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Chapter 109
🕑 Added 2024-06-01 16:42:32 +0000 UTC--
Chapter 109
Chloe and Fen were still working on their cozy winter biome and were making great progress after they agreed on how to do it. The two still weren’t sure it would work because they were assuming a lot of things about magic, but they were motivated, and that's all that was important.
“Well, I can’t say I was expecting that.” Sophia and Fey, as well as Chloe and Fen, weren't the only odd duos of the day. Mira was in the small cottage of her own domain when she opened the door for a guest. "What can I do for the esteemed princess of the beastfolk kingdom?" She smiled at Anna, who had come to visit her for some reason.
“I hope I’m not a bother?” The tall tiger looked a little awkward.
“You would never~.” The overseer was still smiling and gestured her inside. "I take it you want to chat?"
“Thank you!” Anna entered the cottage, and the two went to the living room together, where they sat down.
“So, what’s up?” Having gotten comfortable on the sofa across from the princess, Mira tilted her head while looking at her.
“I’ve come for guidance!”
“Oho!” She nodded a few times. “What for?”
“I want to get better at using magic!” The tiger raised her voice. “I feel like I’m lagging behind in the group!”
"You've certainly come to the most knowledgeable individual in that regard, but you also know that I can’t just tell you things about magic.”
“A, you already broke this rule more times than I can count, and that’s just talking about all those times I was present when Sophia or Chloe wanted to know something.”
“Ah.”
“B, I also know that you will confirm things when I guess correctly, so I just have to throw enough ideas at you. That’s what those two do, too, after all."
“What an observant princess.” The overseer scratched her cheek.
“You don’t really need to be observant for that.”
“I just love my daughter, okay?!”
“Sophia’s your daughter?” Anna tilted her head. “It would explain sooo much, but…”
“I’m talking about the pink one!” The overseer got loud. “Sophia’s just a curious tiger that knows how to get answers out of me.”
“I want to be that tiger, too!” The princess pointed at herself.
"Alright, throw some stuff at me, and let's see what happens."
"Okay!" She sounded pretty determined. “When Sophia, Chloe, and I were exploring the cherry blossom forest, we found a cave with a massive translucent crystal. Blu landed on it and accidentally showed us that the thing sucks magic out of you and stores it. The three of us then poured all of our magic into the crystal until it got all sparkly while glowing in a pink light.”
“That little parakeet…” Mira rolled her eyes, knowing full well that it wasn’t accidentally.
“Anyway, we all wanted to see a crystal forest, and when we returned to the same place the day after, the area had turned into exactly that, and the crystal became translucent again, ready to absorb more magic."
“So, what’s the question?”
“Was our theory correct? Are there crystals that can store magic?”
“Yes.” As they had basically found out about it already, the overseer had no intention to hide it.
“Awesome!” Anna’s eyes were sparkling. “All of us together filled it up in an instant and directly used it, but can you also store it inside the crystal for longer and slowly store more over days or weeks?”
“What for?” The teal fox tilted her head.
“I have the least amount of magic power in the group, but I have high ambitions!”
“You love to hear it.” Mira smiled at her.
“I like the biomes everyone is making in Sophia’s place, and I want to make my own.” The princess paused for a moment. “I don’t think I have enough power to make something truly amazing, though. After finding that crystal, I got the idea to place it in the area I want to create my biome, and whenever I have some excess magic, I would pour it into it. Once there's enough inside the crystal, I would then use it to create my dream place.”
“Not bad!" The overseer nodded a few times. "It seems like you gave it some good thought, and I like that~."
“I need to make do with what I have, after all.” She was happy that it seemed possible. "I can't wait to get started!"
“There’s an easier way for you to make an impressive biome in Sophia’s place, though.”
“Huh?” Anna perked up. “How?! Also, I thought you’re not going to openly help?”
“Sophia already found out about it. She just hasn’t gotten around to tell you yet.”
“Ahh.” She nodded. “Well, she was pretty preoccupied with Ellie.”
“She did the same as you’re planning, amassing a lot of extra magic to create something she shouldn't be able to with her current powers."
"The way-too-impressive cherry blossom forest, right?" The princess tilted her head.
“Yes.” Mira nodded. “She used her portals to transfer magic from your world to her domain.”
“You can do that?!” The tiger got loud. “So, she just opened a portal and let the magic flow into her place?!”
