"Danger rating: S-rank."
Silence.
The speaker's words left the gathering entirely silent.
A 13-year-old S-rank?
It was ridiculous.
'Guess, the council's information network can't be underestimated after all.' Kazu maintained his smile outwardly.
It had been a long time since he had gotten such a reaction from others.
"Did the Council make a mistake in assessment somehow?"
"It has to be somehow."
Just seeing an 18-year-old S-rank like Laxus is enough for most people's minds to be blown. But, for a 13-year-old? To put it simply, it was too absurd.
Jura had a smirk on his face. He had already foreseen this and had prevented Lamia Scale from making a losing bet. They will be rich along with Fairy Tail.
The crowd of the guild masters broke again into a chatter, this time too uncontrolled. The speaker tried to calm them down, but it was futile.
"Oii! Is this for real? Are you really S-rank?" Jenny whispered from beside him.
Kazu shrugged. "Well, I still have a considerable gap from Laxus, but it's not wrong to say that my threat level is S-rank." 'I still think they overestimated me according to the techniques I revealed. Or is it purely on my mission outcomes?'
"You sound like you are reading from a script." Jenny narrowed her eyes. Kazu's monotonous words caught him off guard. With such a ridiculous feat, Kazu had pretty huge bragging rights.
'No wonder he laughed when I said to be careful. For him, it must look like he was thrown into a children's fight.' Jenny still hadn't processed the new information completely. It was hard to believe that a boy the same age as her was already comparable to her guild master in strength.
Though the Council's standard for ranking was the bare minimum compared to other guilds, the gap between each rank was still almost the same.
An S-rank was a valuable resource for any guild. It takes multiple A-ranks with good teamwork to hold them off for a while. That also if their abilities are a counter to the S-rank.
"Isn't his Ethernano reserves too low for being S-rank? He barely has above-average reserves for his age?"
"Right. There must be some error."
Most of the guild masters were more worried about the bet they made, rather than Kazu actually being S-rank or not.
Makarov, the old fox, was laughing as if he were drunk. He had fooled all of them.
"This is going nowhere." Jura sighed before joining both of his hands together. A large amount of Ethernano rushed onto the ground, causing everyone to pause and instinctively jump away.
The last thing they had expected was somebody to use a spell here. Worst, the amount of Ethernano in that spell wasn't something to be taken lightly.
The ground around Jura rumbled intensely, as if causing an earthquake. Not only that, but the area of ground affected was rapidly increasing—rushing towards Kazu's direction.
"That's some spell." Kazu frowned. He sensed a large amount of Ethernano moving in the ground.
'The earth will erupt.' He quickly predicted the spell's outcome and immediately went into counterattack mode, focusing on the region that contained most of the Ethernano.
Yellow Ethernano covered his right foot as he raised it before slamming on the ground.
CRACK
The ground around him cracked under pressure, spider-web-like pattern appeared on the ground, emerging from his position.
The earth stopped rumbling.
Everyone landed on the ground again with grim or shocked expressions on their face. It wasn't due to the attack or Kazu countering it easily, but rather how Kazu handled it.
"He neutralised that large amount of Ethernano with so little Ethernano. Those magic circles are already at expert level..." Somebody voiced out the thought running in everyone's minds.
Despite acting unruly, they were still guild masters. Not everyone had high Ethernano capacity, nor did they have strong magic.
For those people, there is only one way to become strong—to master their magic.
The saying 'There is no bad magic. Just bad users.' is heavily influenced by it.
There are 5 stages of mastery for a magic type:
Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced
Expert
Wanderer
The first three levels come with a difference in the difficulty of learning spells. They have quite a big gap in the applications of magic between those levels. However, it's nothing compared to the next levels.
For reference, Kazu's barrier magic was currently at the advanced level. He was focusing on getting it to Expert level, which is his immediate goal.
Expert is the level 4, and it signifies that the mage could construct any of their spells in any way to solve any problem or situation at hand. The spells created by such an individual are the pinnacle of the limits of magic.
