Porlyusica finally left after making it painfully clear that if anyone reopened their wounds she would personally finish the job herself. The door shut behind her, and for the first time since the chaos, the guild hall felt… still.
Just Makarov, Gildarts, Levy, and the newest problem sitting on the table.
Makarov dipped the stamp into ink and pressed the Fairy Tail emblem firmly onto Jinx's left forearm. The mark flared faintly as it settled into his skin, then darkened into place.
The old master lingered there a moment, staring at it.
"…Jinx," he said at last, voice thoughtful, "after hearing Macao and Wakaba's account… something's been bothering me."
Jinx glanced at him. "What exactly I am?"
Makarov nodded.
Jinx stretched his arm a little, examining the mark like he'd expected it to feel different. "Simple answer? I do have magic." He tilted his head. "But it's not my main power source."
Gildarts leaned against a pillar. "Then what is?"
Jinx looked between them. "Cursed energy."
Levy perked up immediately. "Cursed… energy? Another form of magic?"
"Not really," Jinx said. "Closer to spiritual pressure. It comes from negative emotion—fear, anger, regret, grief. Jujutsu sorcery is the system built to control and weaponize it."
Levy blinked. "So… different rules entirely?"
"Very different," Jinx said. "You can blast it out, sure, but that's the worst way to use it. Most of its strength comes from innate techniques—abilities you're born with. They shape how your cursed energy behaves."
He tapped his temple lightly. "They manifest young and carve themselves into the person over time. You can't copy them. You can't learn someone else's. They're basically eighty percent of what makes a sorcerer dangerous."
Makarov and Gildarts exchanged a look.
Gildarts scratched his jaw. "You said 'sorcerers' plural. There were more of you?"
Jinx hesitated, eyes unfocusing slightly. "My memory's… incomplete. But I know I'm not from this era. Back then, we didn't have mages. We had something called haki—raw willpower made tangible. Strong enough and one person could bend the world."
That earned a quiet whistle from Gildarts.
Jinx continued, "As for cursed energy ranks, easier to explain in your terms."
He counted on his fingers.
"Grade 4 — rookie mage.
Grade 3 — competent fighter.
Grade 2 — recognized combat mage.
Semi-Grade 1 — veterans.
Grade 1 — lower S-Class level.
Semi-Special Grade — high S-Class.
Special Grade — Wizard Saint-tier threats."
He paused.
"…And then what I remember glimpsing—Calamity Grade. Not stronger. Categorically different. More like a natural disaster wearing a person's shape."
Silence lingered.
Makarov looked troubled.
Gildarts, on the other hand, looked fascinated.
"…If this cursed energy exists," Gildarts said slowly, "can someone learn it?"
Jinx considered him for a moment. "Maybe."
He gestured. "Sit."
Gildarts raised an eyebrow but complied, dropping onto a nearby bench.
Jinx placed both hands on either side of Gildarts' head and closed his eyes. A dark, viscous aura bled from his palms—deep violet, almost liquid, writhing slowly in the air like heavy smoke underwater.
Levy's breath caught.
"…I can see it," she whispered.
Jinx's eyes opened slightly. "…You shouldn't be able to."
Gildarts stayed still as the energy seeped gently around his mind, probing rather than forcing.
Jinx frowned faintly. "Interesting…"
Before he could continue—
The guild doors slammed open.
Mira, Erza, Natsu, Elfman, Laxus, and Lisanna froze mid-step.
The scene they walked into was… concerning.
Natsu didn't ask questions.
Flames roared around his fist as he bolted forward.
"Got you now, you bastard! FIRE DRAGON'S IRON FIST!"
Lisanna reached out. "Wait, Natsu—!"
Too late.
Jinx barely turned his head.
His eyes shifted—red, a single tomoe forming.
Their gazes met.
For Natsu, the world changed.
The flames around his arm flickered once… then vanished as his body collapsed forward, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
The illusion released instantly.
Jinx looked back at the others, voice flat. "He charged first."
No one moved for a second.
Even Laxus didn't speak.
Levy stared between Natsu and Jinx, realization slowly dawning across her face as she looked again at that strange red eye.
(timeskip)
A couple hours later, Jinx found himself drifting through Magnolia with no real destination in mind, hands in his pockets, shoulders loose, just letting his feet decide where to go while his head sorted through everything that had happened since he woke up in this world. The whole situation with Natsu was already fading into the background for him, not because it wasn't important, but because it didn't feel complicated enough to hold his attention—he reacted, Natsu rushed, Natsu dropped, and that was that. What stuck more was what he'd overheard afterward, bits and pieces of conversations from guild members talking among themselves, timelines, names, events, enough for him to piece together one important thing.
