The day they'd promised to announce the start of the promotion exam had the whole Fairy Tail guild buzzing. A good chunk of the members had been hammering out missions lately, trying to prove themselves, and their effort had paid off, they'd made the cut. But if that wasn't unusual enough, someone else was making an appearance: a man who was, more or less, a living legend around these parts, and on top of that, the strongest mage Fairy Tail had ever produced.
"A bell?" Erza noted, turning her head toward the guild's entrance.
"It's him! Gildarts is coming back!" one of the mages burst in yelling.
"YEAH! It's happening!" A dozen mages who'd been drinking inside poured out onto the street to catch the show.
My little sister and I followed, and what we found was the entire city in a frenzy. People were sprinting through the streets, screaming about Gildarts's arrival. Above, enchanted megaphones drifted through the air, blaring:
"Magnolia, reconfiguration mode! All citizens, take your positions immediately! I repeat…"
"Well, that's a bit much," I said.
Then the rumbling started. The whole city literally began rising along the street, some kind of mechanism lifting everything into one long corridor running straight through town, all the way to the guildhall at the far end.
"Okay… yeah, that's a bit much," I admitted.
Once Magnolia finished its reconfiguration, Makarov walked out to meet us.
"What do you think, kids?"
"Impressive," Erza said.
"Gildarts can be a little… inattentive sometimes," Makarov explained. "When he walks, he tends to destroy everything in his path. Once plowed straight through a few dozen houses and didn't even notice, the blockhead. So it turned out cheaper to just redesign Magnolia around him."
"Wouldn't it have been easier to fix his inattentiveness?" I asked.
"Sadly, some things can't be fixed," the old man said, with all the gravity of someone delivering ancient wisdom.
With that settled, the mages started drifting back inside. Gildarts still had a long walk ahead of him, and nobody wanted to stand outside for half an hour.
"So we're waiting on him to run the exam?" I asked, once the guild master had settled back onto the bar counter like he owned the place.
"Exactly. Lately, we've been short on material for the trial. That's changed now, and Gildarts volunteered to help."
"With what, exactly?" Erza asked, curious, but Makarov just waved her off.
"You'll see."
So we waited. There were no jobs posted anyway, and both my sister and I were genuinely curious about what kind of legendary mage warranted rearranging an entire city for his arrival.
It wasn't Gildarts who walked through the door first, though. It was Mirajane, along with Elfman and Lisanna. They'd just gotten back from a job.
"The hell is going on out there?" asked the girl, dressed in a crop top, mini-shorts with a skull on the belt, and thigh-high stockings.
Mirajane, having taken on the identity of a demon-tamer, for a whole lot of reasons probably, had been getting progressively more rebellious. A few months after joining the guild, her wardrobe had started to reflect that.
"You're wearing that again," Erza said, closing her eyes and folding her arms in her best disappointed school prefect impression.
"You got a problem with it?" Mirajane smirked, then curved around Erza and slid up next to me. "Unlike some people, Elian doesn't seem to mind at all."
She started posing. Deliberately.
God, the embarrassment. She's going to be hearing about this for the rest of her life.
My eyes narrowed in irritation.
Lately, to my endless annoyance, this had been happening more and more. I was half a second away from Requipping something pointy to chase the little pest off, but Erza beat me to it. She grabbed both of Mirajane's hands and physically shoved her away from me.
"How many times do I have to tell you, stay away from my brother!"
"And you're still this jealous!" Mirajane bared her teeth in a delighted grin.
"So what?! He's my brother! You have your own, go bother him!"
Elfman, who had been standing off to the side, quietly chose this exact moment to tactically relocate himself.
"Two is better than one! Why won't you share, brother-hoarder?!"
"Why would I share?! And who are you calling a brother-hoarder?!"
The two girls broke out of their mutual grip and latched onto each other's faces, pulling cheeks. That escalated into yanking, Mirajane's ponytail, Erza's braid, and then devolved into straight-up shoving, all of it accompanied by a steady stream of insults.
All I could do was cover my eyes with one hand and look the other way, like I'd seen absolutely nothing.
