Chapter 20
"It’s already been more than a year... Time really does fly."
A full year had passed since Marshall joined Fairy Tail.
So much had happened without him even realizing it.
Gildarts had returned a few times before leaving again, several new members had joined the guild, and Marshall had completely settled into his new life in this world.
He had encountered very little real trouble.
Whenever anything did happen, the lunatics in Fairy Tail practically fought each other for the chance to deal with it first.
The only major incident occurred not long ago, when Makarov expelled his own son Ivan—Laxus’s father—for endangering the guild.
Apparently, Ivan had been trying to uncover Lumen Histoire, which was why Makarov finally threw him out.
Marshall had "accidentally" overheard the details, but the matter did not interest him much.
Laxus had gotten into a furious argument with his grandfather afterward, and the scene had turned rather ugly.
Still, Marshall had never been close to Ivan, while Laxus spent every day acting insufferably arrogant.
He had no intention of running over to comfort another man.
Ivan was a complete bastard anyway. Almost no one in Fairy Tail had liked him to begin with, so his expulsion barely affected the guild.
Nobody give a damn.
As for everything else that had changed over the past year, the greatest difference was naturally Marshall’s own abilities.
His basic attributes had improved considerably.
[Energy: 36/36]
[Stamina: 30/30]
[Magic Power: 505/515]
Unfortunately, his seven-year-old body had not even begun developing yet, so he was still painfully small and fragile.
Then again, the real problem was that he had far too many things to do and hardly any time for physical training.
His core skills, however, had all improved substantially.
[Telepathy Magic LV4: 37,786/10,000,000]
[Spatial Magic LV2: 15,086/100,000]
[Script Magic LV2: 7,364/100,000]
[Magic Power Control LV2: 1,415/100,000]
[Meditation LV1: 9,156/10,000]
Over the course of a little more than a year, Marshall had raised three abilities to Level Two.
Based on the data he had collected, focusing almost entirely on one skill allowed him to gain roughly twenty thousand experience points per year.
Assuming Marshall were merely a talented native Mage without a system, learning a new spell would take several days to reach Level One, around half a year to reach Level Two, four or five years to reach Level Three, and close to fifty years to reach Level Four.
Reaching Level Five within an ordinary lifetime would be almost impossible.
That made it easy to understand just how blessed naturally awakened prodigies truly were.
Marshall’s Telepathy Magic had begun at Level Four the moment it awakened, a level most ordinary Mages could spend their entire lives chasing without ever reaching.
Of course, skill level did not directly equal combat strength.
After studying magic for a year, Marshall had come to understand one simple truth.
Battles between Mages were ultimately battles of magic power.
If magic power represented raw stats, then magic itself represented mechanics.
Differences in spell level only truly mattered when two Mages possessed similar amounts of magic power.
If one Mage’s reserves overwhelmingly surpassed the other’s, they could crush their opponent even with nothing more than Level One magic.
That did not mean spell levels were useless.
Different forms of magic could counter one another, and most battles did not involve an absolute difference in magic power.
There were also countless variables in an actual fight, leaving plenty of room for tactics and skill.
Gray, for example, possessed Level Two Ice Magic and Level Two Molding Magic, but only had a little over two hundred points of magic power.
Marshall had Level One Fire Magic, Level Two Molding Magic, and more than five hundred points of magic power.
If they fought using only those abilities, the result would be difficult to predict.
Once Marshall added Level Two Spatial Magic, however, Gray would probably lose.
On the other hand, Gray’s Energy and Stamina were both far higher than Marshall’s.
If they exhausted all their magic power and had to settle the fight with their fists, Marshall would be the one getting beaten.
Erza was an entirely different matter.
Her Energy, Stamina, magic power, and spell level were all far above Gray’s, which was why every fight between them ended in a completely one-sided defeat.
A Mage’s strength could never be judged from a single number.
There was one situation, however, where skill level became overwhelmingly important.
If two people had similar magic power and used the same kind of magic, then the one with the higher skill level held an absolute advantage.
A young man named Warren had recently joined Fairy Tail. He also used Telepathy Magic, but his skill was only around Level Two.
Whenever both of them used Telepathy at the same time, Marshall suppressed him completely.
Marshall could detect the fluctuations from Warren’s spell, intercept the information he transmitted, and even insert fabricated messages into his connections.
Warren, meanwhile, could not detect the slightest trace of Marshall’s Telepathy.
When two people used the same kind of magic with such a large difference in mastery, it was less of a contest and more of a complete dismantling.
Of course, if Warren possessed as much magic power as Gildarts or Makarov, then he could probably overpower Marshall’s Telepathy through sheer force.
Magic power simply mattered too much in magical combat.
Once the numbers became high enough, magic truly became capable of miracles.
