Makarov didn't speak for a few seconds. Just observed Kazu.
'It seems he is moving on finally.' Makarov had anticipated that Kazu would soon get into a similar state like Gray.
Unlike the latter, Kazu took a long time to fully accept the situation and break free of the "what-ifs" rabbit hole.
On seeing the intensity in Kazu's eyes, Makarov swallowed all the words he had prepared beforehand.
For the first time, he had seen Kazu's eyes, which had a look other than lifeless.
"Is this really what you want to do?" Makarov asked. He didn't bother to mention whether the Black Wizard is alive. Kazu won't care about such things.
"Yes." Kazu nodded.
"Very well. I will help you get stronger. Normally, I would have guided you or told somebody senior to guide you; however, you are smart—smart compared to your guildmates." Makarov looked exasperated for a second.
"So, you can just use the library. It has a lot of resources piled up over the years. You can ask me or any other member if you have any doubts. Or do you want me to personally guide you?"
"Thank you, master. Library would suffice." Kazu bowed his head.
"It's okay, my boy." Makarov patted Kazu's shoulder. "The library...currently, there's no librarian present and only a handful of people actually visit it. So, it's quite lax in rules. Just ask Cana if you need help regarding the library."
Kazu nodded. "I will repay the guild surely for this."
Makarov lazily smiled, waving his hands off, "You don't need to. Fairy Tail is a place for young seedlings like you to be nurtured. Don't take any pressure for that. Just focus on what you want."
Kazu paused. Then nodded. He bowed again before leaving the room.
Makarov looked at the door with a wistful smile. 'That boy... He has a wall surrounding his heart. Keeping everyone at a distance. I can't blame him given his circumstances.' He sighed.
His eyes moved to a portrait on the wall, of a young lady with blonde hair. 'I just hope that Fairy Tail will break that wall one day.'
---
Kazu arrived in the library. "Dusty." He muttered, looking at the loads of dust around him.
He moved around a bit, exploring the place.
"Nice. So, people do visit after all." His eyes lit up when he saw some of the seats dust dust-free. With that observation in mind, he looked at the shelves and could see that some of the spots on the shelf did not have dust.
'Let's see what guild members are reading.'
[ Stealth 101. Never get caught looking. ]
[ Elemental Magic Made Easy. Even babies could Learn! ]
[ Principles of Ethernano: A scientific outlook]
[ Make out Paradise ]
Kazu whistled at some of the wild titles. 'I am definitely going to check them out later. However, first things first.'
He picked up [ Principles of Ethernano ] and browsed through the library, picking up similar books. It was easy to find as they were put closer together.
'Ethernano is the source of Magic Power. The energy source. Hmm, Guess, it's the mana or chakra of this world. To be honest, I always thought it's called mana here.' Kazu lifted his right palm.
Suddenly, it glowed blue before the blue colour faded away in the air.
'Guess that's Ethernano. Everyone has it. The capacity their bodies could hold is a vital factor when discussing a person's strength. It gets refilled from the atmosphere.' Kazu quickly skimmed it.
He briefly looked at how to use Magic before finding something familiar—Affinities.
Everyone had a particular affinity for a special magic. In fact, everyone had an affinity for every magic type there was. The important thing was the intensity of the affinity.
"Huh?" While reading how to find affinity, he saw a method that shocked him.
'Meditation? Hold up.' He quickly flipped the pages. He went back to the section on how to increase ethernano and saw Meditation as one of the pillar methods.
'Meditation is useful?... I thought it was exclusive to only cultivation worlds.' Kazu was astonished at this fact.
{ A/n- For those who don't know, Meditation is a Canon thing to increase your Ethernano. Just telling, before you think it's some cultivation bullshit that I made up. You Stand Corrected. }
"Uhh, whatever, let's try it. How hard could it be?" Kazu shrugged.
'Maybe it would also give me a clue as to why sometimes my magic power unintentionally leaks.'
He didn't bother to find any book on how to meditate and just closed his eyes and started observing his thoughts.
'Now, that's a lot of thoughts.' Kazu had heard somewhere that a human brain has thousands of thoughts a day. 'Guess, that wasn't wrong.'
Multiple times, he found himself clinging to a thought and going down a rabbit hole of similar thoughts.
'What if I had moved to Magnolia last year? What if I had lived in a town instead? What if...' Kazu got irritated every time he left a rabbit hole.
However, soon things got easier. He instinctively realised when he was starting to get into a rabbit hole.
'What was that magic I used when the world became colourless when I fought the boar?' Despite stopping the negative thoughts, some curious thoughts still flared up.
After some more time, he stopped completely getting into any thought trains.
Now, he was just observing all the thoughts that came into his mind. Impartially.
