Chapter 69 - The Grimoire arrives!

(Arthur POV)

The eventful year of X778 had now finally passed, much had happened and much was yet to happen!

I of course turned fourteen this year and never did stop my training for the Arcane Domain magic, nothing actually impeded it despite my pessimistic view of the new year X779

In fact...

Nothing major happened at all during the entire year!

Of course, we did get another new S rank mage, another two in fact!

Mystogan and Ultear both passed the S rank exam in December of X779!

Yes, I jumped straight to December... There was literally nothing of importance during this entire year.

Happy grew up nicely I suppose, he had become a sort of mascot for the guild and everyone loved him, he was funny, charismatic and adventurous!

Happy always brightened the mood of everyone and he had become a true best friend to Natsu over the weeks and months, nothing could separate the two.

Lisanna was also often with them like usual, the three went on many jobs together when Lisanna wasn't with her siblings.

It was nice to see the little guy grow up, learn to speak and what not!

He never did, but I give him props for trying his best.

Cana herself started doing solo S ranked jobs too, the bracelet that Mystogan had made for fixing damage came... In handy, for her...

I still had to fix the more major damages though...

For the rest of the members however it has proven to be a huge success! I can rest easy knowing that they can fix most of the damages they've caused by themselves now.

Erza had not slacked in her training and continued to steadily improve more and more while I helped her, she in turn helped Mira and Mira herself became a lot stronger as well!

If I had to take a guess, I'd say Mira would become an S rank next year in X780.

Anything else...

Hmm...

Oh, yeah!

From what I learned, they've been causing a lot of pain to both Bosco and Seven, the two countries bordering on Fiore.

To think the vampire menace has finally arrived at our doorstep!

My, we should start reforming the Dawnguard!

Where's my boy Isran when you need em?

Oh well... I did have an encounter with a small group of vampires during October, had a job request for dispatching them and everything so I went to find them.

Flash back time!~

…

It was night time, wolves howled at the full moon that lit up the forests dwelled by these supposed vampires.

Finding them proved to be easy, even without using clairvoyance and what not I easily stumbled upon them as they rushed towards me like madmen!

They were vile creatures, ones that lived simply to prey on humans which they apparently were ones themselves at one point.

"I pity you, this is a rather cruel fate." I spoke as the four vampires slammed into a wall made of pure Ethernano.

Withing moments, I had consumed all of the Ether within the huge radius of three hundred meters that I now controlled and condensed it into what would pierce the bodies of these once humans and stick them to a bunch of trees.

Being stuck didn't stop them however, oh no they kept lashing out as if they felt no pain. They were slowly regenerating yet incapable to do so through the Ether blades.

"I heard that you lot were immortal, I wonder if that's true?" I spoke as they roared at me, spitting all over the ground beneath.

"Let's try... {Flame Pillar}." I spoke, creating a giant pillar of fire that towered over the entire forest, none of the trees caught ablaze as only the vampires burned within it.

The trees and terrain were unharmed despite the giant flaming pillar.

I could probably have a person cuddle with a True Sun after reaching my current precision with magic.

"Hoh? They really are immortal, huh?" I muttered with a hand covering my chin, looking at the charred pieces of the vampires rebuilding their bodies.

"I suppose regeneration costs a lot of stamina for them... Interesting, {Sun Light}." I spoke and lit up the entire area with sunlight

Within a mere moment, the vampires turned to ashes and scattered into the wind.

They're definitely a huge problem, I might have to deal with them myself if they continue to enter Fiore...

…

X779 passed, and January of X780 came around.

It was finally time...

January 19th rolled up and I finally turned fifteen years old!

I walked over to the forest where I did all my training, not wanting to be too forward with the moment, so I simply walked there.

It was a nice wintery day, the forest was filled with snow and the cold winds softly blew across my face

Once I was in the forest clearing, I breathed in and uttered the words.

"{Storage}." opening my vast storage I found many numbers of my True Sun spell, many foods and other items that had random uses for whenever I might need them.

Inside this large space, there it laid.

My Grimoire.

"Oh yeah, come to papa Arthur!" I grinned happily as I took out the book.

It had many pages within it, many possible spells that I could create with it that defied most of my Magic's rules.

