Time passed in a flash.
In the blink of an eye, ten days had gone by.
Deep in the West Wild Forest.
Lu Chongwei leaned against a tree, looking utterly dejected. His vacant gaze rested on the sky, hidden beneath the canopy.
These past ten days had been a nightmare for him.
This forest was like a huge maze. No matter how he walked or which way he turned, he always seemed to end up back where he started.
"Is anyone there—"
Lu Chongwei cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with all his strength.
His voice startled a few birds into flight and echoed through the empty forest, but no one answered.
Only the rustling of leaves in the wind remained, as if mocking his helplessness.
"Could I really be the only person left in this world...?"
Lu Chongwei let his arms drop, the dread in his heart growing stronger by the moment.
The loneliness of being cut off from the world was harder to bear than hunger or danger.
He sighed, drew the short knife at his waist, and carved a deep mark into the tree trunk.
How many marks had he made by now?
He had lost count.
Since he couldn't find a way out, he could only return to the shelter he'd found earlier. At least the cave would keep out the wind and rain.
Lu Chongwei trudged back along the trail he'd left behind.
He walked for about two hours.
Then the scenery before him suddenly changed completely.
The lush forest came to an abrupt end.
In its place lay a shocking expanse of scorched earth.
The trees here were no longer green. They had become bare, blackened stumps, like severed fingers pointing toward the sky.
The air still reeked of sulfur and burning, the stench lingering without end.
At the heart of the devastation lay a huge crater, as if a meteor had struck.
The bottom wasn't soil but cooled, solidified, dark-red, lava-like crystal.
It was glass formed when intense heat melted the rock.
Lu Chongwei stood at the crater's edge, staring at the scene with a dry throat.
This was where he had tested Ryujin Jakka's Shikai ten days ago.
That day, he had just learned the Shikai release command. On a whim, he'd swung his sword at a small hill ahead.
Just one swing.
A temperature of six thousand degrees had erupted in an instant.
At that moment, Lu Chongwei had felt as if he were holding a sun.
The small hill had been vaporized, leaving not even a trace.
The surrounding forest had caught fire at once, and the flames had spread at an astonishing speed.
If a torrential downpour hadn't happened that day and put out the terrifying blaze,
Lu Chongwei suspected he might have burned the entire West Wild Forest to ashes.
"Terrifying..."
Even after ten days, seeing this again still made Lu Chongwei shudder.
He instinctively touched the Zanpakuto at his waist.
That power was so great, it frightened even him.
From that day on, he had gained a clear understanding of his own strength.
Until he had complete control over it, he absolutely couldn't release Shikai recklessly in the forest.
Otherwise, it wouldn't just be his enemies who died. He might get caught in the destruction himself.
Lu Chongwei took a deep breath, went around the edge of the crater, and prepared to continue toward the cave.
Just then,
his gaze passed casually over the bottom of the crater, and his body stiffened.
At the center of the crater,
on top of the solidified lava rock,
stood a figure!
Lu Chongwei thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He rubbed them hard, then looked again.
No mistake.
It was a person.
A middle-aged man in a dark green cloak, with orange hair.
He was crouching on the ground, apparently examining something.
A living person!
Lu Chongwei's heart pounded wildly. He was thrilled, excited, and utterly stunned.
In the past ten days, he hadn't even seen a ghost.
Now a living person had suddenly appeared. It was more exciting than winning the lottery.
At the same time,
Gildarts at the bottom of the crater seemed to sense something.
He slowly stood and turned his head, his gaze fixing precisely on Lu Chongwei at the crater's edge.
Their eyes met.
Gildarts paused in surprise.
He'd assumed the destruction had been caused by a ferocious fire demon or some rampaging high-level beast.
But the person before him...
looked like nothing more than a boy of eleven or twelve.
Black hair, dark eyes, and ragged clothes. He looked a little worse for wear.
But...
Gildarts' expression immediately grew serious.
As one of the Mage at the pinnacle of this world, his sense of magic power was incredibly sharp.
Although the boy's magic power was deeply concealed, Gildarts could still sense its terrifying magnitude.
It was scorching and volatile, like an active volcano on the verge of eruption.
"How could this kid have such powerful magic...?"
Gildarts wondered to himself.
Could this boy have caused the forest fire and the enormous crater before them?
But how was that possible?
Even Natsu, the fire-playing brat from the guild, might not have been capable of this level of destruction, even going all out.
And this boy looked even younger than Natsu.
Gildarts suppressed his doubts and decided to observe him first.
He didn't speak right away, simply watching Lu Chongwei in silence.
Lu Chongwei couldn't have cared less about any of that.
Seeing another human, he was so excited he could have burst into tears.
"Hey—!"
Lu Chongwei waved both arms and shouted with all his might.
"Mister over there! Did you come from outside the forest?!"
His voice cracked with excitement.
Gildarts heard him call him "mister," and one corner of his eye twitched, but he still called back loudly.
"Yeah, that's right! I came from a city outside!"
His voice rang out clearly, reaching Lu Chongwei despite the distance between them.
"I'm Gildarts, a Mage from the Fairy Tail guild in Magnolia City, Fiore Kingdom!"
With that, Gildarts pushed off the ground.
He leaped lightly out of the crater.
After a few bounds, he covered hundreds of meters and landed steadily in front of Lu Chongwei.
Lu Chongwei was startled by his sudden speed and instinctively took half a step back.
So fast.
This man definitely wasn't ordinary.
Still, a few of the words he'd just heard were completely unfamiliar to Lu Chongwei.
"Um... mister..."
Lu Chongwei tilted his head back to look at the tall man before him, confusion in his eyes.
"What's a Mage?"
Gildarts was about to strike a cool pose, but at those words he nearly fell over.
He stared at Lu Chongwei as if he were an alien.
"Huh?"
Gildarts pointed at himself in disbelief.
"You don't know what a Mage is? You don't know about magic either?"
Before you continue