Chapter 533 - 533: I'm Only in My Twenties, Not Over a Hundred!

Given the unpredictable nature of their experiments, Noah used Earth-Make magic to construct a second, separate island adjacent to their testing ground. When they weren't actively running live-fire trials, they used this second island as a safe zone to eat and rest. At night, Noah and Makarov teleported back to Magnolia to sleep in their own beds.

However, to guarantee that Mavis wouldn't accidentally trigger her curse and eradicate the surrounding population, she was strictly confined to the islands until the countermeasures were perfected.

To make her temporary exile as comfortable as possible, Noah constructed a surprisingly cozy stone cottage for her on the safe island. He stocked it with plush bedding, fresh clothes, toiletries, and an expansive collection of books. He even linked her directly into his Archive network, granting her unrestricted access to his digitized library so she wouldn't die of boredom.

Mavis found no fault in this arrangement. In fact, she had explicitly requested to be isolated until she was safe to be around her family.

And so, their grueling routine of non-stop experimentation on the barren islands began.

The Curse of Ankhseram had tormented Zeref for over four hundred years; it was undeniably the most profound, complex anomaly in existence. Unsurprisingly, Noah and Mavis spent several agonizing days running trials with very little progress.

Through their exhaustive live-fire testing, they confirmed a terrifying truth: there were absolutely zero magical or physiological precursors prior to the curse's eruption. It didn't gather ambient Ethernano, and it didn't trigger a measurable spike in Mavis's internal magic circuits.

The only warning was Mavis's own subjective, internal sensation of the curse welling up. A few seconds after she "felt" it, the black miasma would violently erupt and strip all life from the environment.

While Mavis did exhibit physical symptoms right before the eruption—sweating, trembling, hyperventilation—these were purely physiological panic responses triggered by her knowing the death wave was coming. They were not magical precursors.

This was a massive problem. Noah needed an autonomous, passive detection spell that could identify the curse before it erupted, instantly triggering the defensive countermeasures.

If Mavis was awake, she would feel the curse coming, panic, and theoretically manually trigger the defenses.

But Mavis had to sleep. She couldn't stay awake forever; sleep deprivation would severely degrade her mental state, which would only make the curse more volatile. She needed normal, healthy sleep cycles.

But what if she had a vivid, emotionally charged dream while asleep? The intense feelings of love or compassion in her dream could easily trigger the curse, and she would eradicate the guildhall without ever waking up.

Furthermore, her physiological panic responses (sweating, elevated heart rate) were completely useless as triggers. A simple nightmare, a sudden scare, or even an intense workout would trigger the exact same physiological responses. If Noah tied the countermeasures to her heart rate, the emergency teleportation spell would blast her into the stratosphere every time she sneezed.

Without a reliable detection method, the autonomous trigger system was completely stalled.

Fortunately, their research on the defensive countermeasures themselves was proceeding brilliantly.

By continuously refining the internal structure of the life-force-conversion spell, and repeatedly using Mavis's live eruptions to stress-test the barrier, Noah had managed to perfect the defensive matrix. The optimized spell could efficiently and absolutely neutralize the necrotic effects of the Ankhseram Curse.

"First Master, you need to rest," Noah ordered, looking at Mavis's exhausted face.

Even though they spaced out the trials significantly, forcefully triggering the curse repeatedly placed a massive, agonizing psychological burden on her. Over the last few days, her mental state had visibly deteriorated.

"No, I can keep going. We need to find a way to detect the curse before it erupts. Once we figure that out, I can finally go home," Mavis shook her head, her pale face set in stubborn determination.

When she was a spectral projection, she could wander anywhere and talk to the guild members; she was never lonely. But now that she had her physical body back, she was essentially imprisoned on a barren rock in the middle of the ocean. Aside from her daytime testing sessions with Noah, she spent her nights completely alone.

Despite technically being 112 years old chronologically (born in X673), Mavis had spent nearly ninety of those years frozen in stasis. Her actual, lived experience amounted to little more than twenty years. Mentally and emotionally, she was still a vibrant, energetic young woman.

Being a ghost had masked the isolation, but now that she could feel the wind, the sun, and the cold stone beneath her feet, the absolute solitude of the island was slowly driving her crazy. She was a deeply curious, adventurous soul. Even with Noah's massive digital library to distract her, she desperately wanted to go back to her family.

"I want to find a solution just as badly as you do. But if your mental state degrades any further, it's going to actively skew the telemetry data. You need to sleep," Noah insisted firmly, crossing his arms.

"Fine," Mavis sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. She knew he was right. She was just getting impatient.

