For a young man who had just recovered the fragmented memories of a past life, accepting reality would usually take time.
However, Natsu Dragneel did not have the luxury to simply sit and reflect.
The dense forest where he found himself stranded left no room for hesitation.
The feral roars echoing in the distance served as a constant reminder that this place was no safe playground.
Armed with the memories of his first life as a human on Earth—and his knowledge of the anime’s plot—Natsu knew exactly how things were supposed to play out.
In the timeline he knew, shortly after Igneel sealed himself away, a short, elderly man—Makarov Dreyar, the Master of the Fairy Tail Guild—was meant to find him in the woods.
Makarov would offer him a hand, take him to Magnolia, and from there, his grand adventure would begin.
But knowing the future also meant knowing the terrifying threats that awaited him.
Acnologia the Black Dragon, Zeref and the Alvarez Empire, the demons of Tartaros, and a myriad of other formidable foes.
Natsu clenched his fists tightly.
If he just idled away the days waiting for Makarov to fetch him, he would be nothing but a burden.
Worse still, he might not even survive the sheer scale of the battles looming on the horizon.
Therefore, Natsu made a resolute decision: he had to train like a madman, starting right this second.
His grueling new routine began at sunrise and didn’t end until the dead of night swallowed the forest.
Natsu adapted the fighting styles and extreme physical conditioning he recalled from his anime memories.
He sprinted up steep mountain slopes with massive tree trunks slung across his shoulders.
He performed thousands of push-ups with giant boulders resting on his back, and relentlessly pounded his fists into sheer cliffs until the rock shattered, relying on his latent draconic regeneration to rapidly heal his battered body.
Yet, this physical conditioning was merely a fraction of the challenges he faced.
The forest itself was a ruthless battlefield.
The flora was completely alien, and the air felt oppressively dense with pure magical particles.
Worse still were its inhabitants.
The woods were teeming with monstrous beasts Natsu had never seen before.
Every single day was a fight for survival against these colossal, savage creatures.
There was one peculiar trait about the monsters in this forest, however.
Whenever Natsu managed to defeat one, its body wouldn’t leave a corpse; instead, it would disintegrate into dust, leaving behind a glowing magical stone on the ground.
Throughout his training, Natsu diligently gathered these magic stones, storing them in an open clearing.
Days turned into months, and he continued to collect and pile them up, until eventually, the heap of magical crystals towered high, forming a literal mountain of stones that radiated an incredible magical aura.
In between his brutal fights and torturous training, Natsu always found a moment to sit atop the highest branches.
He would gaze out toward the forest’s edge, scanning every corner with piercing eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bald old man who was supposed to arrive.
“Maybe the old man is just busy, or he got lost somewhere,” Natsu muttered one afternoon, trying to comfort himself as his first year in the forest came to a close.
But the seasons continued to change without mercy.
Bone-chilling winters gave way to scorching summers.
Years passed.
The forest that had once been a deadly threat was now nothing more than his playground.
The monsters that had once given him so much trouble now scattered in terror at the mere scent of him approaching.
His relentless training never ceased, but his hopes of seeing Makarov began to completely erode.
Slowly, Natsu came to terms with reality.
The temporal collision within the Eclipse Gate must have thrown him wildly off his intended trajectory.
He wasn’t in a forest near Magnolia.
He probably wasn’t even in Fiore, but stranded somewhere else entirely.
Makarov was never coming to save him.
Five years passed in the blink of an eye.
Standing tall in a meadow adjacent to his mountain of magic stones was a teenage boy.
Natsu Dragneel was now fifteen years old.
His body was no longer small and frail; he had grown tall, with dense, flexible, and perfectly sculpted muscles forged through half a decade of life-and-death battles.
His gaze was razor-sharp, exuding the undeniable aura of an apex predator.
His tattered clothes bore silent witness to the harshness of the wilderness, though the white, scaly scarf Igneel had left him remained spotless and wrapped tightly around his neck.
Natsu took a deep breath.
As he exhaled, searing steam hissed through his teeth, causing the surrounding air to warp and ripple from the intense heat.
He raised his hand, slowly clenching it into a fist.
The magical flow within his body now felt like an endless ocean of fire, yet one completely under his absolute command.
Thanks to five consecutive years of hellish, unyielding training, his power had surged to a terrifying level.
Drawing upon his anime knowledge, Natsu tried to gauge his current strength.
He was certain that his power had long since shattered any normal limits.
If he were to fight going all out, his base level was at least on par with the upper echelons of the Spriggan 12.
In fact, he estimated that if he unleashed his sealed power—combining his E.N.D.
Form and Fire Dragon King Mode simultaneously—his total destructive output could likely rival that of Irene Belserion, the strongest mage of the Alvarez Empire.
Acutely aware of this immense destructive potential, Natsu stared down at his palms.
In the anime timeline he knew, whenever the demonic form of E.N.D.
awakened, Natsu would invariably lose his sanity.
He would rampage uncontrollably, entirely consumed by dark instincts.
The current Natsu, however, retained absolute control.
His mind remained crystal clear, his sanity firmly intact.
Natsu smiled faintly as he pondered his best guess for this anomaly.
The reason he hadn’t lost control was that the collision of three lives within his mind had forged an absolute equilibrium.
Those three past lives divided the immense burden of his power into three anchoring pillars.
The first pillar, his human form, acted as the anchor for his consciousness and logic.
The second contained the encroaching darkness of his E.N.D.
persona.
The third harnessed the draconic savagery inherited from Igneel.
It was the harmonious balance between these three distinct axes that suppressed his feral nature, allowing Natsu to wield extraordinary power without the fear of losing himself entirely.
A strong gust of wind swept through the clearing, scattering leaves around his mountain of magical stones.
Natsu turned on his heel, gazing out toward the edges of the forest he had yet to explore over the past five years.
His time for waiting was over.
It was time to step out into the world and discover exactly where in Earthland he had landed.