A magic merchant infiltrating Fairy Tail

"Stone spear!"

"What?!" Crowley was taken aback by the unexpected turn of events and was a beat slow to react. Before she could regain control of her twin swords, a heavy force pressed down on her.

"gravity!"

The gravity magic released by the Word of Power arrived in an instant. The powerful force field instantly disrupted the balance of magic in the clouds. The cloud ball, cloud rope, and cloud iron immediately collapsed into water and fell from the sky. Even the cloud that Klaue was standing on was completely destroyed by this move and could no longer hold her body.

In a moment of carelessness, he lost his footing and fell from the air, unable to even hold onto his weapon.

"Damn it! After healing and rock magic, how can they still use such powerful gravity magic?!"

No longer needing to worry about the two extendable weapons, Kira controlled the two stone spears that had just pierced the cloud sword to break into pieces, which were then thrown at Krowy in the air like dozens of rock cannonballs.

"Rock Cannon!"

If it were an ordinary mage, this would have been enough to decide the outcome, but Krowy was a demon who had lived for hundreds of years, and she reacted quickly. Her body instantly turned into a light cloud, and the rock projectiles passed through her elemental body, colliding with each other in the air, scattering rubble all over the ground.

The falling rubble didn't stop there. Under Kira's control, the rubble coalesced back into stone spikes on the ground, waiting for the falling Krowy.

Unfortunately, the stone spikes still did not cause any damage to the elemental body!

Landing steadily, Klaue breathed a sigh of relief as he looked at the several stone spikes that had pierced through his body: "Superb acting skills, meticulous calculations, precise control, and powerful magic. Compared to that kid just now, you are indeed much more capable than that human."

"But!!! My magic and physique are special; I am immune to physical attacks. No matter how strong your rock magic is, it won't be able to cause me any harm!"

Klaue flashed a smug smile, proclaiming her excellence and nobility to Kira like a proud young lady.

But the next second she realized something was wrong, her face changed drastically, and she screamed like a defeated dog: "What...what is this?"

Although she still retained her elemental body, Klaue discovered that she could not move!

The ground seemed to have become sticky, holding Crowley firmly in place, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't break free.

Before she could react, the stone spikes that had pierced her petite body seemed to come alive, tightly wrapping around her half-formed outline, one after another, circle after circle, from her feet to her calves, from her thighs to her chest, from her hands to her head. The stone pillars spiraled upwards, quickly sealing off the immobile Klaue completely.

Before the last ray of light was extinguished, only one question flashed through Krowy's mind: Who exactly is this guy?! And how did he do that?!

As if sensing the question in the girl's eyes, Kira slowly uttered the name of the spell: "Stone Seal!"

Seeing that his plan had succeeded, Kira was secretly pleased with himself. "My feint was brilliant!"

First, use gravity to disrupt the opponent's magic, causing her to fall into the battlefield you designed;

She attacks with rock projectiles while her opponent is in the air and has no time to think. In such a critical moment, regardless of whether her elemental magic is passive or active, she will choose to elementalize.

When she lands safely and gloats over her immunity to the aerial attack, she launches a third attack. The aerial attack immunity will lull Krowy into a false sense of security, causing her to ignore the stone pillars that emerge from the ground.

Kira added two spells to the stone pillar: one to disrupt the flow of magic and the other to immobilize her. While Krow was still reveling in the ineffectiveness of physical attacks, Kira took advantage of her unpreparedness and stabbed her directly into her elemental body.

The final step was simple. Because the magic was disrupted and he was also affected by the immobilization spell, even though Krowy had become an elemental, he couldn't move and could only watch helplessly as he was trapped in the stone cell.

In general, the strategy is to interrupt the opponent's thinking with continuous and intense attacks in a short period of time, and to take advantage of the enemy's carelessness to lure them into a trap.

Kira walked over to the stone statue, knocked on the stone cage, and found it to be very sturdy.

Even if the opponent could transform into an elemental form, she wouldn't be able to leave such an airtight stone prison, not to mention that there were stone pillars inserted into her body to disrupt her magic. As for whether she would be pierced by stone spikes because she didn't have enough magic to restore her true form, or whether she would suffocate due to lack of oxygen, Kira didn't care.

