Boosted Continuation – A new world

The group congratulated Fey on her victory against Aura in the chase, even though the female wolf didn't accept her loss, and some of the girls had some doubts about it having been a chase in the first place. It had ended up being more of a magic showdown, after all. Afterward, Chloe bonded a little more with her parents before they ended the day by having dinner together.

“Sophia, we have a problem!” On the morning after the grand chase, Aura, together with Ari, stood in front of the blonde in the cottage’s hallway.

“Yes?” She tilted her head in return. “What’s wrong?”

“Two of the portals you made for me stopped working!” It seemed like a serious issue for the wolf.

“Really? That sounds odd?” Sophia looked confused. “That’s never happened before. Can you show me?”

“Of course!” Saying so, Aura guided her to their portal hub.

“By the way, you really have to clean up this place!” Once they arrived there, Ari used the chance to get Sophia to bring some order into the mess she had created. "It's just portal after portal without any order whatsoever!” She pointed at the at least 50 of them all around them. “Last time I wanted to go somewhere, it took me like four times to find the right one!”

“Ahaha…” The blonde scratched her cheek. “All of the portals are my creation and connected to me, so I know where they lead to, so I never had an issue with that.”

“It’s a big issue for everyone else, though!” The jaguar raised her voice a little.

“Is that so?” The tiger looked at Aura for confirmation.

“It’s the slightest bit confusing at times, yes.” She nodded.

“Alright, next time I have some free time, I’ll make a couple of signs.”

“Thank you!” Ari smiled at her in return.

“Anyway, let’s focus on your problem for now.” Sophia then focused on the wolf again.

“Yes!” Nodding once, Fey turned to her left and gestured at two portals there. “Those two were supposed to lead to my pine forest, but when you try to step through, they don’t let you!”

“That’s weird.” The blonde got closer to the portals and placed her hand on one. Curiously enough, she indeed wasn't able to push her hand through it. “Yeah, it’s disabled.”

"Why, though?" The wolf was curious about the reason.

“Inside my domain, those portals are a little more advanced because they belong to it and follow its rules.”

“I have no idea what any of this means.” Aura only got confused.

“The portal knows when the other side is dangerous and prevents the users from subjecting themselves to something that could lead to them getting hurt.”

“How would it be dangerous?” The wolf tilted her head.

“Hmm.” Sophia closed her eyes for a moment. “Both places are still on fire, so it would hurt quite a lot when the portal would be open and let you through.”

“That’s handy!” Aura was impressed for a moment.

"Thank you for idiot-proofing this place!" Ari clapped her hands. "The idiot, me, is very happy about that!”

“You’re very welcome!” The tiger smiled at her.

“Both places are still burning? Even ground zero where we started the fire? I would’ve guessed everything is burned down there by now." The wolf was surprised to hear it. "I guess my trees are even sturdier than we thought, huh?" She looked at Ari during the last part.

“As expected from you and your magic.” The jaguar wasn’t surprised.

“Ehehe~.” She was happy to hear it. “I guess we’ll just have to give it more time, then.”

“You know, Ari’s complaint about the messy portal situation and now this.” Sophia scratched her cheek. “I’ve been playing around with see-through portals lately and had a lot of fun with it. Actually, seeing where the portal leads to would be even better than signs, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s a great idea!” Ari was a big fan of the suggestion.

“I’ll do the others later, but let’s have a look at the dangerous one here.” While saying so, the tiger put her hand on the portal once more, and after a few moments, the sparkly pink inside slowly began to change. It soon changed into a flickering orange and red hue, and it became visible that the portal led to a flaming inferno that one definitely should avoid visiting for the time being.

“ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR IDIOT PROOFING THEM!” Seeing what was happening on the other side, Ari raised her voice by a good bit.

“Fascinating!” Aura was a lot more relaxed about it. “Well, I guess we have to wait a little longer to regrow the forest to even higher glory for a bit longer, then! Ari, how about we fully focus on our other project for today instead?”

“Okay!” She reacted with a big nod.

"What else, other than burning down my domain, are you two up to?" Sophia got interested in and concerned about whatever else they were doing.

"Our dearest jaguar here wanted to have a rainforest to please the ancestors inside her, and I'm helping her with it."

“Yes!”

“What about the one around our cottage?” The blonde tilted her head.

“It’s not rainforest-y enough!” Ari energetically shook her head. “It’s more of a jungle, after all.”

