Standing on a plain riddled with holes, Noah stayed still in motion with his eyes closed. Like a statue he stood.
Hum
Suddenly, his body shook and strands of magic power started wafting up from his body like leaked gas. The magic power stirred about making winds that steadily grew.
His face started flushing red and the muscles of his body started contracting. He clenched his fists as if he’s enduring something. He mustered up every strength he could and endured all the while without opening his eyes.
After some tens of minutes, the magic power leaking out from him and already turned into a local storm dancing about his body and cladding him in a magical force. So intense it was that his surrounding air started trembling.
And just like this, after a little over ten minutes, he could hold back no longer the surging magic power within him and let the magic power storm out of him and he let them expand.
BOOOM
With a loud explosion, shockwave erupted with Noah as the center, it swept to every direction, engulfing everything in its path, be it the air or the ground.
BAAANGG
The area within 100 radius of him got sliced evenly into block pieces and collapsed as a result. Some flew towards the air and some fell down on the ground drawing up dust that clouded the immediate area.
This scene continued for a while before…
“Argh…”
After the aftermath settled down, he opened his eyes and saw the big hole he made before sighing.
“How much longer before I can control [Crush]?”
His negativity lasted for only a moment before he psyched himself up again.
“Even Gildarts has yet to achieve full control, there isn’t such a nice thing as mastering it within 5 days. Plus, I just learnt [Crush], there is still more training, cultivation and strengthening to be done!”
Magic isn’t mastered by the mere act of knowing how to use it. For a magician, to be able to wield the magic is just the start, the magician would still need to train in the days to come.
A magic that has just been learnt is at its weakest, by constantly enhancing one’s magic power and familiarizing oneself with the magic, only then will the magic become stronger.
Surely someone like Gildarts couldn’t achieve the subconscious crushing of a mountain during his early days of training [Crush], he would be deemed to have been excellent just by shattering a slightly big sized boulder.
Noah is the same, he had just learnt [Crush], the reason he managed to pull something off like that is due to his gargantuan magic power. But this is only the start.
[Crush] can’t just destroy physical stuff like stones. When trained to a sufficient level even magic can be crushed. One could also crush the enemy into numerous pieces to instantly end the fight there. This is the scary part of [Crush]. He is currently relying on his immense magic power to achieve the crushing of land, mountain and buildings. It is however, too early for him to achieve anything like crushing magic or human body.
“However, if I can’t control something simple like this won’t it become even more difficult to control when [Crush] gets stronger?”
Noah closed his eyes again.
“It is highly imperative to master this stage of [Crush] to its utmost perfection!”
The most important part is that he didn’t want to let his [Crush] stay on as a variant of dress break.
Due to the incident where Mira and Lisanna got their clothes turned into pieces of rags, the two girls would stay more than 5 meters away from him at any one point in time when they visited him. They would also flee like rabbits when even the slightest of anything seem to be happening, this really hurt him.
He’s not a gentleman here, why would he go and deliberately strip them of their clothing?
Thinking about this, he swore to himself again.
“It is highly imperative to master this stage of [Crush] to its utmost perfection!”
Just when he was done speaking to himself, not far away a bunch of noise came.
“Noah—–!”
He opened his eyes and turned towards the direction from which the sound came.
He saw Mira, Lisanna, Erza, Natsu, Gray and the others all running towards his side. Even Cana and Elfman came as well, their expression seemed to be one of shock, he got curious.
What’s going on here?
The youth troupe was planning on gathering around him but Mira and Lisanna accurately stopped at a distance of 5 meters and stopped the others.
“Hold up! Don’t approach Noah!”
“Ha?”
The other members all stopped their feet and stared at Mira and Lisanna with confusion.
“It’s too dangerous!”
Mira immediately said and cast a judging gaze on Noah.
“The guy has not learn how to control his [Crush], it’s too dangerous to go near him!”
The youth troupe immediately understood what they meant by that.
Of course, they thought the danger by [Crush] meant some form of immediate danger to them. They didn’t know that the danger referred to by Mira is the danger he posed to their clothes.
It’s clear that Mira thinks [Crush] to be Dress Break. He can’t defend himself against her prejudice so he could only hold it in and asked the others.
“What did you guys rush here for?”
“O-Oh that’s right!”
Gray remembered why he’s here.
“Listen to me, Noah, something big happened!”
“Yeah!”
Natsu and Elfman bounched around in excitement.
“Laxus, Laxus!”
“Laxus?”
Hearing this unexpected name, Noah frowned and turned his gaze in Erza’s direction.
“Actually, 5 days, right after you went out here to train, the guildmaster announced something in the guild.”
Erza saw through his bewilderment and answered him.
“5 days ago, the guildmaster declared the start of this round’s S class mage promotion trial!”
“S class promotion trials?”
Noah is startled.
S class promotion trial, exactly as it says on the tin, it’s a trial set against guild members inside a guild and organized by the guild itself. Only those recognized by the guildmaster may join. If one were to pass the S class promotion trial then the mage would be upgraded in rank to the being S-Class magician. They would then be eligible to take or receive quest that are higher in difficulty on Fairy Tail’s second floor!
Noah didn’t expect that right after he left the guild, Fairy Tail would host the S class mage promotion trials. The timing is too impeccable. At this point, Noah suddenly recalled something.
Natsu and the guys seemed to have mentioned Laxus right?
“S class promotion trials will only have 1 eligible person coming out at the end. Sometimes it would be the case that there is none. Surely the S class promotion trial winner this time around is…”
Mira and Erza exchanged glances before nodding. This confirmed what Noah had guessed.
“The one who got promoted this time around is Laxus!”
Noah became silent.
Laxus, his brother in name, a guy who had a harsh attitude against those he deemed weak, a brother who would only acknowledge the strong.
So he has become an S class magician huh? A S-Class magician at 17 years old. Or should I say, as expected of the guy?
“Noah…”
Mira, Erza and Lisanna who knew the tension between Laxus and Noah became worried when they saw how Noah looked.
Noah laughed slightly and lifted his head to gaze at the sky. His spirit seemed to have soared high up into the sky before he continued.
“I can lose to anyone, but definitely not him!”