The girls were still in the magic academy and were currently in the middle of a lesson held by the famous magic instructor called Eluna. After getting to know Sophia and her ridiculous use of magic, she returned from her retirement. After she learned the basics of this new way of using it herself, she came to the academy to teach it to the pupils there. Naturally, everyone in the academy was more than excited about this.

For most it was, at least. Sophia herself obviously didn’t care about that, but the jaguar girl, whose magic power she’d accidentally boosted, didn’t find Eluna’s speech about the revolution of chants and activation words overly interesting, either. Said boost made her able to use chantless magic, after all.

“How does chantless magic work in the first place?” The jaguar sitting next to the blonde tiger on a bench faced her again to get some answers to the most basic questions.

“You imagine what you want and… bam!”

“Makes sense.”

“Does it?!” Sophia was the surprised one.

“Yes.” Ari nodded. “It makes sense that you don’t know.”

“Ahh…” The tiger scratched her cheek in response. “Fair enough. Still, simply speaking, that’s more or less it, though.”

“If that would really be the case, way more people would be using chantless magic!”

“Well, only people who are authorized for it can use magic on an imagination basis alone, so that’s not the case.”

“I see… Wait, authorized?” Ari tilted her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Err…” Sophia had forgotten that this info wasn’t known by anyone yet. “I wanted to say that you need a specific amount of power for magic to work with your imagination alone.”

“What a weird wording.”

“Yeah, I’m good at that.”

“True.” The black-haired girl gave her a hearty nod. “I can’t say that makes sense. I mean, why would that matter? Still, we went through that a couple of times already, didn’t we? I’m fine with magic making no sense being the most logical explanation now.”

“Yeah… your life will be easier that way…” Sophia got a slight headache just remembering the mess Canir had explained about magic the other day after the tiger almost destroyed the continent because she upset magic. “Muuuuch easier…”

“Hmm?”

“Anyway,” She decided to drop the topic. “Close your eyes for me.”

“No funny business now, Sophia.”

“I’m not Anna. I wouldn’t do that.”

“She doesn’t do any funny business, either…” Ari’s voice was full of disappointment all of a sudden.

“Uhh…” The blonde needed a moment to find a reply for that. “Alright, as we’re in a school and I’m currently your teacher, you doing some funny business with Anna is going to be your homework!”

“B-But…”

“You don’t talk back to a teacher! It’s due on the coming weekend.”

“Ehh…”

“Okay, with that being agreed on, let’s get back to magic.”

“Sure, we agreed…” The jaguar could only roll her eyes, though with a blush on her face, as well.

“Well, again, close your eyes for me.” Sophia got back on track.

“Fine.” Doing as told, Ari then waited for further instructions. “Now what?”

“Imagine a mass of water.”

“Like a river…?” With her eyes still closed, the black-haired girl tilted her head.

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“If we’re going to put flooding the academy back on the table, sure.”

“So, something smaller would be better?” She reconsidered her idea.

“While less fun, that would be for the better, I’d say.”

“Would a bucket full of it be better?”

“I like your ambition, but let’s start with a fist-sized ball of water.” The blonde was surprisingly reasonable.

“It’s weird, but I really like the sensible Sophia every now and then.” The jaguar let out a small chuckle.

“What else do you expect a taciturn and well-mannered ice-queen to be?”

“Now that you mention it, it does make a lot of sense.”

“Alright, let’s get actually serious now.” Sophia played along, let out a chuckle as well, and then urged the jaguar to go on.

“Yep~!” Ari started to concentrate again. “Just imagine a small ball of water? That’s all I have to do?”

“For starters, yes.”

“Alright, sounds easy enough.” Afterward, around a minute passed before she opened her mouth again. “In my mind, I’m currently seeing the prettiest ball of water anyone ever imagined. What now?”

“Open the palm of your hand and imagine the water floating on top of it.”

“Mh-hmm.” She did exactly as instructed. “Okay, I’m ready for whatever’s next.”

“Pour a little of your magic into the picture you’re imagining.”

“That sounds easy enough.” Saying so, Ari squinted the corners of her already closed eyes even more while concentrating. A moment later, a perfect sphere of water, around 10cm in diameter, formed on top of the jaguar’s open palm.

