PART ONE. Realization

October 8th, Fairy Tail Guild

Day 8

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…

The old grandfather clock had certainly grown on Natsu by now. Something about it made him feel… what was the word?

Present, a very very old stray memory had answered the internal question. In the moment.

Who had taught him that word, as well as its meaning? Had it been Igneel or Erza? Natsu decided it wasn't important, and promptly scratched the back of his head before sipping on his coffee.

Opposite of him behind the large brown maple desk was Makarov. The old man was scribbling away at some papers with his pen. He seemed to be doing that a lot more these days, though for what reason exactly, Natsu didn't know. Gramps certainly didn't too look happy dealing with paperwork again, though it seemed their little trip out into the Eastern Forest had done wonders for his health. Compared to the old man's shape from a few weeks ago, his pale face was flush with color and vitality. Makarov was spry and in ship-shape, probably from having gotten more sleep in the last six days than the entire month before.

Natsu could sympathize. He'd skipped sleep as much as he could once he and his team returned from Akane Resort after all. It wasn't a fun time.

Hums and voices started to pick up again. Commotion coming from the other side of the tall door to the Guildmaster's Office. Natsu glanced at it as if he could see through it, remembering the long catwalk on the second floor of the Guild Hall which then led down into the main floor. The place would get busy within the hour, probably.

"Ahem,"

Natsu looked back at Makarov now. The old man was staring at him now, and had aside the black pen.

"You brought along that list of questions I gave you?"

"Of course."

"Well go ahead and take it out. As encouraging as it is to know we've gotten past your motion sickness, there's still more work to do. As a matter of fact," Makarov quickled donned a rather sinister-looking smirk. "You're to begin sparring tomorrow morning."

Natsu carefully set down his mug and unfolded the sheet of paper, laying it flat on the coffee table. "With who, exactly? You've been pretty… err…"

"Reticent?"

"Eh… What?"

The old man ignored Natsu's noticeable confusion. "I suppose you're referring to the fact that I haven't told you who your sparring partner is, nor why they have been chosen to work with you?"

Natsu nodded firmly, also deciding to ignore his own slip up with regard to not understanding certain words. I oughta brush up on that dictionary back at the house one of these days. "Yeah-yeah, that's what I meant."

"Natsu…" Makarov started, folding his hands on his desk. "Rest assured that I've selected someone who is more than qualified to work with you. And I mean qualified. This particular individual has considerable knowledge and… experience… dealing with Dragon Slayer Magic."

Natsu frowned. What the blazes is was that supposed to mean? Someone who knows about Dragon Slayer Magic? Or an actual Dragon Slayer like me?

Dragon Slayer Magic was a Lost Magic, and an exceedingly rare one at that. Natsu didn't know of anyone else in the guild-much less Fiore-who practised some form of Dragon Slayer Arts except for that punk, Gajeel. And when it came to that degenerate… well… the less Natsu thought of him, the better. He sincerely hoped his sparring partner wasn't that iron-faced scumbag.

Add to that, Natsu had already beaten him-even if the fight was a little dirty what with Lucy's intervention. Surely Gramps wouldn't have paired him up with someone who'd been a former enemy of the guild, too.

"Is it Gildarts?"

"No. If Gildarts were back from his Century Quest, he'd be here."

"Is-"

Makarov sharply raised his hand in a stopping motion. "Natsu, rest assured that you will be left in capable hands. Now," It was time to change the subject. "We have addressed one of your weaknesses in the last few weeks. We've made some notable progress, if I do say so myself. Now it's time that we set our sights on other targets."

The Fire Dragon Slayer kept a straight face and nodded. His motion sickness was permanent. Yet the fact that he could now control it and even mitigate its effects… that was more than worth all the harrowing hours he spent laying in his own spit and vomit at the bottom of that bloody canoe. He'd gotten back into that boat approximately nineteen more times in the days following his initial victory, until eventually he was able to row himself back to shore in under a minute without getting sick. Now it was like… like he could flip a switch in his brain and all he would feel was a minor stomach ache.

