The couple was having a very productive day for a change. Sophia remembered the heated floors in buildings of her old world and wanted to recreate them with magic. Needless to say, Maya, the cat-girl, really liked the idea. Afterward, the two went to the king to find out how to get their hands on the materials. As it turned out, they needed a written authorization to deal with it because it has the tendency to explode in its raw form. Thankfully, the king gave them one, and the duo went shopping. In the end, they got way more than they needed, but the blonde wanted to experiment, after all. Once everything got delivered to their mansion, Sophia got very motivated about it.

“Alright, let’s start!”

“Yes!” Maya, too, couldn’t wait. “Hmm…? Wait, I know it’s kinda late after we went after the fireplace, heater, and whatever discussions last night… Not to mention having bought all that stuff already, but why don’t we simply heat up the room itself with our magic? That wouldn’t be hard at all with our power, right? As much as I love the heated floor idea, we, too, could do that with magic alone, don’t we?” She had noticed a slight oversight in their plans.

“Where’s the romance in that?” Sophia had a playful tone in her voice. “I love magic and all, but using it on its own to make my life easier is kinda boring… I probably could affect the weather with my magic to a degree that would give the capital and the area around it an eternal summer, but… I don’t like that. Way too bland! The same goes for heating up myself, for example… I mean, I’ll absolutely do that if I’m feeling too cold, but winter clothes are adorable! I don’t want to miss out on them!”

“That’s fair... Probably.”

“Also, all this would only help us because we have way too much magic at our disposal.”

“What do you mean?” Maya couldn’t follow her.

“Remember how Canir mentioned that, while the living standards in this world are quite high, quality of life improvements are left to be desired?”

“Yes. Though, I have no idea what he meant… I don’t know that much about your old world, after all.”

“It’s rather tough to explain without showing it.”

“So, what has that to do with anything…?”

“If we heat our house with magic directly, we’ll be fine and toasty, but most people don’t have the authority to use that much magic. My idea of heated floors should be usable by everyone who can use standard heaters.”

“Ohh… That’s a nice way of thinking. I’m proud of you~.” Maya liked how the tiger tried to also help the general public with her ideas.

“Well, our version will be totally over the top and be able to cook our feet if we try to. Not that we do, but that’s a different topic~.” She had no intention to hold back.

“Great! Okay, not the cooked feet part, definitely not, but let’s get as toasty as possible!”

“Absolutely!” The two energetically raised their fists in the air.

Highly motivated, the duo entered the stable behind their mansion to inspect the delivery of the magic ores and the insulation material to get started on it.

----------------

“So, what’s the plan?” Maya was alternatingly glancing at all the boxes and her tiger.

“No idea.” Sophia only shrugged her shoulders.

“Ehh…?”

“I have no idea how this heating ore thingy works, after all.”

“Okay, that’s understandable.” The cat-girl couldn’t blame her. “Guess we have to do some experiments first, huh?”

“I like the way you think!”

“Ehehe.” She let out a happy giggle. “Alright, let’s play!”

“Yay!” The two entered the stable and unpacked one of the little boxes that contained the heating ore. There were ten in total, each containing 500 grams of the raw material. “Hmm…” Sophia was touching one of the packs with a curious expression. It had a grayish-brown color and was relatively soft and easily formable. “Just like clay… We didn’t get ripped-off, did we…?”

“I highly doubt a place the king recommended would do that to us…”

“Right… Should I just pour some magic into it, and we see what happens?”

“Didn’t his Majesty say that the raw material tends to explode when you do that?”

“So?” The blonde tilted her head.

“Shut up.”

“Tehe~.” She stuck out her tongue. “What’s your idea?”

“My? Let’s see… We should’ve asked how it works, huh…? That would’ve been a reasonable idea…”

“We don’t do that here.” The tiger was still sticking out her tongue in a playful way.

“I know.” It was far from news to the cat-girl. “From what I remember, these heaters using the material are usually a big box. The magic ovens are quite big, too… I guess that ore is encapsulated somewhere in the inside of it?”

“So that your magic passively pours into it…?”

“I’d say so, yeah.”

“Okay, let’s give it a try!” Sophia took the heating ore she was holding already, and the two left the stable to have more space to experiment in their garden. There, she created a hollow box with earth magic and put half of the 500-gram block inside it before closing off the top side of the box. “Good, give it a try, Maya. Pour some of your magic into it.”

“W-Why me?!”

“Well, if you don’t want to, I’ll happily do it. I’ll gladly pour my magic power, of which I have way too much to finely control, into this highly unstable material that’s prone to exploding.”

