During the first round of the S-Class Mage exam at the Fairy Tail guild, a certain troublesome little girl had maliciously misled the teams, sending many of them down paths that were completely different from the ones they'd intended to take.
For example:
Freed and Bickslow had taken the "Fierce Fight" route and run into Erza, the "Fairy Queen." The woman hadn't held back at all, beating them so thoroughly that they'd had no choice but to kneel and beg for mercy. Meanwhile, Juvia and Lisanna had taken the "Fight" route and run into Cana and Lucy. As a matter of course, Lucy had summoned Aquarius, who'd sent them flying to who knew where.
Natsu and Happy had been luckier. They'd lost, too, but Gildarts had taken a liking to them and declared that they'd passed the exam.
As for Levy and Gajeel, they hadn't followed the troublesome little guild master's bad directions. By chance, they'd chosen the route that didn't require them to take any exam at all, so they'd advanced straight to the next round.
So when former Guild Master Makarov arrived at the gathering point for the second round, he found that the first trial had eliminated three teams. That left only the five-person group there—Cana, Natsu, Gray, Levy, and Elfman—eligible to take part in the second round.
Then former Guild Master Makarov announced the second trial's challenge: the five remaining teams had to find the resting place of Fairy Tail's first Guild Master and Founder, Mavis Vermillion, somewhere on the island, within six hours—in other words, they had to find her grave.
Only the teams that found Mavis's grave within six hours would pass the second trial. The rest would be ruthlessly eliminated, with no chance to enter the next round.
After announcing the second trial,