Five years.
Five years before things really started moving.
"…That's a lot of time," he muttered to himself, glancing up at the sky as he walked. "Or not enough. Depends how annoying this world wants to be."
The problem was, he didn't actually know what was coming. He had fragments—faces, fights, vague arcs—but nothing concrete. He barely made it twenty episodes into the anime before dropping it, never touched the manga, so whatever future he was supposedly "preparing" for was more guesswork than anything else.
He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through his hair.
"…I'll deal with it when it shows up."
That sounded easier.
Thinking too far ahead felt like work, and right now, he wasn't in the mood for work.
His steps slowed as he passed the library, gaze lingering on the building for a second before he shrugged lightly and pushed the door open. If he wasn't going to think about the future, he could at least understand the present a little better, and that meant figuring out how this world's magic actually functioned beyond the surface-level stuff.
Inside, the quiet settled over him immediately, the kind of stillness that made every small movement feel louder than it should be. Rows of books stretched out in every direction, soft light filtering in through tall windows, dust drifting lazily in the air like it had nowhere else to be.
"…Yeah, this works," he murmured, already moving deeper in.
He wasn't here for history. That sounded like a headache waiting to happen. Instead, he went straight for anything related to magic theory, Ethernano, spell construction—anything that explained how this world worked rather than what it had done.
Pulling a book off the shelf, he dropped into a chair and flipped it open, skimming at first, then slowing as the information started lining up with things he already knew.
Ethernano. Ambient magical particles. External energy.
Magic power. Internal conversion. Output shaped by the user.
"…So basically nature energy with extra steps," he muttered, tapping the page lightly.
It wasn't identical, but the parallels were obvious enough that his brain started linking the systems together without much effort. External energy drawn in, refined internally, then released through technique—Naruto's nature energy, chakra control, all of it had echoes here.
He leaned back slightly, eyes scanning ahead.
"…That's useful later."
Not now.
Now would require effort.
And he wasn't doing that yet.
What actually pulled him in wasn't the mechanics—it was the timeline. Or rather, how short it was.
He flipped back a few pages, reading more carefully this time.
"Four to five hundred years…" he said under his breath, brows pulling together. "That's it?"
For a system this complex, this widespread, this refined… that didn't make sense.
Everything before that?
Gone.
Not partially recorded. Not poorly preserved.
Just… gone.
"…So something wiped it," he murmured, gaze drifting slightly. "Or something rebuilt it."
Neither option sat right.
He didn't dwell on it long, though. The next section caught his attention before he could spiral too far into that line of thought—magic creation.
Now that was something he could actually work with.
"…Manipulating a concept and simplifying it into a function," he read slowly, letting the words settle. "Yeah… that tracks."
Elemental magic made sense in that framework. Fire, water, wind, earth—you weren't inventing the concept, just shaping what already existed. Still difficult, but grounded. Understandable.
Abstract magic, though?
Charm. Memory. Space. Time.
Jinx let out a quiet breath through his nose.
"…That's not shaping anymore."
That was interpretation.
You had to understand the concept deeply enough to compress it into something usable, something repeatable, something stable. That wasn't just power—that was knowledge, perspective, imagination all working together.
Which meant the real limiter wasn't magic itself.
It was the user.
"…Figures," he muttered, flipping another page.
Affinities came next.
Loose definitions. Broad categories. Sometimes absurdly specific.
Fire magic. Water magic. Darkness. Earth.
Then branches, variations, subtypes layered on top of each other in ways that made the base concept almost unrecognizable.
Jinx lifted his hand slightly, watching a faint flicker of purple flame curl into existence above his palm.
"Purple Flare…"
The flame shifted as he watched it, thinning into something almost gaseous, then condensing slightly, the texture thickening just enough to feel heavier—almost solid for a brief moment before dispersing again.
"In a normal world," he murmured, eyes narrowing slightly, "this would be nonsense."
Fire didn't act like that.
But here?
It did.
Because affinity wasn't just about what something was—it was about how you understood it.
Fire could burn, sure.
But it could also bind, strike, take shape, hold form.
And if you pushed it far enough…
It could become something else entirely.
"…So the limit isn't the element," he said quietly, gaze sharpening. "It's the interpretation."
