Boosted Continuation

Mira told Sophia more about her enhanced power levels and the pros and cons that come with them. Like people instantly noticing she wasn't normal, or the ability to instantly create new biomes. The overseer also decided to bring the tiger to her domain to speed up her recovery because Sophia needed to be in an area with a high concentration of ambient magic.

“Woah!” The moment they arrived in Mira's domain, an unbelievable number of magic particles flooded Sophia and entered her body. “Wait, I feel like new!” Once her body stopped glowing, she did a few stretches to make sure she wasn’t just imagining things.

“You’re welcome~.” The overseer smiled at her. “So, noticing a change to your authority now?”

“Y-E-S!” She reacted with a firm nod. “It feels amazing! I feel warm and full of energy! Even more energetic than usual, I mean!”

“The extra warmth will disappear once your new authority settles in fully, don’t worry about that.” The teal fox gave her a small thumbs-up. “You’ve always been energetic, so I’m sure you’ll be able to deal with that.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll manage~.”

“I sure am happy that I managed to add additional rules for magic in the regular world before this.” Mira let out a small sigh. “You already were a menace, but now you are way too dangerous.”

“What did you do?”

“I think I mentioned it before, but I put a hard limitation on the density of ambient magic. They start pushing each other away to spread out more whenever the dangerous line of magic running off is about to be crossed. With a good safety margin, as no regular being will ever get close to it.” The overseer then paused for a second while looking at the blonde. “If you really wanted to, you probably still could with the help of Canir’s blank magic, but pure accidents shouldn’t happen. Like the little experiment you and Fen did that almost deleted a continent.”

“Ahh, I see.”

“I know you aren’t the biggest fan of me applying so many rules, but I think you can agree that this is a good one.”

“I certainly agree!” Sophia nodded a few times. “Also, I don’t mind rules as long as they don’t hinder my creativity. Like, my domain may only have one major rule, but it is a big one. I'd say that my rule of no one can get seriously harmed by accident merges like 90% of your rules into one big thing. Depending on the situation, my single rule could even be more strict than your set of many.”

“Hah.” Mira looked at her for a moment. “Well, it opens you to more loopholes, but it’s actually not wrong.”

“I don’t think that’s the case.” The blonde shook her head. “I mean, who is the one who had to add a new rule to her magic system because a few idiots got too overpowered? My big rule of “Nuh-uh” already covered that because it would bring accidental harm to others.

“Listen here, you little…” The teal fox didn’t finish her sentence and let out another sigh. “I’ll do some stress testing on your domain to show you what I mean.”

“I’m not sure if I like that idea.” Sophia had a bad idea.

“I’m not sure if I care~.” Her expression turned smug.

"You know that I can just lock you out of my domain, right?"

“How do you think Chloe would feel about that?”

“Ah.” The tiger hadn’t thought about that. “Fine, but at least create some extra biomes for me in the process, or other fun things. Fun for me, not you!” Sophia glared at her for a second. “I don’t want another surprise shrine.”

“I’ll think about it~.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.” Sophia scratched her cheek while Blu and Lime, sitting on each of her shoulders, nodded a few times.

“She’s already bonded with you, huh?”

“Of course!” She replied with a beaming smile. “I absolutely love her! Though, it’s not like I didn’t instantly bond with Blu, either.”

*Chirp!* The blue parakeet lifted his wing to show his agreement.

“Fair enough.”

“By the way, we have a bit of a problem.” Sophia suddenly got a little awkward as she glanced at the parakeet on her shoulders. "I agreed to keep Blu’s creation a secret as it was easy to do so because he was from your domain, and it still made sense even when leaving out some details. However, saying I found Lime in my domain won’t cut it, and if my friends ask about her, I’m not going to lie to them. Omitting details and not correcting people is okay with me, but I’ll never intentionally tell them anything outright wrong.”

“…” Mira went silent for a good moment before hanging her head. “Ha… Fine, but tell them to keep it under the rug.”

“I don’t think they’d tell that to anyone.” Sophia didn’t share her concern. “After all, they all know that no one would believe them, anyway.”

