A New Life in Fairy Tail

Guild Masters Bob and Goldmine were incredibly grateful for the detailed intelligence report on Acnologia. Armed with this terrifying knowledge, they could at least begin formulating absolute worst-case scenario emergency evacuation protocols.

They knew perfectly well that fighting the Black Dragon was impossible, but given that it had already attacked Tenrou Island, they had to be prepared for the terrifying possibility that it might attack their respective cities next. If it did, having even a fraction of a second of advanced warning could be the difference between evacuating a city and total annihilation.

After concluding his visits and personally thanking every individual who had helped Fairy Tail, Noah returned to the guildhall. He forcefully dragged Laxus behind the bar to manage the administrative paperwork, completely ignoring the Lightning Dragon Slayer's grumpy protests, and teleported back to Tenrou Island to begin his real work.

He headed straight for the massive Grimoire Heart airship parked in the forest.

His first objective was to systematically copy every single physical document, research log, and grimoire aboard the vessel, digitizing the entire archive into his personal Archive magic network.

Simultaneously, he dispatched a Thought Projection to the deepest, most heavily fortified section of the airship: the engine room housing the 'Devil's Heart.' This dark, pulsating, biomechanical engine was the absolute pinnacle of Precht Gaebolg's life's work.

As Noah began to meticulously deconstruct and analyze the Heart, he couldn't help but marvel at the sheer, terrifying genius of the second Guild Master. The Heart utilized a vast array of highly complex, obscure, and deeply unethical magical theories that Noah had never even encountered before. Even standard magical principles were twisted and applied in utterly foreign, wildly innovative ways to achieve maximum efficiency.

Noah was instantly captivated. He dove headfirst into the research, rapidly absorbing and dissecting the decades of experimental data and structural engineering contained within the Heart.

If Ultear, Erza, and the other girls hadn't strictly forbidden him from pulling all-nighters, and explicitly forced him to set an alarm to return home for dinner and sleep every single day, Noah absolutely would have forgotten to eat or rest.

Given his monstrous physical constitution and the recent starlight purification, going a week without sleep or food wouldn't actually harm him. But the girls refused to let him neglect his basic human needs, constantly nagging him to come home.

Noah actually enjoyed their nagging. He hadn't felt this profoundly, deeply excited about magical research since his childhood.

It wasn't that his passion for magic had faded over the years; rather, he had simply hit a plateau. Between Fairy Tail's massive library, the public archives of Fiore, the restricted texts he had accessed through the Spirit World, and his incredibly vast personal experience, Noah had essentially learned almost everything the modern magical world had to offer.

New magical theories certainly emerged daily, but given Noah's god-like comprehension speed, he could usually decipher the underlying mechanics of any new spell simply by watching it cast once. Unless a spell was fundamentally groundbreaking, he could instantly replicate it without breaking a sweat.

Lately, reading new magical journals had simply offered him minor alternative perspectives, rather than fundamental breakthroughs. He had been forced to rely entirely on his own genius to pioneer new fields of magic to continue growing. Makarov, drawing on his decades of experience, was the only person in the guild who could occasionally offer him a helpful piece of advice.

But now? Gaining unfettered access to the complete, uncensored life's work of a magical genius on par with Zeref was a monumental windfall. It was like suddenly finding a massive, completely unexplored continent of magical theory.

The new knowledge rapidly expanded Noah's theoretical database, granting him profound new insights into the fundamental mechanics of the arcane.

Of course, a massive portion of Precht's research was derived from horrific, deeply unethical human experimentation—something Noah would never, ever replicate. However, the raw, clinical data collected from those atrocities was invaluable. By analyzing the data, Noah uncovered countless hidden truths regarding human biology, magical mutation, and the absolute limits of the magical container.

Furthermore, Precht's theoretical scribbles and unfinished hypotheses sparked a massive surge of inspiration within Noah. He frantically scribbled down dozens of new theories and potential spell frameworks to research later.

Noah spent every single day completely immersed in his research. If the girls hadn't forced him to return home every night, he would have gladly locked himself in the airship indefinitely.

However, after only a few days of this blissful routine, Ultear returned home one evening with a message: Makarov needed to see him at the guildhall first thing tomorrow morning.

