Chapter 66 - Second Trial, The cursed cave of Mt. Hakobe

The four remaining examinees moved across the vast icy terrain on the mountain tops of Mt. Hakobe. Blizzards blew through them with their powerful winds of cold however the only ones affected were Freed and Cana.

Ultear had natural resistance to cold, while Laxus just wasn't bothered by it thanks to his natural physique and lighting coating from his magic.

The four candidates searched for any caves they could find, some led to a dead end while others went deeper within the depths of the mountain.

Laxus got himself stuck within the cursed living cave withing an hour and a half, having zoomed past a multitude of caves across the vast terrain of Mt. Hakobe!

"Hmpf," Laxus smirked, "This will be easy. I don't know what the old man is thinking." He murmured and rushed deep into the cave, looking for a way to leave.

The one who found it second was Cana, a bit over two hours into the trial. She ended up stumbling across it after destroying a multitude of caves that were not what she was looking for.

Once she found herself in the living cave, she shouted. "YES! I got in! Now how do I get out..." She scratched her head. "Whelp, violence is always the answer." She said nonchalantly in a rather innocent sounding tone, not fitting her words' meaning in the slightest.

Then she began smashing her way through walls of ice and stone alike.

The cave reacted promptly and began attacking her, which she honestly couldn't care less about as the Crash energy vaporized any attempt the cave had at harming her.

The third person to find the cave a bit after Cana was Ultear, she decided to leisurely walk through the cave at her own pace.

Any attempt the cave had at harming Ultear was negligible to the Ice wizard, she could easily stop the attacks with her own magic.

Perhaps no one was more comfortable inside of that cave than Ultear at the moment.

The final person to find the cave was Freed who took nearly six hours to do so, he had been flying over the terrain which had made it difficult to find anything within the blizzards.

He opted for going on foot, in order to both have an easier time spotting caves and also to save up his magic power, however that removed his advantage completely and immensely slowed down his advance.

Six hours in, all of the examinees were inside of the cursed living cave of Hakobe mountain, looking for anything that could be an exit.

"Now they're all in, Gramps." Arthur spoke up, having witnessed Freed enter through his clairvoyance.

"Good, time to deploy the obstacles..." Makarov said whilst scratching his chin, a grin formed across his mouth as Arthur and Ur began their work.

"{Ice Make: Rose Golem Army}!" Ur created dozens and dozens of ice golems at at time with a rose like decoration all over their bodies, they had thorns all over and seemingly had roots running down their feet.

"Do they have to be this fancy?" Arthur smiled wryly.

"Why not, I quite like roses." Ur said.

"Yeah, roses are really nice. {Multi Gate}" Arthur replied and created a single gate in front of the golems, waiting for each of them to pass through.

Golem after golem walked up to the gate, each receiving an enchanted word on their bodies from Arthur before going through and appearing at a different place inside of the cursed cave.

Soon, the four examinees would be faced with a hundred golems each on their current paths.

Laxus was moving the quickest, so he faced them first. Seeing the huge number of ice monsters didn't even faze him as he roared, "{Lightning Dragon Roar}!" Opening his mouth wide, he created a huge thunder orb that formed in between his jaws before bursting into a giant wave of electricity!

The attack washed past the golems' central row, already having decimated them in the same moment they reacted to his presence.

Laxus had managed to destroy nearly thirty with just that one attack, ending the golems before they could even use their enchantment moves.

Whistling, Arthur praised, "Even better than I thought... You go Laxus!"

"What happened?" Ur asked in curiosity.

"He just blew up thirty golems all at once." Arthur replied nonchalantly.

Whistling, Ur commented as well, "Sheesh! Even with your enchantments?"

"Yep. I'm rather impressed, they didn't even get to use them." Arthur explained while raising a hand slightly to his side.

"Say, Arthur, can't you show us what you're viewing somehow?" Erza asked.

"Yeah, that'd be nice. I'm getting rather bored just sitting around and waiting ya know?" Gildarts mentioned with a sigh.

"Hmmm... I haven't tried it before, but let's see... {Screen}!" Arthur said and created a holographic screen with a blue magical hue surrounding its edges, it was very similar to a mirror. "Hm... {Connect: Clairvoyance}." Arthur continued, point his hand towards the mirror like screen whilst speaking.

The screen then turned into one cut into four different views, each showing the participating examinees.

"You've been looking at them all at the same time?" Ur exclaimed, a little surprised at his mental capacity to do that.

The four of them were rather far from one another after all, that living cave expanded for many kilometers deep underground, not to mention it had magical defenses and always changed its shape.

"Yeah, I've been practicing with Clairvoyance for a while now... I can probably look at over twenty different spots at once at this point." Arthur shrugged.

