The second dragon they targeted was a lightning dragon living on top of a mountain. Like before, Ben erected a space barrier to prevent the dragon from escaping, being disturbed by other dragons or even having their battle detected by others outside the barrier.
Unlike the ice dragon, the lightning dragon put up a fight. He fought back even harder when he saw Ben because he was mad at him and wanted revenge. So now Ben needed to help the young mages by distracting the dragon while they attack.
The lightning dragon's focus was solely on Ben, so the others can attack him easily. He attacked them as well once and a while, but they can evade his fast lightning attack with Carla's help. Carla used her future sight to see what the lightning dragon will do next and warned the others before he attacked.
The battle lasted longer than the previous one because the lightning dragon launched a fierce counter attack, but now their attacks had become stronger. They also have more experience fighting a dragon together, so they can work together better now, and hopefully, it will become better as they fight more dragons.
After the lightning dragon died, Ben turned it into a dragon lacrima too. Then he transplanted it into the young lightning mage who actually has learned Lightning Dragon Slayer Magic before Ben's arrival. Ben still taught him things to improve his Lightning Magic too.
The effect on this young lightning mage is even better than the young ice mage. His magic power became stronger at a visibly faster rate, unlike the young ice mage who needed to train first to show results. It's because this young lightning mage had a better understanding of his element than the ice mage.
Their hunt for dragon lacrima went well with Ben's guidance. They obtained thirteen dragon lacrima with different properties. Ice, Lightning, Fire, Heat, Water, Earth, Stone, Wood, Light, Poison, Lava, Steam and Acid.
The dragons with those types of magic spread out across Ishgar. Ben targeted those dragons to give the young mages a variety of magic. With different types of magic, they'll be able to handle most situations even when some properties don't work and it'll help them when some of their magic properties have an advantage over their opponents.
The water dragon lacrima was implanted in Bella's body. So now she had Water Devil and Dragon Slayer Magic. Her Devil Slayer Magic isn't effective against dragons, but it would be dangerous to remove the water devil lacrima, so Ben added the water dragon lacrima.
With his data and experience, Ben can safely transplant it into Bella's body. The Devil and Dragon Slayer magic will coexist in her body without any side effects. She also used lacrima crystals, so there won't be any risk of demonization or dragonization.
So now, the only ones without Dragon Slayer magic were Lucy and Carla. They didn't need it though because they already had useful magic. Their hunt was a lot easier with Carla and Lucy's help as they used their magic proficiently.
"16 Dragon Slayers excluding me. Our guild would be the scariest one with these many Dragon Slayers if this is the past. Well, whatever, what's really important now is hunting the dragons. We'll hunt the remaining dragons in Ishgar, then we'll move to Alakitasia. The eastern continent will be next and finally Guiltina."
Ben wants them to grow first before facing the dragon's main forces. He needed each one of them to be strong enough to fight a dragon alone. If they just trained, it would take years, so they need to hunt dragons and increase their power.
After training for a few days, their real hunt began. Ben led them to hunt dragons still on Ishgar. Their hunts weren't easy, but they always succeeded because Ben was there. Just like before, Ben turned the defeated dragons into dragon lacrimas.
Ben didn't come up with the plan to increase the number of dragon slayers, but he might give these lacrimas to people he considered trustworthy. Ben didn't want to cause more problems in the future when the dragons had disappeared.
These Dragon Slayers might become the world's new enemies after the dragons disappear. So he needed to be careful with who he turned into Dragon Slayers. He also didn't fully believe in these young mages because people can change, so he is thinking of a way to make sure they stay on the right path.
Well, he can think about it slowly, but there were other reasons for turning these dragons into dragon lacrimas. Ben wanted to remove the traces of the battle and dragons' dead bodies can change their surroundings because of the immense magic power, he wanted to avoid that too.