“Alright, all the power to you!” She wasn't going to stop her.

“Thanks!”

“Okay, let’s have some fun!” Saying so, Aura got behind the jaguar and pushed her through another portal.

“Enjoy!” Sophia just waved after them.

“…” A few moments later, they returned for some reason, though.

“Hmm?”

“Wrong portal!” The duo then disappeared through another one right next to it.

“Ha.” Awkwardly scratching her cheek, Sophia then spent the next hour making all the existing portals see-through before returning to the cottage.

----------------

“All alone?” Back in the cottage's living room, the blonde ran into her fellow tiger, Anna.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I thought about getting in some more training with Mira, but after I saw her disappearing with new Fey through the portal to her domain, I didn’t feel like interrupting whatever they planned to do.” The princess thought she’d be a bother.

“That’s, uhh… probably for the best.” The shorter tiger nodded a couple of times. “Who knows what their plans were.”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“Yep.” Sophia just kept nodding. “What were you doing with Mira, anyway? I just barely overheard that you had spent the day with her yesterday.”

“I had her teach me magic!”

“Seriously?!” Sophia got loud.

“Well, okay, only how to properly detect and measure its level in the area without seeing it, as that's not possible for me."

“Ahh, I see!” She calmed down a little. “That’s still amazing! Also, being able to see it isn’t that much of a help past a certain point because you literally go blind if there’s too much magic around you.”

“Mira mentioned that, too.” Anna smiled at her.

“Was there a specific reason you wanted to get better at that?” The blonde got curious again.

“Initially, I wanted to ask her if it was possible to use that magic stone we found below your cherry forest to keep storing my magic to be able to use its reserves to create a massive biome for myself in one go.”

“And?"

“It’s possible, but it doesn’t make much sense in Mira’s eyes. It would be much easier to simply release my internal magic as ambient magic in the area I want my biome and keep doing that until it’s enough. As long as I don’t give the ambient magic a purpose, it seems to stay in the area as long as I want it to. Once the levels are high enough, I could get started without having to use the stone, of which we don’t know how much it holds, anyway.”

“Oh, that’s just what I did with the cherry blossoms! I can attest that this method works~.”

“Mira said so, too, so I’m sure of it.” The princess gave her a thumbs up. “You have the benefit of a much larger capacity and near-instant regeneration, though. Because of that, it will take me a lot longer.” She then hung her head a little.

“That is true, but even if you had more, you’d want to spend more, too, so the problem will always stay the same. I mean, I feel the same way, even with my powers! Next to Mira, I feel downright insignificant.”

“There's always someone better than you, huh? To be fair, Mira’s a bit of an extreme comparison. Then again, in absolute terms, I’m beyond privileged already, so I shouldn’t complain, either.” Anna was aware that both were having some high-level complaints others could only dream of.

“That is very much the case here.” The blonde could only agree with her. “Anyway, how did the training go? Did you learn how to gauge magic levels properly?”

“Yes!” She vigorously nodded. “Mira even praised me for my skills!”

“That’s awesome!” Sophia lightly clapped her hands. “How far apart can you tell the levels?”

“Yesterday, I managed to get just shy of 200 times my maximum power. I hope to get even better with more training!” She sounded very motivated.

“W-What the-?!” The blonde got loud. “That’s way more than I can!”

“You do have over ten times my magic power, so it’s not that

 much in total terms.”

“That’s still a WHOLE lot!” It wasn’t any less of an achievement for the shorter tiger. “I was completely overwhelmed when I was in an area with about 30 times my power, so I'd guess we're about on the same level, absolutely speaking!"

“Even though I’m much weaker than you?!”

“Not the word I would’ve used, but yeah, you have a lot less magic at your disposal, but you’re that sensitive to it!”

“I wonder if it scales with power at all?” The princess tilted her head. “I wonder if I could sense it even better with more internal magic?”

“I’d love to find out, but I’m still too weak to boost you more at the moment.” Sophia shook her head. “Maybe sometime in the future again.”

“That wasn't my intention!” The tall tiger rapidly shook her head. “I wasn’t begging, just curious!”

“Don't worry, I wasn’t accusing you, either.” She had to chuckle at the panicking princess. “Now I want to see you in action, though! Let's go somewhere else and see who can sense magic levels better!”

“Okay!”

Having decided on their spontaneous date, the two tigers left the cottage to play around with their magic.

 

 

---

---