The Frozen Eternal Flame

Warrod put down the tin kettle he was holding and walked slowly to the table.

With a gentle smile on his wooden-skinned face, the old tree-man looked the travel-worn young people up and down.

"We've been waiting for you all to come."

Warrod, with his hands behind his back, suddenly stopped smiling and added in a very serious tone.

"However, I am not the Warrod Sinken you are looking for!"

Lucy and Wendy were both stunned, their eyes widening in surprise.

"Huh?!"

The atmosphere in the room froze for half a second.

Warrod burst out laughing, clapping his hands merrily in the air, his bark-like face scrunched up in a grimace.

"Just kidding! Pfft! I am Warrod himself, haha!"

Lucy's lips twitched violently twice, and she placed her hands on her forehead, looking extremely exhausted.

"This old man... he's really something else when it comes to self-entertainment."

Wendy stood to the side and nodded in agreement, her eyes filled with a strange perception of this Ten Wizard Saints.

Jiang Bai put his hands in his pockets, stepped through the entryway, and pulled out a wooden chair from the table to sit down.

"Alright, Mr. Warrod, let's skip the small talk and pranks and get straight to the details of the request."

Warrod turned his head and his gaze fell on Jiang Bai.

"What an impatient young man."

Warrod narrowed his eyes, carefully examining the black-haired youth before him.

"You must be the famous Jiang Bai. These young people nowadays are truly terrifying to an embarrassing degree."

As one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Ishgar, Warrod's affinity for nature and magic is among the best on the continent.

However, when Warrod tried to secretly probe Jiang Bai's true strength, he discovered that the other party's body was like a bottomless starry sea.

No matter how much perception spread, it could never reach the limits of this body.

The mere unintentional release of that natural pressure made Warrod vaguely feel that, apart from Jiang Bai himself, even if all the Ten Wizard Saints of the entire continent were combined, they probably couldn't compare to him in terms of total magic reserves.

The phrase "the younger generation is truly formidable" is insufficient to describe this exaggerated monster.

Warrod abandoned his probing thoughts and straightened his posture again.

The old tree man's playful smile vanished instantly, replaced by an extremely solemn and serious expression, his gaze fixed intently on Jiang Bai.

The tense and prepared atmosphere made it seem as if the upcoming mission was a cataclysmic disaster capable of destroying the continent.

Lucy's heart leaped into her throat. She quickly took two steps closer and asked anxiously in a low voice.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? Is it some kind of terrible crisis?!"

Warrod took a deep breath and spoke slowly.

"Actually..."

Lucy, Wendy, Natsu, Gray, and the others all craned their necks, and even Happy stopped in mid-air and nodded frantically.

"Uh-huh!"

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the next part to follow.

Warrod blinked and scratched the bare tree trunk's forehead with his right hand.

Actually... I forgot.

The room fell into absolute silence.

"Ouch!"

Lucy, Natsu, and the others stumbled forward in unison, their waists seemingly jolted, and they nearly fell headfirst to the floor.

"Haha! You've been fooled by me again!"

Warrod slapped his thigh and laughed loudly, his laughter causing the two tender green branches on his head to tremble violently.

Natsu's forehead veins bulged, and his right fist clenched so tightly it cracked.

"I don't know why, but I have this inexplicable anger rising up inside me."

Gray, unusually, didn't refute Natsu, but crossed his arms and gritted his teeth in agreement.

"It's rare that we agree completely; that old bastard really deserves a beating."

Seeing that the two young men were about to lose their temper, Warrod chuckled and waved his hand, signaling everyone to calm down.

After cracking several cheesy jokes, this veteran member of the Ten Wizard Saints who had been retired for many years finally got to the point.

Warrod walked to the windowsill and reached out to stroke the tender green seedlings in the pot.

"Since leaving the guild many years ago, I have been working alone on the greening and restoration of this border desert."

Wendy blinked, catching the key information.

"A guild? Did the old man work in a legitimate mage guild before?"

Warrod laughed, a hint of nostalgia in his cloudy eyes.

"Haha, that's right, it's a very silly, but absolutely amazing guild."

Happy puffed out his furry little chest in the air and shouted loudly.

"Hey! But our guild is the best in the whole continent!"

Carla crossed her arms and unusually chimed in with a comment.

Well, this tomcat actually got one thing right.

Jiang Bai leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes to rest, and made no attempt to expose the fact that Warrod was one of the original founders.

Warrod looked away and opened his right palm, which was as rough as tree bark.

"For many years, I have been using my Green Magic to do my best to stop the desert from continuing to encroach on and expand into the surrounding towns."

Before he could finish speaking, a shriveled plant seed appeared out of thin air above Warrod's palm.

It is infused with a gentle and pure green magic.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the seed quickly took root, sprouted, and grew leaves, blossoming into a delicate pink flower in just two seconds.

The air was filled with the scent of life.

Natsu stared blankly at the blooming flower, his anger subsiding as he scratched the back of his head.

"I'm quite impressed with you now, old man. That magic is really powerful."

Warrod gently placed the blooming flowers into the vase on the table and burst into hearty laughter.

"Haha, to put it nicely, this is a charitable activity that benefits future generations, but in the end, it's nothing more than a personal hobby of mine when I'm extremely bored."

Hearing this nonchalant explanation, everyone looked at the old tree man with admiration.

He made the arduous charity work of transforming the desert free of charge his daily hobby, and he has been quietly persisting in this neglected and marginalized area for decades.

With such perseverance and magnanimity that are beyond the reach of ordinary people, they are worthy of the title of the Four Heavenly Kings of Ishgar.

Warrod's smile faded, and he walked back to the desk, resting one hand on the wooden tabletop.

"For many years I have traveled through the deserts, and not long ago, while patrolling deep into the wilderness, I stumbled upon a wondrous, remote village."

"I consulted ancient texts; that village is called 'Sun Village.'"

"The villagers living there are of unusually large size, and for generations they have revered a magical flame called the 'Eternal Flame' as the guardian deity of their entire tribe."

Lucy asked, somewhat curiously.

"Eternal Flame?"

"Yes."

Warrod's expression turned somber.

"However, when I stepped into that area half a month ago, the entire village was in an inexplicable state of being frozen."

"Not only the villagers, livestock, and houses inside, but even the Eternal Flame, revered as a totem and said to never be extinguished, was completely frozen beneath the ice."

Gray, who had been looking down and somewhat indifferent, suddenly became serious when he heard the word "frozen".

Upon hearing Warrod confirm that even the "flame" itself had been frozen solid by the ice, Gray stood up abruptly, his face filled with disbelief.

"What?! Even raging flames... can be frozen solid?!"

Natsu was equally shocked, his mouth agape.

"Are you kidding me! How can fire be frozen?! What kind of magic is that?!"

As a top-tier fire-type Dragon Slayer, Natsu's common sense simply couldn't comprehend this bizarre phenomenon that overturned the principle of elemental advantage.

Warrod sighed, his voice filled with helplessness.

"Although I don't know exactly what disaster happened there, my Green Magic can clearly sense that the villagers buried deep under the ice still have faint signs of life."

They're still alive.

"I absolutely cannot ignore these innocent victims."

Warrod looked down at his withered hands and frankly stated his limitations.

"But my old body and attributes are simply not capable of dissolving that strange, solid ice."

"That's why I specifically sent this urgent request to Fairy Tail."