The Guild Members' Shock

Wakaba nodded repeatedly, eagerly backing him up.

"Exactly! We didn't even see what kind of magic shield you used, and the master's fist just stopped in midair. Is that some new kind of air armor? Or a reflection spell hidden on the surface of your skin?"

Faced with this bunch of grown men acting like curious children, Jiang Bai sighed helplessly. He was just about to speak when a cup of warm water appeared at his lips.

Erza had arrived at some point, bringing a cup of water from inside the guild. She carefully helped Jiang Bai drink it, then turned around and spread her arms to shield him.

Her long scarlet hair drifted gently in the breeze, and her knight's armor clinked with a crisp metallic sound.

Her eyes were as sharp as a young lioness protecting her cub as she glared fiercely at the chattering adults around them.

"Don't crowd so close! Jiang Bai is very tired right now. He needs fresh air!"

Wakaba and Macao flushed at the serious little girl's scolding and took half a step back with sheepish smiles, but their ears remained just as keenly pricked.

At the edge of the crowd, beside the guild's entrance some dozen steps away from everyone, Makarov stood with his hands behind his back, pretending to be engrossed in studying the grain of a piece of wood on the wall.

The old man's face was a picture of indifference, but his body was frighteningly honest.

His head was twisted backward at an extremely awkward angle, and magic power surged around his right ear as he cast a partial gigantification spell.

His entire ear instantly swelled to the size of a palm-leaf fan, locking firmly onto Jiang Bai's direction like a radar antenna.

He wanted to know how the boy had done it too.

After drinking the water, Jiang Bai felt much better in his parched throat. He reached out and gently patted Erza's shoulder, indicating that he was fine.

He looked at the knowledge-hungry eyes around him, a mysterious smile curling his lips, and casually picked up a sharp little stone from the ground.

Everyone's attention was instantly drawn to the stone, their eyes following Jiang Bai's movements.

Jiang Bai pressed hard with the stone to draw a dot in the dirt before him, then drew a horizontal line about half a meter away from it.

"Uncle Wakaba, suppose this line is you, and this dot is me."

Jiang Bai tapped the ground with the little stone, his voice steady and clear, carrying a composure beyond his years.

"When you throw a punch at me, your fist has to cross this distance, right?"

Wakaba held an unlit cigarette between his lips and nodded as though it were obvious, thinking it was a pointless thing to say.

Jiang Bai smiled slightly and drew a line halfway between the horizontal line and the dot with the stone.

"Then, before your fist hits me, it has to travel halfway across this distance."

As he spoke, he drew another line halfway through that half.

"After it travels halfway, there's still the other half left. Before crossing that remaining half, your fist has to travel half of that half."

The stone in Jiang Bai's hand kept tapping against the ground, drawing increasingly dense dividing lines until its rough edge could no longer make them any finer.

"...And so, half of a half of a half... can be divided infinitely."

Jiang Bai finally stopped and casually tossed the little stone aside.

"In theory, there are countless 'halves' between you and me. Every time your attack travels a certain distance, there's still a remaining half to cross. This process goes on without end."

He raised his head and looked around at the vacant faces, summing it up in the simplest terms: "So, you can never touch me. Because what you have to cross is 'infinity.'"

"In...finity?"

Wakaba stared blankly at the lines on the ground, his mouth half open. It felt as though a tangled mess had been stuffed into his brain, burning out his CPU.

Macao squatted down, clutching his head and tugging hard at his hair as he muttered to himself.

"Half of a half... half of a half of a half... how many fucking halves are there?!"

The mages around them were wailing too. They were battle maniacs who let their fists and magic power do the talking; this mind-bending philosophical problem was more painful to them than facing a fire dragon.

After the brief confusion came an even deeper shock.

They finally grasped the terrifying truth contained within this seemingly simple theory.

"You mean... as long as the kid has enough magic power, he can just stand there, and no attack can hit him?" a young mage said, his voice trembling.

"Th... that's absolute defense, isn't it?!"

"You've got to be kidding! This kind of magic... can a human even create magic like this?!"

The crowd erupted. The way they looked at Jiang Bai could no longer be described as how they looked at a "genius." It was how they would look at a "god" or a "monster," full of awe and disbelief.

Amid the noisy exclamations, only one person hadn't been left dizzy by the complicated theory.

Erza stood quietly beside Jiang Bai. She didn't look at the dense lines on the ground; her scarlet eyes never left his face.

She might not have fully understood what "infinite division" meant, but she could see the light called "wisdom" shining in Jiang Bai's black eyes as he explained it all.

It was the composure and confidence of someone who had seen through the fundamental rules of the world.

Her boy possessed not only great power, but also wisdom capable of overturning common sense.

An indescribable sense of pride welled up from the bottom of Erza's heart like a warm spring, instantly filling her entire chest.

Her little face flushed slightly, and the corners of her mouth rose beyond her control. Her beautiful eyes sparkled as though they held the entire starry sky.

This was the person she had chosen, a true, one-of-a-kind miracle.

At the corner of the wall a dozen steps away, Makarov's enormous ear shrank back to its normal size with a whoosh.

The old man slowly turned around, his face more solemn and shocked than ever before.

He understood the weight of Jiang Bai's words better than anyone.

This wasn't merely defensive magic. It was a redefinition of "space" and "distance," two fundamental concepts of the world!

"This boy..." Makarov's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty. His voice was so low that only he could hear it. "He isn't creating magic. He's playing with the laws of the world..."