Objectively, Erza was stronger and could've flattened Mirajane. But things escalate gradually.
I hadn't asked, but knowing my sister, she'd probably decided on some deeply knightly principle to let her rival "grow into" a worthy opponent before crushing her. They weren't actually hurting each other. For now, at least. That part, I suspected, was temporary.
The squabble was still going strong when something else caught my attention. Not the door, nobody had opened it. It was the wall. In one second it sort of melted inward and just collapsed. Through the gap stepped a tall man in a cloak, orange hair slicked back, short beard on his jaw, standing just over six-foot-two.
He got here faster than I expected.
"Hey! You little punks!" Makarov shouted, jabbing his beer mug at the hole in the wall.
"Oh!" The newcomer stopped, his eyes locking onto the old man. "Master! Almost forgot I was even coming back."
A genuine smile spread across the mage's face. He started scanning the room with interest, looking over everyone who was staring back at him.
"So many new faces."
"You were gone a long time," Makarov said, sighing at the hole in the wall before steering the conversation. "How was the ten-year SS-rank job?"
"Done and dusted. Wrapped it all up."
A ten-year SS-rank job is exactly what it sounds like, an S-rank request so difficult that no one had managed to complete it in a decade. Brutally hard.
"And the thing for the exam?"
"Yep, just like you asked. Leveled a mountain and carved a nice big maze into it for the kids to run around in," Gildarts answered, just as cheerfully as before, like a dad who'd built a sandbox in the backyard.
The room went dead silent.
I, for my part, completely understood his perspective. The sheer amount of raw power rolling off this man was absurd. Why wouldn't he do something like that?
"You demolished an entire mountain?! And then built a maze in it?!" came a voice from somewhere in the hall.
"Wha-ha-ha-ha!" Gildarts laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Yep. Oh, and I also beat up and stuffed inside it—"
"Ahem!" Makarov cut in. "That's classified for now."
"Gildarts!" Natsu burst through the doors. "I heard you're the strongest! I'm gonna beat you and take that title for myself! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!"
Hollering and laughing, the Dragon Slayer launched himself at Gildarts with his fists blazing. Purely on reflex, Gildarts caught the kid by the head and flung him into the ceiling, where the son of a dragon lodged himself, completely out cold.
"Hm?!" Only then did the redhead start looking around. "Could've sworn I heard something."
"Alright, let's do introductions. That guy with the scheming eyes is Elian," Makarov said, jabbing his mug in my direction, and I gave a nod. "Those two girls currently fighting over him are Erza, red hair, and Mira, white hair."
"Not bad!" Gildarts glanced over at the girls for a second, aiming the comment at me. Then he exhaled, going a little nostalgic. "Ah, youth. I remember when three girls were fighting over me at once. What were their names… Martha… No, there was no Martha. Maybe…"
He started listing names, one after another, and from somewhere in the back of the hall I caught what sounded like an offended scoff from Cana.
Wait, she was one of them? What the hell is wrong with the teenagers in this place?
"You have my sympathies, man." I walked over and patted him on the stomach, since I couldn't reach any higher.
"Huh?" He didn't follow.
"And the one on the ceiling is Natsu," Makarov continued the roll call.
The old man kept jabbing his mug around until he'd introduced every new guild member. And since Fairy Tail's strongest mage had a habit of disappearing for over a year at a stretch, this took a while.
"Great to meet everyone!" Gildarts called out warmly, sweeping his gaze around the room like a proud father at a school recital.
The crowd of mages erupted like a celebrity had just walked in. For Fairy Tail, that was more or less exactly what had happened.
Then Makarov hopped up onto the second-floor railing and, apparently, decided it was time for a speech.
"Listen up, you little punks!" he bellowed, and the noise began to die down. Everyone looked up at the old man. "As I said before, and as is our tradition at the end of every year, Fairy Tail will be holding the S-class promotion exam!"
The crowd exploded again.
"I'm not done!" he yelled, waited for quiet, then smoothed his mustache. "Alright. The participants will be… Laxus…"
He started scanning the room, but couldn't find him.