"Actually, I think you two need to approach this from a completely different angle," Makarov spoke up from the sidelines.

He hadn't missed a single day of testing, watching his two greatest prodigies bash their heads against the wall. And he had realized they were suffering from extreme tunnel vision.

"What do you mean, Grandpa?" Noah asked, turning to him.

"You've spent days desperately trying to find a microscopic precursor to predict the eruption before it happens, but you've found absolutely nothing. So, stop trying to predict it. Instead, formulate a system that reacts the exact millisecond the eruption begins," Makarov suggested reasonably.

"Oh! I understand! That's brilliant!" Mavis gasped, her eyes widening in realization as she slapped her hands together.

"You're right... based on our stress tests, that would absolutely work," Noah agreed, the pieces rapidly falling into place in his mind.

"Exactly. I've been watching you optimize the life-force-conversion barrier. The barrier is incredibly robust now; it can easily withstand the initial brunt of the death wave," Makarov nodded. "If you set the barrier to trigger the exact instant the black miasma touches the air, it only needs to hold for one or two seconds. That is more than enough time for the autonomous spatial displacement spell to lock onto the barrier and teleport her into the stratosphere. The curse will detonate harmlessly in the upper atmosphere, completely isolated from anyone."

"Theoretically, that is a flawless sequence. Let's test it immediately!" Mavis cheered, suddenly re-energized.

"Alright, let's recalibrate the triggers," Noah agreed, turning back to his consoles.

Mavis was already intimately familiar with the life-force-conversion spell, having spent days helping Noah refine it. However, because the curse's eruption actively destabilized her mind, she couldn't reliably cast the spell herself during an episode.

To circumvent this, Noah quickly forged two separate magical artifacts. The first artifact was designed to passively siphon Mavis's own magical reserves to power the barrier. The second artifact was powered independently by a pre-charged Lacrima battery.

He needed Mavis to test both artifacts to definitively verify Zeref's claim: that a person afflicted by the Curse of Ankhseram could not use their own magic to power a life-force-conversion spell to block their own curse.

With the equipment prepped, Mavis equipped the first artifact (the one drawing her own magic) and stepped into the testing zone. She marshaled her emotions and triggered the curse.

The black miasma violently erupted from her body. Simultaneously, the artifact activated, projecting a dense golden barrier around her.

However, the black miasma completely ignored the golden barrier, passing through it as if it didn't exist, and violently scoured the testing zone.

When the death wave dissipated, Noah walked over. Mavis was leaning heavily against her knees, looking profoundly disheartened.

Zeref had been absolutely right. The Curse of Ankhseram afflicted the target's entire existence, corrupting their very magical signature. Magic generated by the cursed individual could not be used to block the curse. The barrier had fundamentally failed.

"Well, now we know. Let's try the second artifact," Noah said gently, offering no empty platitudes.

"I'm fine. I mathematically expected this outcome, but seeing it confirmed still hurts a bit. Don't worry about me, let's proceed," Mavis smiled weakly, reassuring Noah.

Noah nodded and handed her the second artifact—the one powered entirely by the external Lacrima battery. He took the first artifact from her to analyze the failure data and retreated to his consoles.

After resting for a moment, Mavis triggered the curse again.

The black miasma erupted. Mavis immediately activated the second artifact.

Noah's eyes snapped to the telemetry screens.

This time, the golden barrier held firm. The black miasma slammed violently into the inside of the barrier, churning and writhing furiously, desperately trying to strip the life force woven into the shield.

The barrier only held for exactly two seconds before shattering under the apocalyptic pressure, but those two seconds were an absolute triumph. Two seconds was an eternity for high-tier spatial magic. It was more than enough time to initiate an emergency teleportation.

When the mist cleared, Noah walked over with a massive grin.

"It works! Noah, we finally found the solution!" Mavis cheered, bouncing on her toes in sheer excitement.

"We did. Now we just need to perfectly synchronize the barrier with the spatial displacement spell and miniaturize the entire matrix into a wearable artifact," Noah agreed, equally thrilled.

Breaking through a research bottleneck was an incredible feeling.

Mavis practically dragged Noah back to the consoles, eager to start coding the new matrix.

However, Noah firmly refused. Mavis had just triggered the curse twice in rapid succession; her mental state was incredibly fragile, and she needed immediate rest. Pouting slightly, Mavis was forced to sit on the sidelines while Noah began compiling the raw data and drafting the preliminary schematics for the wearable artifacts.

Once Mavis had sufficiently recovered, she eagerly joined him.