Hearing the knocking sounds coming from outside the stone cell, Klaue was both angry and ashamed.

What angered him was that he had lost so quickly, and that his elemental magic was completely ineffective against this enemy; what shamed him was that if that guy, Sinoi, knew, he would definitely laugh at him again and speak ill of him to Uncle Bing.

"Damn it! Let me go! Let's fight again!"

"Damn it! Why can't I move?!"

"I can't control magic! How could this be?!"

"A mere human..."

"..."

The shouts from inside the stone cell continued, but Kira paid no heed. "Let me show you my silencing spell!"

"Word of magic, silence!"

My ears were instantly at peace.

He turned back towards the snow pit where Natsu and Lucy were. By this time, Natsu had almost recovered and was able to get up, but as soon as he came out, he bumped into Kira's head.

Natsu looked around and, finding that Krowy was no longer there, nor was the lingering cloud, asked, "Where is that person?"

"There it is!" Kira pointed to the stone cell behind him. "I've trapped it!"

"What?!" Natsu's jaw dropped in shock. "So fast?!"

Damn it! Kira took down an enemy I couldn't handle in less than a minute! Is the difference in skill really that huge?!

Happy also hopped over and circled around, then returned and said, "That girl is trapped in the stone cell by Kira and can't move."

"Amazing!"

Lucy, who had climbed up, also gained a new understanding of Kira's strength after hearing this. She hadn't understood Kira's fight against Erigor during the LalaBai incident, nor had she seen him fight Krowi this time, but Natsu had provided a comparison for both battles.

She knew Natsu's strength; he was very strong. However, the enemy that Natsu couldn't defeat couldn't even last a minute against Killer, which meant that Killer's strength far surpassed Natsu's.

"Are all the S-class mages in Fairy Tail this strong?" Lucy asked softly.

She had only witnessed three battles between Fairy Tail's S-class mages: the first was Kira versus Erikor, the second was Erza versus Natsu, and this was the third.

Happy said, "Of course! Although Kira isn't usually very serious, he's incredibly strong!"

Although Happy spoke very softly, it still didn't escape Kira's ears: "Hmm? What do you mean by 'not being proper'?! Happy, come here, let's discuss this properly!"

Upon hearing Kira's malicious words, Happy once again decisively chose to play dumb and get away with it, looking around as if he knew nothing before hiding behind Natsu.

"Happy, come here right now, stop playing dumb!" Kira strode over and grabbed Happy by the tail, his face filled with a sinister and dark smile. "You dare to be so insolent to my face, I wonder what you're saying about me behind my back!"

As Kira spoke, he rubbed Happy's slightly chubby belly: "It seems Natsu has been feeding you too much lately. You had to rely on Natsu to protect you from that wide-range attack just now. If I hadn't been there, you guys would have been in danger this time. Come with me for special training when we get back!"

To be honest, Hapi's belly is soft, furry, chubby, and warm, and it feels especially comfortable to rub.

"No!" Happy cried and struggled in the air, but because the tail of fate was clamped, he looked very comical. "Natsu, save me!"

"Calling Natsu won't help. He accepted an S-rank mission on his own, and he'll be punished when he gets back! Most importantly, he can't even defeat an enemy like this, and he can't protect his comrades. He needs to be added to the special training too!"

Natsu remained silent upon hearing Kira's words.

Chapter 69 The Noticed Magic Fluctuations

Natsu knew that Kira didn't care about taking on S-class missions on his own. He was mainly criticizing himself for his lack of strength, which almost caused his companion to get injured.

Kira really cares about his comrades!

This time he really made a mistake. He thought he was capable of fighting, but he was careless and failed to dodge when faced with the enemy's wide-range attack, which resulted in serious injuries to himself and Happy.

But Natsu isn't one to deny his mistakes. If he's wrong, he'll admit it obediently, go back and train hard to become stronger, and just make sure this doesn't happen again.

Thinking about it this way, Natsu felt much better and also began to look forward to the special training Kira had mentioned: "Alright, Kira, let's have a fight when we get back!"

"Hehe, don't worry!" Seeing that Natsu was no longer blaming himself for Happy's injury, Kira chuckled, "You'll get your revenge when we get back."

