Chapter 310

Chapter 310: Chapter 310

After hearing what Zera had told her, Mavis eagerly set off to find Marshall.

She wanted to see him one more time before leaving Tenrou Island, and perhaps there was still a chance she could persuade him to accompany them.

Even if he refused, she at least wanted to say goodbye properly.

However, when Mavis arrived at the place where Marshall had been living for the past two years, she discovered something completely unexpected.

His house was gone.

The beautiful little cottage that had once stood there had vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but an empty patch of ground.

There was only a single letter floating in midair, suspended by Magic.

Mavis approached it curiously and began reading.

To Mavis,

Your big brother has gone away, so don’t worry about me, and please don’t be angry that I’ve left without saying goodbye.

It’s not that I don’t want to accompany you and Zera on your adventures. There are simply some special circumstances that prevent me from interfering too much with this world. That’s why I’ve been trying to keep my distance from ordinary human society.

You’re a very clever girl, Mavis. I believe you’ll be able to overcome all sorts of difficulties even without my help. You’re destined to accomplish great things someday, and I’ve always believed that.

I was worried that seeing me again might make you reluctant to leave, so I decided to move somewhere else ahead of time. If you really miss me, then we’ll see each other again the next time you return to Tenrou Island.

Until we meet again!

P.S. If you ever encounter a problem you genuinely can’t solve, try calling my name as loudly as you can. I’ll come to your rescue like a hero, no matter what!

—Your incredibly handsome and charming big brother, Marshall.

"..."

Mavis stared at the letter for several seconds before puffing out her cheeks indignantly.

"What does he mean, ’big brother’?! That big idiot! As if I’d be reluctant to leave just because of him!"

She spun around and searched the surrounding area, hoping to find some trace of Marshall or his house.

Unfortunately, there was nothing.

He really had left.

Only after confirming that he was nowhere nearby did Mavis finally lower her head and carefully put the letter away.

She knew Marshall supported her decision to leave Tenrou Island. He had never tried to stop her from pursuing her dreams, and despite his refusal to accompany them, he’d always encouraged her to develop her abilities and see more of the world.

But they’d lived on the same island for more than two years.

During that time, Marshall had become a familiar presence in her daily life. She’d grown accustomed to visiting his house, learning new Magic from him, playing games together, and listening to his stories about places she’d never seen.

Now, knowing that he wouldn’t be there anymore, Mavis couldn’t help feeling as though something important was missing.

She stood quietly for a while, clutching the letter.

Then she took a deep breath, raised her head toward the sky, and shouted with all her might.

"MARSHALL! I’M GOING TO BECOME FAMOUS! I’LL BECOME AN AMAZING MAGE THAT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT!"

Her voice echoed across the deserted coastline.

"AND I’M GOING TO CREATE A BRAND-NEW GUILD! I’LL MAKE IT THE STRONGEST MAGE GUILD IN THE WORLD, SO EVERYONE ON THE ENTIRE CONTINENT WILL KNOW OUR NAME!"

Mavis drew another breath.

"WHEN THAT HAPPENS, YOU HAVE TO JOIN MY GUILD, OKAY?!"

High above Tenrou Island, Marshall watched the little girl through his Magic, resting his chin against one hand with a faint smile.

’I’m already a member of your guild, my dear First Master.’

...

Mavis and Zera finally left Tenrou Island.

And just like that, Marshall found himself alone again.

He hadn’t expected their departure to affect him quite so much, but as the familiar island settled into silence, he couldn’t help feeling a little empty inside.

’Ah, my two little troublemakers...’

Marshall sighed.

’By the time I see them again, they’ll probably have grown into young women.’

He had only seen photographs of Mavis from the period when Fairy Tail was first established.

In those pictures, she looked almost exactly as she did now, which suggested that the guild’s founding couldn’t be too far away.

As for what happened afterward, Marshall knew only fragments of her story.

He’d heard that Mavis eventually commanded armies during the Trade War, winning a series of victories that earned her the title of the Fairy Tactician.

It must have been quite an extraordinary adventure.

Unfortunately, Marshall had no place in that story.

He wasn’t supposed to accompany the future founders of Fairy Tail on their travels, and he had no intention of inserting himself into historical events simply because he knew how important they would eventually become.

His purpose in this era remained the same.

He was here to train, improve his abilities, and prepare for the day he returned to his original timeline.

Nothing else took priority over that.

