Sophia and Fey started their long-awaited training session, and the fox immediately found some flaws in the blonde's way of doing things. Unfortunately, the full was rather trigger-happy, and the method she chose for teaching the tiger was violence.
“W-Woah!” Having chosen violence, Fey wasted no time and sent a wave of flames toward the blonde, who catapulted herself up high into the air to jump over the fire. Landing back on her feet a few moments later, all that remained was scorched earth all around her. Nothing of the previously lush green and flowery plain in a hundred-meter radius was left. Only a single carbonized black tree around 20 meters next to her hadn’t turned fully into ash.
“Once more, commendable reaction time, but your solution leaves a lot to desire.”
“Easier said than done!” Sophia got loud. “I see death approaching me, and my body reacts on its own!”
"A little bit of fire like that won’t kill you.” She shook her head in return.
“My mind thinks so, though! During my life in the other world, this would’ve been more than enough to kill me 20 times over!” The tiger only raised her voice more. “In a calm moment, I know that I’m super tough, but I tend to forget about that during such times!”
“And we’re going to teach your mind that it’s stupid.”
“I already know that!” Sophia glared at the full. “No need to teach me the obvious, no matter how stupid I am!”
"That's not what I was trying to say." The fox rolled her eyes. "We're going to teach your mind that panicking isn't the solution, and many variables have changed."
“I assume we’re doing that by using more violence?”
“Lots of it!” Fey nodded. “How much do you care about this place to stay intact? I mean, we already burned a lot of it, but I don’t want to overdo it without your permission.”
“A bit late to ask that, indeed.” Sophia also looked at their burned surroundings. “It’s fine, though. That’s why we’re here in the first place. This place is easy to fix and so big that a few kilometers of it being destroyed would've had no impact on the overall picture."
“Music to my ears!” It was exactly what she wanted to hear.
“Oh, I just had a great idea!” The blonde’s eyes started sparkling.
“I have a bad feeling about that.”
“Shush!” The tiger didn’t like her negativity. “I don’t mind this area getting destroyed by us, but you’re going to fix it afterward!” She looked right at her. “I want a biome created by you in my domain!”
“Aren’t you a shrewd one?”
“The shrewdest!”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but it definitely was a good try.”
“Come on, please!” She stared at her with big, upturned eyes.
“Your puppy eyes aren’t nearly as good as the ones of your younger sister.” Fey just shook her head.
“See it as an added challenge for you to make things more interesting!”
“How so?
"The faster and better you teach me, the less of this place gets destroyed, and the smaller your biome can be! You can show everyone how good your teaching is!”
“Mhmm.”
“Come on, you have nothing to lose! Please!” She started begging. “It’s just a fun little thing inside my biome that has no impact on the normal world! There’s no reason to say no.”
“Can I do it together with Chloe?”
“Sure, make it a family activity!”
“Alright, fine.” Fey caved in. “Don’t expect anything fancy or too out of the ordinary, though!”
“Didn’t you just say you want to do something together with Chloe?" She tilted her head. "As if she'd let you make anything boring."
“Ah.” The fox froze for a moment. "You know what? You win this round."
“Ehehe~.” The tiger liked her reaction. "O-Oi!" Her grin only lasted a second, though. Another barrage of fire formed around her and swallowed the blonde whole.
“You’re at least a thousand years too early and way too green behind your ears to sass me, little miss-, Oh.” She sounded smug for a moment as she watched the 50-meter tall and wide ball of dark red and orange fire in the position Sophia was in, but she quickly went silent after noticing the flaming inferno was growing. The 50-meter diameter quickly became 100 meters, and then doubled into a 200-meter big ball of bluish-white fire. It didn’t stop there, either.
As the flames got brighter, hotter, and louder, the ball just kept growing and growing—until it didn't. Then, everything turned silent for a fraction of a second before it became loud—very loud. The 500-meter-wide ball of blue fire that suspiciously looked like a sun exploded. Everything as far as the eye could see and more was instantly turned into nothingness.
Even the dirt below the plain was gone. The explosion, heat, and force had revealed the default texture of Sophia’s domain that had been hidden under a deep layer of earth just moments ago. Only two spots of it were left. Towering roughly 100 meters above the white floor, ground zero, where the ball of fire had started, looked completely untouched, as well as a little patch of grass and flowers around 200 meters away from it. On those patches, Sophia and Fey were standing while being fully unharmed. One of them looked visibly shaken, though.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
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“Sassing someone has nothing to do with age!” Lightly dusting herself off, Sophia looked around while seeming to be rather proud of herself. “Does this count as an adequate reaction, or should we train some more?”
“…” Fey wasn’t quite able to reply yet.
“Too much?” The blonde innocently tilted her head while lightly jumping to the island the fox was standing on.
"Are you insane?!" After around a minute of being stun-locked, the fox eventually got loud.
“A little and sometimes.” Sophia couldn’t really deny it.
“What even happened?!”
“I might’ve gotten surprised by your sudden attack once more and panicked, but then I overheard your green behind my ears comment, and I disagreed with that.”
“I know you like to overdo things, but there are limits!” Fey only raised her voice even more.
“I got upset!”
"There's upset, and then there's this!” She gestured all around her.
“Well, I have some slight issues with holding back. I’m also kinda impulsive and have trouble holding back my emotions at times because they got messed with.” Sophia used a rare excuse based on the boosts Canir used on her.
“Is that so?” The full stared at her for a few seconds. “Okay, be honest, you just wanted to flex your magic skills on me because I maybe was treating you a bit too much like a child, didn’t you?”
