(Heartfelt thanks to 'Shan Yang' for the 10,000 reward! 'Troubled Life Musings' for the 1,888 reward! And 'Bing Yue Ying', 'Yun Qi Qing Gu', '703's Rabbit', 'Seaside Hotel Restaurant', 'Sing Zai', 'End of Darkness', 'Dazzling Night Sky', 'Long Tiani', 'You·', 'Diying', 'Diying', 'Spacing Out丶丶丶丶', 'Misaka Shang', and 'Wandering in a World Without You' for their rewards!)
(New book period! Desperately seeking support! Bookmarks, recommendations, clicks! Hope everyone can offer even a little support! Ru Qing would be endlessly grateful!)
Magnolia, by the forest riverbank...
"Bzzzz----!"
The surge of magic power caused the air to tremble, spreading outward like ripples and enveloping the pitch-black beads, which floated beside the one releasing the magic power.
Noah had his eyes tightly shut. Pitch-black beads floated around him, their outlines covered in a faint magical glow, almost exactly like his usual magic control training.
But in the next moment, Noah did something different from before.
His eyes snapped open, revealing dark pupils as deep and dazzling as stars. Noah raised his hands lightly, palms up, as though trying to lift something, continuously pushing them upward.
"Bzz--Bzz--Bzz--!"
As Noah moved, the magic power surging from his body grew denser and denser, causing the glow outlining the pitch-black beads to flare brightly.
Then, the pitch-black beads began to move.
"Whoosh, whoosh----!"
Amid faint sounds of tearing air, the pitch-black beads moved back and forth around Noah as if they possessed life, tracing elegant arcs as they grew faster and faster.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh----!"
Before long, sharp whistles filled the entire forest riverbank.
"Bang----!"
Then, at a certain moment, two pitch-black beads moving at high speed suddenly collided violently, producing a dull crash before bouncing away from each other.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang----!"
That collision seemed to trigger a chain reaction. Dull crashes rang out one after another, gradually reducing the number of pitch-black beads circling Noah at high speed until, after an unknown amount of time, everything finally settled down.
However, once it had settled, only about one-tenth of the original pitch-black beads remained floating around Noah.
Clap, clap, clap, clap!
Erza, who had stood to one side and watched from beginning to end, applauded and praised him.
"Your magic control has improved quite a bit again. You're getting stronger and stronger. At this rate, it won't be long before you can completely control all your magic power, right?"
"Still a long way to go!" Though he said that, the corner of Noah's mouth could not help curving upward.
"With magic control at this level, if I use all my magic power, there's still a chance it'll go berserk, isn't there?"
"But at least, as long as you don't use all your magic power, even if your emotions become agitated, you won't go berserk like you did in the guild before. That much is true!" Erza folded her arms and laughed softly.
"Rather, before you learn magic, with your current level of magic control, it should be unlikely for a magic power rampage to happen. That's a good thing."
"You said it yourself: that's before I learn magic." Noah's smile faded, and he let out a sigh.
"Every wizard increases their magic power as they advance in magic. My magic power is already too strong to completely control. If it increases even more, I really won't be able to take it. When exactly will I be able to start learning magic?"
Hearing Noah's incessant sighing, Erza felt rather strange.
After all, a wizard's magic power was directly tied to their strength.
The stronger a person's magic power was, the greater the power of the magic they could cast, increasing their combat ability.
The more magic power a person had, the longer they could use magic, thereby extending the duration of battle.
Therefore, increasing one's magic power was practically equivalent to increasing one's own strength.
Thus, growing stronger in magic power had always been something every wizard dreamed of, and it was also a primary goal they inevitably had to pursue constantly on the path to strengthening themselves.
No matter what, gaining more magic power was absolutely a good thing.
Yet when such a good thing came from Noah's mouth, it sounded like a disaster he desperately wanted to avoid. Perhaps he was the only person in the entire world like that.
While thinking this, Erza spoke to Noah.
"The Guild Master said so too. With your diligence, completely controlling your immense magic power and learning magic are only matters of time. Besides, even if you can't use magic yet, it's not as if you have no strength at all, right?"
At those words, the slight discomfort in Noah's heart vanished. He could not help reaching out and tightening his grip on the Knight Sword at his waist, and his expression finally improved considerably.
"Let's stop training for today!" Erza glanced at the sky.
"It's about time we showed our faces at the guild!"
Noah nodded indifferently and headed toward the guild with Erza.
"Die, droopy eyes!"
"You're the one who'll die, hanging eyes!"
When Noah and Erza pushed open the doors of the Fairy Tail guild and entered the bar, two familiar voices full of passion and fury rang out. Immediately afterward came a series of clattering sounds, as though things were being smashed or thrown about.
Though they had not yet clearly seen the inside of the guild, Noah and Erza knew almost instantly what was happening upon hearing those sounds. They exchanged a glance and sighed.
"****!"
"Hedgehog head!"
"Exhibitionist!"
"Sweltering bastard!"
As the utterly childish insults rang out, Natsu and Gray were grappling with each other in the first-floor bar, as if they bore a mortal grudge against one another. Both Natsu and Gray had suffered their share of bruises.
Yet upon seeing this scene, not only did none of their guildmates step forward to stop the fight, they instead cheered as though watching a show. Even Makarov sat at the bar, drinking while sighing.
"Youth is wonderful..."
Seeing this, Noah sighed again.
"Erza..."
"Got it!" Erza stepped forward expressionlessly, arriving beside Natsu and Gray, who were so absorbed in fighting that they had not even noticed her approach. She reached out and accurately grabbed both their heads.
"Stop this right now!"
With that, Erza shoved hard, separating Natsu and Gray.
No, she did not merely separate them.
"Uwah!"
The excessive force sent the two little boys, each weighing around thirty kilograms, flying. Their necks even made a scalp-numbing crack as they cried out in pain and collapsed onto the floor.
"Can't you two go a single day without this?" Noah walked up beside Erza and looked at Natsu and Gray lying on the floor, his face showing a headache-like expression.
"You fight all day, yet I've never seen either of you decide a winner."
"Shut up!" Natsu sprang up energetically, then noticed that Noah was the one speaking. His eyes immediately lit up.
"Noah! Fight me and let's settle this!"
"Erza!" Gray also jumped up.
"You fight me and let's settle this!"
As soon as the words fell, the two leaped at the same time and charged toward Noah and Erza, who stood side by side in the middle. One pounced at Noah, while the other pounced at Erza.
Seeing Natsu and Gray rush at them without a word, Noah and Erza's expressions both fell. When Natsu and Gray reached them, they simultaneously raised their hands in knife-hand strikes and delivered blows to the abdomens of the opponents who had challenged and attacked them unilaterally.
"Thump----!"
"Guh!" With their abdomens directly struck by the knife-hands, Natsu and Gray's eyes bulged outward. After freezing in place for a moment, they went limp and collapsed to the floor, unable to get back up.
"Hahahaha!" The people around them burst into exaggerated laughter.
Natsu and Gray fighting, then being stopped by Erza, then refusing to back down and challenging Noah and Erza at the same time, only to be taken down in a single move by Noah and Erza—this scene now happened almost every day.
Was that simply the style of this guild?
Before you continue