As they hunt dragons on Ishgar, Ben found survivors hiding in places like caves and bunkers. Most groups had mages, but he didn't know anyone. Well, Lucy said that most mages affiliated with them died during the war.
While visiting these survivor groups, Ben and the Fairies also helped them with food and protection. They gave the survivors food they gathered from the wild and Ben also set up protective barriers to keep their hiding places safe. Ben also removed some problems for them, namely problematic mages.
Most survivor groups had mages leading them. Some of these mages were oppressing the non-mages to gain more benefits. Ben knew they are prioritizing their survival, but this didn't solve their problem.
These mages don't even want to hunt dragons with the Fairies with the risk of death. They just want to stay in their groups and become kings in their small kingdoms. So Ben forced them to go on the dragon hunt with his group, but they won't get any dragon lacrimas.
His group got bigger as some more mages joined willingly. They are just weak mages, but any help is important on this mission. These mages can always support them to make the hunt easier.
Their group had 43 people including Ben when they left to head to Alakitasia. Ben had now equipped the non Dragon Slayers with Dragon Slayer weapons. He forged weapons with Dragon Slayer Magic in them to make these mages attacks effective against dragons.
These weapons were made out of dragon's body parts, especially bones and scales. Ben had a serious expression when he made them, so they were very powerful. That's why Ben installed a mechanism that will make the weapons self-destruct after a year to make sure they wouldn't be misused.
The Dragon Slayers also have Dragon Slayer weapons to make their attacks more powerful. Ben was the only one that didn't have a weapon because no weapon can withstand his magic's true power. He had tried using Acnologia's scales, but his max power could easily melt those scales, so he decided to no longer make weapons for herself.
Ishgar's Dragon Hunter team, that's the name of their group. They are now hunting dragons on Alakitasia. The dragons here were also weakened as a result of injuries, but not as bad as the ones on Ishgar. The only Dragon Slayer on Alakitasia was Irene.
This continent had many strong mages, especially in the Alvarez Empire. The Spriggan 12 were powerful forces who could handle the dragons better than the Ten Wizard Saints. They couldn't defend themselves from the dragon's attacks longer than Ishgar even though they have Zeref, August, Irene and the rest of the Spriggan 12.
The biggest factor that allowed Ishgar to survive the attack was Ben. He could defend them from the dragon's attacks and led the mages to face the dragons. Even after his death, the mages could still fight for a while because his teachings were still stuck in their minds.
Alakitasia, however, was too reliant on the Spriggan 12 and Zeref. They couldn't do much against the dragons that had gotten better after facing Ben's great and effective strategies many times.
"How will we hunt here?"
"We will still use our usual strategy for now to check the level of the dragons here. Then we'll slowly step up our game. Wendy, you need to learn how to lead the group from now on. When we attack their main force, you will be the leader. I will be busy facing Acnologia and possibly other leading dragons, so I won't be able to help you. Learn well and we will try attacking under your lead after attacking a few times here."
Wendy nodded and they start attacking the first dragon they targeted in Alakitasia. Ben could sense this dragon, so they found it quite easily. It's a bone dragon, a dragon that has bones as an exoskeleton to replace it's scales, so it's not just a moving skeleton.
The bone dragon wasn't easy to defeat because it's exoskeleton was much harder than ordinary scales. Ben didn't join the battle. Instead, he simply directed the mages to fight to test their abilities. It was eventually defeated with some effort.
Ben turned the bone dragon into a dragon lacrima, but he didn't take it's exoskeleton. It's good material, but other dragon bones are just as good. There are dragons with harder body parts and he is waiting for them.
The big group hunted dragons on Alakitasia at a faster pace than when they hunted dragons on Ishgar because they have a lot of experience now. They still hunt the dragons one by one while moving stealthily to make it more effective.
But after 2 weeks of hunting, Ben received a little surprise when they approach the ruins of Vistarion. Although he was surprised, he was also excited. "Heh, who would think something like this could happen? Well, isn't this interesting?"
