Makarov ultimately failed to make it out that door.
Porlyusica blocked the exit with a broom and put him in charge of repairing the missing wall and roof. Only when the sun began to sink was the old man able to take Lin Yuan back to the Guild.
Before they left, Porlyusica gave him a clear warning.
"Don't let him use magic on his own until he learns to control it. And don't take him somewhere crowded to experiment."
Makarov looked at the wooden house, now missing a corner, and, for once, didn't argue.
Early the next morning, Lin Yuan stood in front of the Guild's request board.
Finding lost pets, clearing pests from farmland, escorting caravans, subjugating monsters... every request listed a reward. Near the window was a job to clear out low-level slimes, which didn't look very dangerous.
Lin Yuan reached out and pulled it down.
A hand reached in from the side and stuck the request back on the board.
"You can't take a job," Makarov said.
"Why not?"
"Because you don't even know how much a little magic power is."
"I can go without using magic."
"If you run into danger, can you guarantee you absolutely won't use it?"
Lin Yuan didn't answer.
His experience in the forest had already proven that, when he truly faced death, his body would call on that power before reason could intervene.
"A mage's strength isn't measured by how much magic power they have alone." Makarov took a blank sheet of paper from the board and gently laid it on the table. "Power you can't control will only hurt your companions. If you want to take jobs, first convince me you won't eat the client along with their house."
Before long, a training ground had been set up in the Guild's backyard.
The first exercise was to make a sheet of paper float.
Makarov released a faint trace of magic power from his fingertip, and the blank sheet hung steadily in midair. Lin Yuan reached out, copying him. The paper trembled, then a black-and-silver crack appeared out of nowhere and sliced it in two.
The second exercise was to channel magic power into a small Magic Crystal.
They used cheap crystals this time. Makarov had taken care to bring out an entire box.
The first one exploded.
The second cracked into four pieces.
The third didn't explode, but it appeared three meters away, along with the wooden table.
Gray, who was watching, offered a serious assessment. "At least that's progress."
"How is that progress?" Natsu asked.
"The table's still here."
Before the fourth exercise began, Makarov chased them both out of the backyard.
Over the next few days, Lin Yuan tried candles, leaves, pebbles, and wooden buckets full of water.
He could see the distance between objects, but he couldn't decide how much to swallow. Sometimes a pebble moved only an inch; other times, an entire row of pebbles smashed together and crumbled to powder in an instant. The bucket of water fared the worst. The bucket didn't move, but the water inside traveled several meters and poured over Makarov's head.
By comparison, physical training was almost easy.
Whether it was running with weights, climbing, balancing, or close combat, he only had to see it once to master it. Many movements didn't even need to be taught; his muscles chose the most efficient way to exert force on their own.
During one training session, Makarov threw wooden balls at him from behind.
Without looking back, Lin Yuan sidestepped the first, caught the second with a backhand, and kicked the last one accurately back into the old man's hand with his heel.
He didn't use the slightest trace of magic power throughout.
A remark of amazement immediately came from near the bar.
"This kid's a genius who can't use magic."
Everyone burst out laughing.
Lin Yuan didn't feel embarrassed, though. He gathered up the damaged training equipment piece by piece and put it back in the storeroom. Unable to take jobs, he stayed for the time being in a small room in the old dormitory behind the Guild, paying for room and board by cleaning the hall and repairing tables and chairs.
This was probably another form of training Makarov had deliberately arranged.
On the first day, he knocked over three wineglasses while mopping the floor.
By the third day, whenever Natsu and Gray suddenly broke into a fight, he could move every breakable object nearby out of the way in advance.
By the seventh day, he had even learned to duck when a chair came flying while protecting the bowl of soup in his hands.
The noise in the Guild no longer kept his body constantly tense.
Sometimes, someone returning from a job would bring him a bag of fruit; someone drunk and sprawled over a table might also mumble a reminder for him to go to bed early. No one pressed him about his past, as though the silver-gray emblem was enough to explain who he was.
Only the request board remained off-limits.
That night, Lin Yuan stayed behind in the backyard alone.
He laid ten pebbles on the ground and focused on the one at the front. A fine black-and-silver line flickered in and out of sight as he compressed his magic power into a thinner strand than ever before.
The pebble trembled slightly.
It moved forward half an inch.
Before Lin Yuan could breathe a sigh of relief, he heard footsteps on the wall behind him.
Natsu crouched atop the wall, grinning excitedly.
"The old man won't let you use magic, right?"
He leaped into the yard and slammed his fist into his palm.
"Then it's perfect. Lin Yuan, fight me-neither of us can use magic!"