That thought lingered as he kept reading, attention catching on more extreme examples.
God Slayer Magic.
Heavenly Body Magic.
Concepts that didn't just manipulate reality—they redefined it.
Gods as an attribute. Space itself as a medium.
"…Yeah," Jinx muttered, closing the book halfway and resting it against his knee. "That's not learned. That's given."
Or maybe…
Carved into someone before they even knew what they were holding.
The theory section at the end only reinforced that idea—suggestions that either gods or nature itself assigned affinities, shaping magic based on something deeper than conscious thought, something tied to existence itself.
"…So the system isn't complete," he murmured, staring at the page without really seeing it anymore.
There were gaps.
Too many gaps.
Things that didn't line up cleanly with what the books were trying to explain, like someone had taken a finished system, broken it apart, and rebuilt it without all the original pieces.
His fingers tapped lightly against the cover.
"…Yeah," he said under his breath, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "There's more here than they know."
Outside, Magnolia kept moving, the city slowly stitching itself back together after everything that had happened, while inside the quiet of the library, Jinx leaned forward again, flipping the page like he wasn't done yet—not even close—as the pieces in his head kept shifting, connecting, and leaving just enough space for something new to form.
Jinx leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his temple like he was trying to squeeze the thoughts out manually, staring at the page without really reading it for a second.
"…yeah, nah," he muttered under his breath, exhaling slowly. "Thinking too hard is not it."
It wasn't even that the information was complicated—it wasn't—but the way everything connected kept branching out, one idea feeding into another until his brain just decided it was done for the moment. Not overloaded, just… annoyed. Like he'd spent energy he didn't feel like spending.
He let his head tilt back for a second, eyes half-lidded, then sighed and pushed himself forward again, flipping the page with a lazy flick of his fingers.
Magic circles.
That was the whole reason he even picked this book up in the first place.
Back in his old world, that had always bugged him—the way magic circles just kinda… disappeared later on. No explanation, no real reason besides "things got faster" or "animation changed," and he'd always hated that kind of handwave answer.
"…alright," he murmured, scanning the text. "Let's see what you actually are."
The explanation was simpler than he expected.
Stability.
That was the core of it.
Magic circles weren't just flashy visuals or some kind of ritual requirement—they were frameworks. A way to stabilize magic for people who couldn't fully control raw Ethernano manipulation yet.
He tapped the page lightly.
"Yeah… makes sense," he said quietly.
A beginner couldn't just grab raw mana and shape it cleanly. Too many variables. Too much room for it to collapse or misfire. A magic circle acted like a guide—something that took the concept, the structure, and locked it into place so the user didn't have to figure everything out on the fly.
But what actually caught his attention was what came next.
Even masters used them.
Jinx's eyes narrowed slightly as he read that line again.
"…of course they do."
Not because they had to.
Because it was efficient.
A magic circle didn't just stabilize—it amplified, streamlined, reduced the mental load of casting. You could push more power through it with less risk, less strain, less room for error.
It was the safe option.
The reliable option.
But then—
He flipped the page again, leaning forward a bit now.
"…and here's the trade-off."
Raw casting.
No circle.
Just the user, their body, and their control over Ethernano.
Faster.
Way faster.
Because there was no setup, no framework to form, no delay between intent and execution. It moved at the speed of thought, shaped by movement, instinct, muscle memory.
But—
"Yeah, there it is," Jinx muttered.
Unstable.
It relied entirely on the user's precision. Their control. Their ability to shape, compress, and release magic without anything external helping them.
If your control slipped?
Spell collapsed.
Backfired.
Or just didn't work at all.
And boosting power that way wasn't simple either.
You couldn't just dump more magic into it like you would with a circle—that just burned you out faster. You needed reinforcement techniques, buffs layered on top, efficiency pushed to the limit just to keep things from tearing themselves apart.
"…so it's skill over structure," he said, almost to himself.
Magic circles were structure.
Raw casting was skill.
One was safer.
One was faster.
And both had their place.
Jinx's fingers drummed lightly against the book as he kept reading.
There was another detail.
"…you can spawn them anywhere," he murmured.
That part mattered.
For someone experienced enough, a magic circle didn't need to be drawn, etched, or prepared. It could be formed instantly, wherever you wanted—mid-air, underfoot, around a target—so long as you had the visualization and intent to shape it.
Which meant at higher levels, the line between "with a circle" and "without a circle" got blurry.