"Rather impressive I must say," Makarov spoke up, "and this will definitely help us monitor them. The only reason I even opted for this exam trial was Arthur's very presence, being as we can't interfere by ourselves if something were to happen inside the cave." Makarov explained.

Everyone nodded to those words and looked back to the screen, watching how the examinees fare against the new found enemies.

…

Back inside the cave, Laxus dodged multiple attacks made of ice, steel and fire alike. The enchantments that Arthur had placed onto the Golems were ones that stored different spells inside of them, Arthur simply needed to shoot out the spells whenever he felt like using them.

The spells were ones such as, {Spiraling Flame}, {Lightning javelin}, {Ice spear}, {Steel spikes}, {Cruel sun}, {Ether Spiral Orb} or otherwise known as Rasengan, {Flame Pillar}, {Gravity Zone x10} and more!

Laxus ended up facing a golem that used the ten times gravity zone boost, pushing him to his knees in a sudden surprise for the dragon slayer.

"Tsk!" Clicking his tongue, Laxus kicked off the ground and managed to gain enough speed to dodge the golem's attacks. However he was obviously far slower than usual now.

"{Lightning Dragon Fist}!" Laxus roared, slamming his fist into the gravity ice golem in order to break the spell, then continued on to another! One after one he smashed them back into mere ice cubes.

Laxus dodged many of the spells thrown at him, pushed through and defeated all the enemies swiftly.

"Seems like we found us a winner." Gildarts commented with a grin.

"Aye, Laxus' improvements are astounding." Makarov said, smiling happily as he was very proud of his dear grandson.

'My how far that little rascal has come... I just wish his attitude would return to that loving boy once more, before his father was exiled from the guild...' Makarov thought on his mind, sighing soon after from the slight regret.

There wasn't anything else he could have done with his son, Ivan. That man had gone too far astray from the right path.

Ur turned her gaze to one of the other screens, "Freed on the other hand..." She spoke up, "Even after all that training I put him through..." she facepalmed, looking at the poor lad who was struggling with her Ice golems.

He had defeated nearly twenty of them, however he was starting to get overwhelmed. Arthur had to tone down the difficulty for him but it was still not enough, he tried to escape the enemy which was a wise decision however it proved to be impossible as he got surrounded, trapped inside of his own barrier.

"Damn it..." Freed murmured, huffing out one cold breath after another. "This might be the end of the line..."

He was bruised up rather well, the cold was getting to him and there were even burnt marks from the flame throwing golems that Arthur had enchanted.

He was done for in this exam.

"I guess that's all he's capable of for the moment, he did well for his first time." Erza spoke.

"Yeah," Makarov sighed, "get him out of there Arthur. We've seen enough."

"Right away, {Gate}" Arthur said and opened a portal, walking through it and next to Freed who was still trapped behind his barrier.

"You can't go further Freed, you can try again next year." Arthur said with a smile and gave him a hand to help him stand up.

"Ugh... I wish I did better, as Laxus' right hand I should have done better..." Freed seemed a little disappointed in himself, but he still took Arthur's hand and got up. Leaving the cave together with Arthur.

Once they were back at the hut on top of the mountain peak, Freed quickly sat down and began to rest.

Cana and Ultear had a similarly hard time with dispatching the golems, however just like Laxus they managed to get rid of them.

They were exhausted, however it was manageable.

Nine hours after the second trial started, Laxus found a patch of Hakobe ice. It was a magical wall made of glowing ice with a blue hue. He knew there was something special about it as the walls stopped attacking him once he was near it.

He smashed it, took a chunk of it out and began to roam once more with it, the hakobe ice lifted the maze-like curse and stopped the walls from attacking. Allowing Laxus to exit the cave and return to the hut after about ten hours since the start of the trial.

The second to find the Hakobe ice was Cana, she stumbled onto it after fighting off a giant ice monster that dwelled in the cave. Once she figured out what it did, she managed to find a way out of the cave.

It took her nearly nineteen hours to get out, and she was beyond exhausted by the time she arrived at the hut with Arthur's help.

Were it not for her highly trained physique from both Gildarts' and Ur's training, she would have likely been frostbitten by now. The poor girl was shivering nonstop after getting back to the hut.

Gildarts made sure to warm her up with numerous hugs and tears, worried about his baby girl after seeing her exhausted condition up close.

"Waaaaaa! Cana my baby, don't worry! Daddy's here now! Huhuhu... I'm here so rest up dear, okay? Okay?" He squeezed her tightly in his embrace.

Gildarts was a real worrywart when it came to his daughter, even bawling his eyes out when she was in the most minor of troubles.

The proud Ace of Fairy Tail was acting like an worried ol' mom... A funny sight really.

"Dad! You're embarrassing me! And your beard is prickly! I'm fine okay... Sheesh." Cana said whilst trying to escape his grip, however in her tired state she could only surrender to the bear like hug.

