Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or its characters.

-The Enchanter of Fairy Tail-

Chapter 49: Leafs in the Wind

Year: X757. 27 years till Canon begins.

Cade POV:

We were now in the final month of the year, and it had been a month and a half since the Harvest Festival.

Like I thought, the festival was a booming success. According to my mother, the mayor had told her that millions of jewels were gained from it. She was also happy to hear that the festival would be happening next year and the many years after that.

She had of course taken dozens of photos of me while I was on the parade performing. We had to get an entirely separate Lacrima to hold those pictures. She also took some photos of the festival itself, so there was more than just me on the parade.

It seems like everyone else in town that I spoke to enjoyed the festival as well. Apparently the local businesses had done very well on that day, which was good to hear. It could only be a good thing if the town's local businesses were getting more money in.

Anyway, speaking of money, the festival had raised more than enough for the mayor to purchase the materials necessary for the restructuring of the town to accommodate Gildarts high destructive force.

The process took an entire two weeks that each seemed to drag on. Master had all the wizards at the guild (including me) help however they could in moving the houses and setting up the tracks. I found myself using my stone to help raise some of the houses up.

When the restructuring was finished, the mayor dubbed it as the Gildarts Shift.

Whenever Gildarts came back from a job, the bellman atop Kardia Cathedral would ring the bell and activate the Gildarts Shift. This would cause the houses and other buildings in the town to be moved using the special tracks that were set up, to allow Gildarts to walk in a straight line back to the guild. If someone would be in the way of a building as they were moving, the building would automatically stop until that person got out of the way.

Gildarts was away on a long job when the town was restructured, so he was in for the biggest surprise of his life when he saw the entire town move. When he got to the guild he was told of the now current changes to the town.

Gildarts looked shocked when learning of the reason why the town moved. He looked a bit abashed hearing that it was all done for him, but he was quickly told of how expensive it was by Master, and he then stopped talking after that.

I had gone out on a job with him after the Shift had been constructed. The sight of the town changing was something that words simply could not describe. Though I must say, it certainly looked as expensive as it costed.

As for what I had been doing this last month and a half? Well I had been mostly doing what I usually do. That being to train up my magic some more and spend some more time with my friends.

While my time with Cornelia and Gildarts (when he wasn't doing jobs) was quite fun and engaging, my time spent with Lilly was… weird. You see I had fun with her, but… I always now seemed to feel this strange feeling that I couldn't understand when being around her. We had done a few things together, but this warm, and almost good feeling was always present.

This was something that I would try to maybe find out sometime in the future. It was… complicated. For now I was trying to ignore it.

Master had also announced the S-Class trials earlier this week. As I thought, I was not selected. The slots for candidates went to Frag and a few other guild members. They only had a few days left to train before they left for the trial.

I had been busy trying to drill my way through the next page in Mavel's spell book. Page 20 was proving to be quite tricky to get through. It didn't help that whenever I did try to translate it, something came up in my life that made me put the book down; eventually forgetting about it for a few days.

Currently I was sitting outside taking in the brisk cool air that flowed around me. There were no more leafs on the trees, they were now all dead on the ground. Still, they would regrow next year – such is the cycle of nature like that.

All other forms of nature were also more or less dead other than the grass. Winter always felt like a rather bleak period to me. The way everything died overnight made me feel a bit afraid as a child, yet I was always surprised to see it grow back the next year.

We had no snow this year, but perhaps next year would allow me to build a snowman, something I hadn't done for a few years now. A small smile formed on my face at the idea.

Still, I chose to turn my mind back to the spell book. My gaze drifted down to see the page that I was translating, as well as the part of the verse that I done so far:

—

"Nature is like a magic that we cannot see. We often try to fight it and control it, but in-

—

Hmm… not a bad quote so far. Still, it was a hassle to translate.

While I put my head back down at the book to get back to translating it, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu. I knew that I hadn't translated this page and this verse before, but the idea of translating a hard page like this made me feel like I was forgetting something.