With a concrete, proven objective in sight, Noah and Mavis threw themselves into the research with burning passion. Makarov, drawing on his decades of practical magical experience, provided invaluable insights regarding the miniaturization and stabilization of the artifacts.

Several days later, the trio finalized the design.

The life-force-conversion barrier had been optimized to its absolute maximum efficiency; further improvements would require years of dedicated study. The barrier matrix was perfectly interwoven with the spatial displacement spell.

The sequence was flawless: The exact millisecond the barrier detected the necrotic drain of the black miasma, it would deploy and immediately trigger the teleportation sequence, warping everything within the barrier—Mavis, the air, and the black miasma—high into the stratosphere.

However, during the final hardware assembly, they encountered a massive logistical hurdle.

Because the artifact had to be constantly active to detect the unpredictable eruption, the passive magical drain was significant. A standard, wearable Lacrima battery simply couldn't hold enough charge to sustain the detection matrix indefinitely.

Furthermore, forcing Mavis to wear a bulky, constantly glowing barrier around her body would severely impact her daily life and look incredibly suspicious.

To solve this, Noah and Mavis completely overhauled the artifact's architecture.

First, Noah redesigned the barrier matrix to be an invisible, micro-thin layer of magic resting directly against her skin. The barrier was heavily specialized to only react to the specific necrotic wavelength of the black miasma, allowing standard magic and physical objects to pass through harmlessly.

Crucially, the barrier also prevented Mavis's bare skin from directly touching any living organism. This ensured that even if the curse erupted while she was holding someone's hand or hugging them, the barrier would instantly sever the physical connection, trapping the death wave inside and teleporting her away before her target could be harmed.

Essentially, they had created a flawless, invisible hazmat suit that maximized safety without hindering her daily life.

Second, to solve the massive power consumption issue, Noah utilized the massive, industrial-grade Lacrima batteries he had originally procured (but ultimately didn't need) for the guildhall's defense matrix.

He heavily modified Mavis's personal spatial pocket, installing a dedicated, secure tether between the spatial dimension and the wearable artifacts. He placed several massive Lacrima batteries inside the spatial pocket, ensuring a continuous, massive flow of external power to the artifacts.

Since the artifacts required external magic, the batteries within the spatial pocket were programmed to passively siphon and store ambient Ethernano from the Fairy Tail guildhall's massive environmental arrays whenever Mavis was at the guild. This guaranteed an infinite, safe supply of uncorrupted magic to power her defenses.

To guarantee absolute redundancy, Noah forged over a dozen identical artifacts, all shaped like the Fairy Tail crest.

Mavis was required to wear at least five of these crests at all times, networked together. If one or even two artifacts suffered a catastrophic failure during an eruption, the remaining artifacts would instantly take over. Furthermore, if a failure occurred, the network would instantly transmit high-priority emergency alerts to Mavis, Noah, and Makarov.

Finally, to address the unlikely scenario where the spatial tether collapsed, each crest possessed its own internal emergency micro-battery, kept fully charged at all times. If the external power supply was cut, the internal battery would engage, powering the barrier just long enough to trigger the emergency teleportation and send an SOS.

With Mavis's personal countermeasures finalized, Noah took the opportunity to upgrade the standard Fairy Tail guild marks for the rest of the members.

He integrated a highly simplified version of the life-force-conversion barrier into their crests. If a guild member's life force suddenly plummeted (due to an ambush, a lethal trap, or dark magic), the crest would autonomously deploy a localized defensive barrier, initiate an emergency teleportation to a safe distance, and broadcast an SOS to the guildhall.

This upgrade served a dual purpose. First, it acted as a final, absolute failsafe in the infinitesimally small chance that Mavis's artifacts completely failed and she accidentally triggered her curse in the guildhall. The members' crests would automatically protect them from the death wave and warp them to safety.

Second, it provided an incredible emergency lifeline for members undertaking highly dangerous S-Class missions. If they were critically wounded or ambushed, the crest would save their lives.

With the hardware finalized, it was time for the ultimate field test.

Noah supplied the massive Lacrima batteries, securely storing them in Mavis's modified spatial pocket. Mavis pinned five of the Fairy Tail crest artifacts to her dress, ensuring they were firmly secured.

With everything online, Mavis stood in the center of the testing zone, focused her emotions, and triggered the Curse of Ankhseram.

VMMMM.

The black miasma violently erupted from her core, but the micro-thin, invisible barrier resting against her skin instantly flared to life, trapping the death wave completely.

From the outside, Mavis instantly turned into a pitch-black, humanoid silhouette of writhing mist.

A split second later, her figure vanished with a sharp crack of displaced air.

