"Wow," Tobir breathes, looking up at the dome. He entertains some wishful thinking about ways to use this when they get back to amenta, before turning his thoughts to more practical uses. "You think we could use this to make it safe to open portals farther into space?" 

"Pretty sure. Keep that up is not even hard."

"Awesome! Another big step closer to getting out of here." He peers up at the dome, thoughtful, "Do you think it'll just stay up or is there some kind of time limit, maybe? We should probably try testing that with both our powers - I know they're not effortful, but we should be sure, right? Wouldn't want to find out I can only stay ghosted for a few hours when I'm half-way through a rock face or something."

"You are probably better served by just using portals." He looks up. "I think I will take that down and use a smaller one as the test."

"I should still check! In the name of Science," he says semi-seriously. He proceeds to go ghost, checking the time as he does so. 

"Okay, okay." He creates three spheres, each larger than the last. "These for the time test," he writes down the time when the spheres were created.

...Standing around being intangible is kind of boring, it turns out. Who would have thought! Maybe they should find Kenta and watch a movie or something while they wait? 

The inability to cuddle up is a bummer, but sure, they can go watch a movie.

Tobir can cuddle Heri while intangible, at least! That's better than nothing, though it does take a bit of focus to do so.

He gets all the way through the movie without unghosting, though he phases through Heri and into the mattress a few times when he loses focus. "You know, I think I probably shouldn't sleep like this," he muses after the third time, "I probably won't be able to stop myself from falling into the planet."

"Yeah, and maybe we should put some anti-magic crystals under you or something, just to be sure." Snuggle.

Kenta squints, and then starts removing Heri's shirt. "You're fitter."

"What, really?" He shifts a bit to get a better look. "We never did get checked to see if there were any other physical changes," he notes. He tugs at his own shirt, peering down at himself, "Am I?"

"You're! I can't believe you guys didn't notice."

"We were a little distracted by the powers, to be fair!" He tugs his shirt off to get a better look (it becomes tangible again as it leaves his near vicinity), twisting this way and that and patting himself down, "Cool," he says, grinning, "Zero-effort hotness upgrade. Wonder how much stronger we are now?"

"Let me see," and Heri forcefully pins down Kenta on the count. "This is not an objective measure, but it feels easier."

Kenta makes a delighted noise.

Tobir reaches out- and then pauses, realizing he's still intangible, "...This is, like, the ultimate teasing tool," he mutters, sinking a ghosted hand into Ken's shoulder.

"Aww, but why deprive yourself of the pleasure of me."

"I mean, I am trying to see if there's a time-limit on staying ghosted."

"Empirical observation is important." Heri says nodding.

"I guess he will have to be content with observing us."

"I can be content with that."

Observations ensues. Delightful ones.

Heri's shields don't have an apparent time limit, but the same ammount of force can make one crack and dissipiate no matter how small the crack was compared to the shield's total size. And they are not thin enough to have sharp edges. They can only come in relatively simple geometric shapes. But they can still be huge and Heri goes around every settlement and outpost adding them as infra-structure. At this point they discover that the shields lose light over time if Heri is not around, changing from a solid soft glow, to a tinted glass dotted with stars. There is no apparent change in other functions, so Heri dissipates the shields used as street lamps and keeps the ones used as settlement walls and markers.

Heri's power is definitely more useful to the settlement than Tobir's is. Tobir has already contributed portals, however, so he doesn't really feel bad about the relative uselessness of intangibility in comparison. 

As they'd suspected, he finds he can remain ghosted for as long as he likes, though sleeping while intangible is inadvisable. He only falls asleep once, but his first experience of waking up half-way through the floor is more than enough to convince him not to do it again. 

The physical examinations reveal that they are definitely fitter and healthier than before they acquired the new powers. They appear to have been enhanced to the peak of their potential, any scars they had have smoothed out, and it looks like sicknesses would have a difficult time affecting them. They haven't suffered any major injuries which would have let them test just how far the healing goes, but any minor injuries they have suffered were dealt with just as easily as the thumb prick - though with the amount of pain the healer felt adjusted to match the severity of the injury. 

Time passes, they invest in their little world. Technically speaking they don't need four settlements. But portals make it easy. And their population is not beyond facing problems that require separating people. They put two villages in different points of the planet's continent.

The closest thing they come to find as a sign of civilization are terraforming crystals. Not that different from the cloning crystal, but spitting out animals and plants.

Regardless, they keep expanding. They even reach the moon, using Heri's shields against the vacuum.