Noah was slightly confused. The Acnologia crisis was resolved, and the guild's daily operations had stabilized under Laxus's grumpy supervision. What could be so urgent?

The next morning, Noah teleported directly into the guildhall and walked up to Makarov.

"You called for me? Did something happen?" Noah asked.

"Yes. It's about your Nominative Requests," Makarov stated bluntly.

"Exactly. Over the past few days, as the news of our return officially spread across the continent, we've received an absolute avalanche of new commissions. And at least half of the high-end ones are addressed specifically to you," Laxus added. He reached under the bar counter and pulled out a massive, terrifyingly thick stack of request flyers, slamming them onto the counter. There had to be at least a hundred flyers in the stack.

"Huh?! That many?" Noah blinked, genuinely startled.

Even combining every single regular and S-Class request the guild normally received in a month wouldn't equal a stack that thick.

"The guild's been incredibly busy these past few days," Laxus pointed toward the massive Request Board across the hall.

Noah looked over. The board was completely plastered with overlapping flyers, and dozens of guild members were crowding around it, eagerly snatching up jobs. The guildhall was noticeably emptier than usual; the vast majority of the members were already out working.

"That's great news for the guild's finances. But as I said before, I really don't want to take Nominative Requests. They're almost always tedious, overly complicated political favors that pay terribly," Noah sighed, leaning against the counter.

"Just look through this stack first before you complain," Laxus smirked, gesturing to the flyers.

Noah frowned, picking up the top flyer from the massive stack.

"Wait... this is an S-Class request?"

He hadn't looked closely at the stack initially. Reading the details on the first flyer, he saw the classification was officially S-Class, and the reward was a staggering 8,000,000 Jewels.

"They're all S-Class requests," Laxus corrected him, urging him to flip through the stack.

Noah quickly flipped through the flyers. Laxus wasn't exaggerating. Every single request in the stack was classified as S-Class, and absolutely none of them offered a reward lower than 8,000,000 Jewels. In fact, numerous requests offered payouts well over 10,000,000 Jewels. The 8-million Jewel request on top was actually the lowest-paying job in the pile.

"These S-Class Nominative Requests flooded in over the last forty-eight hours. The clients are all incredibly wealthy—heads of massive international conglomerates, high-ranking nobles, and even foreign royalty. The missions themselves aren't actually dangerous or overly complex. The vast majority are simple, high-profile escort/bodyguard jobs, and a few are requests to privately tutor their heirs in magic.

"Since the volume is so massive, and the jobs themselves are ridiculously easy for someone of your caliber, I called you back to pick a few. Flat-out rejecting every single Nominative Request from these high-profile clients would significantly damage your public reputation, and by extension, the guild's standing.

"Don't worry, I already had Laxus filter out all the tedious, low-paying, and overly complicated requests," Makarov explained.

Laxus had literally thrown out another stack of flyers identical in size to the one on the counter.

Makarov knew exactly why Noah hated Nominative Requests: they were annoying and poor value for the time invested. Noah vastly preferred straightforward S-Class subjugation missions—teleport in, locate the monster, vaporize it, teleport back, and collect the massive bounty.

However, ignoring this many incredibly wealthy, influential clients was politically disastrous. Completing a few of these filtered, high-paying, ultra-easy requests was a necessary political compromise to maintain Fairy Tail's pristine reputation.

"Are you saying you want me to just send a Thought Projection to handle these?" Noah asked, quickly understanding Makarov's angle.

"Exactly. These missions are completely trivial. Furthermore, I noticed several of these requests came from conglomerates that actively partner with Jude Heartfilia's trade empire. Rejecting them outright could negatively impact his business relationships," Makarov pointed out.

It was obvious Jude had been heavily promoting Noah and Fairy Tail during his business meetings. Now that Noah's apocalyptic combat strength had been publicly confirmed by the Magic Council following the Acnologia incident, these massive conglomerates were desperate to secure his services to bolster their own prestige.

"Alright, that makes sense. I'll send a Thought Projection to knock these out. If the projection runs into an issue it can't handle, my true body can always teleport over," Noah agreed. He sifted through the stack, pulling out roughly a dozen of the absolute highest-paying requests.

