The group was awestruck by the cherry blossom forest Sophia and the magic particles had made together. At first, Steph was quite disappointed that there was no hot spring around because a beautiful area like the forest just needed to have one, but after Blu had guided them to an existing one nearby, the dog-girl was more than pleased, too. Immediately using this chance, the girls decided to test it out and had a nice bath together.
“That was great!” Back in the cottage, and dressed again, the girls were relaxing together in the living room while being comfy on the sofas. "Casual yet somewhat revealing loungewear is great, too, so I can live with the current situation!" She was still a little horny. "Crop tops are a good compromise!” The dog-girl was looking at the other girls wearing shorts and some sort of top that was either shoulder-free or showed some level of stomach. Or, which she liked the most, both.
“Well said.” Maya agreed with her. “Personally, I might prefer skimpy clothes over fully nude even. Leaving the last bit to the imagination adds spice! Not that I have to actually imagine what the hidden bits are like because I know them, but that's beside the point~."
“I can only dream to be as cultured as you are in the future!” The dog-girl looked at her with sparkling eyes. “You’re three levels ahead of me!”
“Ehehe~.”
“We have to make sure that those two are never alone together.” Sophia leaned towards Chloe on the other sofa left of her with a concerned expression. “I don’t want to imagine what they could come up with when it’s just them.”
“Yeah.” Chloe nodded. “I feel like that would end up being quite intense for us.”
“Maya, do you have some time for me tomorrow?” Liking the sound of that, Steph smiled at the cat-girl.
“For you?” She smiled back at her. “Always, my dear.”
“Ah.” The blonde and the fox had the same reaction.
“You really should’ve seen that one coming.” Ari could only roll her eyes.
“Y-Yeah…” The two hung their heads.
“Speaking of tomorrow,” Anna tilted her head. “Do we have any plans already? Preferably some that don’t involve the snowy mountain range from the outside world.”
“Well, I just scored a date with Maya, so I don’t have much interest in the snow.” Steph, the biggest enthusiast of the place, was preoccupied already.
“I wouldn’t mind exploring it some more, but I doubt it holds any more big secrets like the cherry blossom plateau, so I’m in no rush, either.” Chloe didn’t particularly care either way.
“I’d like to explore my new forest a little more.” Sophia also had enough of the mountain range. “It feels like I haven’t seen everything yet, so I’d like to take another break day from the other world.”
“Okay!” The princess nodded a few times. “I might go and visit Aura’s place because it sounds quite awesome. Maybe I got some inspiration for more own ideas, too!”
Afterward, the girls kept making some more plans to spend the day on personal projects and chatted for a good while longer before eventually turning in for sleep.
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“Alright, Blu, are there any other secrets in the forest here?” Sophia was back in the hot spring area from the day before and patted her favorite parakeet sitting on her shoulder while looking around. In response to that, the bird pressed its head against her hand a couple of times while chirping a happy-sounding tune before eventually taking flight.
“Do you want me to follow you?” She watched Blu flying around in front of her while tilting her head to guess the intent. Immediately after, the parakeet flew through a portal that appeared mere moments before. “I guess that’s a yes? Also, so everyone’s using portals to wherever now, huh?” Shrugging, she then also stepped through it.
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“Ohh!” Exiting the portal, the blonde found herself on a floating island again. It was a different one from the day before, though. It was roughly the same size, but it had a regular cherry blossom tree in its middle rather than a weeping cherry, and there was no river, either. “WOW!” The most stunning was the view from up there, tough.
“So many!” Hundreds of islands were floating in the air around them. Most of them were of similar size, but some were bigger, while others were massive enough to have an entire small forest on top. Roughly a tenth had rivers raining down on the area below, too. “Magic sure acts fast! I just told the sparkly particles that I’d like more floating islands a day ago! Amazing!” Blu landed on her shoulder again and chirped a couple of times, almost sounding proud while doing so.
“It’s also impressive how much you are in contact with magic! Yesterday, you knew exactly where the hot spring was, and now this! I mean, it makes sense because you’re made from pure magic, but still!” She had trouble finding the right words. “Anyway, you’re amazing!” Her conclusion was the same nonetheless, and the tiger petted the parakeet some more.
“This is so amazing!” Sophia got a little closer to the edge of their floating island to get a better look at all the others around, as well as slightly above and below them. “Ohh! It’s really just plain old dirt and rocks beneath those islands, huh?” It was the first time she was able to see how they were floating from another point of view. "So surreal! Awesome, though!" She was really excited about it.
“Blu!” The tiger addressed the bird in a highly energetic way. “Are there any other great places hidden in the forest? I’m in an explorer mood and wanna see something amazing!” Looking at it with sparkling eyes, the parakeet took flight once more and flew around the blonde a couple of times before yet another portal appeared in front of them. “Let’s go!” She immediately jumped into it while Blu followed after her.
“Oh, I think I saw this from above!” They ended up right at the edge of a massive ravine that was splitting a huge part of the forest apart. It was impossible to tell how long it was because it curved around and eventually disappeared into the forest, but it was about 100 meters wide. “Woah!” Getting closer to the edge and looking down, Sophia’s eyes grew wide. It was multiple hundreds of meters deep. In fact, she had trouble making out the bottom of the ravine because there were numerous ledges and overhanging rock blocking the view and lighting from above.
“Alright, I wanna go down there!” Hearing her highly excited voice, Blu flapped its wings extra strongly while flying around the tiger, and yet another portal appeared right in front of them. "Ah, no, that's not what I mean." Sophia shook her head. “Half the fun is getting there! Not just jumping, either! I wonder if I can find a path that I can use~.” Understanding her desire for adventure, the parakeet let the portal disappear again and flew a few laps over the ravine.
“Oh, did you find anything?” Sophia noticed that it had eventually started circling over a specific spot near the edge around 40 meters to the left of the blonde. “Let’s see!” She moved over to the place and looked over the cliff to see what was going on. “That’s a start.” After saying so, the tiger walked over the edge and disappeared into the ravine. That’s what it looked like, at least.
“Two meters done, some hundreds left~.” After jumping, the blonde landed on a ledge roughly two meters down on the side of the ravine. “Let’s see if we can keep going down like that.” She then looked further down to find any other spots she could jump to continue her descent. “That should work!” Sophia found another platform about 15 meters down to the right of her and swiftly jumped onto it.
“I’m really not human anymore, huh?” She lightly patted her legs after landing the ten-meter-fall like it was nothing and looked up at the spot she came from. “Humans don’t usually land a 15-meter jump on a hard surface with the only issue being some dust on their clothes, right?” At the same time, Blu also flew down and landed on her shoulder before rubbing its head against Sophia’s cheek. “You like non-human me better? Yeah, I’ll agree on that.” There were some ups and downs, but the girl definitely preferred being a half-tiger magic sponge over her previous human life.
“Let’s get all the way down like this!” Energetically raising her fist while sounding highly motivated, Sophia then quickly jumped to another ledge further down on the ravine's walls.
She kept going like that for around half an hour, finding ledges and jumping from one to another while getting further down the ravine. It took a while because she didn’t want to cheese it by jumping right to the bottom, which wouldn’t have been a problem for her, as that would’ve ruined the mood and fun getting down there in a somewhat creative way.
“W-WOAH!” Finally arriving at the bottom of the ravine and noticing that there was something rather unexpected that wasn’t visible while climbing down, Sophia’s eyes grew wide. “I have to get Anna and Chloe! They need to see this, too!” Immediately after saying that, the tiger created a portal at the bottom of the ravine and disappeared through it to bring over her friends.