increasing mana. Toz did his best to condense it as quickly as possible, but with a small amount trickling out at all times, it was difficult to cross the threshold to the next level.

So far, Toz's mana had only gone from a very thick liquid to an extremely thick liquid. And he would have to condense it to a fraction of its size and turn it into a solid before he could even begin thinking about calling himself a mage at the seventh level.

With the fire still ravaging his body, Toz forced himself to put even more pressure on the mana within his mana pool in an attempt to speed up the condensation process. But no matter what he did, his mana didn't transform and solidify.

It wasn't until his mana pool was completely full and had started expanding that there was enough pressure on the mana to begin solidifying the mana. It came at the cost of expanding his mana pool before it was ready. And as soon as the mana wasn't dense enough to put pressure on the mana pool, Toz had to wait until the pressure rose again before he could continue solidifying his mana.

Things were progressing even slower than Toz had feared. And with the fire and mana wreaking havoc across his body, he could feel his consciousness slipping. And along with it, his control over the mana inside his mana pool.

Toz had barely managed to wrestle back the control over his mana pool from the mana coursing wildly through his body. And with his already exhausted mind from the previous fight and the destruction of the Fortress of Death, it was a tall order just to retain his control. With the damage to his body and the pain that accompanied it, the strain on Toz's mind was even worse.

But at the same time, the pain and sensation of his body, overloaded with mana repairing itself, were the things that kept Toz awake. The fire that burned away at his body and the impurities within made Toz conflicted in several ways, but he didn't have enough mental freedom to give it any thought when he was already busy with his breakthrough.

However, he still spared a moment to decide to thoroughly investigate the effects of the fire after he was done. Assuming he survived, that is.

Toz lessened how much he ignored the pain from the damage to his body in order to use it to sharpen his mind and keep his consciousness while he finished his breakthrough. It helped him stay awake, but Toz could feel the pain eat away at his rationality, and if he didn't break through soon, he wasn't sure what would happen. But he didn't want to risk it and instead began concentrating the entirety of his sharpened mind on condensing the mana in his mana pool.

As he regained some clarity, it became easier for Toz to condense, and he didn't have to rely on the pressure that came from filling his mana pool to the brim anymore. At least not during the first part of his breakthrough.

Toz eventually managed to condense his mana to the point that it transformed into a small lump of clay-like mana at the center of his mana pool. Not having his mana pool filled to the point of bursting came as a great relief to Toz.

However, the relief didn't last long as more mana instantly flooded his mana pool and raced around in it, waiting to be compressed and added to the lump of orange clay in the middle. The avalanche of viscous lava-like sixth level mana formed a sphere around the soft marble of mana in the center of his mana pool. And under Toz's control, the mana gradually shrank and condensed until a qualitative change occurred.

The lava-like mana hardened and became another layer on top of the first marble of seventh level fire mana inside Toz's mana pool.

But each successive layer that Toz made only required more and more pressure. And eventually, he could no longer keep up with the influx of mana. He was forced to rely on the added pressure of the overflowing mana pool in order to keep up with how much mana entered his mana pool.

Thankfully, his mana pool had gotten a few moments' reprieve to recover from the last bout of expansion. But that didn't mean Toz's mana pool would last until his breakthrough was complete. Toz could endure the pain of his body burning through sheer force of will, but he couldn't endure his mana pool shattering. That would leave him crippled without a shadow of a doubt.

Toz had to find a solution to the forced expansion of his mana pool and his lacking ability to condense the mana inside his mana pool. And he had to do it before it was too late.

Toz knew that he couldn't condense his mana quickly enough because the amount of mana streaming into him was too great and because he and his mind were on the verge of collapse. So he couldn't do anything about that.

Eventually, Toz felt an urge to sigh that he couldn't fulfill due to the immobilized state of his body. He had come up with a solution. It was a solution he was sure that he wouldn't even consider had his mind and rationality been intact. He might not have even come up with the idea if he had been in a prime state.

But now that he had a solution, nothing else seemed to come to mind, regardless of how little Toz actually wanted to go through with it.

Unfortunately, Toz didn't have any time to convince his brain to come up with something else either, especially since he had to execute his idea as quickly as possible if he wanted to increase the odds of it succeeding.

Toz promised that he would beat himself up in the future. If he survived.