After confirming that he hadn’t misheard, Gray cracked his knuckles and rotated his neck.
“Hehe, Cain, if you start crying in a second, don’t blame me for making you look bad.” Looking at Gray trying to act like a cartoon villain, Cain deadpanned, “Alright, drop the theatrics.” “Here I come!” Gray shouted.
He swung his right fist forcefully, aiming directly for Cain’s face.
Faced with the incoming strike, Cain’s mouth twitched.
He genuinely wondered if he had deeply offended Gray at some point.
Why is he throwing that punch like I murdered his entire family?
With a subtle shift of his feet, Cain effortlessly dodged the punch that would have definitely broken his nose.
Gray stared at Cain in shock.
“Hey!
You were the one who told me to hit you!
Why did you dodge?!
Are you messing with me?!” Reading Gray’s face perfectly, Cain explained helplessly, “Just don’t hit the face.” “Oh, oh.
Why didn’t you just say so?” Gray wound up and swung his fist again, but this time he aimed directly for Cain’s chest.
A solid bang echoed through the room.
Feeling the sharp, throbbing ache radiating from his ribs, Cain had to admit that Gray’s raw physical strength was actually pretty impressive for his age.
After landing the punch, Gray looked at him.
“Wanna go again?
I’m more than happy to keep helping you out with this.” Cain nodded.
“Yeah, hold on a second.” “Holy Light: Aegis!” A glowing magic circle manifested beneath Cain’s feet for a brief moment before fading away.
Gray looked him up and down but couldn’t see any visible difference in his appearance.
Cain took a steady stance.
“Alright, hit me again.
Just don’t hit the exact same spot.” Gray lunged forward and threw another heavy punch.
But this time, the sensation Cain experienced was completely different.
He could tell Gray had used roughly the same amount of force as before, but the impact against his chest felt heavily cushioned, and the resulting pain was significantly reduced.
My physical defense has definitely increased.
I’d estimate by about forty to fifty percent.
To get an exact percentage I’d need professional diagnostic equipment, but for practical combat purposes, this is already more than enough.
Cain was highly satisfied with the results.
This proved his theoretical approach to altering the node formulas was entirely correct.
“Cain, was that the new magic you’ve been working on?” Gray asked, finally realizing what was going on, his eyes wide with curiosity.
“Exactly.” Cain then briefly explained the entire development process.
Listening to him ramble about mid-level arrays and connecting nodes made Gray’s head spin, but he managed to grasp the most important takeaway: this spell significantly boosted defense.
Eager to experience it himself, Gray blurted out, “Cain!
Cast it on me!
Let me try!” “Sure.” Cain channeled his mana and cast Holy Light: Aegis on Gray.
A magic circle flashed beneath Gray’s feet before instantly dissolving.
Gray patted his chest and arms, feeling absolutely no physical change.
“Alright, Cain.
Give me a solid punch and let’s see.” Cain didn’t hold back.
Stepping forward with his left foot to plant his weight, he gathered his power and drove his right fist fiercely into Gray’s chest.
Staring at the incoming fist, Gray’s instincts screamed at him to conjure an ice shield to block, but he quickly forced the impulse down, reminding himself that he was testing Cain’s defense magic.
He gritted his teeth and took the blow raw.
Bang!
The punch connected solidly.
The sheer force of the impact forced Gray to slide backward across the floorboards until his back slammed against the wall.
But Gray was shocked to realize that his chest barely hurt at all.
If he hadn’t known for a fact that Cain’s magic was coating his body, he would have thought he was hallucinating the boy’s strength.
“Cain, this magic is incredible!
In a real brawl, if the other guy’s punches don’t hurt me but mine still hit him like a sack of bricks, I’d completely dominate!” Cain fully agreed with Gray’s logic.
“Exactly.
When you’re fighting an opponent of equal strength, a buff like this can easily become the deciding factor between winning and losing.” After wrapping up his session with Gray, Cain grabbed a quick breakfast in a fantastic mood and immediately threw himself back into his magical research.
He had only completed the development for Holy Light: Aegis; he still had two more spells waiting to be engineered.
Relying on the valuable experience he gained from fixing the node bottleneck in Aegis, it took Cain only an additional week to successfully develop the other two spells: Holy Light: Haste and Holy Light: Might.
