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Chapter 172 - 172. Grand Magic Games

The Grand Magic Games. The biggest yearly event in the Kingdom of Fiore. Hold at the time of the Dragon King Festival.

People anticipate this event all year round, but they are especially excited for this year's event because of Alex.

Everyone wants to see the power of the hero who saved Ishgar from Acnologia. He fought an enemy that killed the strongest Mage of Ishgar and survived.

Fiore Kingdom doesn't waste this chance too and advertises this event like never before. A lot more people come to watch this event compared to the previous years and there are even foreigners.

Thanks to them using him for advertising, Alex becomes very busy even before the event starts because many reporters try to interview him. There are also many people who flock around the hotel he uses just to see him.

Only after he threatened the Kingdom that he won't participate if they keep pestering him do they send knights to control the situation, giving him peace until the day of the tournament.

Following the new rule, every Guild is allowed to send 2 teams. This is a new rule they established to make this tournament much more interesting because there will be more participants.

Usually, the Guild Master would decide the participants from their Guilds and Fairy Tail also did the same. But for this year, they do things a little differently.

They did a little competition among themselves to decide the Captains that will lead the 2 teams they'll send. The top 2 of their own tournament will be chosen as Captains and given the right to choose their own team members.

Unsurprisingly, the winner of that internal tournament is Alex and the runner up is Laxus. Gildarts didn't participate as usual because he isn't interested in joining the Grand Magic Games and chose to work in another continent instead.

As the winner, Alex becomes the Captain of Fairy Tail Team A and he can choose his members first. Everyone thought he would choose from at least the top 10 of their internal tournament, which mostly are the S-Classes.

Alex, Laxus, Mira, Erza, Cana, Natsu, Gray, Gajeel, Freed, and Elfman. These are the top 10 of their internal competition. But he chose unexpected members for his team.

Elfman, Lucy, Wendy, and Levy. Among them, only Elfman is in the top 10 and he is the 10th rank at that. There's no other S-Class in his team aside from himself, only 2 S-Class candidates.

That's why everyone is surprised by Alex's choice for his team. The top 9 are obviously disappointed because now some of them won't be able to compete in the Grand Magic Games.

Then for his team, Laxus chose Mira, Erza, Cana, and Natsu. He chose those who got the highest ranks after him and Alex in their internal tournament, which makes Gray the only unfortunate S-Class to not be chosen.

"Don't worry, Gray-san. You are our best reserve member that will replace us if necessary." Wendy tries to cheer Gray, but it just makes him feel more miserable.

Anyway, they've all agreed to the rules of forming the teams for the Grand Magic Games, so they can't protest about it now. They can only accept it and join the tournament with these 2 teams.

Then after waiting patiently, the year X791's Grand Magic Games finally started. Alex has been thinking if the games for this year would be the same and he finally gets the answer for the 1st game.

The 1st game is the same as in the series, the Sky Labyrinth. All teams need to enter the Sky Labyrinth that suddenly appears in the sky above the Capital city and find the exit.

Fortunately, nothing bad happens to anyone from their Guild before the game started like in the series where Wendy got attacked. Well, Raven Tail that became the culprit in the series has been disbanded and Ivan is in jail now, so no one will do dirty tricks against them now.

Even so, Alex didn't let his guard down since they arrived in the Capital. He kept watching over his Guild Mates just in case there are unknown people who will try to harm them. So he's glad that there's no one stupid enough to do it.

Now, the 1st Game, the preliminary round finally starts. It is the Sky Labyrinth just like in the series. The next games might also be the same, but it doesn't mean Alex can take them lightly because watching them on screen and doing them himself is different.

Just like for this Sky Labyrinth, he still needs to think seriously to solve this. It is not a game that can be solved simply with brute strength. They need to think hard to find the correct way to the exit which he can't do just by remembering the series.

Besides, he honestly almost doesn't remember anything about the Sky Labyrinth. After all, it has been years since he got the knowledge about Fairy Tail story and he didn't think much about this stage because it's just a preliminary stage, which actually turns out to be very difficult.

So he needs to work hard to solve it. But before even trying to solve the labyrinth, they need to enter it first. A path made of floating stairs led to the labyrinth from the participants' lodgings. It's a really long path and it will take a bit of time just to reach the labyrinth.

Time is of essence here because this is a race. So Alex just transforms into Mini Kokuo that is as big as a normal horse. He tells his teammates to get on his back before he runs very fast to the labyrinth.

"How enormous and weird. Everything is floating and moving. Ugh! Is the gravity changes here? We are standing upside down." Elfman is in awe of the sheer size of this labyrinth and its strange mechanism.

It doesn't look like typical mazes. Just as the name suggests, this place looks like the sky with almost everything floating around, even the paths that are composed mostly of stairs and even the objects that obstruct them.

The gravity is also different in this labyrinth because they can see the town seem to be above them. They see many upside down locations that show the gravity here has been altered with magic, which really awes Alex.

There are also doors that have completely different spaces inside them. They use not only complex Gravity Magic, but also Space Magic, and this is just for the preliminary round. It's not even the main show yet.

He has seen so many strange things in this world, but this is still an unreal sight to behold. He really wants to meet the ones who create this magical labyrinth because they are the true geniuses for making this complex mechanism.

"H-how will we find the goal in such a complex structure?" Wendy already feels dizzy looking at this maze.

"In normal mazes, we usually make a map while moving so we won't get lost if we find dead ends. But this place is so enormous and the paths are going 3 dimensions." Lucy tries to think of a way to find the goal.

"The goal is to reach the stadium, Domus Flau. But this labyrinth is floating in the sky, so there's no way that stadium is inside here. That means they have a place that connects this labyrinth with the stadium and that is the goal. But they won't mention Domus Flau without reason. So maybe it's our clue to find the exit. Most likely, the exit is located in the general direction of Domus Flau. From the position of where this labyrinth floats, Domus Flau is located East from here. That means we need to move to the East."

Levy quickly makes a deduction from all the information they got. She pulls off what Alex expected from her when he chose her to join his team.

"But how do we find East? You don't happen to have a compass with you, right?" Elfman asks and everyone shakes their heads.

Lucy smirks smugly before taking out a silver key and summons a Spirit. She summons Pyxis, a bird-like spirit that has a compass on its head. It can easily find the East with its compass, so now they at least have a direction in mind.

"Walking through all these confusing paths is too troublesome. Let's just fly." Alex transforms into his humanoid Chomei form that makes him look like a Kamen Rider with wings and a tail.

Wendy and Levy are on his back because they are small, Lucy and Pyxis are on his arms, while Elfman is holding onto his legs.

Fortunately, this Elfman isn't as big as in the series. He is still a big guy, but his muscles are not oversize like in the series. Yet he is stronger physically and he is surely more agile, all thanks to the training method Alex taught him.

Levy makes sure they won't fall using her Letter Magic that she forms into a rope to tie them with Alex before they fly to the east.

By flying, the floating labyrinth's structure doesn't affect them anymore. Though they need to be careful when the labyrinth suddenly rotates and many people are falling. This is still just a preliminary round, but the difficulty is already this high.

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Ch. 222. Fighting Acnologia Again

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