Chloe had shown off how to make trees grow by using one’s magic power, but things got a little more complicated afterward. As it turned out, Sophia and the fox-girl could actually see raw magic, and they had no idea that this was anything special as Maya and the wolves aren't able to do so. The blonde had never noticed this being the case, though. As neither of the duo had an explanation for this, the group had to put this topic on halt for the time being and concentrated on the nature-related magic again.
“Impressive!”
“You’re amazing, Maya!”
“Fen, I hate you!” Just like Sophia and Chloe, Maya was straining her neck while looking up towards the sky as they tried to see the top of the tree she had grown by using her own raw magic as a sort of fertilizer.
“Why?!” The wolf in question got loud. “Why am I at fault for this 250-meter-tall tree you have created?!” He was also looking at it. “I told you to use only 10% of your power, not 20%!”
“And that’s exactly what I did!” The cat-girl yelled back at him. “Check my remaining power with your detection magic thingy!”
“Let’s see…” He concentrated on her for a moment. "A little over 90% of your total power is remaining… WHY?!” Fen raised his voice even more.
“Because you told me to use 10%!”
"No! Why was the effect of your magic closer to 20% even though you're only missing 10%..." The wolf paused for a moment. "Sophia! What did you do to her?!"
“Why me?!” The tiger also got loud.
“Who else could be responsible for this?!” He wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon.
“The idiot we all love and who likes to mess with people for his own entertainment?!" As she didn’t want to actually mention Canir with Chloe around, Sophia went with a description her group should easily understand.
“Ah.” Fen paused. “You win that round.”
“Well then~,” Sophia’s expression suddenly changed while she cracked her knuckles. “I think I have to pay someone a visit~. Messing with Maya’s off-limits, after all.”
“Wait a moment!” The cat-girl grabbed her hand and stopped the blonde with a slightly scary look in her eyes from leaving. "Do you remember when you shared some of your magic with Ari, and I got a little jealous about it?"
“Sure?” The aura around the tiger calmed down again while she tilted her head. “After that, while I didn’t boost your magic, we still exchanged some of it and mixed ours together. It was great fun~.”
“Sure was~.” Maya smiled at her for a moment before continuing. “Could that have had an effect on my magic? Power aside, Ari seemed to have gotten better at using it after she got a portion of your power, as well."
“Oh.” Hearing that, Sophia’s expression fully turned to normal again. “You think so?”
“It does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it? I wasn't certain about it yet because I haven't used a lot of larger-scale magic lately, but I felt that it has gotten somewhat easier for me ever since."
“I see…” The blonde wasn’t sure what to do with that information yet. “I sure am handy, huh?”
“Why didn’t anything change for me when we did our little experiment the other day?” Fen got loud again.
"Well, I just channeled my magic through you. I didn't actually do anything with yours."
“Sophia~?” The wolf’s voice suddenly got unusually sweet.
“Shut up, Fennyfenny.” She didn’t want to deal with that right now. “I’ll think about it.” It wasn’t hard to guess what the wolf wanted, after all.
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“Thank you very much!”
“You can permanently share your magic with others…?” Chloe looked a little confused but interested at the same time.
“I tried. It worked.” In theory, she didn’t even try it with Ari, but that was a different topic.
“Sounds fun!" Her eyes started sparkling. "I don't have enough that I plan to share any of mine, but that sure is something!"
“Yeah, even with me being the overpowered girl I am, I don’t want to use it too often.”
“I can imagine!” The fox-girl only nodded a couple of times. "Although, if you ever feel like you have too much magic and need to get rid of a bit, I won’t say no~.” She got a little shameless.
“Ahaha~.” Sophia let out a chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind. Though, I first want to boost Anna so that she’s on the same level as Ari after I messed with her. Once I recovered from that, feel free to bug me a little.”
“Y-You don’t have to!” Chloe waved her hands. “I was mostly just kidding!”
“It’s fine~.” Sophia just smiled at her. “I bet the two of us can have a TON of fun together if you have more magic to play with! It’s a win-win for everyone!”