“I mean, that’s not not true.” The blonde scratched her cheek in return.
“You really are crazy.” She had nothing to add.
“To be fair, you’ve been with Steph a lot lately, so you should be used to it already.”
“NONONONO!” Fey vehemently shook her head. “You told me so, and the dog said the same, and I believed you two for the longest time, but Steph's definitely the tamer sister here!"
“How rude!”
“Rude?!” The fox first stared at her before her head wandered around to look at their surroundings, or the lack thereof, after the blonde had created a supernova and erased everything around them. “How big was the explosion in the first place? How far has the heat and fire spread while destroying everything?”
“Uhh, let’s see.” Sophia closed her eyes for a second. “Everything’s gone in a 50-kilometer radius around it. More has been burned, though.”
“No way!”
“Yes way!”
“That’s too big of a radius!”
“I mean, I did use all of my internal authority, as well as a lot of ambient magic as a booster, so it seems about right to me.”
“You do know that there are supposed to be upper limits for the use of magic, right?!” Fey stared right at her.
“Yeah, but those don’t apply to me.” Sophia shook her head. "My magic is based on Canir's authority, and that doesn't care about the natural limitations of magic."
“Ah, right…” Fey’s eyes turned lifeless for a second. “I forgot that you were a ticking time bomb.”
“Hey!” The blonde started pouting. "I'll have you know that ever since Canir told me about it, I’ve been listening to my inner tiger!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The fox sounded confused.
“When I turned myself into a tiger, my tiger bits came with the authority of a regular beastfolk. They let me sense the limitations a regular magic user has to abide by. It then feels like I shouldn't be doing whatever I was doing. I can still do it, but I know I’m doing something unnatural.”
“Ohh!” Fey nodded. “I honestly underestimated you there. You really put a lot more thought into the situation than I would’ve given you credit for.”
“Rude! But thank you very much!” The blonde wasn’t sure how to feel. “Though, Mira also told me that magic behaves a little differently inside domains, anyway. Like, it’s less reactive and doesn’t go ham when the density of ambient magic gets too high.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.” The fox tilted her head. “It would make sense, though, as some parts of Mira’s domain are flooded with so much ambients that you can’t even see properly.”
"Ah, right. You can see the sparkly particles, too.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Mira kind of infected me with the ability at one point because she wanted me to understand magic better. That’s why Chloe inherited it, too.”
“Infected sure is a way to put it. I still remember how surprised everyone was when they found out that I could see magic, and I thought everyone could."
“I can imagine. Perks of not being native to this world, huh?”
“Sure, let’s call it perks.” Sophia rolled her eyes.
“Ahaha.” The fox had to chuckle at that.
“Anyway, back to the domain rules. Magic has some basic rules here, but from what I've understood, it can be a lot more liberal with them."
"That is very concerning." Fey suddenly became a little uneasy. "Even within its limitations, it can be very dangerous.”
“I actually agree there. I love my domain, so I absolutely don’t want anything bad to happen to or in it.” Sophia felt the same. “Luckily, Mira explained to me that I can give magic my own rules inside the domain as long as they don’t contradict the general rules that still apply to it here."
“Really?!” The full raised her voice. “That’s massive! Overseer domains are something else! Did you already set up any rules?”
“Two, yes.” The tiger nodded. “One of them is that my domain can’t accidentally explode from using too much or the wrong magic." She then paused and looked around at the nothingness that was left after her earlier actions. “I mean, events that could destroy the whole domain, not just smaller parts.”
“With your friends, that was a wise decision.” Fey liked her precaution there. “What’s the other rule you established?”
“No one can get hurt inside my domain." Sophia showed the fox her brightest smile. "I love my friends, and I don't want them to get hurt. This place is for having fun and fun only. No consequences. Period.” Her smile only got brighter. “That being said, I don’t mean scratches or other minor injuries. Those are part of the experiences, but no one can get hurt in a way that would have lasting consequences. Magic will actively prevent this from happening as long as you’re inside my domain. There’s one exception, though.” The blonde suddenly turned serious. “As soon as you’re acting with real malicious intent towards something or someone, this protection is gone.”
“Wow.” The full needed a moment. “What’s this malicious intent exception about, though? Are you having doubts about any of your friends?”
“Just a precaution.” Sophia shook her head. “Mira said that no one can’t enter my domain unless I allow them to. Still, if someone I don’t know ever manages to make their way inside, I don't want them to be protected by my rules if they’re trouble.”
“Again, wow.” Fey sounded even more impressed. “I’m really sorry that I’ve underestimated you so much. You’re exceptionally more thoughtful than I had expected.” She nodded a few times as she approved of her. “Loving your friends and family so much that you created an environment for them where they can’t get hurt is something else. Something I 100% support. Thank you for letting my Chloe be a part of it.” She liked her dedication a whole lot.
“You’re welcome~.” The tiger just smiled at her. “It also means that as long as you don’t want to actually hurt Steph, you can train with her really hard when staying in my domain~.”
“You’re too good to me.” The fox was touched by her generosity. “Sisterly love is beautiful, too. Thank you very much for the approval of my techniques!”
“Sure!” She gave her a thumbs up.
“Oh, but that also means I don’t have to hold back when trying to teach you, huh?” Fey’s expression turned into a slight smirk.
“Same goes for me.” She returned the smirk while she gestured all around her.
“Ah.” The fox also glanced at the absolute nothingness they were in after the tiger had effortlessly destroyed everything in the vicinity.
After this flood of information, the duo decided to take a short break while also relocating to a nicer place for the time being.