"…so the real difference isn't the circle," Jinx said quietly, eyes narrowing a bit as the idea settled. "It's how much you rely on it."
He leaned back again, letting the book rest against his knee as his gaze drifted slightly.
Beginners needed circles.
Veterans used them because they were efficient.
Masters… chose.
And the ones who stopped using them entirely?
Those were the ones who trusted their own control more than anything external.
Jinx let out a slow breath, staring at his hand for a second as faint traces of energy flickered at his fingertips—magic, cursed energy, overlapping systems sitting in the same space without fully mixing.
"…yeah," he muttered. "That tracks."
Different systems.
Same principle.
Control vs support.
Structure vs instinct.
He closed the book halfway, not because he was done, but because his brain was already shifting to something else, something just slightly off about how all of this fit together, like there was a piece missing between what the book said and what actually happened in practice.
And he didn't feel like letting that thought go just yet.
I closed the book with a quiet thump, fingers lingering on the cover for a second as if there was something left I hadn't pulled out of it yet, but I already knew if I kept reading my brain would just start pushing back again, so I stood up instead and stretched lightly, letting the stiffness shake out of my shoulders before making my way out of the library. The air outside still carried that late-afternoon warmth, the kind that made everything feel slower, softer, like the day hadn't decided to end yet, and even though I could feel that familiar pull toward sleep creeping in the back of my mind, I ignored it for now and let my feet carry me forward anyway, because sitting still too long felt worse than being a little tired.
I wandered without much thought at first, just letting the streets open up around me, people moving past in steady rhythm, the city settling back into itself after everything that happened earlier. Magnolia wasn't loud in the same way Fairy Tail was, but there was still a kind of constant motion to it, something alive in how people talked, traded, argued, laughed, and I found myself drifting toward the busier side of things without really deciding to.
Eventually, the buildings shifted, storefronts getting cleaner, signs more polished, and I realized I'd ended up in the shopping district.
"…yeah, that tracks," I muttered, glancing around as I slowed my pace a little.
This place was built for everything. Regular shops, food stalls, small stands mixed in with larger, more specialized stores, but what stood out more than anything was how many of them were geared toward mages. Armor displays, weapon racks, enchanted tools, items I could feel faint magic humming off of even without trying to look too closely. Magnolia wasn't just a town with mages in it—it was a town that ran on them.
And Fairy Tail?
Yeah… they had weight here.
You could tell just from the way some of the shopkeepers talked when members passed by, the familiarity, the way discounts weren't even questioned. I caught a snippet about Erza at one point—ten percent off, apparently standard—and I couldn't help but huff quietly at that.
"…makes sense," I thought. "She probably keeps half these places in business."
Her whole magic revolved around equipment, and not cheap ones either. If anything, the discount was probably less a favor and more an investment on the shop's end.
I slowed in front of one of the larger stores, gaze drifting over the display before I stepped inside without much hesitation.
"Hmmm… I don't have any money," I thought lazily as the door shut behind me, "but looking's free."
The first thing that hit me was how organized everything was.
Not just clean—structured.
Sections were divided clearly, not just by item type but by level, like the whole shop was built around progression. Beginner gear closer to the entrance, then gradually moving up into more refined equipment as you went deeper in, with prices and quality scaling alongside it. Weapons, armor, utilities, all arranged in a way that made it easy to tell exactly where something stood without needing to ask.
"…that's actually kinda nice," I murmured under my breath, hands slipping into my pockets as I walked further in.
Nothing here felt cheap.
Even the lower-end gear had weight to it, proper craftsmanship, materials that didn't feel like they'd snap under pressure. I didn't need to touch anything to tell—it was just obvious from the way things were made, the way they were displayed, like whoever ran this place actually cared about what they were selling instead of just pushing inventory.
I drifted past a rack of armor, eyes scanning over the designs, noting how some leaned heavier into reinforcement magic while others were built more for mobility, the balance between protection and movement shifting depending on the intended user.
"…they really expect people to grow through this place," I thought, gaze shifting toward the deeper sections where the more expensive items were kept.
Each section felt like a step up, not just in cost but in expectation.
Beginner gear assumed you were still figuring things out.
Mid-tier assumed you knew what you were doing.
The higher-end stuff… that was for people who had already found their style and were just refining it.
I paused near one of the displays, eyes narrowing slightly as I studied a weapon infused with a faint magical current, not enough to overwhelm, but enough to enhance.
"…not bad," I muttered.