There was, however, one detail about the three treasure hunters that continued to bother him.

Ultear had once mentioned that Zeref had been Precht Gaebolg’s teacher.

But the Precht Marshall had just observed was still an ordinary treasure hunter who hadn’t even learned how to use Magic.

If Zeref really had taught him, wouldn’t that mean their meeting was about to happen?

Perhaps sometime within the next few months?

Marshall found the possibility intriguing.

Zeref was another of the world’s most dangerous individuals, someone Marshall couldn’t afford to underestimate.

In his personal assessment of potential threats, the legendary Black Mage ranked just behind Acnologia.

Yet Zeref’s behavior during the incident on Tenrou Island had been rather peculiar.

He hadn’t deliberately attacked Fairy Tail. As far as Marshall could tell, the man had simply appeared on the island, encountered several people, and eventually departed.

He had even been willing to converse with Ultear.

That didn’t seem like the behavior of someone actively seeking to destroy everything around him.

Marshall wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.

Nevertheless, Zeref’s reputation as the most infamous Black Mage in history wasn’t something to dismiss lightly. Whatever his personality might be, his strength was unquestionably extraordinary.

If Marshall could avoid making an enemy of him, that would probably be for the best.

Although...

’I really would like to compare notes with him about the Curse of Ankhseram.’

Marshall considered the possibility of contacting Zeref.

The Black Mage had endured the same curse for hundreds of years, and his experiences might provide valuable insight into its mechanisms.

Unfortunately, the risks associated with such a meeting were difficult to justify.

Zeref was hardly someone Marshall could approach casually.

Even if the Black Mage had no hostile intentions, the two of them carried dangerous curses whose interactions remained largely unknown.

Marshall had already experienced more than enough unexpected disasters during this journey through time.

He didn’t need to deliberately invite another one.

Besides, Zeref had been living with the curse for centuries without finding a solution.

Either he’d eventually abandoned the struggle, or he’d never seriously pursued the kind of solution Marshall wanted.

Whatever the explanation, Zeref clearly hadn’t managed to free himself from Ankhseram’s influence.

That made Marshall doubt whether another conversation with him would produce anything particularly useful.

Rather than relying on someone who had spent hundreds of years failing to overcome the curse, perhaps it would be better to trust his own research.

And in fact, Marshall had already developed several promising ideas.

...

The first thing he’d established was that the Curse of Ankhseram originated deep within his First Origin.

Although its effects extended outward and affected the surrounding world, the actual source of the phenomenon was located inside his own body.

That distinction was important.

If the curse originated within the spatial structure of his First Origin, then perhaps he could use Spatial Magic to isolate that structure from the outside world.

In theory, completely separating the interior of his First Origin from ordinary space might render the curse harmless.

For example, imagine that Marshall sensed an outbreak approaching and immediately teleported his entire chest and abdomen into his personal storage dimension.

If the curse erupted while its source was contained within that separate space, its effects might remain confined there instead of spreading through the physical world.

Ordinary living creatures nearby would never come into contact with the death wave.

Following that line of reasoning, Marshall could potentially construct a permanent spatial seal around his First Origin, isolating it from the outside world.

Once that seal was established, the curse could erupt as often as it wanted without threatening anyone standing beside him.

At least, that was the theory.

Whether such a complicated procedure was actually possible remained uncertain, but Marshall could already identify one enormous drawback.

Sealing his First Origin would also seal away the Magic Power stored within it.

At present, more than half of Marshall’s total magical reserves were contained inside his First Origin.

If he permanently isolated that magical source, he would effectively lose access to over half his Magic Power.

There was no telling what additional consequences such a restriction might have, but the immediate reduction in his combat strength was unavoidable.

And that would defeat a large part of the reason he’d traveled into the past.

Marshall was spending fourteen years training because he wanted to become stronger.

What would be the point if the solution to his curse forced him to cripple his own abilities?

For that reason, he classified the spatial-sealing approach as a last resort.

Unless every other possibility failed, he had no intention of attempting it.

Fortunately, Marshall had another idea that he considered much more promising.

The inspiration came from his personal domain, Moment of Stillness.

That technique involved interfering with the relationship between perception, commands, and physical responses.

Marshall had already established that the Curse of Ankhseram wasn’t entirely random.

Its activation required a trigger, which appeared to be a signal associated with the desire to possess or claim life.