I did try to think about it, but in the end, I could remember nothing.

As I got back to translating the verse, my mind began to think of ideas of what the spell that laid hidden in this page would be.

Perhaps a new material I could change my ice into? Or perhaps a very good defensive enchantment? Hell, maybe this spell would even let me just enchant me to be physically stronger?

Ah, the possibilities felt endless with this magic.

…

Wow, I sound like a real villain thinking that. Is this how every villainous wizard feels when they think of the possibilities of their magic?

I brushed these wild thoughts out of my head and got back to work translating the book.

Some time passed, and my session working on this was uninterrupted. Mother was in the manor, while Pierce and Charles were apparently cleaning out the basement which take several hours for them to do.

This did mean that I was able to complete this verse after only a few hours of me sitting down to attempt it, I took one final note of the verse, before I read it out.

—

"Nature is like a magic that we cannot see. We often try to fight it and control it, but in the end, it is best to let it grow and be free without restrictions. Without our intervention, it shall flourish and blossom."

—

For some reason, when I read the verse out loud a white glow began to from the book, which then enveloped me completely!

I let out a cry when my vision became completely covered by the white glow and covered my eyes.

Despite that, I was forced to close my eyes.

When I opened them, I found myself in a random forest!

Where was I!? What had happened!?

Where's my home? It was right there only a few feet away! Now it's gone!

I looked around the forest and desperately tried to find out where I was. All I could see was trees that stretched out far and wide. This forest was huge!

It did not match the thick, dark trees that were outside Lavender Village, these ones were instead a much lighter colour and were not as close together as those ones.

Did the book transport me here? If so, why here? In fact, where is here!?

I quickly checked and found that I still had my magic. That was nice to know. If I got into any trouble, then I had that to count on.

So with no one around me, I just started walking in a straight line to find civilisation.

As I walked, I kept an eye out for anyone that may be hidden in the trees. I saw no animals or any people for that matter.

Eventually though, I came to a small clearing in the trees, that had a bench with a man sitting on it. He was faced away from me, but his head occasionally turned to the trees to glance at them.

Who is this man? Was he an enemy?

I think I didn't have enough information to just go and attack the man, so I decided to approach him and find out more about him.

I slowly walked up to the man, but he must have heard me coming.

"Hm? Someone there." He spoke out curiously.

This caused me to stop walking to him. "Hello." I greeted with a bit of hesitation. "Who are you?" I asked first.

Then man stood up and turned to me. He was a very well-built young man; his head, somewhat rectangular in shape, was covered with messy hair on its top. He wore a sleeveless top with belt and trousers.

"Names Warrod kid. Pleased to meet you." He gave me a small smile and a nod.

'This guy seems nice enough, but why was he all the way out here?'

"Say, Warrod? Could you help me with something? I've appeared to have gotten lost in a fashion. I was reading a book and then I was transported to this forest for some reason." I said to him.

Warrod just came around the bench to face me head on. "Lost huh? Well, I can show you the way back if that's what you need." He offered. "Where do you come from?"

"Magnolia." I replied for the man.

"Ah Magnolia." Warrod's eyes lit up at that mention. "I love that town. Lots of nice things to do there. Plus, there's that big forest just outside the town, and that guild."

"Well if you could lead me back there I'd appreciate it." I thanked Warrod, as he then began to move into the trees, in which I followed him.

After a minute or so of walking, I spoke up to Warrod. "So where exactly are we Warrod?"

Warrod turned his head to me as we kept walking. "We aren't far away from Magnolia at all." He told me. "Just a few minutes of walking and you'll be right back at home." He assured me.

Huh, a bit vague… I suppose that means I somehow found myself in the East Forest. Here's hoping I don't run into Porlyusica out here…

"So what brought you out here Warrod?" I asked not long after my last question.

"Oh I just love taking in nature. This place in particular has trees all around it." Warrod extended out his hand to the trees around him. "It also reminds me of how I learned my magic and the adventures that came after." He grinned at the memory. "Almost wish I could experience it all again."

