Ellie's training continued, and the princess managed to use her first bits of earth-related magic in a way that surprised even Sophia, treating dirt the same way as water and giving it the same properties. The only thing the blonde could complain about was the little tiger's recklessness because she was playing with her life, as Kira would kill Sophia if anything happened to her baby.
“Do you think you understand now?” They were still on the massive plain inside Sophia's domain, where the blonde smiled at the princess while looking at the roughly 50 pillars of dirt and grass around them, each between three and ten meters tall and one to three meters wide. They almost seemed like the overgrown and decayed remnants of an ancient building.
“Ellie’s the queen of pillars!” The little tiger sounded incredibly proud of herself. “It’s time for something else, though!”
“Nothing but pillars can get a little boring, huh?”
“Yes!” She nodded a few times.
“What do you want to learn instead?”
“No idea!” The princess shook her head. “Magic is so much that Ellie is overwhelmed by choice!”
“I know that feeling.” It wasn’t a new feeling for the blonde. “Magic can just about do anything, so whatever idea you have, there’s a chance we can try it.”
“That’s too many options for a child!”
“Handy excuse you have there.” Sophia lightly rolled her eyes.
“Yep!” The little tiger thought so, too. “Ellie already learned water, wind, and dirt! What other big ones are there?”
“You want to get a taste of all the basics?”
“Yes!”
“Mhm, that might be a little complicated.” The blonde scratched her cheek. “The very basics are the water, air, earth, and fire elements or categories. At the moment, Kira banned me from teaching you fire because it’s the most dangerous out of them.”
“No fun!” Ellie started pouting.
“Beyond that, there are light and dark magic, as well as nature and uncategorized magic.” She simply ignored her complaints. “Light is too advanced at the moment, and I won’t be teaching you dark magic because it’s bad magic.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah, it’s magic to be mean.” Sophia tried to put it in easy terms. “Not the fun type of being mean, but actually evil in a way that hurts people very easily.”
“Ellie hates dark magic!” Though rebellious at times, she was a good girl, after all.
“Perfect response!” The blonde smiled at her. “Nature and uncategorized could be fun.”
“What’s uncatetegorized…?” The princess wasn’t a fan of the word.
“You know, air is air, water is water, fire is fire. Basic elements and easy to group. Uncategorized is magic that doesn't really fit into any other groups. It’s completely freestyle.”
“Ellie loves freestyling!”
"Should we try magic with fewer rules or restrictions? That's what it basically is."
"Let's go!" The little tiger got excited.
“We can combine it with nature, too. In fact, I used both of them to create the cherry blossom forest.
“LET’S GO!” She got even more excited.
----------------
They used a portal to relocate again, and Sophia guided the princess to a mostly unused part of her domain. There were only a few cherry saplings together with a small patch of grass in the middle of the usual all-white nothingness.
“What’s this?” Ellie pointed at the bit of vegetation in front of them.
"A little project I prepared for you.”
“Ohh?” Ellie seemed interested already.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"You see, all the amazing places I showed you in my domain that the others made started like this." She pointed at the few saplings. “They used their magic to grow them into beautiful trees and also expanded the areas to the sizes you saw.”
“Wow!” The eyes of the little tiger were sparkling. “Unbelievable that this turned into that! Magic is the bestest!”
"Sure is!" Sophia agreed while Blu nodded a couple of times on her shoulder. “How about you give it a shot, too?” She smiled at the princess. “I prepared those cherry blossoms and weeping cherries for you to make your own place.”
“WAOH!” Her excitement only grew even more. “Ellie can’t wait!”
“Unless you prefer to play with some other trees instead.”
“CHERRIES!” She didn’t.
“Perfect~.”
“What does Ellie have to do?!” She was already excitedly circling around the sapling with sparkling eyes. “Quick!”
“Calm down, my dear.”
“No!” The princess had no intentions of doing so.
“Ahaha!” Sophia had to chuckle at that. "This is a bit of a weird one. On the one hand, I'd definitely put it into the nature-related category of magic, but it’s actually more of an uncategorized type of use case.”
“Ellie has no idea what any of that means!” It was too cryptic for her.
“Yeah, that’s fair.” It’s not like Sophia ever really understood the category thing herself. “In the end, it’s super easy, though. You only have to drown the saplings in your magic. Then, they drink it all up and grow a lot!”
