Sophia and her group met with Anna’s and Ari’s parents to tell them how both of them now had their magic increased and how the couple wanted to accompany them on their travels in the future. Luckily, after being shocked for a few moments, their parents agreed with the plan, and everyone ended up talking about all sorts of details regarding the idea.

“Phew, that was a lot easier than I had expected…” Back in Anna’s room, Sophia let out a relaxed sigh while getting comfortable next to Maya on the sofa.

“Yes.” Ari agreed. “I’m a little disappointed, too.”

“HEY!” She got loud.

"Well, it's indeed good being that easy," Anna sided with her fellow tiger. "I am disappointed that you got off the hook without any consequences, though.” In the end, she was on the jaguar’s side, after all.

“I’m starting to second-guess my decision to take them with us…”

“And I like the plan more than ever now!” Maya wasn’t on the blonde’s side, either.

“You’re just happy that I’m on the receiving end of even more sass!” The blonde glared at her cat.

“Yup.” She just grinned back at her.

“C-Chloe, you’re still on my side, right…?”

“Sure!” The fox-girl showed her a gentle smile. “Unintentionally aside, I usually don’t enjoy teasing others, after all.”

“Great!” Sophia looked happier again.

"You do look pretty cute when you get flustered, though."

“S-Shut up!” She got loud. "That was intentional just now, wasn't it?!"

“What was?” She only tilted her head while looking absolutely innocent.

"Wow." Ari looked impressed. "Is she actually clueless, or is she that good?"

“Don’t answer that, Chloe!” Sophia raised her voice even more. “I don’t want to know!”

“Okay…?” She looked honestly confused.

“Ari! Focus your teasing on your tiger!” The blonde faced the jaguar before pointing at herself. “This tiger is off-limits for the time being!”

“Unless you’re a white-haired cat. Teasing is never off-limits for her~.” Maya spoke about herself in third person for some reason.

“You’re also free to use some of your excess energy on Chloe or something like that! She likes being teased, after all!”

“When did I ever discriminate with my teasing?”

"F-Fair point…" Sophia forgot for a moment that no one around the cat was safe. “Anyway, I feel like putting the portal idea on hold for a while. Putting Anna and Ari through intense training so that they can keep up with our pace seems like a much more rewarding experience for them."

“Sounds fun!” The cat really doesn’t discriminate.

“A-Ah.” The couple in question suddenly got silent.

“B-But all the fun with them…” Chloe wasn’t a fan of the idea. “I was just warming up about thinking with portals… There are so many ideas I want to try!”

“Oh, no, I was just talking about those two.” The blonde pointed at the duo before smiling at the fox-girl.

“Great!”

“I want to say that this is unfair, but…” Ari scratched her cheek. “There’s really nothing I can say here…”

“I wouldn’t have accepted any complaints, anyway!” Sophia was in a slightly pouty mood.

“Speaking of,” Maya tilted her head while looking at her tiger. “Have you decided against telling the king about it after all? You sounded quite ambiguous towards him earlier.”

“Well, I am liking Chloe’s idea, but if I tell him now that I’m going to do something, I pretty much have to do it… I don’t like going back on my word. There’s too much I have to change first, though…”

“For example?”

“First and foremost, all portals currently lead to the same place. My storage thingy, that is. I don’t want strangers in there. I would be a lot happier about it when the portals directly connect to each other without the stop in there.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Maya nodded in agreement. “I got used to it, but it still is kinda overwhelming and even slightly scary. Probably not the best thing for normal people to visit.”

“That’s the next thing,” The blonde nodded. “The portals themselves maybe shouldn’t look quite as impressive as they do now. If we can make them look a little blander and have them connect two places directly with each other, I’ll probably tell the king about it.”

“Directly with each other could be a big pain, couldn’t it? Wouldn’t that mean you have to go back and forth to each place at least once?" The cat-girl was a little intrigued. "Like, when you find a nice place, after you created the portal there, you have to go all the way back to the capital instead of just linking it to your storage.”

“Mhmmn…”

“Couldn’t you still use the storage shortcut? Place a portal, put another one down connecting to the storage, traveling to the capital, and then placing the new one with a direct connection?" Chloe was very invested in the whole thing.

“No idea?” Sophia tilted her head. “I never even tried to make portals without my extra dimension in between…”

“Well, it is more convenient for you that way, true.” She nodded in understanding.

“Exactly.”

“Let’s try it!” The fox-girl was in a good mood.

“How about we make tomorrow portal day? Today already was more than long enough, and I'm getting pretty tired.”