For a second, I considered how something like this would interact with cursed energy, how the two systems might overlap or clash depending on how they were layered, but I stopped myself before the thought could go too far.
Too much thinking.
Again.
"…later," I decided, shifting my weight slightly as I moved on, letting my attention drift instead of locking onto anything too hard.
For now, it was enough to just take it in—the structure, the design, the way this world handled power not just in theory, but in practice—and let those pieces settle somewhere in the back of my mind without forcing them to fit together yet, because something about all of this still felt like it was missing a piece, and I wasn't in the mood to chase it down just yet as I kept walking deeper into the shop, eyes moving, mind quieting just enough to keep going without pushing too far.
After a few more minutes of wandering without really committing to anything, just letting my eyes drift from one section to another, I eventually found myself near the back of the shop where the layout subtly shifted. The spacing between displays widened, the lighting dimmed just enough to make the items stand out more, and the tags changed from simple labels to something a little more… intentional.
Higher-end.
Newer.
More serious.
"…so this is where they keep the good stuff," I muttered under my breath as I stepped closer, hands still tucked in my pockets.
A small tag caught my attention—new arrivals—and beneath it sat a set of weapons that immediately stood out from everything else I'd seen so far. Not just in design, but in presence. The kind of thing you didn't need to touch to know it wasn't normal.
A few swords, mostly.
Each one had its own little description, something about enchantments, elemental affinities, usage notes… I skimmed through them the same way I had everything else so far, not really stopping, not really caring enough to dig deep.
"Yeah, cool… fire enchantment… reinforced edge… blah blah—"
Then I got to the last one.
I almost walked past it.
Actually, I did walk past it—until something in the back of my head caught up half a second later and forced me to stop mid-step.
"…hold on."
I turned back slowly.
And then I actually looked.
My brain stalled.
"…no way."
Sitting there, like it had every right to exist in this random shop in Magnolia, was a blade I knew way too well.
The Dark Moon Greatsword.
My jaw dropped before I even realized it.
"…you're kidding me."
I stepped closer, slower this time, eyes narrowing as I leaned in just enough to read the description properly, half-expecting it to say something completely different and prove I was just reaching.
It didn't.
Apparently, the blade had been forged recently using the scales of a dead ice dragon—actual dragon scales—which, from what I'd read earlier, weren't just rare, they were borderline mythical in terms of material value alone. And somehow, someone had gotten their hands on enough of them to make a weapon out of it.
"…that's already insane," I muttered quietly, eyes scanning further.
But it didn't stop there.
The remaining scales—what little they had—were left to soak in moonlight for an entire year before forging even started. Not metaphorically. Literally left under open sky, absorbing lunar energy over time until the material itself changed.
Then the forging process itself?
Done in the far north, in a region where night lasted for half the year.
Meaning the entire blade was shaped, tempered, and completed under constant moonlight.
I let out a slow breath, staring at it now with a lot more focus than I had anything else in the shop.
"…so it's not just aesthetic," I murmured. "It's built around the concept."
Moonlight magic.
That was the core.
With cold as a natural byproduct, not the main feature.
Which immediately reminded me of something—somewhere in the back of my memory—something about a moon-related dragon slayer.
"…moon dragon…" I muttered, frowning slightly as I tried to grab the name.
Nothing came.
"Whatever," I said, waving it off lightly. "Point still stands."
The sword itself practically hummed.
Not loudly. Not aggressively.
Just… present.
Like it was aware of its own existence.
I stared at it for another second, then finally—finally—looked down at the price tag.
…
…
My soul left my body.
"…two million?"
I blinked once.
Then again.
"Two million jewels."
I leaned back slightly, one hand coming up to my face like that would somehow help process what I just read.
"…yeah, no," I said flatly. "That's not a price. That's a life decision."
I glanced back at the sword, then at the tag, then back at the sword again, like maybe it would change if I checked twice.
It didn't.
"…I could probably level a small town for less," I muttered, half to myself.
For a second, I just stood there, staring at it, weighing absolutely nothing because I already knew the answer.
No money.
No chance.
Not even remotely close.
Still…
My eyes lingered a little longer than they should've.
"…yeah," I exhaled quietly, hands slipping back into my pockets as I looked it over one more time. "You're definitely coming home with me."
Not now.
Obviously.
But the thought stuck anyway, settling somewhere in the back of my mind as I turned slightly, like I was going to walk away—but not quite fully letting go of it yet, because something like that wasn't the kind of thing you just forget after seeing it once.