"Weird. Kinda cool though. Probably a good thing I started out in Suranse and not your world, I'd have way too much fun painting blood on things."

"If you get carried away you lose toes!"

"Like I said, good thing I didn't grow up around your magic!"

"You'd be toeless! It'd ruin your symmetry."

"Can't have that! Luckily I have different magic, and so far it seems like it wants me to keep my toes."

"Good for it."

"Speaking of which, I think I'll go back outside and argue with the desert some more."

He puts the textbook down with the other two books and heads for the entrance tunnel.

Cor confirms that he can't read the books, and follows.

He spreads his wings and strides up the hill, and the ground shivers slightly in his wake. Shoots of grass poke up tentatively from the dead dry dirt, withering from the moment the sun touches them. Tias growls under his breath.

A fountain of sparkling water erupts from the ground at his feet, arcing ten feet in the air before it splashes back down and begins to flow down the hill. In a wave that starts there and spreads outward, the dry ground transmutes to rich soil. Grass grows, and flowers, and wild berry bushes, and eventually trees. The fountain calms to a trickling spring as the trees grow tall enough to shade it.

"Pretty! Are you doing your own design work here or is it like your Sphere?"

"I dunno, little of both?"

"What was wrong with the plants at first?"

"There wasn't enough, like... anything? Water, things plants use to grow? This whole place is just dead. So I made it a little less dead."

"It looks much less dead!"

He beams.

"Do you have to ration your magic use at all or can you just do that as much as you want?"

"How should I know? I haven't run into anything that looks like a limit yet, though."

"Some possible limits might have been clear early on!"

"I guess. Haven't found any of those, though."

He stares out over his forest for a moment, with the same distant look from when he was examining their surroundings with magical senses before. "...huh," he says. "Vacuum. Wow, there's not really much air on this planet, at least not in comparison to how much planet. Is that normal?"

"I don't think all planets have to have air at all, but I haven't noticed it being very thin here. Uh, it should go a few miles up if it's like mine, fading out?"

"Sounds about right, I think. It's just that doesn't really look like much when there's so much planet underneath it. Anyway I'm pretty sure there's literally nothing alive on this planet except us and what I put here, but I've got about half a planet to go so it could still surprise me."

"Islands of paint mages! More hideyholes of books!

"Oh, yeah, there's definitely more magic stuff. I can see like a dozen more bits of magic like this one scattered all over the continent."

"Oooh."

He laughs delightedly at the look on Cor's face.