Upon thorough testing, both the speed-boosting and strength-boosting spells yielded a solid forty to fifty percent increase, completely matching the efficiency of Aegis.
Furthermore, Cain discovered an interesting bonus: the stronger his baseline physical fitness was, the more potent the magical amplification percentage became.
This discovery brought an immediate smile to his face.
After all, physical conditioning was the one area of training he had never slacked on.
Ever since he purchased the adjustable gravity vest, he wore it under his clothes constantly, removing it only when he took a shower.
He hadn’t removed his original wrist and ankle weights either.
He was currently walking around with an extra 9 kilograms of dead weight strapped to his body.
It was manageable during casual conversations, but the moment he started his physical training, the strain became brutally apparent.
Before buying the vest, Cain could easily run 5 full laps around Magnolia with just his wrist and ankle weights.
But with the gravity vest activated, he was completely drenched in sweat and panting heavily after barely two laps.
This massive caloric expenditure meant Cain had to drastically increase his food intake to keep his body properly nourished, which inevitably caused his remaining savings to rapidly dwindle to zero.
Just as Cain was standing in front of the guild’s request board, hunting for a high-paying job, a series of booming horn blasts suddenly echoed across the city.
“Gildarts has entered the city.
Initiating Gildarts Shift.” “Gildarts has entered the city.
Initiating Gildarts Shift.” “Gildarts has entered the city.
Initiating Gildarts Shift.” The normally chaotic guild hall fell dead silent for a split second, only to immediately explode into an even louder, more frantic roar of excitement.
Phrases like “Gildarts is finally back!” and “Wow, that S-Class request took him quite a while this time!” bounced across the room.
Cain, who had been about to pluck a flyer off the board, froze.
Gildarts is back already?
Then that means…
Cana…
Cain immediately looked across the room toward Cana, who was sitting next to Gray.
He noticed her expression was an absolute mess of panic, intense excitement, crippling anxiety, and desperate longing.
Rumble…
Rumble…
BOOM!
Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the floorboards beneath their feet.
Gray, who had never experienced this before, panicked slightly.
“What’s going on?!
Is it an earthquake?!” “Gahahahaha!
Relax, young Gray!
It’s not an earthquake,” Macao explained with a grin, completely unfazed.
“The city is just activating the Gildarts Shift.” Although this was Cain’s first time experiencing it in person, he had seen it in the anime, so he remained perfectly calm.
The so-called ‘Gildarts Shift’ was a massive, city-wide mechanical defense mechanism engineered by the citizens of Magnolia specifically for one man.
When activated, the entire city literally split down the middle and rearranged its buildings, creating a wide, unobstructed path through the center of town straight to the guild hall for Gildarts to walk through.
The reason for this extreme measure was Gildarts’ unique magic: an incredibly high-tier spell known as Crash.
The magic itself wasn’t the issue; the problem was that Gildarts was notoriously absent-minded.
He had a terrible habit of zoning out while walking, and in his dazed state, his magic would activate subconsciously, instantly reducing any building or obstacle he accidentally bumped into into dust.
To save their town from constant reconstruction, the citizens of Magnolia had simply chosen to build the Gildarts Shift.
Staring out the window at the splitting city, Gray’s jaw completely dropped in absolute awe.
The sheer scale of the engineering spectacle before him was breathtaking.
Even Cain, who knew exactly what was coming, found himself stunned.
Seeing a town literally shift gears in real life was completely different from watching it on an animation screen.
Strolling casually down the wide, empty path created for him, Gildarts chuckled to himself.
“Ah, looks like everyone is still as welcoming as ever.” He kept walking toward the guild hall, but within a few paces, his eyes glazed over.
Sure enough, he had zoned out.
CRASH!!!
With a thunderous explosion, a massive section of the guild hall’s brick wall shattered into fragments.
Staring at the newly formed hole, Makarov’s veins bulged on his forehead, and he let out a furious roar, “YOU BASTARD!!!
USE THE FRONT DOOR!!!” Gildarts didn’t care about the scolding at all.
He stepped through the debris and let out a hearty laugh, “Hahaha!
Hey everyone, I’m back!”