Elemental Cats

After Toz helped him figure out that there should be a more effective way for him to train, Joshua had been trying out the few things he could come up with. Such as trying to convert the mana he absorbed into bubbles instead of neutral mana. However, that didn't do much other than give him a headache. After that, he tried to train his mana while swinging his bubble ring around, like someone with a martial type inclination might do.

But Joshua did notice a slight improvement when he tried training while holding the ring. His discovery was an accident since he was resting with his ring in hand after swinging it around like a madman trying to get his body to absorb the mana in the surroundings. However, with each swing, it became increasingly apparent that it wouldn't work.

Mages and fighters who train their mana by doing the task, like Hods with his sledgehammer swinging, or Joan with her enchanting, don't convert and absorb the mana by themselves. Their inclination does it for them. And without a suitable inclination, any attempt to imitate it would be meaningless. That was also why Toz hadn't tried looking into other people's inclinations while he was trying to figure out a way to walk and train his mana at the same time. Though Toz hadn't had any need for that ever since entering the Void, so those efforts had been put on ice.

And most people with those sorts of inclinations were often limited to that way of training. They couldn't train by converting and absorbing the mana themselves. However, Joshua couldn't know for certain how he could train the most efficiently since he had a unique type inclination. Even if he searched through an entire plane, there wasn't a guarantee he would find someone with a similar inclination.

Although it was great that no one would easily be able to figure out how his inclination worked and how to counteract it, it also meant Joshua himself would struggle while trying to figure out the ins and outs of his own inclination.

The only thing Joshua knew about his inclination so far was that his ring could make bubbles that were flexible, resilient, and springy. And then, if he changed the size of the ring, he could also change how large the bubbles got.

However, after some further experimentation, Joshua figured out that he didn't have to put something through the ring to make a bubble. It was another accidental discovery from his swinging practice. If he filled the ring with mana and readied it for bubble creation, he could send the bubble flying and attach it to the ground or another surface. The bubble was far from fast as it wobbled through the air before settling into the place that Joshua designated.

The bubbles Joshua made by swinging his ring weren't any different from the ones he put on his hands when he got bored. But since they weren't directly attached to him, they were easy to lay down and rest on.

Since he wasn't having much progress with his training, Joshua had taken to lying down on a single large or several smaller bubbles while staring off into the Void, letting his mind wander. He was often joined by the other inhabitants of the island. Compared to the ground or the simplistic mattresses, the bubbles were like paradise.

Joshua had begun spending so much time on the bubbles that he had the thought to start training while sitting on them. Compared to Joshua's usual degree of activity and playfulness, it was an unexpected bout of laziness and addiction to comfort. But it led to Joshua's first major breakthrough, so the feelings of indulgence were more than welcome.

Joshua experienced a significant increase in the amount of mana he could convert and absorb while he was sitting on the bubble. He almost facepalmed since the solution was so apparent in hindsight. His inclination revolved around him creating bubbles. Wasn't it obvious that the bubbles would also be involved in his training? He was literally sitting on the answer.

After Joshua discovered the increased efficiency of his training while sitting on a bubble, he didn't stop there. Since he had found a lead on how his inclination worked, he naturally had to follow it as far as he could.

He tried touching as many bubbles as possible at once. But touching only one of them and having the rest nearby were as effective as touching all of them.

Then he remembered that he could make larger bubbles by expanding the ring. But he had never tried out how large he could make the ring. And while trying to see if the size of the bubble he sat on affected his training, Joshua ended up inside one. The bubble had been made while the ring had the same diameter as Joshua's height, and the bubble ended up being slightly larger than that when it was made.

Joshua was lying on the bubble face-up while fiddling with his ring and trying to see if it could do anything else. While Joshua manipulated the ring, he somehow ended up falling through the surface of the bubble. The bubble didn't burst or anything. Joshua had simply passed right through it.

The pain from falling to the ground from more than one and a half meters up in the air was overshadowed by Joshua's discovery that he could pass through the bubbles he made. Which also meant that he had the ability to interact with the bubbles he had already made. That line of thinking reminded him of the moment he had awakened his inclination. The barrier covering the island had caught him and saved him from dying in the Void. But what if his inclination regarded the barrier as a bubble and solidified it, so it caught Joshua?

Joshua wasn't simply limited to creating his bubbles. He could interact with and change them. Not only that, but he could also influence bubbles that weren't his. Although it was difficult for Joshua to understand the full scope of his inclination, he at least knew that he could affect the island's barrier when he got proficient enough at using his magic. That meant he could help Lucy defend the island against the void beasts' attacks.

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