The Magic Council's report had hung in the Guild all night.
By the next morning, a crookedly written ranking had appeared beneath it.
"Fairy Tail's total magic power rankings?" Makarov stood on the bar, a vein throbbing at his temple. "Who wrote this?"
Natsu immediately pointed at Gray, while Gray pointed at Natsu.
"They wrote it together," Erza said.
Before either of them could escape, Makarov punched them into the floor. The ranking stayed up, though, and a crowd quickly gathered around it. Some insisted Gildarts should be first, some argued that the master shouldn't count as an ordinary member, and someone had even included "drinking capacity" in the assessment of magic power.
Lin Yuan's name was at the very top, followed by the words: impossible to measure.
Mira stared at it for a few seconds, grabbed a pen, and wrote emphatically after her own name: I'll surpass him sooner or later.
"The tester couldn't even handle his magic power. How are you planning to surpass him?" Gray asked.
"First I'll throw you out the window, then I'll take my time figuring it out."
Gray wisely shut his mouth.
Makarov had thought the farce would be over by lunch, but less than half an hour later, Natsu was clutching the Guild's only remaining testing crystal and demanding that Lin Yuan put on another demonstration.
"No."
"Just let out a little!"
"Even a little will break it."
"Then I'll use fire to reinforce it!"
Makarov launched a kick, sending Natsu and the crystal back under the table.
"Quiet, all of you! What's so interesting about having a lot of magic power? If you can't control it, having more just means you'll demolish houses faster!"
When he finished, his gaze swept over Lin Yuan and Mira. One stood beneath the first line of the ranking, while the other still held the pen, and neither looked particularly convinced.
The old man suddenly smiled.
The Guild members who knew him immediately began backing away.
A few minutes later, two glasses filled with clear water sat on the bar. The water stood slightly above the rims, ready to spill at the slightest tremor of a hand.
"Walk from here to the Guild entrance," Makarov said. "You may use magic. Whoever gets the water there first wins."
Mira looked at the door, less than twenty steps away. "That's it?"
"Not a single drop may be spilled."
"What does this have to do with S-Class?"
"On S-Class Missions, there are often things far more fragile than a glass of water that need protecting." Makarov folded his arms. "If you can't even control where your power goes, you'll only cause me trouble when you go up to the second floor."
Mira immediately picked up a glass. Lin Yuan balanced the other in his palm.
They had just taken their first step when Natsu crawled out from under the table and knocked over the bench beside him. Mira sidestepped him, and the water in her glass rocked violently, stopping just short of spilling.
"Natsu!"
"It wasn't me! The bench moved first!"
Amid the commotion, Gray stuck out a foot, only for Erza to strike him squarely on the knee with a wooden sword. A moment later, Gray hopped about in pain and crashed into Cana's table, sending playing cards, juice, and half a loaf of bread flying into the aisle.
Lin Yuan raised a finger.
The objects flying toward him suddenly slowed for an instant. The distance between his glass and the entrance folded into a single short step, and he moved forward, passing straight over the chaotic crowd.
But the instant space changed, the surface of the water in his glass tilted forward.
Lin Yuan immediately folded back that small distance inside the glass as well. A bead of water rolled halfway around the rim and narrowly avoided falling.
His toes touched down, leaving him just two steps from the door.
A pitch-black demon wing suddenly blocked his path.
At some point, Mira had completed a partial Take Over. She didn't attack directly, instead using her wing to whip up a gust of wind as she charged toward the entrance from the other side.
Lin Yuan folded the wind toward the roof.
An old flag hanging from a beam blew loose and landed right over Mira's head. Her vision went dark, but she continued to hold her glass steady by feel. Her demon tail curled around a nearby pillar, and she swung past the last three tables.
The two reached the door almost simultaneously.
"I was first!" Mira pulled off the flag.
"My glass crossed the line first."
"Your shoes were still behind mine!"
"The rules only said to get the water here."
Makarov didn't announce a result. He only looked down at the two glasses.
Lin Yuan's glass had lost no water. The rim of Mira's glass was just as clean.
The onlookers were about to cheer when Lisanna suddenly pointed at the floor. "But why is there water here?"
Everyone looked down at once.
A winding trail of moisture stretched across the wooden floor from the bar to the entrance. It didn't end at either of their glasses, but at a kettle that had been knocked over beneath a table. Everyone's attention had been on the contest, and no one had noticed the water flowing out along the sloping floor.
The smile on Makarov's face grew dangerous. "Were the only things you protected the glasses in your own hands?"
Lin Yuan and Mira fell silent at the same time.
Natsu quietly edged toward the window, only for the old man to stretch out a hand and grab him back.
"The one who knocked over the kettle, the one who tried to trip someone on purpose, those who took the chance to fight, and those who only cared about the contest and ignored everything around them-you're all responsible for wiping the floor today!"
The protests instantly blew the roof off.
Erza silently picked up a rag, and the noise soon turned into a scramble for the bucket. Lin Yuan looked at the untouched glass of water in his hand and suddenly understood that what Makarov had really wanted him to see wasn't the precision of his magic control.
A true powerhouse couldn't just make sure he won.
He also had to see what was happening around him.
Mira had evidently thought of the same thing. She shoved her glass into Lin Yuan's hand and snatched the last dry rag.
"I'll still win next time."
"Finish wiping the floor first."
"You wipe that side, and I'll wipe this side. Whoever finishes first-"
Makarov's roar came from behind the bar.
"No more contests! And not a single drop from those glasses in your hands gets spilled!"