"Hahaha!" Arthur and the others shared a laugh over the scene, Laxus and Freed didn't pay it too much heed though, while Erza simply chuckled.

"Here Cana, have a blanket and some hot choco." Arthur walked up to the father and daughter pair and handed the girl some essentials for fighting off the cold.

"Thanks Arthur-nii," Cana smiled as much as she could through her still freezing face, "I'm really craving for that choco right now! Hehehe~"

While the others were in a good mood, Ur shifted her gaze to the now singular monitor screen. "Now for Ultear..." She spoke, holding her hands in prayer as she looked onto her hard-working girl.

Ultear had now spent nearly twenty-three hours doing the second trial, even for her it was starting to get cold. Having not slept since the day prior was also taking its toll on her, she was never physically gifted and even with all the training she did her physique was still far behind the rest of her peers.

The slow march she had to do due to the small encased cave's surroundings had made it nearly impossible for her to finish the exam on time, yet she still had hope.

Ultear did eventually find the Hakobe ice, easily discerning it's purpose and smiling victoriously at the find! Her exhaustion was very evident at that moment as her smile quickly faded, incapable of supporting her own cheek muscles she began to walk towards the exit again.

The relief of not having to deal with the walls and being able to find an exit was enough for her tired body to begin to relax... The cold rushed into her and took her warmth away.

She was reaching her limits, Arthur was even ready to go take her out but Ur insisted that they let her be for a little while longer.

She, her mother, had said so. So, there was no reason to argue.

Ur could see that Ultear was still determined, thus she let her continue.

Minutes before the timer had reached Zero, Ultear walked herself out of the cave and into the hellish blizzard outside.

Her body couldn't take it anymore, the relief of getting outside finally completely knocked her out and she began to fall over. Arthur quickly teleported by her side and caught her, opening a gate and taking her back to the warm hut.

Ultear had passed the second trial, however she most definitely couldn't participate in the third and final one.

Her exam ended there. But her mother was extremely proud of her, seeing the will and courage she displayed in the final minutes had made her tear up.

That night Ur didn't leave Ultear's side, making sure to keep her warm and to show her that her mother was there for her.

Ultear slept with a smile on her face, happy to be with her most beloved parent.

…

An hour after Ultear came back, Makarov got both of the remaining examinees and had them face him outside of the hut. High above the clouds on the peaks of Mt. Hakobe.

"Laxus, Cana." Makarov spoke, "Your third and final exam shall be a battle against yourselves. Do you think you're ready?"

"Our... Selves?" Cana asked in question, she was still tired from before and she knew it. Her father even told her she should forfeit for this year, but she declined.

How could the daughter of Fairy Tail's Ace have a two time streak of failing the S class exam? She wouldn't allow it.

The hours leading up to now had also let her rest for a bit, allowing her to regain a portion of her strength.

"Whatever that means, bring it on. I'd like to go grab some food at my favorite restaurant after this is over." Laxus spoke up, seemingly devoid of any fatigue.

He had been awake for nearly forty hours, yet what was on his mind was not sleep but instead food.

"Hey! Don't you like my cooking?" Arthur asked, pointing to himself in a bit of shock.

"Hmpf, it's average at best. You should stick to fighting, seriously." Laxus scoffed, dealing the most damage to Arthur that he would ever do in his entire life.

"I... I..." Arthur had been shocked, he thought his cooking was improving, yet...

This one comment had shot his confidence down to zero.

"It's okay Arthur," Erza patted him on the back, "You make a wonderful strawberry cake." She nodded to herself, seemingly proud that she could be there for Arthur in his time of need.

"Thanks, Erza..." Arthur spoke quietly, still feeling down from the nuclear damage that Laxus had dealt to him.

With a light cough, Makarov got the attention back to himself, "Anyway... I've borrowed a special magic item from an old acquaintance of mine, it's one that he had used to train his kids before. The item creates a nearly identical magical battle clone of an individual. You will face these 'doppelgangers' of yourselves and fight them in one versus one combat. If you can defeat them, then the status of S ranked wizard shall be given to you. Good luck kiddos." Makarov explained with a grin, taking out the magical item that had the form of a cube with many intricate patterns over its surface.

"Alright... Bring it on then!" Cana shouted, pumping herself up for the upcoming battle.

"If you think that I can't defeat my own self, old man, then you're sorely mistaken." Laxus sneered, knowing that the status was as good as his now.

The two examinees were ready for their final trial! Would they both succeed in it? Or would it only be one of them?

Find out next time! On Dragon bal—oh wait wrong anime.

DEVIL'S WORD MAGIC IN FAIRY TAIL!

Yeah that just doesn't have the same ring to it now does it...

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