"Oh, magic huh? What kind?" I requested.

"Green Magic." Warrod answered for me. "Not that much of an offensive magic, but it certainly has its uses."

Warrod then held out his hand, and a small green root came out of his hand, before it then dissipated.

After a minute more of walking, Warrod was the one to speak out to me this time. "I don't often get many visitors out here. You don't mind if I ask you a few questions?" He requested.

"Oh yeah sure." It'd be nice to help out the man here, seeing that he doesn't get many visitors. Wonder where he lives?

"Well the first is this: If you had a magic that could take over the country with little effort, but the rulers of the country were not doing a good job at running the country; would you try to take over thinking you could do better?"

I blinked. That was… not what I was expecting to hear.

"Oh… Well… As much as I may disagree or dislike those rulers, I don't think I could take over the country." I answered. "Sure maybe I could do a better job, but those rulers know stuff that I don't know, like laws, diplomatic negotiations and all that stuff." I waved my hand saying that last part, causing a smile from Warrod. "Also the public may see me as a bit of a tyrannical ruler seeing as I took over with my magic."

"I agree." Warrod nodded his head. "It is best that we leave the ruling to the kings and queens. While we may think we can do better, we could also be doing a lot worse without even knowing."

"Any more questions?" I wondered.

"Yeah, I got another. Tell me: Why'd you choose to learn magic?" Warrod was asking a much simpler and easier question than the last one.

"Well, I was hoping to join a guild when I was younger and go on jobs to help people who need it. The experience of being part of a guild is something that I think can make anyone happy!"

Warrod looked happy at my answer. "Did you join a guild after all then?" He asked afterwards.

"Sure did." I rolled up my sleeve to show him my red Fairy Tail mark.

Warrod looked overjoyed to see my guild mark. "Ah Fairy Tail! You made the right choice there kid!" He said with joy.

"How do you know the guild?" I asked, as the man seemed too happy to just be a regular person that heard of the guild. I didn't recognise him, so he wasn't a member either.

"Well I'm close friends with the Master of the guild." Warrod replied, a smile still on his face.

'Really? This guy knows Master Makarov?'

"Huh. Uh, anyway… got another question for me?" I wondered.

"Yes I have another for you. If a friend or family member that you knew died, would you go out and try to take revenge for them?" Warrod asked, with a bit of a serious tone.

I stopped walking, causing Warrod to do the same and turn to look at me.

…

…

"I… don't know." I admitted after a while of not speaking.

"You don't know?" Warrod was giving me a curious look.

The topic of my father's death was an uncomfortable one. I had never tried to find out the truth about how he died, as I feel it would make me even sadder if I knew that he died in a possibly painful way.

I lowered my head to the ground. "I mean… I've never felt the feeling of revenge before. Sure there's been a few small things like pranks that I've been a victim to by some friends – and I got revenge for that..." I admitted with a frown.

Why had this thought never crossed my mind before? The person who killed my father could still be out there. What if I ran into them on a job?

Wait! What if… I had already ran into them…

Were they one of the nameless wizards that I had arrested in the past? If so, would I be happy knowing that they were in jail? Or upset that they weren't getting a stricter punishment?

"Don't know eh?" Warrod cut me off from my thinking. "Well… I suppose it's a good thing that a kid your age hadn't been thinking about using their magic for revenge. It can be hard to lose the life of a loved one." Warrod said with sympathy.

"H-Hey, how did you know that I had lost someone close to me?" I wondered with surprise.

"The way that you didn't know what you would do in the situation of my last question. You were clearly thinking about it too much for someone that wouldn't have lost a loved one." Warrod explained. "Sorry for your loss kid." He said solemnly afterwards.

"It's fine." I sighed.

Warrod then looked at me with a smile. "Well, I think my job here is done." He said, as if he was assessing me.

"Hmm? What do you mean? We aren't out of the forest yet." I stated to him.

