Elemental Cats

Toz looked at the cloud of space mana floating in front of the door, but since it was difficult to see what would happen if he brought out the mana's true nature, he had a hard time tunnel-visioning on it as he did with the fire in his cell. Unlike fire which has a clear and distinct nature and existence and is represented by its flames, space was more esoteric and not really something to be seen or noticed. It just was.

Tearing space opened up a rift in seemingly thin air, but was the air itself, space, was it the rift, or was it whatever was on the other side of the rift? Maybe space was the glittering blue vortex of a portal that could be considered space.

Since he couldn't focus solely on his space magic, his eyes drifted, and Toz noticed that not all enchantments had been triggered by his attempt to move space mana inside the grey cube. Only a few of them glowed in response to his magic.

Toz felt it was a little unfortunate, but it seemed like he wouldn't have an opportunity to do with space magic what he did with fire magic. It wasn't like he was sure it would have worked. He was only vaguely following his instincts and trying to make a miracle happen.

After deciding not to dwell on it anymore, Toz discarded his initial plan of trying to awaken the true nature of space mana and overpower the enchantment. Instead, he would use his space magic to identify the enchantments hindering his magic from appearing on the other side of the door.

While still keeping his mana vision active, Toz looked at the door and the walls around it as he controlled his space mana to try and teleport to the other side. Like last time, the space mana stopped in front of the door. But Toz expected and prepared for it. He didn't even look at the results of his magic. His eyes were fully occupied with looking at the enchantments on the grey cube.

Toz remembered where a few of the enchantments had lit up last time, but he was surprised to find that several enchantments that didn't light up in obvious response to his magic also showed a response when he looked with his mana vision.

If he tried to do the same thing, but without his mana vision and only by relying on identifying the enchantments that lit up, his plan would have failed and probably triggered a failsafe or defensive measure.

Toz sent out his space mana again to ensure he got all the enchantments that he would need to target.

After memorizing them all, Toz got to work.

Since the enchantments blocked space magic, they were probably space attribute, but Toz wasn't going to use space magic to attack them since that would be like attacking something labeled 'stone-repellant' with a stone. Instead, he was going to use his void magic.

The enchantments probably had defensive measures to prevent anyone from destroying them. They might even have repairing functions.

However, Toz wasn't going to target the enchantments themselves. Just like most things related to magic, the enchantments used mana as a power source, which meant that they would be useless without mana.

When he escaped his cell, Toz had deprived the enchantments in it of mana, which rendered them useless. But doing the same with the enchantments on the grey cube's outside would probably take more time if it was even viable. The entire large white room was filled with mana. Toz hadn't been to a high level plane, but he felt like the density might be similar between one and the white room.

He would eventually be able to drain the room since it wasn't as large as an entire plane, but it would take a lot of time, time he didn't have. And that was only if the mana didn't recover on its own.

Toz wouldn't be able to get rid of all the mana inside the room and deprive the enchantments of their fuel. But with his void magic, he would be able to either render the mana useless or isolate the enchantments that hindered his path forward.

After identifying the enchantments, Toz got to work.

He placed his hand on the wall. He did it carefully in case it reacted to touch. Thankfully, it seemed like the enchantments only reacted to a certain amount of force or to magic.

With his hand on the wall, Toz activated his mana vision again to locate the right enchantments. And to see if the enchantments were about to respond to his actions.

Toz gently began sending out a stream of void magic along the door and the walls. The enchantments hindered him from sending it directly toward his targets. But after some time, when he had placed a small amount of mana right next to each target, he began wearing down those defenses using the natural properties of void mana.

The enchantments would react to the active use of magic, but there was nothing they could do against void mana that naturally dispelled magic and other types of mana. But usually, in places other than the void, void mana was practically nonexistent, so the enchantments didn't have to take the possibility of void mana flooding the enchantments into consideration.

However, that lack of consideration made it possible for Toz's void mana to breach the enchantment's passive defenses and target the enchantments that hindered his space magic from working.

When the defenses were worn down and revealed a few gaps and holes, Toz sent his void mana into the enchantments, after which he dispelled the mana inside the enchantments. He also isolated the enchantments by surrounding them with void mana so that they couldn't be refueled.

Toz didn't relax since he wasn't completely done. Even after the enchantments were deactivated, he still had to send his space magic to the other side and tear open the door. And he had to be quick about it.

With his mana vision, he could tell that the enchantments were quickly reacting to something, and mana was building up at the blockage he had set up. If he had tried to disable all the defensive enchantments and break through the door from outside, the enchantments probably would have set off an alarm. Thankfully, since he had only deactivated a few enchantments, he had enough time to open the door from inside.

Toz sent his mana to the other side, after which he expanded space right next to the other side of the door. It followed the same principles as when he thickened space to slow something down. But he let the space stretch out instead of keeping it in the same place.

Expanding space didn't have much use in combat since it was a cumbersome way of moving someone around or giving something a push. But it worked wonders against the door since it took the force of the expanded space and caved to it.

After getting pushed off its hinges, the door fell to the ground, revealing the insides of the grey cube.

With his goal accomplished, Toz stopped interfering with the enchantments and let them restore themselves. Now that the door was open, the enchantments couldn't stop him.