High above the ocean, directly within the cloud layer, Mavis reappeared. The black miasma violently shattered the golden barrier and exploded outward, blowing a massive, perfectly circular hole in the clouds.

Once the necrotic energy fully dissipated harmlessly into the stratosphere, Mavis gently drifted back down to the island.

"How did it perform?" Noah asked, quickly pulling up the telemetry data.

"Flawlessly," Mavis beamed, landing gracefully. "The barrier completely contained the initial eruption, and the spatial displacement triggered instantly.

"Furthermore, I noticed something incredible! Even after the death wave shattered the primary containment barrier, the secondary life-force-conversion arrays continued to operate while I was in the air. The arrays continuously converted the Lacrima magic into pure life force, forcefully feeding it into the black miasma. Because the curse was actively absorbing the artificial life force, its overall lethality and expansion radius were drastically reduced!"

Noah nodded, confirming her observation with the telemetry data. He had noticed that the black mist exploding in the sky was significantly smaller than the previous ground-level eruptions. The artificial life force had effectively 'fed' the curse, neutralizing a massive portion of its destructive potential.

"How long did it take the barrier to reset and stabilize?" Noah asked.

"The moment the residual miasma dissipated, the barrier fully regenerated. However, the magical drain was massive," Mavis replied, opening her spatial pocket and pulling out one of the massive, industrial-grade Lacrima batteries.

Noah's eyes widened. The massive crystal, which previously held enough magic to power the entire guildhall for a week, was completely drained.

"That's... intense," Noah noted. Under normal circumstances, simply maintaining the passive detection barrier required very little magic. But the sheer, apocalyptic violence of blocking the curse and forcibly feeding it artificial life force had drained the massive battery in seconds.

"I'll need to heavily stockpile these large-capacity Lacrimas for you. I'll also need to massively expand the internal dimensions of your spatial pocket so you can carry a larger reserve," Noah mused, staring at the drained crystal. A standard spatial pocket simply couldn't hold enough of those massive batteries to guarantee long-term safety.

"I will definitely be mindful of my emotional state to avoid triggering it unnecessarily," Mavis nodded seriously. Then, a massive, uncontainable smile broke across her face.

"But we did it! We actually did it! I can finally go home! I can walk into the guildhall in my own body!"

"Congratulations, First Master," Noah smiled warmly.

He had witnessed her absolute, tireless dedication over the past few weeks. She had subjected herself to grueling psychological trauma and agonizing tests just to ensure the safety of her family. Her efforts had finally paid off. She could finally live a normal life.

"Though, I must admit, it's incredibly surreal. You are over a hundred years old, yet your physical body and emotional maturity are that of a teenager. Magic truly is miraculous," Noah chuckled, shaking his head.

With the terrifying threat of the Curse of Ankhseram temporarily neutralized, a massive weight lifted from Noah's shoulders. Mavis returning to the guild was inevitable; finding a way to ensure she didn't accidentally kill everyone was paramount.

Solving this issue also reminded Noah of a fascinating biological parallel.

Based on his comprehensive scans, Mavis's physical cells were absolutely pristine, possessing the vibrant vitality of a young teenager, despite chronologically existing for over a century.

This perfectly mirrored the biological data he had extracted from Acnologia's severed flesh. The Black Dragon's tissue possessed terrifying, explosive vitality. Despite living for over 400 years, Acnologia's cellular age was roughly equivalent to a human in their absolute physical prime—perhaps thirty or forty years old.

It strongly indicated that upon fully mutating into a dragon, a Dragon Slayer adopted a true draconic lifespan.

If human biology dictated a lifespan of 100 years, draconic biology likely stretched well past 1,000 years. Furthermore, highly powerful mages naturally lived longer; Precht, for example, had lived well past 110 while maintaining immense physical strength. A Dragon King like Acnologia could theoretically live for millennia without aging.

"I am in my twenties! I am not over a hundred years old! You absolutely cannot count the time I spent frozen in that crystal!" Mavis suddenly protested loudly, her cheeks puffing out in indignation, completely derailing Noah's biological musings.

She absolutely refused to accept her chronological age. As far as she was concerned, she had fallen asleep, blinked, and seventy years had passed. Then she blinked again, and another decade vanished. When she finally woke up as a ghost, nearly ninety years of history had evaporated without her experiencing a single second of it.

She hadn't lived those years. She hadn't experienced anything. Therefore, they didn't count!

She was a vibrant, beautiful young woman in her twenties, and she firmly belonged in the same age bracket as Erza, Mirajane, and the rest of the younger generation!