"Where is he?" Makarov turned to the barmaid, who occasionally served as something like a deputy.
"He left for a job last night. Should be back tomorrow."
"Ugh… Well, we'll wait then. Ahem! Also participating will be… Elian. Erza. And… that's not many…"
"Master!" two men shouted in unison, throwing themselves back-to-back in a pose they clearly thought was extremely cool. I recognized them, the pair of repeat offenders who couldn't seem to pass the exam.
"Hmm," Makarov grumbled, pulling a face. These two had been in the guild for a while and had evidently failed the exam more than once. "…Fine! Wakaba and Macao are in!"
"What about me?!" Mirajane protested from under Erza, who was currently sitting on top of her.
If Natsu had been conscious, he'd have said the exact same thing.
"You're not ready yet."
With those words, every other mage in the room seemed to take it personally. Which, technically, wasn't wrong.
"See? I'm more experienced, more senior, smarter. So don't bother me, little girl," my sister declared, stepping off her opponent with the air of someone who'd just won a war. Both of them got up.
"I will have my revenge…"
"Revenge will only end in a bigger humiliation for you," Erza said coolly, and walked over to me while Mirajane huffed behind her.
After the announcement, the tension that had been hanging over the guildhall eased up. Most people found out they weren't in the running, so there was nothing left to stress about. Gildarts disappeared into Makarov's office to give his reports on however many months of work. I turned to Erza.
"Should we go get ready?"
"Yes." She gave a serious nod, and we left the guild.
The next morning, once a certain blond had returned, the exam candidates, along with Makarov and Gildarts as chief and secondary examiners, boarded a train bound for the mountains, where the first stage of the exam was set to take place.
"How did they even let weaklings like these in?" Laxus scoffed when we arrived at a broad mountain ridge. He was looking at the four of us, me, Erza, Wakaba, and Macao, though mostly at the latter two.
"Be ready to back that up," I told him flatly.
"Alright, enough, no fighting until you're inside!" Makarov cut us off. "Now then. What did you call it?"
The old man looked over at Gildarts, who was standing to the side, while the exam candidates stood in a line facing the seniors.
"The Maze of Paths!"
"Yeah?… Sure, that works."
"Hey! I worked hard on that!"
"On the maze. Not the name. Explain the setup."
Makarov turned back to face us, and everyone's eyes shifted toward the structure. The surroundings were open green fields, but alongside the tall cliffs around us there was another formation, a slab of rock nearly a kilometer across, with its top sheared clean off. Like someone had just cut straight through it, leaving about thirty feet of height, and carved wide passages through the stone flush with the ground. None of it was visible from where we stood, hidden behind the rock walls. But I'd already scoped the whole thing out using ray vision of the soul, and whoever built it had genuinely put in the work.
"The objective is simple: we'll draw lots to assign each of you one of five paths. Your goal is to reach the central arena within the time limit," Gildarts dropped the goofy act and laid it out plainly. "Each path has its own trial. One will have a horde of wild demons in your way. The second has a single S-rank monster. The third is puzzles. The fourth and fifth converge, and you'll have to beat whoever you run into. Clear?"
I raised my hand, keeping it polite. But instead of calling on me, Makarov spoke.
"No flying over the maze. No teleporting past the walls. No climbing the walls either. And no tunneling under them. You go through, on foot, through your trials. We'll be watching you, runts."
"How much time do we have?" I asked, a little less enthusiastically than I would've liked. It was pretty clear they'd already shut down every creative solution I might've had. Wonderful people.
"Thirty minutes," Makarov answered.
No more questions. The old man produced a closed box with a dark slot from his pocket dimension, walked up to each candidate, and we all drew a numbered tile.
It worked out that I drew last. By the time Makarov got to me, there was only one tile left.
"Number three, huh… You sure you didn't cheat?" He squinted at me.
"How could I?! You would've felt any Ethernano discharge," I countered, putting on my best affronted expression.
"Hmm… Something's fishy, but I can't prove it. Fine." The old man pocketed the box and stood up straight in front of us. "Alright. Path three is directly behind me. Paths one and two are to my right, going around the maze. Paths four and five are to my left. No interfering with other candidates until you meet inside. Now, the exam begins!"
