Sophia and the others finished their mountain range adventure after having found a cherry blossom forest and headed back to the cottage. There, the blonde found out that Fen and Ari had been doing their own thing the entire day and created a very nice-looking, comfortable, and relaxing forest together.
“Alright, let’s go!” Sophia started the next day on a very motivated note. Because she wanted to start working on her very own cherry blossom biome, as well as the cats needing a break from the snowy mountains, they decided to stay in the domain. Steph, Chloe, and Aura thought about adventuring on their own but ultimately decided against it. Instead, they asked the blonde to open one of her portals in a remote area of her domain and another one leading to the top of one of the snowy mountains because they wanted to play around.
“It’s still so very beautiful!” The blonde went to the area in her domain where she put the portion of the cherry blossom forest, she borrowed from the mountain range and looked at it with sparkling eyes because she loved it so much. “I can’t wait to mess around with it!”
“My dearest and most beloved magic, do you want to play with me~?” She looked at nothing in particular when she said those words with her sweetest voice possible. “There are so many fun things I want to try!” Two seconds later, the tiger was swarmed by an uncountable amount of pink and purple particles that began to swirl and dance around her.
“I’m happy to see you, too!” Her already excellent mood brightened even more when she noticed just how excited the magic particles were after having been called out by her. Hearing that, they became even more active and increased their pace around the tiger.
“Ehehe~.” Sophia liked their reaction. “Take a look at that!” She then pointed at the portion of the cherry blossom forest in front of her that she had rescued from the mountain range. “Isn’t it the cutest?” Going in the direction she was pointing at, around two-thirds of the particles disappeared into the forest and roamed around in it. Interestingly enough, the pink and purple bits flying in between the trees made it look like cherry petals were dancing through the forest from a distance.
“Magical cherry forest! Even better!” The blonde’s smile got bigger. “Do you like it, too?” She looked at the mass of particles in front of her that just returned and watched them moving up and down a few times. “Great! Do you all want to help me make this forest look even more amazing and turn it into a massive biome?” Immediately after she said those words, the particles returned to energetically swirling around the tiger.
“Don’t worry, it’s not for free~.” Saying so, she lifted her hand, and many pink and purple particles rose out of it before immediately joining the others still swirling around her. “You can have as much of my authority as you need. It should be fair, after all. I just want to involve all of you directly instead of just using my authority to make magic do things for me.” In response to that, the raw magic got more active once again and returned to moving up and down.
“I’m glad you like the plan~.” Sophia took it as a positive reaction. "I have some wishes, but other than that, we can play a lot! Do you want to hear my ideas?" The particles immediately moved even more up and down. "Not that you can't read my thoughts, anyway, huh?" That remark earned her several gusts of wind that almost swept her off her feet. “What, it’s true, isn’t it?” She didn’t appreciate their reaction, but she only was met with even more wind afterward.
"You know, it's quite unfair that you get to play with me but immediately get upset when I tease you a little!" The blonde started pouting. Unfortunately, magic's answer to that only was even more wind hitting the tiger's face. “Grr! Another gust of wind, and we're not going to play anymore!" The instant she said those words, every single particle froze in midair. There wasn’t the slightest breath of wind anymore, either. “Thank you very much~.”
“Okay, with that out of the way, let’s start!” After all, Sophia hadn't been angry at all. “I have some things I want to see in the forest, but there’s lots to play with. Are you all okay with that?” She paused for a moment to watch the reaction of the particles. Unsurprisingly, every single one of them immediately returned to moving up and down in an extremely energetic manner.
“Perfect!” She gave them a nod of approval. “First, do you see that there are many regular cherry blossoms but not quite as many of the weeping cherry trees? I mean those with the hanging garland-like leaves.” Listening to her, a small group of the particles moved away from the tiger and circled around one of the wishing cherries that were nearby. “Exactly! I love them! If possible, I’d like more of them. Like two-thirds weeping, and one-third the regular ones.” Afterward, two more groups of particles left Sophia. One began circling around regular cherry blossoms while the other chose a second weeping one. "Exactly!"
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“Second, I want this place to be mainly beautiful. The looks should awe you, and not having a bunch of massive trees. I’d like to have more instead of bigger trees. You should be able to be in there for weeks and still not see anything other than cherry trees! They can be a little bigger, but no more than 50% extra over the original. Can we do that?” Hearing her suggestion, every particle gathered around the tiger and collectively nodded by moving up once more. “Yay!”