"Ah, we never had to leave the forest in the first place." Warrod gave a chuckle at that. "I just had to be satisfied with the answers you gave me there. I think I can trust you with that knowledge." He gave me a wink and a smile.

"What are you talking about?" This man must be trying to pull some sort of joke right now.

Warrod then gave me a more serious look, not that he didn't trust me I don't think. It might just have been due to the situation.

"You came here by reading a verse in a spell book that I personally made sure that nearly no man could open. The fact that you are opening and translating the pages means that you have been hard at work learning the magic inside." Warrod stated.

"What!? How do you know that!?" I said with surprise.

"By reading the book you have been sent to me here, so I can assess whether you are worthy of reading the pages beyond this one." Warrod answered. "I am a founder of Fairy Tail, Warrod Sequen."

"WH-WHAT!? Y-You're a founder!?" My eyes were wide with that reveal.

"Yup, that's right." Warrod looked a bit calmer now. "You must have already met Yuri then. If he let you though then he must have trusted you." Warrod nodded his head and scratched his chin with consideration.

"H-Hold on! Then those questions earlier! Were they for-"

"Yes, I just had to make sure that you were a kind and caring wizard before I revealed myself to you. I felt like some questions would be the best way to do that."

"R-Right…" While this reveal was rather huge, one thought kept going through my mind.

Why do I feel like this has happened to me before? Have I… done this sort of thing before?

It was so strange. While this was definitely the first time I have been transported to a new location by reading the spell book, this felt disturbingly familiar. I shook the strange sense of déjà vu off and turned my focus back to Warrod.

"So hold on then. You said that I'm worthy of the next few pages. Did you determine that by the questions that you asked me?"

"I sure did. By maintaining an anonymous identity, I would be able to gage what kind of a wizard and a man you are." Warrod confirmed for me.

"While it may seem stupid to remind you of this… I did say that I had no idea whether I would take revenge after a person. How come you didn't speak up to me about that?" I asked with apprehension.

Warrod put his hand on his chin. "Didn't you hear me after you said that to me? I said that it was good that you had never thought about using your magic for revenge. While you may doubt your future self's intentions, I have a feeling that you will make decisions based on what you think is right."

"Thanks for the assurance." I smiled at the man. "Hey, do you have any idea what the spell on the other side of the page is? I'd like to know before I get sent back to Magnolia – however you plan on sending me back of course."

Warrod gave me an unfortunate look. "Ah, I am sorry to say that you shall not remember any of this. To ensure that any secrets and sensitive knowledge that we would give to the person that we speak to here would be abused on the outside world."

"What!? That's so unfair!" I shouted with surprise. "Everyone would love to hear about how I met a founder of Fairy Tail. Technically I'm making history in Fairy Tail right now by being here talking to you!" I declared with anger.

"No need to worry. When you finish translating the rest of the spell book you will be able to remember everything that happened here with me!" Warrod assured me with a grin.

"Man… I can't even ask you for advice about certain things…" I sighed with defeat.

"Anyway, is there anything else that I have to do here?" I scratched my chin in thought.

Warrod simply shook his head. "There is nothing that you have to do here now." He then turned away from me and began to walk away. "I suppose you should start waking up right now." He then held a hand in the air as if he was saying farewell to me.

"Huh?" I said as I saw Warrod walk off. "Hey what do you mean by wake up-"

I suddenly startled myself awake.

What? Did I fall asleep?

Again? I fall asleep when translating a really big verse of the spell book again?! What are the odds of this? Perhaps I should drink lots of coffee before starting from now on.

Strange… I felt like I had a dream, yet I can't remember any of the details. Normally when you have a dream you end up remembering some details, but in my case right now; I could only remember that I had a dream.

As I was thinking if this strange phenomenon, a leaf fell from the tree I was resting along and past my face.

Hold on.

'W-What!?' I suddenly looked up and saw that all the leafs on the tree that I was resting against were completely regrown! What in the hell had happened?! It was winter! That meant that no trees had any leafs on them – baring a few trees that we did not have in our garden.