The grimoire itself was mostly black in color, with a red five leaf clover in the middle! There were also red vines depicted as spanning across the top right part of the book and the lower left one.

The most surprising part about this book was that there was a black Fairy Tail emblem in the middle of the red five leaf clover.

"Huh... That's rather interesting, I wonder if that Horse faced god of mine had anything to do with this design?" I spoke my thoughts out loud.

If it weren't him, I wouldn't really know who else could possibly add such an emblem.

Another thing to be happy about, it's a five leaf clover! The Devil in Black Clover really wanted one such grimoire, to the point he even caused the massacre of an entire race and waited nearly 500 years to finish his plans.

I can't wait to get to using this thing! I should see what kind of spell I have as a starter one first...

"Let's see here..." I spoke, having the black grimoire hover in front of me and open up on its first page. "Word Soul Magic... Mind of Power?" I read the name.

Mind of Power? What does that mean?

"Well, I guess best way of knowing is trying... {Word Soul Magic: Mind of Power}!" I spoke, activating my very first grimoire spell!

Nothing seemed to happen, however considering the name of this spell...

'{Spiral Flame}!' I thought in my mind, creating a spiraling ball of fire within the palm of my hand!

It was about half as big as the normal spiral flame.

"Amazing!" I exclaimed, looking at the spell I had forged without words.

This spell... gives me a huge advantage...

Until now my weakness had been my mouth, now I needn't worry about it at all!

The spell did have a drawback however, any thought of power I cast would take twice the amount of magic power it normally would and would only be half as effective...

To put it simply, I had to use four times the magic power to achieve the same result as I would with my mouth...

That, is a major backlash in most cases... However, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

At my current level of Arcane Domain, I had an entire area of over five hundred meters for my Ether Zone! Nearly doubling it since the vampire incident of October and making it five times larger than it was during X778!

Combining that with my current control over magic power, I no longer needed to use my own pool of magic for anything.

Usually when using Ether Zone, one could use the magic in the area to help fuel their spells and thus gain a larger pool of magic and stamina.

You could add onto your magic pool, however you couldn't just use the Ethernano as your own pool.

Not until now, I no longer even needed a pool of magic in fact!

The air itself was my Magic Power now!

As long as there is Ether in the vicinity, I cannot run out of magic power. I cannot die either due to being able to heal any wounds.

With the mind of power spell, not only do I not need to worry about my mouth being covered but I also don't need to worry about the cost of spells.

Meaning that I have essentially, increased my spell casting speed Exponentially!

Thoughts are faster than words, way faster.

Just this one spell... This one spell from my grimoire has already made me a dozen times stronger than before...

'{Teleport' I thought in my head, teleporting around the vicinity as I would during combat.

I used the spell over and over, the difference to before was astounding...

I had trained all this time to speak as quickly as possible, I could put any rapper from my original world to shame!

You know how people do super fast raps for under a minute to get records?

Well, have you ever seen someone finish a rap in under a second?

Yeah, that fast...

Magic is a wondrous thing that lets you enhance even something like your speaking speed! Has been quite helpful and saved me many times in the past.

Now with the mind of power spell, I'm far faster at casting spells! Dozens of times faster!

"Sweet!" I shouted, raising my hands in a victorious pose.

This is spectacular!

…

(3rd Person POV)

"This has gone on long enough... We cannot ignore this matter any further." The voice of a young man sounded within a dark circular room with nine runic circles spiraling around it.

Nine figures stood atop of those runes, they were the nine seats of the magic council.

"Be that as it may, I hold no hope for any of the mages beneath the four kings of Isghar... I don't wish to send anyone to their deaths." Belno, the witch like fifth seat spoke her opinion.

"I agree with Belno, we need to figure out some kind of plan and only then send an ȧssault force against them." Yajima, the sixth seat said.

"Even so, the fact of the matter is that those 'things' have become way too dangerous! We need to eradicate them immediately!" Michello, the third seat spoke.

"Eradicate them?! They were able to stop a blast from Etherion with their own power!" Grand Doma, the fourth seat said. "Only the four kings could do that... How do you propose we 'eradicate' them?"