“Alrighty! Now, let’s get to the really important points! I’m bored of flat plains! Everything in my domain so far has been built on perfectly flat ground… I don’t like it! I want some mountains and valleys! Maybe have a river flow through it, too! No flatness allowed! We can do that, right?” The blonde smiled at the particles, but they had an unexpected reaction. Standing still for a moment, they then began moving from left to right a few times.”
“Eh?” She honestly hadn't seen that coming. “You don’t want to?” Noticing how Sophia sounded disappointed, the particles turned into a frenzy, seemingly not knowing what to do. “That’s not it?” The tiger tilted her head, netting another nod from them. “Is there a problem with my suggestion?” They kept nodding. “Hmm, what could it be?” She tried to figure out what was going on. “Wait, creating a few hills and all that should be easy, but… Is it the size of the planned forest? Is my internal magic authority not enough?” The particles got lively again and returned to energetically nodding.
“Unexpected!” As she was quite proud of the amount of authority she had over magic, this was quite the blow for her. “How much do you need? Two times?” No reaction. “Three?” Still nothing. “Huh? Five times?! That can’t be!" The particles, however, still seemed utterly unimpressed by her offer. “It can’t be something like ten times, right?!” Judging by their reaction, it seemed to be exactly that, though. Hearing the number ten, the pink and purple particles return to being lively.
“T-That can’t be!” She was honestly shocked. “How’s that supposed to ever work?! Wait!” It seemed like Sophia had an idea. “Does it have to be at once? My authority regenerates super fast, so can I offer you everything I have, go back to the regular world, reset my authority with, uhh… fresh magic, and return to offer it inside my domain? Then, I do that as many times as needed to make the perfect forest!"
Tilting her head, she then waited for the reply of the particles. They stopped moving for a couple of seconds, then turned wild, as if having a conversation between themselves, and then went back to staying still. A few moments later, they seemed to have come to a conclusion as they began to move up and down like many times before.
“By the way, just to be curious, how much authority is needed to add a natural-looking sky over the forest? I really don’t like the white, after all.” She pointed up at the bright-white sky there currently was. “It surely isn’t something ridiculous as needing triple digits of my authority, right?” However, the particles just did nothing and stood still. “Why aren’t you replying?!” She had a bad feeling about it.
“It actually is in the triple digits?!” Surprisingly, the ambient magic started moving from left to right to deny it. "Don't scare me like that! What actually is it? Something like 50 times? That’s still way too much, but it could work!” The particles simply kept moving from left to right.
“Ehh?” Sophia looked confused. “Could you decide on a stance, please? Wait!" Her eyes grew wide. "You went silent when I joked about it being ridiculous but also said no when I asked if it’s triple digits! You also said no when I mentioned a high number below that. D-Don’t tell me you said no to the triple digits because it’s more than that?!” Unfortunately, the magic particles stopped moving sideways and returned to nodding.
“I-I don’t even want to know the actual number! I think I’ll get depressed!” She had a bad feeling about it. "A-N-Y-W-A-Y!" Sophia had a strong need to change the topic. “There’s one more request I have for the forest. Do you all see how the trees only come in different shades of lighter and dark pink?” She gestured at the forest in front of them. The ambient magic paused for a moment and then went back to moving up and down.
"Great! I want more variety, though. Pink should be dominant, but I want various other cute colors, though. Various shades of purple, violet, lilac, and white, too. On top of that, the different colored trees should blend into each other! Like, no light pink right next to a deep purple! The color and shade should slowly change in the area. Compared to the other things, that one should be easy, right?” Contrary to her expectations, the pink and purple particles stopped moving, though.
“WHY?!” The blonde didn’t like that. “Wow, what a reality check! I thought I was absolutely overpowered, but I guess I was too cocky there, huh?” Sophia awkwardly scratched her cheek. “Is it because the extra colors are mutations? Mira said you need to infuse plants with a lot of raw magic for them to happen, so?” Trying to figure out what was going on, she tried to make a guess. Immediately after, magic returned to its usual rhythm, moving up and down.
"I'm tired already, and we haven't even started yet!” It was too much for her.
Afterward, Sophia needed a short break to recover from the shock and to come up with the optimal way to build her dream forest while not having even slightly enough authority to do so.