Elemental Cats

Toz didn't know what had happened or how long it had been since he lost consciousness. After Yill's words, everything went black, and before Toz knew it, he was already waking up.

He was a little surprised, considering it felt like he was dying when the wave of ice swept over him.

Toz shook away the surprise and the remaining dullness of having his mind and body frozen as he tried to wake up and rouse his mana.

His eyes flashed open, and he tried to get a look at his surroundings before doing anything.

At first glance, t didn't seem like he was in a dangerous place. It was just a little dull.

Toz sat up while looking around at the completely empty room. Empty walls, bare ceiling a couple of meters above the cold, hard floor. It felt like someone had trapped him in a cube. Toz was about to stand up to stretch his stiff legs and thoroughly investigate the cell when he noticed the rustling of the chains attached to his wrists, ankles, and the floor.

The chains severely limited how far he could move. Toz could hardly stand up without crouching and holding his hands close to the ground. Toz grabbed the chains and pulled hard.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he pulled at the chains, whether he tried to get them off him or get them out of the floor, they didn't budge. Toz sat down and sighed at the unbreakable chains.

They might not have been unbreakable if he could use his magic, but either the room itself or something else suppressed his mana. Trying to control his mana was like trying to eat soup with a needle.

With nothing to do, Toz's mind wandered to questions he knew he wouldn't be able to answer. He intentionally tried to distract himself so that the endless questions wouldn't pain him. But he couldn't resist the boredom.

Toz's primary worry was the cats and what had happened to them.

Usually, his inclination would allow him to check up on them even from a distance, but whatever suppressed his mana also blocked off his inclination. Toz was left trying to answer the questions he came up with on his own.

But the only things he had to go on were Yill's words that she didn't want to harm him and that he was too valuable. However, she said those things before Toz revealed the cats and tried to escape, so he had no idea if the cats were unharmed. He didn't even know if Asilean had escaped.

But with Yill's strength and due to her words of it them being close to escaping, Toz guessed that it wasn't very likely. As a transcendent, Asilean's advantage in the Void wasn't very noticeable. And although he still had the space element, which was quite useful when escaping, enough strength could bridge even the gap between attributes.

Toz didn't even need to guess that Yill possessed the required strength to make up for the different properties of her ice attribute and Asilean's space attribute.

For all he knew, Yill might have only displayed a fraction of her strength when dealing with them. When Scrael ran around the platform, Toz noticed how Yill distinctly avoided hitting any of the others, even if her attacks wouldn't have injured them.

Considering she had also talked about how she wasn't supposed to interfere with the affairs of the Mortal Realm and something called the Transcendent's Pledge, Toz hazarded a guess that Yill couldn't act however she wanted.

Toz felt a little despondent at the realization that Yill held back, and Toz and the cats struggled to even escape from her when they had the advantage in numbers and a surprise attack.

He also realized that Yill had probably caught up to Asilean before he could escape. There was nothing holding her back while she was in the Void. Asilean, who couldn't escape when she restrained herself, probably couldn't escape if she fully unleashed her strength.

Toz was curious about the extent of the Mortal Realm, what lay beyond it, and what the Transcendent's Pledge was. But due to his current circumstances, there was nothing he could do to satisfy that curiosity. Not that he wanted to satisfy his curiosity before he could find the cats and Brunswick.

The thought of Brunswick also made Toz remember the other pirates, Pirate Haven and Taienra. He knew Pirate Haven would probably be fine, even without him, thanks to the agreement the pirates and delegates signed. He also didn't mind leaving Pirate Haven since he had fulfilled his mission there. But he had wanted to leave on his own terms and after settling his gains.

But now that Yill had kidnapped him, Toz could hardly expect to retain his grimoires and martial manuals. He already had several spells, and he could probably figure out the rest of Dissolution and Armor Slice on his own, but he really didn't want to give up on the old, scrappy manual marked with the rainbow swirl.

The manual that had withstood the test of time but was in pieces and ripped out from something greater was filled with the promise of secrets and adventure. Toz's desire to explore and discover had waned a little after his faith in the Explorer's Guild dropped following the Treblor Forest incident.

He had spent a lot of time discovering interesting creatures in the Void, and then he found the different things in Pirate Haven, such as the weird knick-knacks Brunswick worked on or the Hidden Blood Dagger that entranced Red Hook. When combined with the revelation he got from Yill that the universe was a lot larger than it seemed, Toz's excitement for exploration was reignited. And one of the things he was most interested in was the source of the rainbow swirl manual.

However, Toz's budding excitement was quickly smothered by the reality of his situation. He was imprisoned in the most boring cell he had ever seen. He couldn't even move around.

Toz lay down on his back and stared up at the empty ceiling as he began trying to figure out the blockage of his mana.