It worked. The fact that Natsu Dragneel had actually begun to make progress by conquering what would have been considered a critical weakness of his… that was more inspiring than anything.

But progress towards what exactly?

What was the end goal here? The ultimate vision?

"This is all in service of the man you want to be, Natsu. In order to have the things this ideal version of yourself has, you must first become that man in more ways than one. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good." Makarov gave him a crooked grin. "Now for today, we'll be taking a look at questions thirteen and fifteen. Go ahead and read them out loud, will you."

Natsu glanced down at the sheet once more. Scrolling down the numbered list, he quickly found what he was looking for. "What skillsets has Future Natsu developed along the way to perfecting himself? Has he learned other branches of magic? Which ones? And why?" Then came the next. "What sort of man IS Future Natsu? How does he act and think? How sharp is his mind?"

Skillsets? Other branches of magic?

It was something he'd considered before, back when he'd gotten this list initially. But should he actually go ahead and learn more types of magic? Natsu didn't know, and neither was he really motivated to do so. It wasn't a task that greatly appealed to him.

Wasn't it enough being a Dragon Slayer? To supplement the magic taught to him by Igneel with… what? Wind Magic?

Ridiculous. He almost scoffed at the thought.

But the old man sitting across the room from him had naturally read his expression. Somehow, not for the first time in the last few weeks, Makarov knew exactly what he was thinking. "These are valid questions, Natsu. Reliance on a single form of magic would result in you becoming what we in the trade call a 'one trick pony'. This applies to learning new skills as well. Strategy, tactics, critical thinking. All of these are necessary skills for SS-Class Wizards. These are things you will have to learn as well."

"What's the point of this going over this today though?" Natsu asked, dumbfounded. "It's not like I can learn a new form of magic within the next twenty-four hours."

"Why not?"

"Why not what?"

"Why can't you learn a different form of magic today?" Came the reiterated question.

Natsu opened his mouth to respond, but quickly found that he didn't actually have a worthy reply. He kept his teeth together and pondered the question again. Why not?

Why not, indeed.

Gramps didn't wait for him to reply, either, "Something to keep in mind, Natsu; life is a marathon, not a sprint." He paused for a moment before locking eyes with the Dragon Slayer. "Imagine for a moment that you are building a house. Every day, you place a brick. Progress may be slow in the beginning, and it might take a while before you reach your goal, but as each day passes, you start to see the fruits of your labor."

"Why not just build the house in one or two days? It's clearly faster than building it brick by brick."

"That's… not the point, Natsu. The house is just a metaphor. The point is that most things in life which are desirable, are often difficult to achieve. Great magical power and capability is one of those things. And in order to reach true mastery, you must work towards it every single day. Some days you make more progress than others, but the main idea is that you must show up every day all the same. With regards to learning about new magics, while it may take you anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to reach effective practice, you can still lay the groundwork for yourself today." The old man continued on. "It must come as no surprise to you, that the best mages we have to offer in this guild are in fact the ones who showed up every day to practice and master their respective forms of magic. Natural talent alone will get you far, but getting yourself the rest of the way? Now that will require dedication and consistency."

That… actually made sense the more Natsu began to think about it.

Everyone else in the guild just kinda… don't do anything. Never seen any of them train or practice unless it was for work.

But for the actual S-Class Mages in the guild? Natsu rarely saw any of them in the guild hall, doing what every other member usually does. Gildarts hadn't been seen for the last three years alone. Laxus was occasionally having a drink up on the second floor, but was otherwise not around. Mystogan came in probably about once a month. Erza, if anything, proved Makarov's point. Though she was in the guild more often than the other S-Class Mages, she would maintain her civility - eating her cake while the rest of the guild descended into chaos all around her.

Natsu frowned as he recalled something Gildarts had told him once,

'Watch what everyone else is doing. Now do the opposite.'

He'd only been a kid when he heard that, so Natsu hadn't actually taken Gildarts all that seriously. But now? Now it made more and more sense. What a curveball!

