Amber sent her letter using a magic communication tool. Hopefully, she would get an answer soon, and a few days after that, reinforcements would arrive. Although the guild could mobilize the explorers under its jurisdiction, the ones close to Yellow Sparks were mostly first and second level ones.
From what Toz had told Amber, using low level mages would at most halt the rats in their advance. To eradicate them, they needed greater levels of strength and possibly greater numbers.
Amber stressed this point in her message, but she didn't possess the qualifications and authority needed to make a mid level mage of the guild move by herself. She could only hope that even if they wanted to verify the truth before sending further reinforcements, they would send someone with adequate strength and skill to start planning countermeasures.
While waiting anxiously, she started notifying the explorers to be careful of the wasteland to the south and if possible, stay close to town, in case they are needed for an emergency mobilization.
Although no details were leaked, the atmosphere in the guild building turned more serious, than in the rest of the town. There wasn't enough time for the entire town to get put on high alert, but some perceptive and quick-thinking merchants either left the town completely or started bulk purchasing materials and resources that the guild and explorers would need in large-scale combat.
A few trustworthy explorers had also been asked to keep track of the wasteland's expansion and report back to the guild at regular intervals.
Amber did as much as she could while waiting for a response from her superiors in a nearby mid level plane.
It took two days for the answer to come. It had Amber sighing in relief as she read the contents of the letter. The fifth level manager she had reported to had chosen to believe in her struggles. While he would investigate the rats and their origin personally, a squad that often worked closely with the guild would come over and take charge.
Although Amber didn't like being shoved to the side like a chair in the way, she knew she wouldn't be able to contribute more than a fifth level mage with experience in leading teams and subjugating beasts on a large scale.
There wasn't any mention of sending a truthseeker to interrogate Toz, so he was free to leave the town if he so wished, but Amber got the impression he wanted to stick around and help deal with the rats.
Nander had been to Toz's room to give him Amber's message about the reinforcements but didn't get an answer when knocking on the door. Inside the room, Toz and the cats sat in a square formation, concentrating intensely on training their mana.
Even if they had noticed Nander knocking, none of them would have bothered breaking their focus to deal with him since it didn't seem very important. If it had been about a serious matter, Nander wouldn't have left after just a couple of knocks without even trying to see if Toz was in the room.
After Mindle broke through to the second level, she had a hard time controlling her power since, despite only advancing a single level in the lower levels, her mana pool expanded by a lot. And unlike other beasts, her body was made from her mana, so when her mana exploded in capacity so did her body's capabilities.
The mana making up her body grew denser to keep her the same size, and both her magical and physical output increased by a large margin. Her increased capacity for mana and magical output made it difficult to control her magic.
Right after Mindle broke through, she wanted to conjure a small flame to compare with her previous self, but instead of a paw-sized flame, a fireball bigger than herself appeared and almost torched the room. Thankfully they were in a room made of fire attribute materials, and Toz was quick to react and helped Mindle control the fireball.
The first day in the inn was spent helping Mindle control her mana with more precision, then while she focused on that, the other three began absorbing the surrounding mana like crazy.
Toz had no problem absorbing the mana directly, but Lucy and Nil had to convert it first, which made them a bit slower than Toz. However, during the time Toz spent refining his body a third time with the fire element, those two had pulled ahead and were already nearing the third level. Lucy was especially close.
But with Toz focusing wholeheartedly on advancing his total level, it wouldn't be long until he caught up and surpassed Lucy, not to mention Nil. And that's exactly what he did. A few days after locking themselves in their room, Toz had reached approximately the same level as Lucy. Now, both of them only needed a slight push to reach the third level.
Lucy sensed through the inclination and fluctuations in Toz's mana that both of them were a single, tiny step away from breaking through. After exchanging a determined glance with each other, they restarted their training with renewed vigor.
Mindle was busy trying to improve her mana control, and Nil ignored the two's competition and focused on himself instead.
A day after Amber received her response, and a day before the reinforcements were expected to arrive Toz's room stirred.
Although it was a small breakthrough to the third level, both Toz and Lucy had large mana pools and were talented, so there was a small ruckus in the room, barely noticeable on the other side of the door.
The two reached the third level at the same time, creating two small whirlpools of mana as their newly expanded mana pools absorbed the surrounding mana to fill themselves up. Lucy worked hard to keep up with converting it, so his mana pool didn't starve. Toz didn't have the same problems, as he could just keep an eye on the process while feeling his body become more attuned to mana, and the bond between all of them strengthen through his inclination.
Despite being able to relax and feeling refreshed, Toz didn't slack off and started acquainting himself with his new magical capabilities. Seeing how much stronger his magic had gotten and how much his mana pool had expanded, Toz had a satisfied smile on his face.
With the increase in level, his body had also gotten slightly stronger, and it would become even stronger as he refined his darkness and metal elements.
The light show and blowing wind that came as a result of Toz and Lucy breaking through disrupted the other two's concentration, and the rest of the day was spent celebrating.
It was a joyous occasion so they went out to eat in a proper restaurant instead of munching on snacks in the room.
They couldn't help but notice the slightly solemn atmosphere hovering around the town, but since the restaurant was empty they didn't mind. They also probably knew why. There was no way the guild would sit still after Toz's report, and if the guild moved on the necessary scale, the town that was almost built around the guild would notice those movements, and react accordingly.
While eating a sumptuous meat buffet with the cats, Toz thought that he should check in with Amber the next day to see how it's going with the preparations and make sure he can get a front-row seat to the rats' eradication.
Nil, unlike the others, wasn't as happy. While Toz and Lucy had just broken through, he was still not at the threshold. Mindle had also broken through to the second level, despite her age.
At this rate, it felt like he would be left behind. He knew Toz wouldn't mind if Nil was weaker than the others, but his self-esteem wouldn't allow it. Not after he and Toz had started on the journey of magic together. They had promised each other they would be next to each other forever, something that wouldn't be possible with a large disparity in strength.
Eventual weakness and differences in capability would limit what they could do together and put an inevitable strain on their relationship.
Nil didn't want that to happen and vowed to work even harder to catch up to Toz.
The good thing about Toz becoming stronger than Nil was that as Toz got stronger, his inclination did too. More specifically, the familiar space that his bonded cats could access through the inclination got better.
Larger separate rooms, a more spacious common area, and higher mana density are what changes as a standard every time Toz gets stronger. Although the mana came partly from the cats and Toz, so they needed to put some of their own, into the familiar space, for there to be mana the cats could use to train. Usually, the inclination absorbs small amounts of mana constantly, to refill the space, but when the consumption is greater than the regeneration Toz or any of the cats can manually refill it.
Since the familiar space had improved, Nil could spend more time there, training, while Toz is busy with other things or sleeping.
Toz sensed Nil's dejection despite him trying to play it cool, but even if Toz said something, it wouldn't do much good, it might even have negative consequences. Instead, Toz chose to trust his longtime companion, and wait for him to talk or deal with it on his own.
After stuffing themselves with meat in an overall festive mood, the group headed back to the inn.
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