It was as if the tree never began to lose its leafs from the beginning of autumn. I quickly looked around the garden and found that all the other plants were still dead. The other trees had no leafs on them, and there were no flowers in the flower bed.

It was just this one tree that seemed to defy all laws of nature.

'Perhaps it's a miracle tree. All of a sudden it will bloom all of its leafs back. That sounds like something that you would hear in a book or something like that.'

My gaze then drifted down to the spell book and found that the page had been translated!

'What? Didn't I fall asleep? How is the page translated?' I wondered.

I looked around and saw that there was nobody around in the garden. The frozen grass was undisturbed, so it proved at that no one came here to unlock it for me.

'This day is getting stranger and stranger.' I realised, before I looked down to what the spell was.

—

Basic Enchantment – Disappear

Causes a magical enchanted explosion(s)

—

A… magical enchanted explosion? How powerful would that be? I mean it's only a basic enchantment after all.

My eyes then spotted the fact that the description of the spell.

'Explosions. That means I can cast more than one of them at a time. Interesting…' I considered as I look at the back of the book to see if there was any additional instructions. There was nothing written, so I just closed the book and sent it back into my Requip storage.

As I did so, I heard a voice call out from inside the manor.

"Cade! That's Yajima here here to see you!" Came my mother.

Right! I forgot that Yajima was coming round here to check up on me and my progress. I quickly got up and hurried into the manor to see him. I came into the dining room and saw Yajima sitting there waiting for me.

"There you are Cade. I heard that you were busy with a big festival that took place here? I would have come if it were not for all the work I had to do." Yajima remarked as he greeted me.

"You could say that. I actually performed on the parade for everyone to see!" I stated with a grin.

Yajima looked pleased to hear that. "Ah good! I hear that the parade will be a yearly thing now? If so then I'll be making sure to drop by at least once to see it." He smiled at the idea.

Yajima then stood up. "So then, make any new progress since I last saw you? I already headed down to the guild to get the paperwork from Macky's side of things."

Well this was a funny coincidence. I had literally just gotten a new spell minutes ago.

"Yeah I made some more progress. Learned some more Ice Magic, as well as new spell in the spell book." I said carefully.

Yajima queered his head. "That so? Mind if I see it?"

This wasn't necessary a request, as Yajima was forced to take a look at each page that I translate and give a report on it back to the council.

If either of us didn't comply, Org would snatch the book away from me. As such, I summoned the book and handed it to Yajima after opening it to page 20 for him to see.

He skimmed the little text that was on there, before he handed the book back to me.

"Hmm. A magical enchanted explosion eh? Think you could demonstrate the spell for me Cade?" He requested.

"Oh er… you see I literally just got the spell a few minutes ago. I haven't even tested it yet." I admitted to him.

Yajima gave a thoughtful look at the situation. "If that's the case… how about we have you test the spell out on the hills? It'd be make for a good first practice." He suggested.

With no real way to avoid this, I accepted the offer, and me and Yajima headed out of the house and to the hills nearby.

The temperature had dropped quite a bit since we left the house, hopefully this wouldn't take too long to do.

Three hours later:

"Gah! I almost had it!" I cried with frustration.

Turns out learning this spell was a harder than it looked. I was trying to focus the magic into my hand to cast the spell, but as this was my first time casting offensive enchantment magic out of my body it was taking some time to achieve.

"Close. I bet a few more attempts will get it done." Yajima encouraged me.

This weather and temperature wasn't helping very much. I found myself shivering due to the cold winds and low temperature in the air.

"I'm not sure how hard this could be. I've been trying for hours and not a single burst of magic has came out!" I grunted in frustration.

"Perhaps you are thinking about it the wrong way?" Yajima suggested. "I'm not a huge expert with using combat magic, but I've heard that a wizards thoughts can help them cast some spells easier."

'How else can I think about this? I mean it's a magical enchanted explosion. Maybe I should be thinking of more aggressive thoughts?'

"I'll give it a shot." I said, not fully confident that it would work.