'That should be the ideal state.' After reaching this state, he shifted his attention to Ethernano inside his body.
'It's Big.'
He started manipulating the ethernano inside his body, and unsurprisingly, it moved according to his will.
'Well, that shouldn't be surprising, given that I could already enhance my muscles without meditation. Though. How I am controlling Ethernano is quite different. Before, I was just doing it. Now... I am still doing it, just from a different perspective? I am more sensitive to ethernano in this state... I guess?'
He found ethernano outside his body and sucked it inside his body. More ethernano took place of the sucked ones outside and the cycle repeated ones.
'This must be how to increase your capacity. Let's now try to gauge the affinity.' Kazu stopped sucking the ethernano from outside and focused on a small amount of his magic power.
He observed it carefully—which was quite weird, given he wasn't even looking at it. Just focusing on it.
'I see. So, this is the difference between meditation and non-meditation. I could observe the Ethernano in much more detail.'
He instinctively knew this was the method.
'Oh.'
Suddenly, Kazu's vision got replaced by several orbs floating around him, each with a different intensity.
Kazu instinctively understood what each of the orbs meant. They were his affinities.
His attention shifted to the orb whose brightness was dwarfing every other orb.
'N—No way. I always had it.' Kazu trembled.
'That time when I learned hunting within a month despite having no prior experience. I was able to wield weapons and fight like I was trained. I didn't think much about it as I was focused on protecting Yui and thought I was a genius or something.'
Memories surged within him. Each of them came from a different time, yet one thing connected them. His magic.
'Instinct Magic.'
That was the name of his main affinity.
"...It had always been there. Beneath every fight, every choice, every step toward Yui's and my own safety. I didn't awaken this magic—I lived it." Kazu looked melancholic.
'If I had known about my main magic beforehand, would things have changed? Will I have moved—' Kazu stopped himself.
His heartbeat started rising, and the orbs surrounding him flickered in different colours—settling on a deep shade of blue.
Various emotions tried to bubble up from his chest, but he squashed them down.
'I thought my affinity was related to the manipulation of mana—Ethernano.' His focus shifted to the second brightest orb, 'Well, I wasn't wrong. It's just that it wasn't my main affinity.'
He then focused back on his main affinity. 'Currently, I have two abilities or spells. The weird thing is that magic circles related to instinct magic are not forming. At least not outside, otherwise I would have noticed it long ago. Is it forming inside my body? I will need to experiment later.'
Kazu categorised his instinct magic into two categories:
Passive Instincts: Allows his body to react swiftly to any phenomenon without input from consciousness. Ethernano is continuously drained, depending on how his body reacts and the task. The purpose of it is to be in the most efficient state, instinctively.
Active Instincts: This is where his conscious gets more control. Ethernano consumption skyrockets, but it gives me a lot of control. This is the spell by which Kazu could instinctively predict people's behaviour and the one used when he saved Cana.
'Maybe I will awaken Ultra Instinct one day.' Kazu let himself feel joy for a moment before pouring cold water on his mood. 'This is not as broken as it sounds. How my instincts are going to react is heavily dependent on my existing capabilities and knowledge. Well, subconscious is included in this, which is a silver lining.'
After finally realising that his main affinity and its spells were instinctively being used in his life, he started reflecting on their usage.
"Hold up." Kazu suddenly opened his eyes, exiting the meditative state.
He looked at the book lying on the table and gulped. He looked around before opening the book.
'Passive Instincts.' This time, he activated the spell and felt a small magic circle form inside his head.
Now, he was actively focusing on the ethernano of his entire body, and felt the drain.
'This is truly ridiculous. How the fuck did I not noticed the spell forming until now?' He started pondering.
A few seconds later, he nodded. 'Guess, it only activated occasionally. Even the times when I practised my prediction skill, I was too focused on the task to notice this. Guess, my mana—ethernano leakage I was experiencing recently was due to the spell after all.
The leakage was always there. I started noticing this due to being more attuned with Ethernano in the last few years. This is also the reason I wasn't able to know my affinities until recently.' Kazu had tried several things with his otherworldly knowledge. Despite that, he wasn't able to inspect his ethernano carefully for years and thought his main affinity was Ethernano manipulation and, at some point, even enhancement magic.
He could have known his affinity if he had tried in the last year or two, but he had already given up individual exploration due to countless failures, opting to instead focus on his Ethernano Manipulation.
Kazu focused on the book. He started going through it. Surprisingly, he instinctively knew what each of the things meant and how they were fitting together.
Before he knew it, he was in flow. He only exited it when he closed the book.
'Crazy. This is crazy.' Kazu shook his head in disbelief.
---
"You want to fight me?"
***
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