In other words, even though the curse’s mechanism remained largely beyond his control, something still had to initiate the process.

Marshall began imagining that a switch existed somewhere inside his First Origin.

That switch was extraordinarily sensitive, responding to even the smallest stimulus and immediately activating the curse.

But what if he could prevent the stimulus from ever reaching it?

He could already accomplish something similar through Moment of Stillness.

When an enemy fell under that technique, the commands issued by their brain could be delayed or prevented from reaching the body.

The target might desperately want to move, but the intended action would never be carried out because the necessary signal couldn’t arrive.

What if Marshall applied the same principle to the Curse of Ankhseram?

Instead of trying to suppress the curse itself, he could interfere with the signal responsible for activating it.

Through a carefully constructed delay mechanism, he might prevent the curse from receiving the trigger even when the conditions for an outbreak had already been fulfilled.

Then, once he’d moved somewhere safe and prepared the necessary precautions, he could release the accumulated signal and allow the curse to activate all at once.

If the idea worked, Marshall would finally possess something resembling genuine control over the phenomenon.

He wouldn’t merely be reacting to outbreaks after sensing them approach.

He could actually decide when the curse was permitted to activate.

And that opened up another intriguing possibility.

If he could freely determine when the curse released its power, perhaps he could eventually employ it as an offensive spell.

The Curse of Ankhseram was capable of draining life across an enormous area.

If Marshall learned to direct its activation properly, it could become an extraordinarily terrifying weapon against his enemies.

Unfortunately, turning the idea into reality would be extremely difficult.

The main challenge was constructing a magical formula capable of applying delayed perception to a mechanism operating inside his own First Origin.

That required an extraordinary degree of precision.

He would have to identify the relevant magical signals, distinguish them from the countless other processes occurring within his body, and delay only the specific commands associated with the curse.

Any mistakes might interfere with his ordinary Magic or cause the curse to activate unpredictably.

Worse, the necessary spell would have to operate continuously within his own magical system.

Marshall suspected that the amount of fine control required was far beyond his present abilities.

Unless his Magic Power Control advanced all the way to LV5, he doubted he could manage the procedure reliably.

And where was he supposed to find enough Inspiration Points to raise another skill to that level?

He was already struggling to accumulate the resources necessary to upgrade Spatial Magic.

For the foreseeable future, the delayed-activation approach would have to remain theoretical.

Still, Marshall was convinced that it offered a genuinely promising direction for future research.

There was also a third possibility.

This one was considerably simpler, although its implications were rather questionable.

If Marshall succeeded in transforming Zera into an Apostle, he could potentially attempt the same process with everyone close to him.

His existing Apostles were already immune to the Curse of Ankhseram.

If he could reproduce that immunity by converting ordinary humans into similar life-forms, then the people he cared about would no longer be vulnerable to its effects.

That would solve the immediate problem of accidentally killing his companions.

Unfortunately, there was something deeply wrong with the logic.

It was rather like deciding that the best way to protect your friends from being murdered by an enemy was to kill them yourself first.

Technically, the enemy wouldn’t be able to murder them afterward.

But calling that a successful solution required a rather disturbing interpretation of the word protect.

Marshall couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable with the idea.

Transforming everyone around him into Apostles merely because his curse made ordinary relationships dangerous wasn’t exactly an outcome he wanted.

Even so, it remained a possibility worth keeping in mind, particularly if future developments allowed him to create Apostles without sacrificing their original identities or humanity.

For now, however, all three approaches presented serious difficulties.

Spatial isolation might weaken him drastically.

Delayed activation required a level of magical precision he didn’t yet possess.

And converting his companions into Apostles raised problems that went far beyond whether the procedure was technically possible.

Nevertheless, Marshall was no longer wandering blindly through his research.

He had identified the curse’s likely source, developed a plausible theory about its activation mechanism, and established several concrete directions for overcoming its effects.

That was genuine progress.

He might not be able to solve the problem today, or even within the next few years, but at least he finally knew what he was trying to accomplish.

And Marshall had never been someone who surrendered simply because a problem was difficult.

No matter how long it took, he intended to keep investigating until he found a solution.

He had always believed that he would eventually gain control over the Curse of Ankhseram.

And that belief hadn’t changed.

----

This arc will take 50 Chapters, its kinda an ok arc? anyway the history of fairy tail will be changed completely, Marshall will spent 14 years in the past while only 1 year pass in the future.