“Ohh!” She liked that explanation a lot more. “How big can the trees get?”
“How big do you want them to be?” The blonde smiled at her. “Because that’s how big they can get.”
“That’s too much power for Ellie!” She was immediately overwhelmed.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” Sophia kept smiling. “The more magic you use on them, the bigger they grow. The surroundings will be affected more, as well.”
“Makes sense!” The little tiger nodded a few times. “Then, if Ellie uses up all of her magic for today, what would happen?”
“You’d get very tired, but the saplings would grow into a forest so big that you'd need a week to find your way out of it. They would be so tall that you'd hurt your neck looking up at them, as well."
“Worth it!” It seemed like she was okay with those side effects for the greater good. “Please teach Ellie how to give the cherries her magic!”
“That’s the spirit!” Sophia gave her a thumbs up. “Let’s see, how do I explain this?” She tilted her head. "You already were right about saying to give your magic to the trees. You don’t actually use your magic on them.”
“What does that mean?” Ellie needed more information. “What’s the difference?”
“Before, you used your magic to create or control something, right?”
“Yes!” She nodded.
“That’s not the case when you want to grow plants.” The blonde shook her head.
“It’s not?”
“No, it’s actually even easier than that. You only have to release your magic, and the trees soak it up themselves before growing strong and healthy."
“Ohh!” The princess nodded a few times. “Wait, then how does Ellie control how big something should grow?”
"It's mostly based on how much magic you release and how dense you make it. For example, if you put it all in one spot, the tree right next to it will become massive. If you only release a little here and there, they won’t grow as big, but they will spread out more.”
“That makes sense!” It looked like the little tiger was understanding the concept.
“Any other questions?”
“YES!” Judging by her strong reaction, it seemed rather important for the princess.
“What is it?”
“How does any of that work?” It was a rather substantial question. “Ellie knows how to use magic now, but how does she just release it?”
“You only have to concentrate for it. Think about wanting your magic to leave your body, and you should soon start to feel weaker. That would be your magic leaving, and you can easily feel when it's enough."
“That really sounds easy!” The excitement of the princess rose again. "Can Ellie go wild with the growing, or does she have to be careful? Ellie wants the biggest cherry in the world!”
“In my domain, so this place with the stupid white sky, you can go as wild as you want with it.” She gave her a thumbs up. “At home, you have to take care, though.” The blonde sounded a little more serious. “If you grow a tree in the garden of the castle, it might become so big that it could destroy the castle!”
“That would be bad!” The little tiger saw the issue. "That means Ellie should train here to see how much cherry blossoms she can grow in the garden at home?"
“…” She paused for a moment. “Sure.” Sophia decided that it wasn’t her problem. After all, she did tell the princess to be careful. Whether or not Kira would think so, too, was another question entirely.
“Yay!” The little tiger clapped her hands. “For now, Ellie needs to learn how big a tree gets when she uses all of her magic on one tree!”
“Yep, it’s important to find out what your limits are~." She smiled at her. “That will probably be the last lesson for today, though. Once you’ve released all your magic, you have to rest and let it regenerate. For you, that can easily take a full day. It can be quite tiring, too.”
“That’s okay!” She didn’t seem to mind. “If Ellie can make a massive cherry, one of her biggest dreams come true, so waiting just a day is more than fine!”
“Alrighty~.”
“Let’s go!” The princess walked up to one of the cherry saplings and stretched out her hand before closing her eyes to concentrate.
"It's looking good!" After a few minutes, she noticed that the magical particles began to leave the princess's body through her hand.
“Ellie can feel it, too!” She nodded a couple of times while she kept going for another five minutes before opening her eyes again. “Okay, Ellie’s done, but nothing happened!” She was bothered by the fact that the sapling still looked the same.
“It will take a while.” Sophia tried to calm her down. “The sapling is currently soaking up all of your magic and will use it to start growing soon. It usually takes about a day before it's fully done, though. When we come back tomorrow, we’ll see how amazing it turned out.”
“Ellie’s not good with patience!” It didn’t calm her down in the slightest.
“How about we go and get something to eat?”
“Okay!” Thankfully, it was rather easy to divert her attention. She was taking a lot after Sophia, after all.
Doing as told, they returned to the cottage for a break and had some food together.