“Ehehe~.” Chloe liked the sound of that.
“Can I veto this?" Maya, on the other hand, didn't like the sound of that. After all, the chaos duo with the fox-girl's current power was too much for her already.
“Nope.” The blonde just shook her head.
“Urgh…” She wasn’t really surprised, though. “Wait, you’re going to give some of your magic to Anna?”
“I plan to, yes.” Sophia looked at the cat-girl. “I heard that her birthday’s really soon and I thought that would be a nice gift. I have fully recovered my own power after the Ari thing, and I want the two to have the same amount of magic. There are some things that would be really cruel in the future with their powers being so extremely different, after all.” As magic power affects your age, Anna would age relatively normally. At the same time, Ari will stay young for a very long time, which wouldn't be pleasant for either of them. Especially because they're about to become a couple.
“I see. That’s very sweet of you.” Maya had warned Anna in the past not to ask the blonde to boost her magic because she didn’t want Sophia to lose even more of her power. Still, after Canir had restored her powers to the pre-Ari incident, and how Sophia wanted to do it of her own accord, she fully supported the decision.
“I am sweet after all~.” She looked pretty smug.
“You do have your moments, yes.”
“Hey!” The tiger didn't like how Maya looked even smugger during her reply. "Anyway, unless something out of the ordinary happens, I can play with the capacity of your magic a little once I’m back to normal~.” She smiled at Chloe again.
“T-Thank you very much!”
“It’s going to be fun~.”
“I’m so happy that I have white hair…” Maya suddenly let out a sigh. “Gray hair from stress isn’t a thing with that…”
“Why?!” Sophia looked at her again. “What did we do?! You’re the one that just created a 250-meter-tall tree! You’re the unreasonable one who’s completely overdone it!” She pointed at the gigantic tree in front of the group.
“If we go back to the mansion tonight, you’re sleeping on the sofa.” The cat-girl was not amused.
“Can I take the sheepskin rug instead? It’s super comfy and fluffy, after all.”
“How does the horse stable behind the mansion sound?”
“I am deeply sorry!” She didn’t like the idea. “That’s not the good kind of teasing, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Wait!” Chloe joined their conversation. "You have a stable?!" She got interested in a particular part. "That's amazing!"
“No horses, though… We have Fennyfenny and Aura for that. Riding on them every now and then, not them living in the stables.”
"It's the same for Feyfey and me. Horses are cute, though!"
“That is very true!” Sophia agreed with the fox-girl. “I kinda wanted to get some, but it really makes absolutely no sense…”
“Aww… but understandable.” Chloe looked a little disappointed still. “Yeah, they would be too much work.”
“Exactly.” The tiger nodded. “Anyway, enough of that for the time being.” She then looked at the gigantic tree the cat-girl had grown with her magic. “It’s my turn!”
"Okay!" The fox-girl also looked at it. "Ah! Wait, does that mean we will see the 500-meter-tall tree now? Maya’s is way over 200 meters tall already, and she said that you can double it!”
“I sure hope so~.” Sophia then looked at her cat with pleading eyes.
“Sure, knock yourself out.”
“Seriously?!” Both, the blonde and Chloe, sounded surprised.
“Yeah.” Maya nodded. “I complained enough for today. Also, a gigantic tree isn’t going to harm anyone. Not to mention that I promised.”
“Yay!” The duo looked incredibly happy.
“Only double the size, though. As you said before, a tree being a full kilometer tall would be way too much."
“Yes!” Sophia nodded a couple of times before eventually facing Fen. “As I roughly have twice the power as Maya, and both of us seem to have more effective magic, I should be good to go with 10% of mine, right?”
“I’m not going to answer that.” The wolf just glared at her. "I was wrong about magic twice already today. I'm not going to chance it a third time. There are way too many exceptions that I can’t categorize…”
“Fine…” The tiger didn’t press the issue. “Maya, can I use 10%?”
“Have fun~.”
“Thank you very much!” Sophia had a broad smile on her lips while she looked for a sapling with enough space around it to grow tall and healthy. She had big plans for it, after all.