This was where most of the guild masters were present. Not only that, but a mage might be at this level for more than one magic. If the magics are complementary, then they are terrifyingly strong.
'Well, they are not wrong technically. The spell was technically at an expert level, but my Manipulation magic is not at the expert level. I have already reached Wanderer level in that.'
Wanderer was the level when a person broke the original limits of their magic and evolved it into something that the magic wasn't supposed to do. Only a few people had achieved such a feat.
Kazu had done this by creating Destructive and Constructive Interference. That was also one of the reasons he is almost unbeatable in close combat in a prolonged battle. If he has analysed your magic, then you are defenceless in close range.
If people knew that Kazu had reached wanderer level, then they might get a heart attack. Only Makarov was aware of it, and he was nonchalant about it.
"Amazing. No wonder you were so daring in the bets. You were hiding such a fierce talent." Goldmine patted Makarov's back, who just laughed.
The remarks about betting made several people frown, but they couldn't do anything now.
"I thought you weren't participating. We would have thought more about the bets then." Kazu shot a polite smile at Jura.
Jura raised a brow. "Thought more? Not changed it?"
Kazu smirked. "I am feeling a bit daring today. Moreover, I think in a prolonged battle, I could win."
A similar smirk crept up Jura's face. "Oh? Maybe we should test that claim. I am really excited to fight you." Ethernano surged out of it, creating intense pressure in the area.
Kazu took a combat stance.
"Hold it now! You two could do this in your personal time. We are already running out of time. Let's proceed with the original match." The speaker quickly stopped the fight. As much as he wanted to see it, it would delay the schedule by too much.
"Shame. Maybe next time, then." Kazu relaxed his body.
"Next time indeed." Jura smiled.
The guild masters and the speaker started going far away, leaving the 7 in the same area. Everyone started moving to a different position to make distance, except Kazu, who stood in the same spot.
"Good luck. Though you don't need it. Go easy on me." Jenny said before leaving.
"I will try."
"It seems you all are ready." The speaker used magic to increase his loudness as he glanced at everyone, checking their readiness.
He didn't say anything to Kazu, who was exactly in the middle of everyone, prone to attacks from all sides.
"BEGIN!"
SCREECH
Just as he said that, the sound of something violently moving through the air resounded in the surroundings.
BOOM
The next second, multiple booming sounds came from different sides, as if two things were colliding.
Dust blew away, leaving the way for spectators to watch.
Two people were lying on the ground.
Snow and Yagami.
Both of them were knocked out.
Everyone was a skilled person, so they saw exactly what happened.
6 bullets made of mana appeared around Kazu and shot at terrifying speeds at everyone.
Everyone had reacted, but the results were different.
Snow had cast multiple ice-walls, but they weren't enough to stop the bullet.
Yagami had sent multiple light beams, but they were demolished easily.
Sol had created multiple earth walls. They met the same fate as Snow's ice walls, but he had already escaped into the ground, not facing the same fate as her.
Lily had spat a poison beam, which had clashed with the magic bullet and consumed it, effectively neutralising it.
Sonic had disappeared from the position before the bullet could hit him.
Jenny had summoned an outfit, adorning her with thick armour. It was a unique-looking armour, which took the brunt of the magic bullet. Though she was thrown like a rag doll.
'Let's see. That nee-chan's ice magic was not bad. But Gray's is way better. Though I wonder if he could defeat her in a one-on-one. Then, that guy's light magic was not bad. But it was too weak. Even master's spell was way stronger than his.' Kazu glanced at the two knocked-out figures for a second.
He then glanced in Jenny's direction. 'I would have mistaken it for requip magic if not for observing her spell directly. That's Takeover magic. Guess, there's more to her than being Mira's future modelling rival.'
"You should not let your guard down on a battlefield." Kazu's eyes widened.
***
17/50. Vote if you want a Double release.
***
Thank you to Rabbit of Caerbannog for joining my Patreon
***