“No, it’s a little more involved than that.” The overseer shook her head. “You've heard the others use the term authority before, right?”
“Yeah, especially Chloe and Sophia use that all the time to describe their own magic.”
“Because that’s how magic works.” Mira paused for a moment. “The magic that resides inside of you is actually the authority you have over the available magic in your vicinity. The more authority you have, the better and longer you can control magic. Your magic also doesn't exactly run out while using it, but you rather lose the authority to use it, and you get put on cooldown. There are exceptions, though, like using your authority to grow plants like in the biome you're all playing with at the moment. There, you actually release your internal magic, which then slowly gets refilled by the free magic around you.”
“Ha." Anna went silent and thought about it for a little while. "That makes so much sense!” She suddenly raised her voice. “So much more than all the stuff we’ve been learning in the academy and my private teachers before meeting Sophia and the others!”
“Indeed.” The fox awkwardly scratched her cheek. “The interpretation of magic on the beastfolk and human continent is lacking, to say the least. In fact, it somehow has gotten worse over time. You all got way too comfortable with it."
“Ahaha…” She had nothing to say in their defense. “Wait, does that mean that there are places where this advanced knowledge of magic is common sense?”
“The inhabitants of the demon continent are fairly close to it, as well as constantly trying to push further to learn more about it.” Mira had to take another jab at the lazy beastfolk at the end.
“Oh, it’s going to be sooo interesting once we finally go there!” The princess got excited instead. “Anyway, I think I missed the part where this helps me make my biome in Sophia’s domain, though.”
“Right, we went on a bit of a tangent there.” Mira got back to the initial topic. “Sophia used a trick and was on both sides at the same time. “While being in your world, she was regenerating her authority, but at the same time, she also was sending her raw magic through the portal by putting a part of her body through it.”
“Why is she so clever about the weirdest things?!” Anna was impressed by the fellow tiger.
“That’s an excellent question.” The overseer had wondered about the same many times, as well. “She’s a most interesting fellow.”
“I can’t argue with that.” The princess nodded in agreement. “Wait, so I could just relax at home back in the castle all day while sticking a part of my body through a portal and slowly transferring my magic?”
“That’s exactly what Sophia did for her cherry blossom forest.”
“That’s so cheap!” The tiger got loud.
“To be fair, she and Chloe are pretty much the only ones that can do it like that. They only need a couple of minutes to completely reset their authority and so can keep transferring magic for the entire day. You, unfortunately, can’t do that.”
“Ah.” She hung her head in return. “True, it takes me about half a day to fully be able to use magic again. Well, doesn’t that mean the crystal would be the best for my situation, after all?” Anna scratched her cheek. “It doesn’t seem like Sophia's portal trick would help me with my biome, or am I missing something?"
“There’s nothing you gain from using the crystal either, though. At least not for this.” Mira got a little cryptic towards the end.
“What does that mean?”
“Just because you release your internal authority as pure magic, it's not gone. It stays in the area where you released it until it has a purpose. Instead of filling the crystal, you can just keep releasing your magic in the area where you want to make your biome until you think it’s enough. Only then, when you imagine the area that you want to build with your magic, it will get used and converted.”
“Ahh, I see what you mean now!” The princess clapped her hands. “I thought that once you release your magic, it will latch onto the next best thing, but now that you mention it, the trees we played with also only changed after we wanted them to.”
“Exactly.”
“But how do I know when I released enough magic? I can’t see it like Sophia can, so it would be just guessing on my part.”
“The crystal glow also only shows how much it’s filled, not how much magic it absorbed. The capacity varies greatly depending on its size and other variables.”
“So, it’s just guessing either way?!” Anna didn’t like this revelation.
“You know, it’s actually fairly easy to reliably gauge the environmental magic around you when you know what you’re doing.” Mira tried to cheer her up.
“What gave you the impression that I know what I’m doing?!”
“Ahaha, you and Sophia really have a lot in common~.” She felt very reminded of the other tiger. “How about I give you a little training session?”
“The overseer of magic is going to teach me magic?!” The princess got so excited that she jumped off the sofa.
“Well, I’m not going to teach you any new things, but as long as it tricks a couple of people from the group already know, I don’t think it’s against my meddling rules, so I don’t mind.”
“Let’s go!” It didn’t dampen her excitement in the slightest.
Not giving her any time to think it over, Anna immediately dragged Mira out of the cottage so they could start training as soon as possible.
