Kazu bit his lips. This wasn't where he wanted the conversation to go.
"The thing is..."
"You can refuse to answer. Just don't lie." Cana gently said, but her words stopped whatever Kazu was going to say next.
Kazu's face turned complicated for a few seconds as if making a difficult decision. Eventually, he released a sigh.
"Yeah. That's true. It's been since I lost my sister."
Cana's throat tightened. For a heartbeat, her mind blanked. 'He said it so normally.' As if the grief had become another fact of his day.
Cana was lost on what to say to Kazu.
What could she even say to that? That it'll be fine? He's lived like this for years. He laughs normally. He trains continuously. He looks alive, just like others.
So why does it feel like she's only just met the real Kazu?
Kazu's gaze flicked toward her — reading her silence like he always did. "It's—"
Warmth cut him off. Brown hair brushed against his face. For a moment, all he could see was her.
Cana's arms were around him. Not tight, not desperate. Just there. Steady.
Kazu froze — then, slowly, his own arms came up in return. The tension left his shoulders, inch by inch.
His lips curved — not quite a smile, more like muscle memory pretending to be one. 'Guess… this isn't the worst thing to happen today.'
---
"Master, I want to get stronger."
Makarov blinked. He looked at Kazu in surprise.
"Okay? But, aren't you strong already? Even if you do nothing, in 2 or 3 years, your Ethernano would naturally increase and you would reach S-rank."
"Master, I don't think I am utilising my potential to the maximum that way. Moreover, 2 to 3 years is too long. Erza would surpass me by then if I do nothing." Kazu deadpanned.
Makarov shrugged. "Guess so. Do you want my help in your training?"
"I want to learn Three Pillar Gods."
Makarov stroked his chin. "Well, the spell isn't achieved by barrier magic directly, as I use seals, but it still should be possible to learn it. Though the learning curve is pretty high, are you sure?"
Kazu nodded. "I think increasing the strength of my barriers is one of the surest ways I could reach S-rank."
'With this, I could even the playing field against Laxus. Maybe even win, as it would increase the time I could stall, which would directly correspond to how long it would take me to analyse and neutralise the opponent's spells.'
"Fine. You should learn a lot, even if you fail to master it. Let's change locations first."
Kazu nodded.
---
They arrived at the forest just outside Magnolia.
"Show me all the barriers you have mastered. Full power each."
Kazu compiled and started showing the few barriers he had mastered.
The first one was his normal barrier, at max defence.
Makarov touched it. "Not bad. This is pretty good as a foundation."
Kazu nodded and went with another one. This time, he enclosed a boulder with multiple barriers.
A magic circle suddenly appeared on the walls, before disappearing just as quickly.
"Sleep magic? Pretty useful." Makarov nodded in approval.
Next, a pillar of ice engulfed the boulder.
"Wait, you can use ice magic?..." Makarov's eyes widened in surprise. However, he then squinted it. "That's barely cold for a meaningful attack."
Kazu rubbed his head. "I don't have an affinity for ice. I won't be using this in combat ever. The main purpose was for learning more about magic in general. Same with the next one."
Next second, black-coloured mana covered the boulder. It started slowly, breaking the ice.
"Darkness magic? Right, I heard you had helped Gray and Mira. Makes sense for you to do this if you want to increase your understanding of magic. Though I doubt that it would help in your learning of the Three Pillar Gods."
Kazu shrugged. "Well, I would have my expectations low then."
"Any other barrier?"
"Others are utility types. Like isolating dirt and all that from your body and stuff like that."
Makarov raised a brow. "Show me then. That seems pretty useful. Like the cleaning spell could be technically applied to isolate poison. Also, another application I thought of, at higher levels of mastery, you could isolate everything other than oxygen from the barrier, and then use fire magic. Even with weak fire magic, the result would be catastrophic.
Conversely, you could maybe remove the oxygen from the barrier. This would force the enemy to waste their Ethernano to break the barrier and panic. The possibilities are endless."