Makarov had even told him that some people could ignite their emotions in the middle of battle like the protagonist of a battle manga, temporarily releasing far more magic power than they normally possessed and completely reversing the situation.
Marshall’s only response was that this world relied far too heavily on feelings.
He was not the kind of fighter who suddenly became stronger by shouting about friendship.
If he ever encountered an enemy who could pull that nonsense, he would probably get blindsided and killed.
Clearly, his best option was to remain in the beginner area until he had overleveled so badly that nothing outside could threaten him.
But he was getting off topic.
Aside from his core skills, Marshall had also learned an enormous number of Level One spells.
Among the ones worth naming were:
[Crash Magic LV1]
[Fire Magic LV1]
[Ice Magic LV1]
[Enhancement Magic LV1]
[Smoke Magic LV1]
[Light Magic LV1]
[Lightning Magic LV1]
[Earth Magic LV1]
[Wood Magic LV1]
[Giant Magic LV1]
[Transformation Magic LV1]
[Water Magic LV1]
[Sand Magic LV1]
[Shadow Magic LV1]
[Card Magic LV1]
[Metal Magic LV1]
Learning a new spell offered far too much value to ignore.
Whenever Marshall had spare time, he picked up another one.
He had raised almost every spell he could learn naturally to Level One. If he could not learn it, he simply forced it up with Inspiration.
Marshall might not have been the strongest young Mage in Fairy Tail, but he was undoubtedly the one who knew the most kinds of magic.
No one would argue if he called himself an all-element Mage at this point.
His current Inspiration reserves were even more outrageous!
[Inspiration: 660,528!]
Six hundred and sixty thousand points!
Marshall earned an average of around fifty thousand every month and had spent very little, preferring to hoard as much as possible.
That amount was enough to raise six Level Two skills to Level Three.
And yet, Marshall still thought he was accumulating points too slowly.
The number looked enormous at first glance, but even spending every last point would not be enough to push a single skill from Level Three to Level Four.
At this rate, it would take nearly ten years to barely raise one skill to Level Five!
How many decades did a person even have?
If leveling remained this slow, how was he supposed to become completely unrivaled?
His cheat was still far too weak.
’It would be nice if I could spend Inspiration directly on my basic attributes...’
Marshall froze.
’Wait.’
’Have I overlooked something?’
"Marshall! Marshall~"
A girl’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
The next moment, Marshall appeared downstairs in his house.
He loved teleporting so much that he had developed a habit of instantly appearing behind anyone who called his name.
That was also the main reason his Spatial Magic experience had risen so quickly.
"Cana... What is it?"
Cana was wearing a floral dress today.
When she turned around, her black hair brushed past his nose, carrying the sweet scent unique to a young girl.
Her happiness was completely undisguised, and a bright smile filled her face.
"Marshall, we agreed to watch the stars together tonight, remember? Your big sister is here for our date~"
"Uh... It’s still afternoon."
"We need time to prepare! Come on, come on! Take me shopping. We’re going to buy loads of delicious food!"
Half a year ago, Erza had finally saved enough money to move out of Marshall’s house.
After that, Cana at last gave up on repeatedly challenging her.
Their final record ended at eighty-one victories to zero in Erza’s favor!
Cana’s magic power was not much lower than Erza’s, and among people their age, she was unquestionably exceptional.
The real problem was Card Magic.
It offered enormous versatility, but its direct combat ability was fairly mediocre.
Marshall had learned Card Magic himself.
It could be combined with many other spells and was extremely powerful as support or logistical magic, but using it as someone’s main combat discipline left them in an awkward position.
He had suggested that Cana study another kind of magic, but she did not seem particularly concerned.
Once Erza stopped pressuring her, Cana even grew lazy about training.
Whenever Gildarts returned in the past, Cana used to linger around him and repeatedly test the waters.
After several subtle hints failed to get any reaction, however, she simply gave up.
Now, even when Gildarts came back, she barely paid attention to him.
Instead, she devoted herself entirely to Marshall and became a hopeless siscon!
Marshall was not sure how he was supposed to feel about that.
He had once considered clearing up her misunderstanding that he was another one of Gildarts’s illegitimate children.
By now, however, his relationship with Cana was no different from that of real family.
Whether he told her the truth no longer seemed important.
Marshall treated Cana like a younger sister he was raising, while Cana spoiled Marshall like her precious little brother.
They each followed their own interpretation, and somehow, it worked perfectly.
"Tonight is July seventh of the year X777—the Day the Sun and Moon Cross!" Cana announced excitedly.
"It’s an extremely rare celestial event. My fortune-telling says tonight will be a night of destiny, and something wonderful is bound to happen! There’s even a very high chance we’ll see a shooting star!"
Still holding Marshall’s hand, Cana looked both proud and delighted.
"A special night like this is something a brother and sister have to spend together! We might even get to make a wish on a falling star!"