“Yep, it’s pretty easy~.” The tiger nodded in agreement. “Feel free to open your eyes now.”

“Oka- Eh?” The moment Ari did that, and her eyes adjusted to the light again, she froze up.

“Chantless magic really isn’t that big of a deal, isn’t it?”

“Seriously…?” The black-haired girl was looking at the water with a blank expression. “You did that, didn’t you?”

“Ohh!” Sophia’s face lit up. “That’s a great idea for a prank! Making someone believe that they used magic even though I was the one who did it~.”

“That’s a horrible idea!” Ari didn’t share her enthusiasm.

“Aww…” She started pouting.

“Wait a moment… Does that mean I created this water…?” The jaguar looked at her palm and the floating sphere on top of it.

“Yep~.”

“N-No way…”

“Well, stop concentrating on it whenever you feel like it and see what happens.”

“I’ll do tha- Ah.” Immediately after, the sphere collapsed, and the water drenched Ari’s hand as a result.

“Good thing we didn’t go with the bucket of water, huh? You should be glad that at least one of us here is sensible enough to try magic with something small first.”

“Sophia?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.” She stared right at her with a very disapproving expression.

“Okay.” Sophia gave her a couple of nods. “It actually felt wrong even saying it.” After all, her way of doing things was the exact opposite of that.

“Good.” The jaguar’s expression softened up again while she was patting her had dry with a handkerchief she had pulled out of a pocket in her uniform. “Are you really trying to tell me that I used chantless magic just now?”

“That you just did.”

“It… It’s that easy…?” Ari naturally couldn’t believe it.

“That’s what having a lot of power does for you~.”

“Unbelievable…”

“See now why I don’t get everyone calling me unreasonable when I use a bit of magic like it’s nothing?”

“I can’t agree with you if you call the stunts you pulled so far a bit of magic…”

“…” Sophia found no words to defend herself.

“Still… You are right. In a way, it was easy. Too easy, actually.”

“Glad to hear~.” The tiger liked being acknowledged. “Then again, you really learned it extremely fast just now. It even took Maya a loooot longer to switch to imagination only based magic. You might be exceptionally talented when it comes to chantless stuff.”

“R-Really…?”

“I look forward to showing you some more impressive magic~.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about those implications.”

“The two of us are going to have a lot of fun together~.”

“Ah!” Ari suddenly turned her head around.

“Hmm…?” Sophia looked in the same direction as the jaguar but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “What’s wrong?”

“I was seriously expecting Anna and Maya standing right next to us after you having said this extremely ambiguous line.”

“Ahaha…” The blonde awkwardly scratched her cheek. “Judging by past events… Yeah, I can’t blame you for having developed such a reflex.”

“Yes.” She looked around for a little longer before focusing on Sophia again. “C-Can I train my water magic a bit longer before you start turning me into a monster…?”

“Sure, I’m in no rush~.”

“Replying to such a thing with a cheery voice is kinda… super scary.”

“I’m just happy to have another friend to play with because magic is fun!”

“Urgh…” Ari had a hard time saying anything against that. “J-Just don’t teach me something that could accidentally destroy a continent or something like that…”

“No worry! I had enough of that!” The blonde shuddered while just remembering those events.

“Eh?!” The jaguar’s eyes grew wide.

“A-Ah…” Sophia just noticed what she said. “A-Anyway, anything specific you want to learn about water magic for starters…?”

“It’s probably better for my sanity if I don’t pry, right…?”

“Y-Yes…” She hung her head in response. “For mine, too.”

“Back to training?”

“Gladly!” Sophia more than happily dropped the topic. “Try to create your bucket worth of water for starters.”

“Okay.”

“Make sure to concentrate, though.” She grinned at the jaguar. “I don’t want you to make me wet. You should save that for the princess.”

“Wow, it’s been a while since that joke came up, huh? Also, s-shut up…” It took a moment, but Ari’s face eventually turned red.

Once they calmed down again, Sophia kept teaching her for a bit longer. At the same time, the rest of the class listened to Eluna’s speech on how to revolutionize the way of using magic. While the tiger was the cause for those events, she didn’t feel like partaking in it. After all, chatting and playing with her friend was much more important for the blonde.