Kazu nodded. "Yeah, I have already thought of that. Though the skill required would be insane, as I would have to isolate minute particles from a long distance. Maybe at close distance, it is more possible, but I am still far away from the skill level to achieve that."
He then started showing all the utility barriers he knew.
---
"So, you want my help in training?" Kazu raised a brow as he looked at the pink-haired boy and his cat.
Natsu nodded vigorously. "I want to beat Gray."
"Aye Aye."
Kazu stroked his chin. "Well, you are a fire dragon slayer. Don't you have secret arts or techniques... or do you need to create them?"
"Create them."
"Hmm, I guess you could do the same thing that Gray did. Increase the temperature of your flames. Also, I have seen you working on the condensation of your flames. You should continue that."
'Wasn't he able to melt steel or iron just by releasing a bit of his Ethernano in the Final series? Maybe tilting him in that direction would make him reach that earlier.'
Natsu tilted his head. "How do I increase the temperature of my flames?"
"There are two main ways. One is by condensing your flames, which you are already doing. Though you will reach limits soon. The second method is to create the fire in the first place to be hotter. This is more complicated, but it would take a long time to reach the limit with this."
Natsu nodded. "Then, how do I make hot flames in the first place? Don't we do that by increasing the amount of Ethernano?"
Kazu shook his head. "That's indeed one way, but it's generally too inefficient unless the spell has a scalability property, which brings me to the answer— Magic circles. You would have to create spells, which not only create high temperatures but also are scalable."
Happy tilted his head. "What's a scalable spell?"
"Yeah, what's that?"
"Basically a spell, whose effectiveness increases proportionally to the amount of Ethernano you add. For example, Natsu, have you done a Fire Dragon Roar with all your Ethernano?"
Natsu nodded. "Yup, it was awesome."
"How much ethernano do you pour in your normal roar?"
Natsu stroked his chin. "Around 10 per cent?"
"So, let me ask you. Was the temperature, or let's say the destructive impact of the first roar, 10 times the second roar?"
The pinkhead shook his head. "Though I don't know how many times it was, but it definitely wasn't 10 times."
Kazu nodded. "Yup. So, that spell wasn't scalable. Now, watch this." He pointed his finger at a rock wall.
A small blue ethernano bullet materialised and shot at it.
thud
A deep hole was created in the wall, similar in size to the bullet.
"Now, I would use the same spell, but with 5 times more Ethernano. This would naturally involve condensation, but I am only doing it to make it the same size as the previous bullet."
A similar bullet appeared in front of him, but with a darker shade of blue.
THUD
The bullet entered the rock wall, creating a hole, way deeper than the previous one.
"The offensive power of this spell is 5 times higher than the previous one. This is what I mean by scalable. With more mana, the spell effect increases proportionally."
Natsu's eyes widened. "So, if I had a spell, which is scalable for my roar, then does this mean it would be 10 times effective!?" Stars appeared in his eyes as he was already imagining releasing such a roar.
"Hold your horses. It depends on a spell. Like the spell pattern I used for this one, it supports scalability up to 5 times. If I add more Ethernano, then it won't increase that much." To demonstrate, Kazu made another bullet and shot it.
It went deeper than the previous one, but not by much.
"That one was 10 times as much, yet the result is not that great. Do you understand what I mean?"
Natsu deflated like a balloon.
"Oh..."
"Anyway, there would be limits, but it would be way better than what you are already doing. One way to increase temperature is to create scalable spells. Now, let's talk about gains, which would be worth even more—Logic.
You could create a spell with different logics to get the same result, or even better, one with the same amount of Ethernano. Normally, you want to start with whatever spell you have and start addressing the bottlenecks. There's actually a pretty good book on it. Lemme try to remember the name."
Kazu made a pondering expression. He had recommended the book to Gray, so it wasn't that long ago.
"Books? I don't want to read them." Natsu made a disgusted face.
Kazu furrowed his eyebrows. "Well..." 'Now, how do I tackle this issue?'
Happy giggled. "Natsu doesn't know how to read."
Kazu's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Wait, what?"
***
A/n: 10/50 Power stones. Vote for double release.
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