“Step away from the box!” Maya slightly panicked and pushed the tiger away. “I’ll do it!”

“I love how much you trust me.”

“Come one, this outcome, me doing it, was exactly what you wanted.”

“I love how much you know me~.” Sophia slightly corrected herself.

“Whatever~, should I just pour a little of my magic into the box…?” Maya eyed the construct the blonde had created.

“I guess so?” She tilted her head. “Be careful, though.”

“Wow, if you say that…” The cat-girl got a little wary. “Alrighty, here goes nothing!” Saying, so she got a little closer and placed a hand on top of the box. “Err…” A moment later, the box started rumbling and quickly turned red hot.

“I doubt that’s how it’s supposed to be…” Sophia sounded perfectly calm, though.

“N-No kidding!” Maya didn’t. Immediately after, she jumped backward to get some distance from it. “A-Ah!” A second later, the earthen box exploded, and a gigantic crater formed in their garden. All of that was accompanied by an ear-deafening sound of an explosion echoing through their residential area with some debris flying around, as well.

“I bet we’ll be really popular with our neighbors…” Sophia scratched her ears that had lain down flat on top of her head after the explosion. “It still riiiings in there~.”

“Uhh…” The other girl was a little more confused. “W-What just happened…?”

“My cat messed up~.” It had put her in an excellent mood.

“I-I barely used any of my power, though…”

“Yeah, I hate it when that happens.” The tiger had used this excuse many times before.

“A-Ah…” There was nothing Maya could add to that. “S-Seriously, what happened…?”

“No idea.” She tilted her head while getting closer to the crater and looked at it for a while. “Oh, I can see our portal room.”

“Seriously?!” The cat-girl was shocked.

“No, of course not. The portal room is like 20 meters below the ground. This hole is two meters deep at best.”

“D-Don’t scare me like that…”

“How did we manage to get our roles reversed?”

“I don’t know! I don’t like it, either!” Maya got loud.

“I love it, though.” Sophia let out yet another giggle. “Well, I guess simply putting the ore into an enclosure isn’t how it works, huh?”

“You really think so?” She rolled her eyes.

“Any other ideas?”

“How about you try something now?” The cat-girl turned her head away. “I’ll be watching this time…”

“Sure~. Okay, I’d say that using the material in the pure form isn’t the best idea.”

“It seems like it, yeah.”

“Hmm…” She started thinking about an alternative way of using the ore. “Should we mix it with something else?”

“For example?”

“Normal earth, maybe… Ah, I think sand would be perfect!”

“Sand?”

“Easy to mix and dose.”

“Oh, yeah, makes sense.” Maya understood her reasoning. “Where do we get that, though?”

“I have some in my storage dimension.”

“Why…?”

“Why not?” She had no real explanation for it.

“Seriously, what don’t you have in there…?”

“Uhh…” The tiger had no reply for her.

“Forget that I asked.” Maya decided that she didn’t want to know.

“Gladly.”

Afterward, Sophia got some sand from her storage and mixed it with the heating ore once she had reduced it to small pieces.

“And that’s supposed to work now…?” The cat-girl was looking at the pile of sand with little specs of the grayish-brown substance mixed into it.

“Well… it needs some sort of binding agent later…? To turn it into a somewhat solid material, I guess.”

“Yeah, it’s a little hard to use this way.”

“It’s enough to experiment on, for now, I’d say.” Saying so, the blonde kneeled down and put a hand on top of the pile.

“B-Be careful, okay?”

“Don’t worry, how could I mess up more than you did earlier?”

“S-Shut up!” Maya’s face turned red.

“Ehehe~.” Once she finished chuckling at her reaction, Sophia then focused on the experiment. She poured her magic into the sand, and it actually didn’t explode. “Hmm… It’s actually working…”

“Really? Why the long face, then?” The cat-girl didn’t understand her reaction and got closer to the sand-ore mixture. “Ah… kinda lukewarm at best, huh?”

“Yeah…” The tiger nodded. “I guess we need to find the right mixture now… It has to be way hotter, after all.”

“Without it exploding, or melting feet, though!”

“Why are you telling me this?” The blonde just had to do it.

For the rest of the afternoon, the couple kept experimenting with the heating ore and the sand to find the best mixture for it to get toasty without any side effects. They couldn’t use it for heating up their floor otherwise, after all. It involved a lot of trial and error, including a couple more craters in their garden, though. Funnily enough, most of the time an explosion happened, it was while Maya was trying out a mixture.