The moment Makarov shouted, Laxus turned himself into lightning and shot right. Makarov leaped onto the wall in one bound and went after his grandson, presumably to make sure he didn't sabotage anyone before he was supposed to.
"No hard feelings if we cross paths. Better luck next time," Macao said to us, doing his best impression of someone very cool and confident.
"Right. The new rank's been waiting long enough," Wakaba confirmed, and the two of them took off in opposite directions.
"Good luck." I clapped my sister on the shoulder, and she did the same back.
"You too. And… we won't end up on the same path, will we?" she asked, looking at me. My answer was a grin that said everything. "That's so shameless. Typical you. See you soon."
She took off in the same direction as Wakaba. I was left alone with Gildarts.
"Something tells me my humble self is getting some special attention?"
"Gha-ha, fair catch," he smiled. "Master asked me to keep a close eye on you."
"Well. A bad reputation is still a reputation!" Not wasting Ethernano on any dramatic teleporting, I just bolted toward the entrance, barely tapping into my current reserves to reinforce my body. My speed jumped past thirty miles an hour as I tore forward like a car cutting through city streets. "How long did it take you to carve this thing?!"
I called back to Gildarts, who was keeping pace with me by running along the wall, about eighty feet out, as we passed the entrance marked with a large carved number three.
"A week! But I took my time! I was resting nearby between jobs!" came the answer.
"Not bad!"
The tall walls blurred past, one after another, like I knew exactly where I was going. In a sense, I did.
Then the trial shifted gears, not unexpected, but it wasn't slow about it.
I twisted sideways as three jets of fire erupted straight from the ground behind me. One turn and I was running up the wall, any parkour enthusiast would've been envious, to clear a bog that had materialized directly in my path. A kick off the opposite wall and I landed on the only platform available. Ahead of me, an otherwise unremarkable passage was covered in inscriptions indicating that someone had planted a barrier right past an impassable gap in the floor.
"That handwriting… Was this enchanted by Porlyusica?" I called up to Gildarts, who was perched on the wall beside me.
"Oh! You really are sharp."
"How did you even get her to leave her house?"
"Makarov personally sourced some rare herbs for her from the Council. She said she was testing new compounds."
"Hm…" I turned my full attention to the barrier. A large screen materialized on it, text reading:
_
A quiz for slightly less stupid idiots!
Question 1: State the full name of Fairy Tail's second master.
Question 2: …
…
P.S. Elian, if this trial somehow ended up in your path and you fail it, you're on test tube duty for a month! Everyone else: forget my address!!!
_
Honestly, I didn't even need to analyze the barrier's structure to figure out who made this.
"Precht Gaebolg…" I started rattling off answers one by one. The questions on the screen disappeared as I went, and the barrier opened.
"Didn't you say you can teleport?" Gildarts asked as I moved forward. "Through barriers, specifically. We weren't trying to block all your abilities."
"Oh, so a shred of conscience did sneak into these trials? Yeah, I can teleport. But I'm conserving energy," I explained, letting him see I'd thought it through.
A couple more turns, and I casually sidestepped two logs that swung out of the passage walls trying to knock me flat, like something straight out of a video game. I climbed up to a raised platform with a pedestal and grabbed what was sitting on it: a small sphere with three star outlines etched inside, only the first one filled in.
Two more of these to find.
"Hmm," came an offended little sound from above. "Your section of the maze is the biggest one, and it took the most time to build. But something tells me none of it will give you any trouble."
"Hah. The world isn't fair," I shot back with a smirk, and kept moving.
The arena was at the center. And knowing the way the universe tends to balance things out, I had a feeling I wasn't going to love whatever was waiting for me there. Makarov could be surprisingly thorough when he cared to be, and he'd want to test more than just navigation before handing out a promotion.
Still, that was a problem for later.
Right now, I had other things on my mind.
Then again. Things were, comparatively speaking, pretty easy on my end at the moment. Maybe it was worth taking a look at how the other candidates were doing?