"Quite easily in fact, just use the Apex generation." Michello replied, "You've all agreed not to harm the X765 year kids, so at least use them!"

"Hmm, I agree with mister Michello." he voice of a young girl, perhaps the age of ten spoke. "It would be wonderful to have the Apex generation's best from Fiore, Seven and Bosco team up and go to Stella! With a fourth organized team there, we could create a four-country alliance of the best wizards!" the girl concluded, she was the new 8th seat.

"The apex generation are just children!" Yajima roared in outrage.

"Yes, they're fifteen year old kids that in some cases are capable of feats rivaling the wizard saints, in rare cases even the four kings." Org, the second seat spoke, "They're capable. I agree to sending them."

"Org!" Yajima yelled, "You wish to send mere children into the den of those accursed vampires?!"

"Think about it, mister Yajima..." Crawford Seam, the first seat and head chairman spoke. "We can test the capabilities of the new generation, leave the four kings to their own accord and not bother them and also form an alliance between four countries!"

"And what if they die?!" Yajima became more outraged, "Can you look yourself in the mirror and wash the blood off your hands in the morning?!"

"Yes." Crawford replied curtly.

"You..." Yajima grunted, seeing that he was losing the argument among the seats.

"Leave it, Yajima. They won't listen at this point." Belno commented, sighing as she thought of the coming weeks.

"So, the formal job request will be sent to four countries and their top combatants, who do we get to do the job?" Michello asked.

"I suggest Fairy Tail, for Fiore." The young man from earlier spoke, he was the ninth seat..

"Yes, Fairy Tail would be a good pick for this mission. One of their S ranked wizards can actually create anything with his magic, even sun light." The little girl from earlier commented.

"Excellent! Such a mage would make for the corner stone in this campaign, we need him on the front lines." Crawford spoke in delight, "Next, for Bosco?"

"Wait!" Yajima spoke up, "I disagree with sending Fairy Tail mages to this battle."

"And why is that?" The young man asked.

"Fiore is the least involved country, Fairy Tail has even less to do with it. You'd be sending them on a suicide mission as well, most of their S ranks are newly appointed from the new generation! They lack experience." Yajima explained.

He really just didn't want to see his old friend Makarov's children in danger.

"Declined, Fairy Tail will be a deciding factor just based on the sun light creation." The little girl retorted.

"I still-" Yajima spoke, but got cut off.

"Enough of you Yajima! Don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgement." The gruff voice of Org sounded within the room.

"Ugh... Damn it..." Yajima could only silently curse under his breath.

"Mmm... Now that, that is over... Bosco? Anyone?" Crawford asked once more.

Michelle answered by raising his hand, "I believe I can provide some members for the strike squad, there's a few Apex generation mongrels I've been in contact with. They're strong."

"Hohh? That's good then, we have members for Fiore and Bosco. How about Seven?" Crawford asked.

"I'll get people ready from there, I already have my eye on a particular swordsman, a few more should be enough. Don't worry chairman." Org answered solemnly.

"Good good, that just leaves Stella herself! The poor country already lost many of its good mages, however from my knowledge there's a few more Apex generation kids there. We will ask them to participate in the campaign against the Vampires." Crawford spoke, ending the discussion over who would be sent.

"This is good news, the vampire menace will be gone soon." The young man commented.

"My, ain't you confident?" The little girl spoke. "Any reason as to why?"

"Just a hunch." He simply replied.

"Oh, I see... Guess we'll find out if your hunch is right or not." The girl said and looked back at the other members.

Discussions continued for a while longer, however the general basis of this operation was decided.

The mages from Stella would lead the others to the enemy's HQ, Fairy tail's Arthur would lead the charge as the one capable of destroying the Vampires, Bosco's and Seven's squad would deal with the more powerful vampires, setting them up for Arthur to finish them with sun light creation.

It was a good team, the council had some optimism for their success, however Yajima and Belmo expected the worst.

The little girl and young man on the other hand, were hoping for mutual destruction between all of the parties.

"We're done with the meeting! Get the official papers ready and send envoys to the four countries and the people we've chosen, the campaign will be carried out in mid February!" Crawford spoke in a booming, serious voice.

"This is war!" He finished the sentence, leaving the premise with those words.

...