“But, please keep it a secret that magic is sapient and able to actively communicate when a high-enough concentration is available. This is simply too much for anyone to find out.”

“That’s okay.” The blonde had nothing against that. “I don’t need to tell them about that to explain Limes.”

"Thank you." Mira let out a relieved sigh. "Though, are you sure you're going to be okay when Maya hears that you created a new life without her?"

"A-Ah.” The tiger froze for a moment. “That doesn’t count! It’s something else entirely.”

“Are you sure about that?” The overseer had to tease her.

“Hey, Blu?” Sophia changed her attention to him. “Did you know that Chloe, the fluffy pink fox-girl from my friend group, is your older sister?”

*Chirp…?* He tilted his head in confusion because he couldn’t follow her.

“It was worth a try to get you flustered with that~.” Mira let out a small chuckle. “Yes, you’re right. It’s difficult to explain, but the bottom line is that you share no biological connection with Lime, so it is indeed different.”

“Thank you.”

“Will you be able to make Maya understand that after she hears those words and gets worked up over it, though?” A smirk appeared on her lips once more.

“Shush now!”

“Hehe~.”

“Why are we here again?” Sophia thought it was time to change the topic.

“I want you to test out your new powers.” The overseers' smiles turned gentle again before gesturing at the massive forest at the bottom of the hill they were on. It was so vast that Sophia couldn’t even see where it started or ended. “I’ve been wanting to renovate this place, so it’s the perfect opportunity.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to use a fresh area instead of renovating?”

“No, I want to transform a forest.” She shook her head. “I recently took a few peeks at the biomes you and your friends are making in your domain with the help of your portal hub. “The ever-burning forest gave me an idea.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the right girl for the job then.” The blonde scratched her cheek. “Ari’s our resident pyromaniac after all.”

“Well, she might have the right mindset for this project, but her power is severely lacking to pull through with it.”

"I guess that's how our jaguar will get motivated to become stronger in the future, huh? The desire to set even more things on fire at once, that is.” Sophia let out a chuckle. “So, you want your own ever-burning forest? I’m surprised you don’t have one yet.”

“No, I want you to burn it down to ash completely. I’m planning to do a black ash tree forest. Literally, I mean. Everything black and ashy.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Mira tilted her head.

“Fair enough!” The tiger could follow her reasoning. “Which means you probably want me not to go too high on the heat so that some ash actually stays behind, huh? Not my usual style, but I think I can manage.”

“Yes, I want you to use regular fire magic and not your usual direct burn approach.” The overseer nodded a few times.

“Okay.” She reacted with a nod of her own. “How much do you want burned down? All of it?”

"For now, start with that little outgrowth first." Mira pointed down the hill, where a small portion of the forest, with around 20 trees, stood a little isolated from the rest.

"A treat as a warm-up, got it!" Sophia’s expression turned into a slight smile as she lifted her arm. A moment later, an enormous pillar of red-hot fire with a diameter of easily 15 meters appeared in front of her and spread down the mountain in a rapidly expanding cone shape. Once it was done and they could see again, Sophia had burned down multiple square kilometers of the forest in an instant. There wasn’t any ash left, either. In fact, nothing was left, as even the ground turned into something looking like obsidian and molten rock. "A-Ah.” She froze up after seeing the destruction.

“Well, I think I only asked for the outgrowth, no?”

“I-I only used a single percent of my authority!” The tiger became a little flustered.

“You do realize that 1% of your current authority was over 50% of your powers last week, right?” The teal fox let out a small chuckle. "More than enough to turn that beloved beastfolk capital of yours into a deep crater of nothing but bubbling rock.”

“That’s, uhh… That’s concerning.” Sophia awkwardly scratched her cheek. “52 times obviously is a lot, and I adjusted my power plenty for this, but I guess I didn’t realize just how much it really is!”

"You're even more of a danger than you were before, yes." She smirked at her again.

“…”

"A fun danger, so all is fine as long as you get used to it.”

Afterward, wanting to make sure that she’ll be able to use her new power appropriately and not accidentally destroy a city or two when sneezing, Sophia spent the next couple of hours dialing in her authority while turning Mira’s training forest into ash. Ash, molten rocks, and glass, that is.