The shadows that didn't pass through the ground or begin floating in the air continued slowly spreading like a curse, covering the ground they crawled over in inky darkness.
Toz was incredibly excited over the discoveries regarding the darkness and void combination. The thing with passing through solid matter was one thing. But Toz was pretty sure that the aspect where the darkness spread like ink could be a clue to improving his spell.
As Toz continued trying things out, he learned how to control the various aspects of the elemental combination.
He wanted to dive into creating his spell as soon as possible, but he also wanted to create his sword as quickly as possible. And a large part of the sword creation would be waiting for the trees to complete the sword. Toz would have enough time to create his spell during that part.
After reaching a decision, Toz continued on with the next elemental combination. Void and fire.
Toz conjured a ball of flame above his hand before adding void mana to the mix.
The orange flame gradually lost its color, starting from the bottom of the flame, and eventually, the entire ball of fire turned grey. The flame didn't only lose its color. It also lost its temperature, but it didn't grow cold, either. It simply wasn't warm, as if it didn't exist. The only thing that proved the flame's existence other than the ball of grey flame in his hand was the mana it used to continue burning.
The amount of light the flame gave out was incredibly limited, barely strong enough to reach the surface of his palm.
Toz wasn't sure he wanted to try the flame out on just anything since it gave off a slightly ominous feeling, despite not having a temperature. Or maybe because it didn't have a temperature.
Thankfully, a swarm of void beasts headed their way. Right after they escaped the swarm chasing Taienra and Asilean, they had either encountered enormous swarms or no beasts at all, but the state of the void beasts had long since returned to normal.
Toz wasn't sure how much of the flame he would need in order to defeat the jellyfish, but he started off small with the flame in his hand.
The grey flame flew through the air at a moderate speed until it reached the first jellyfish, which it latched onto like a leech. Toz noticed instantly how the flame no longer drained his mana.
Only a few short moments after it stopped consuming Toz's mana, the grey flame burst out and covered every inch of the jellyfish in grey fire.
Toz saw the area covered by grey fire gradually shrink as it drained all the mana in the jellyfish's body, turning the jellyfish into a husk that shriveled and turned into dust as the flame leaped toward the next jellyfish, where it repeated the process.
The only thing Toz could do was look on in awe at the power of the mana-devouring flame. It even had the ability to automatically seek out new sources of mana when the thing it latched onto ran out.
Toz let the flame clear out the swarm before making sure every last ember stopped burning. If the grey flame was left alone in an environment where it had access to a continuous flow of mana, only disaster waited. The flame fed on mana, and since everything in the universe contained mana, it fed on everything in the universe.
Toz would have to try out the limits of the flame before determining how dangerous the flame is. Maybe it was so effective against the void beasts due to the void attribute or the beasts' poor control over mana.
After confirming he could control the flame, Toz moved on to the next element. Lightning.
Toz was excited to see what would happen to lightning combined with void since he had just seen the potential of fire and void combined.
However, unlike the previous elements he had tried out, he didn't have a natural way to try the lightning and void combination. Reinforcing his body with void-infused lightning magic seemed like taking an unnecessary risk.
Toz could only hope that the lightning wouldn't be as dangerous as the fire as he decided to target the Void with a lightning bolt.
He built up a charge of lightning mana, and right before discharging it into the Void, he added void mana to it. Right before the lightning bolt took off, Toz sensed the erratic and flickering lightning mana settle down. However, the straight beam of lightning that shot into the Void captured any further thoughts.
Since lightning bolts almost zigzagged through the air, Toz had expected something similar, but maybe grey instead of purple. The lightning did turn grey, but it also stopped zigzagging. His lightning bolt had turned into a straight line of grey lightning that disappeared into the Void.
Toz sent out a few more lightning bolts before deciding that he wasn't going to try it out any further until he had a suitable target.
With lightning done, the only thing left was space.
Toz didn't have as much experience with the space attribute as he did with his other elements, so he didn't know what to expect.
But, like with everything else, he wouldn't learn unless he did something first.
The only thing Toz knew how to do well enough to dare mix with void magic was open a tear in the fabric of space with his hand. Toz wrapped a mix of void and space mana around his hand before reaching out and grabbing hold of the air in front of him.
Usually, when he opened a tear in the fabric of space, it was like tearing a piece of cloth. Space tore at the seams, creating an elliptical hole through which he could see the swirling blue vortex of space.
However, with void mana added to his space magic, space only tore where he dragged his fingers, creating four glittering grey rifts, each the width of its respective finger.
When Toz asked Asilean about it, he only got the answer that it was a different way to tear through space. Toz couldn't help but suspect there was something else that even Asilean didn't know. But if Asilean didn't know, it would take quite some time before Toz figured out what it was.