I began to think of as many negative thoughts as I could, and began to change up the spell. I closed my eyes to focus better.

Many negative thoughts and ideas flowed through my head.

Now this seemed to charge up a spell that was quite radiant with magic.

I then felt the power of the spell form in my hand, as I opened my eyes and casted the spell forwards.

"Disappear!" I shouted as I sent a red orb of energy forwards into the air.

'I did it! I casted the spe-'

*KABOOM!*

Suddenly me and Yajima were swept back due to a powerful explosion going off in front of us. We fell on our backs, us not expecting the spells power.

When the dust in the air cleared away I sat up and saw the damage that the spell had caused.

What was once a lovely hill was now a large crater that was around two and half metres deep and wide.

"Th-This power! It's incredible!" I cried with disbelief.

Yajima then sat up and saw the crater. His eyes went wide with what he saw. He clearly did not expect the spell to have that much power. And neither did I.

This was only ONE single explosion. What the hell would five or more of them would look like!?

"Good god… Master Makarov will be happy to hear that I made a huge crater in the hills." I said with sarcasm.

Yajima had his jaw open as wide as his eyes. He was clearly trying to speak but was struggling to do so.

"T-This is insane! That was a single explosion you caused!?" He demanded.

"Y-Yes it was!" I cried desperately. "Please don't confiscate the book Yajima!" I begged as I clasped my hands together.

Yajima now sighed. "It's not up to me confiscate the book, it's Org!" He reminded me.

"Oh no… I'm done for! He'll take the book away for sure with how powerful that spell was!" I moaned in defeat.

I wailed in pity for a few seconds, until Yajima spoke up.

"Calm down Cade. I think I have a plan of how to help you here." Yajima began to have a inquisitive look on his face.

"What? Really?" I said in surprise.

"It's a long shot… but Org didn't see the spell itself right? All I give back to him is the information of what the spell can do. I could just undermine the spell and say that the explosions weren't that powerful." Yajima suggested. "It could work…"

"Really!? You would do that for me Yajima?" I said, almost speechless.

"Of course." Yajima nodded when he said that. "Remember, if this goes well on my end as well, then I might get a promotion of sorts at the Magic Council."

"Aw, thanks man!" I cheered as I gave him a pat on the back, which nearly caused him to fall over again. "Think we could head back inside now? I'm nearly frozen standing out here…" I complained.

As the both of us headed back in to the manor to warm up, I thought back on the power of the spell that I had casted.

That was perhaps my most powerful spell yet. The strength of that huge explosion threw me down to the ground. I would need a fair bit of training to learn how to master it properly, some before I even considered trying to cast more than one of them.

Still, I was now a good partway into Malvel's book. It wouldn't be long until I have completed translating the entire book. If this was the power that page 20 had for me, I could barely imagine what sort of magic lied on the final page.

There we go, that's another chapter done! Please leave a review of your thoughts if you wish.

I'm this chapter we got to see Cade finally crack through into page 20 and beyond. He also met a younger Warrod and was able to learn his actual first offensive Enchantment Spell. One of Irene's to be exact.

I did plan from the beginning to give him some of Irene's spells through the course of this story. If I did so closer to the beginning though, then he would have simply breezed through every obstacle without much challenge.

Giving him Irene's Disappear spell when he is already an established mage with other offensive spells, means that he won't be using it 24/7.

As for the Universe One or Personality Enchantment… yeah… I can't exactly give him that else he'd BREZZE through the story. That or it would honestly make things like fights hard to write. Cade will be getting some more original spells in the book though.

With that all said and done, I hope you liked this chapter, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next!

Angry-Sama - The whole purpose of this story is that it tries to explore a previous time-period that we know barely anything about. Canon will start eventually, I just want to try something a bit different and start further back than most stories. If you find the story boring, then I can't help you there.

Kakathot - I can see where you are coming from. I just never really thought about chapters 2 - 4 in that sense. I just felt like it would be nice to actually see Cobalt do something before he died.