Based on the original story's timeline, if I remember correctly, we'll probably have to fight Phantom Lord when we get back.

"Let's have Lucy come along too!"

"Huh? Me?" Lucy was a little surprised to be called out again.

"Although Natsu's injury was mainly his fault, as his comrade, you failed to help in the battle, which is a disgrace to Fairy Tail!" Kira made up an excuse.

"Since you're in the same team, of course you should undergo special training together! And..." Kira leaned closer to Lucy with a grim face, "You don't think you can get away with not being punished for participating in an S-class mission, do you?!"

"Um... well... haha..." Lucy laughed awkwardly, unconsciously looking away.

"Choose one: be kicked out of the guild or undergo my hellish training!"

What to choose? Do we even need to choose?

"I understand, special training it is then!"

"Wow!! Intensive training? That sounds really interesting! I'm fired up!!!" Natsu shouted excitedly.

Seeing Natsu's inexplicably excited expression, Lucy sighed helplessly.

Then, she walked up to the stone-sealed Klaue and looked at him curiously: "What amazing stone magic! Not only can it deal with elemental enemies, but it can also seal them. I've never heard of such magic before."

"Is this the demon?" Natsu also came over and knocked on the stone cell. "Kira's magic is all kinds of strange things, so it's not surprising that he can do something like this."

“Exactly!” Happy exclaimed. “Sealing magic, like healing magic, is a long-lost art!”

"Healing magic? That's right! He just used this kind of magic to heal your injuries!" Lucy belatedly realized, "Looking at it this way, Word Magic seems to be a combination of many kinds of magic!"

"It can create things, apply status effects, heal, and even seal..." Lucy listed the spells Kira had used one by one.

Kira also came over and, after hearing this, said, "Pretty much! Word magic is magic that uses the true names of all things. Of course, 'all things' includes magic, because every spell has its own true name. So using word magic is equivalent to being able to use all kinds of magic."

"Of course, this kind of magic has very high requirements for the user. So far, I haven't seen any other users! In terms of the comprehensiveness of magic, as far as I know, only copying magic can rival my Word Magic."

Lucy pressed on curiously, "Copy magic? What kind of magic is that?"

Kira replied, "It's a kind of magic that can instantly replicate others while simultaneously granting immunity to any magic!"

"What?! It can copy any magic? Can it even copy my Dragon Slayer magic?"

"Probably..." To be honest, Kira wasn't sure about that either.

"However, the more powerful the magic, the stricter the conditions for its use, and the more obvious its weaknesses. Copy magic cannot copy magic of the holding type! Take celestial spirit magic for example, summoning celestial spirits requires a celestial spirit key, and there are no two identical celestial spirit keys in this world!"

After Kira explained it to her, Lucy understood: "Even if you can't copy magic of the holding type, just being able to use magic of all ability types is already very powerful!"

"Yes!"

Suddenly, Lucy seemed to remember something and asked, "You said that the more powerful the magic, the greater its flaws. So what are the flaws of Word Magic?"

“Well…” Kira paused before answering, “Didn’t I just say that Word Magic has very strict requirements for its users? It requires a huge amount of magical power as a driving force, as well as extensive magical knowledge and experience in using it. All three are indispensable.”

In fact, there is another point. Since it is a word magic that uses the true name, it is of course necessary to say the name of the magic. However, Kira will not say this, because this flaw is too great. If the enemy finds out in the future, it will be terrible if they take countermeasures.

In the magical world, it's common to shout out the names of spells during fights, so they wouldn't think of it that way. At most, they'd just think Kira was showing off. Actually, it wasn't that he liked to show off; he just had to!

Moreover, in order to cover up this weakness, he also learned many other spells, so in battle he would combine “calling out his real name or not, casting spells of word magic or ordinary magic” in two ways, creating a mix of deception and reality, which was a profound understanding of military strategy.

While Kira was pondering, Natsu brought the topic back to the mission: "What do we do now? This should be the demon the tavern owner was talking about. Does this mean we've completed the mission?"

Lucy looked at the stone cell before her with some concern: "What should we do with this girl... this demon?"