Makarov nodded in satisfaction. A Thought Projection powered by Noah's current magical capacity was significantly stronger than the vast majority of official S-Class mages; it would effortlessly handle these escort and tutoring jobs. This solution perfectly protected their political relationships, earned the guild a massive chunk of money, and allowed Noah's true body to remain on Tenrou Island and focus entirely on his crucial research.

Noah handed the dozen flyers to Laxus to officially register. He then manifested a Thought Projection, handed the registered flyers to the clone, and watched as it instantly teleported out of the guildhall to begin the jobs.

"Is there anything else? If not, I'm heading back to the airship. I'm right in the middle of analyzing the Devil's Heart," Noah said, eager to return to his lab.

"That's all. You can go. Just remember to get enough sleep," Makarov chuckled.

"I will. Ultear and the girls threaten to drag me out of the ship by my ears if I don't come home for dinner, so I literally don't have a choice," Noah smiled wryly.

"Good. That's good," Makarov laughed.

Noah turned to leave, but suddenly remembered something crucial. He stopped and looked at Laxus.

"Hey, do me a favor. Remind everyone in the guild that while the money is flowing in right now, they need to save as much as they possibly can. Tell them not to blow it all on booze and parties. They're going to need a lot of liquid capital very soon. I'm going to start running a few high-paying subjugation missions on the side to massively inflate the guild's central treasury, too."

"I'll tell them. But why? What do they need the money for?" Laxus asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a surprise. I haven't finalized the details yet, so I'll explain later," Noah smirked, refusing to elaborate.

"Fine, keep your secrets," Laxus sighed, waving him off.

"See you later, Grandpa," Noah waved to Makarov, his figure blurring and vanishing as he teleported straight back to Tenrou Island to resume his research.

Because he kept getting sidetracked by fascinating new theories and complex magical frameworks, it took Noah several more days to fully digitize the entirety of Grimoire Heart's archives into his personal network.

To ensure the rest of the guild could benefit from the knowledge, Noah dispatched a Thought Projection back to the guildhall to silently upload the sanitized, non-lethal portions of the archives directly into Fairy Tail's central magical library via his Archive magic.

Shortly after the projection left, Noah received a direct telepathic communication from Yajima. The former Councilman requested an urgent meeting.

Intrigued, Noah paused his analysis of the Devil's Heart and teleported directly to the outskirts of Era. He casually strolled into the Magic Council headquarters and located Yajima in his private office.

"You asked to see me, Grandpa Yajima? Is something wrong?" Noah asked, taking a seat.

"Quite the opposite, my boy! I submitted your detailed intelligence dossier on Acnologia to the Council. The information you provided is absolutely invaluable; it finally gave the Council a concrete understanding of the apocalyptic threat we are dealing with. As a result, the Council formally voted to grant you a highly classified, Level-A reward for your contribution," Yajima smiled warmly.

He leaned forward, pulling a pristine, magically sealed crystal card from his desk drawer.

"I know perfectly well that you have zero interest in political titles, medals, or financial compensation. So, I used my influence to convert your reward into something you actually want: this card grants you unrestricted, Level-1 clearance to the Magic Council's deepest, most heavily classified magical archives."

"Seriously?! That's incredible! Thank you so much, Grandpa Yajima!" Noah's eyes lit up instantly, an expression of pure, unadulterated joy spreading across his face.

This was the absolute best reward he could have possibly received. The Magic Council's archives were meticulously categorized by security clearance. Previously, Noah only possessed Level-3 clearance, granting him access to standard historical records and intermediate magical theory. The truly ancient, highly restricted, and potentially catastrophic magical knowledge was locked tightly behind Level-1 and Level-0 clearance.

While Yajima technically possessed Level-1 clearance as a former Councilman, he was bound by absolute, unbreakable magical oaths that physically prevented him from sharing classified intelligence with unauthorized individuals. He couldn't just tell Noah what was in the restricted archives.

To officially secure Level-1 access for a non-Council member—even one as strong as Noah—Yajima must have called in every single political favor he possessed and argued tirelessly on Noah's behalf. Noah was incredibly grateful.

"I knew that would put a smile on your face," Yajima chuckled, seeing Noah's excitement. All his intense political wrangling to secure the clearance was entirely worth it to see the young genius this happy.

~~~

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