After the battle, both sides were forced to stop fighting.
Jellal joined the guild.
So far, the three giants of the Witch's Sin from the original story had all joined Fairy Tail.
During the following months, Caesar maintained a normal life while carefully putting his plans into motion.
First, he had Jellal begin taking requests as an official member of Fairy Tail, completing missions to build reputation and gather resources.
Then he found Ultear, who had come back to reunite with Ur, and instructed her to locate the Six Demon Generals, known as the Devil's Heart.
After that, Caesar secretly spread information about Nirvana through the dark guild communication network, intentionally directing the clues toward Jellal in a way that looked coincidental.
In the original story, Brian sought out Jellal because he had once worked for the Magic Council and had access to classified information about Nirvana's location.
Caesar mirrored this idea, claiming that Jellal had infiltrated the Council and knew the secret himself.
Of course, Caesar could have taken credit for the intel, but he worried that if the dark guilds learned he was involved, they might hesitate to act because of his reputation as one of the Ten Wizard Saints. That would be troublesome.
Naturally, Caesar already knew the location of Nirvana. The books he had studied during his time in confinement were not wasted.
But for Jellal, it was different. He had only recently been released from prison and lacked strong connections. His recent arrest also made others underestimate him. Since his information was supposedly stolen rather than earned, it weakened his credibility.
Caesar believed that if Brian didn't target Jellal despite such favorable conditions, it would be a disgrace to his ambition.
However…
Caesar underestimated the patience of the dark guilds. Even though he had created perfect circumstances for them to make a move — and even though Jellal occasionally traveled to remote areas to complete missions — the Six Demon Generals refused to act.
This irritated Caesar deeply and made him a bit ruthless during that year's S-Class wizard assessment.
With all the S-Class wizards of Fairy Tail present, the lineup was overwhelming. As a result, every candidate failed the S-Class trial that year.
The atmosphere in the guild was gloomy for quite some time.
Cana was particularly frustrated, since her opponent in the assessment had been her own father, Gildarts.
As an S-Class wizard and an overprotective father, Gildarts knew better than anyone the dangers of S-Class missions. Though he adored Cana, he took this matter seriously. Until she reached the level of strength he expected, he refused to let her advance.
And his standard? Simple — she needed to be able to defeat both Erza and Mirajane together.
Upon hearing that, Cana cried herself unconscious in the guild restroom.
…
Caesar spent the New Year with Mirajane, Elfman, and Lisanna.
By now, the calendar had reached the year X784 — the beginning of the main story.
"The story's about to start," Caesar murmured as he lay on his bed, with Mirajane sleeping soundly on his shoulder.
"I've changed so many things by now. The original timeline must be completely broken. But it doesn't matter. As long as I reach red card rank, I'll have enough power to destroy the black dragon."
When he thought of Acnologia, Caesar's right leg throbbed faintly.
His strongest attack from before had shattered his leg while also breaking Acnologia's chin. It hadn't done much lasting damage to the dragon, but it had definitely hurt.
"Three hundred gold cards from the alchemist class have been collected," he muttered. "Still missing thirty-six Philosopher's Stones. I wonder if I can find them early in the plot. After that, I'll need to focus on collecting Merlin cards. Spending this much is insane."
Caesar sighed inwardly. With the amount he had spent, he could have bought a small kingdom, yet he still hadn't reached gold card level. These pay-to-win systems really weren't cheap.
"Sleep now. Tomorrow I'll take another job to hunt dark guilds. Hopefully, I'll find a rich target."
Caesar closed his eyes and drifted to sleep with Mirajane in his arms.
The next day, he accepted a dark guild elimination mission. Mirajane didn't join him this time — the enemy wasn't strong, and Caesar could finish it within two hours.
Besides, the guild's usual barmaid had taken a day off, and Mirajane filled in temporarily. The pay was 8,000 J a day — pretty good money.
Three hours later, Caesar sat on a pile of rubble, holding the mission document in one hand and staring at a group of tied-up dark mages. A vein twitched on his forehead as he sighed.
"Seriously… so poor."
The commission reward was only 2.6 million J, and the spoils added up to just 500,000 J worth of supplies. Caesar, irritated by their lack of money, smacked them around again.
The bound dark mages were speechless.
Their guild had just gone through a major investment and spent most of its funds. There really wasn't anything left to steal.
"I know where there's more money! Please, just let me go!" one of them blurted desperately.
"I know too! I'll tell you!" shouted another.
"Me too! It's at the Mammoth Black Market! Our guild master spent 30 million J there! Go there, and you'll find loads of cash!"
"Yes! The Mammoth Black Market! Tons of money!"
Caesar's eyes lit up immediately.
"Thirty million J? Not bad."
He picked the first man who mentioned it and tied up the others for later.
Then, under the man's lead, Caesar arrived at the so-called Mammoth Black Market — an underground cave filled with stolen goods.
Three minutes later…
Boom!
An enormous explosion echoed through the air, turning the entire cave into a smoking crater.
Caesar walked out calmly, satisfied.
"Yep. Robbing a guild doesn't pay nearly as well as robbing the whole black market."
After the raid, he gained over 300 million J in coins and rare magic items worth more than 1 billion J in total. No one knew where these people got their goods, but Caesar took everything.
Even better, the Mammoth Black Market was under the control of the Six Demon Generals, who collected tribute from it every year.
By destroying it, Caesar had just crippled one of their main sources of funding.
If they didn't retaliate after that, he'd award them a "Ninja Turtle Medal" for patience.
Selling the confiscated items to the Council — officially "trading" them — Caesar earned more than 1.4 billion J in total.
In a great mood, he converted all of it into the game system's currency. As he walked back toward Magnolia, Caesar smiled, summoning cards from the pile of glowing spirit stones in his hand.