“Me, too!” Anna heartily agreed. “I was having fun, but I’m actually exhausted!”

“And you still have 2/3 of your magic left.” Sophia looked at her. “Now you can understand why Ari was so done when she lost all of her magic when I accidentally boosted her…”

“Ah.” She looked a little awkward. “Does that mean that I… we have to go through the same as you two that time for my magic to increase…?”

"Well, I now know what the issue was, so we probably don't have to suffer as much, but…"

“Urgh…”

"So, your magic first has to fully deplete before it refills with the new amount…?" The fox-girl tried to understand what was going on.

“Kinda.” The blonde nodded. “Once her magic is empty, I have to pour mine into her again to activate it or something like that. Once that is done, it recovers almost instantly."

“Interesting!” Chloe looked fascinated. “Wait, can’t Anna just empty all of her magic by using it up to speed up the process?”

“Oh, that might be worth a try! How about it, Anna?”

“Sure, I guess?” She had no real opinion about it. Mostly because she wasn’t exactly sure what was going on in the first place.

Afterward, the group made the princess activate all kinds of magic until it had finally entirely run out at some point.

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

“W-Wow… I’ve run out of magic before… b-but I never felt that horrible before…” Not only did the princess look extremely exhausted, but she seemed to feel a little sick.

“It’s not fun at all, is it?” Ari looked very sympathetic while looking at her tiger.

“N-Not at all!”

“Thankfully, I’m feeling a lot better this time!” Sophia wasn’t as affected by it. “For me, it’s probably all about the time between my sharing my magic and activating it.”

“Why are you feeling tired and or sick in the first place?” Chloe looked confused.

“No idea.” She shook her head. “I don’t even fully understand why I can boost others in the first place…”

“…” Maya looked like she wanted to say something but decided against it in the end.

“I guess that’s true…” The fox-girl nodded. “Hard to explain stuff when you’re only half-sure about the thing in the first place."

“Yep.”

“S-Soo…?” The princess wasn’t overly interested in their conversation.

“Ah, right…” The blonde focused on her again. “Give me your hand again.” She held out hers in response while getting closer to her.

“Okay…” She gingerly put her hand on top of Sophia’s before she then placed her other one on top. Soon after, their hands started to glow in a bright white light again.

“Any better now?” After she let go of her fellow tiger again, she took a step back to look at the princess.

“Like new!” Anna gave her a very energetic reply. “Going from miserable to that in an instant is scary!” She had raised her voice quite a bit.

“Yup, she’s fine again.” Everyone had the same reaction.

“Wait!” She got even louder. “Scratch like new! It’s much better than new! My magic feels like nothing else ever! It also feels like I have more energy than ever before, too!”

“Oh no…” Ari’s expression changed. “I forgot about that part… It was the same for me, too… but Anna with even more energy… brrr!” She actually shuddered.

“Hey!”

“Well, then show me that you’ll put your new extra energy to good use!”

"…" The princess couldn't hold eye contact with her jaguar. "Sophia! Teach me how to use chantless magic right now!"

“So much for that…” The black-haired girl just rolled her eyes.

"Today is a little…” Sophia scratched her cheek. “You might be feeling better than ever now, but I still feel a bit sluggish. Funny how you were feeling worse, but it lasts longer for me…”

“Oh, I see…” Anna immediately stopped being overly giddy. “Let’s not do it today, then. You already did a lot for me, so I don’t want to tire you out more. I’ll train on my own later and then do lots tomorrow.”

“She actually did put her energy to good use…” Ari looked shocked.

“Hey!” She put some extra energy into her voice again.

“Oh, how about this?” Chloe spoke up again. “Do you want to help us with the portals tomorrow? It is very advanced magic, but I don’t think anything can happen there even if you mess up. At least not if you don't step into a weird-looking portal… I absolutely doubt that they can explode, so there should be no harm in testing your new magic on that!"

“Yeah, them exploding should be totally impossible." Sophia nodded a few times.

“That sounds like a ton of fun!” The princess liked the idea.

"How big do you think the explosion will be…?" Looking very awkward and concerned, Ari then glanced at Maya.

“Those experiments are going to happen on an empty plain with NOTHING around!” The cat-girl glared at all three of them.

“Okay…” They didn’t have the will to talk back.

Afterward, the group chatted about a few more details about their plan for the following day. Still, as Sophia was actually quite tired out from having shared her magic with Anna, she, Maya, and Chloe eventually headed back to the mansion through the handy portal that was still in the princess’ dressing room.