Makarov wasn't even finished. "The fact that you claimed you could not learn a new form of magic today… that is more concerning to me than anything else we've covered so far," he said, "All the things you want to do, Natsu… you can do them, you just need to start today. And you need to carry that momentum forward if you want to see any real progress or results. This also plays into how you'll change from who you are now, into the sort of man you want to be. Remember what I said about thinking differently?"

Natsu did remember. The saying had been ingrained in his head by now. "Outstanding results come from thinking and acting differently."

"Precisely. You have a lot of natural talent, Natsu. Now you need to apply yourself consistently, and you'll be able to take your talent to new heights. You need to think differently. Think the same way that ideal version of yourself would, for example."

Think the way my ideal self thinks? How do I do that? The task wasn't exactly as easy as it sounded-how was he supposed to start thinking differently on the flip of a jewel? It was a puzzle that Natsu simply couldn't seem to wrap his head around. At least, it was for the moment.

Natsu wanted to figure this out though. He opted to speak his mind. "How do I do that?"

"It's not easy to accomplish in one go… in fact it'll be fairly uncomfortable for you. All the same, it's relatively simple," Makarov sat back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. "Look at the results you want in life and then consider what sort of man you'd need to be in order to get those results."

Okay… "So think about the outcomes I want and who I'll need to be to achieve them… and then consistently work towards those outcomes every day?"

"Exactly. Now you're beginning to see how it all comes together, yes?"

"Yeah," Natsu sat back, still a bit unsure about his understanding of the concept. "I think,"

It was all simple, really. But the fact that it was a new concept to him was what made it feel confusing.

You'll get it, Dragneel.

That's right. He was good at adapting. He just… needed to put this into practice then.

Natsu felt he should ask more questions concerning the topic at hand, but before he opened his mouth to speak, Makarov had already glanced over at the grandfather clock.

"Looks like our time's up. I've got a meeting with a representative from the Magic Council in a few minutes." The old man sat forward and clapped his hands together, now refocusing his gaze back on Natsu. "I want you to continue thinking about these concepts throughout the rest of your day, Natsu. And for the rest of your week for the matter. These are very important principles that will serve you well in life."

Natsu stood up, folding the sheet of paper and tucking it into his pocket, and picking up his half-full mug of still warm black coffee. "I'll keep it in mind, Gramps."

"Good. And before you go, I also have something that will help you with regards to mastering your Dragon Slayer magic - and even learning other types of magic."

Makarov had hopped off his chair and gone over to a nearby bookshelf, withdrawing an old dusty tome from the bottom shelf. Right then and there, Natsu felt dread begin to form in his gut.

"This aided me greatly when I was your age," the old man turned to face him now, and threw the book to him. "Very simple and practical, I should add."

Natsu caught the book effortlessly with his left hand, and flipped it over onto its front. The title read, 'Understanding Magic & Spellcraft' written by one Commander Jon Fleming.

He glanced back at the old man. "You want me to read this?"

"No, I want you to use it to start a fire-of course you're supposed to read it!" Makarov shook his head impatiently. "I'm aware that your reading skills are not what they should be given your naturally high level of intelligence. Consider this to be another challenge for you in that area of your life."

"Err… alright I'll give it a go."

"No, Natsu. You will have to have read and finished this book by next week. We'll be going over some of the concepts in the book itself."

Natsu went wide-eyed. "What? You want me to make a book report?!"

"Yes." Came the simple answer.

The last time he had to do one of those was with Erza when she was schooling him… and back then it wasn't as he could've smacked her over the head for it. Shit…

But then again… Natsu reminded himself that, much like the process in handling his motion sickness, he did sign up for this. I'll figure it out, he thought to himself. Complaining wouldn't help him now. All that was left was to get to work.

"I'll get it done by next week then." He said, this time with conviction.

Makarov seemed pleased at that. "Excellent. Now off you go."

Without saying another word, Natsu Dragneel nodded to the Guildmaster once more and turned on his feet, pocketing the book and opening the door to the office, and gently closed it shut behind him.

'Stop to consider that every last one of us are born with more or less similar settings in our own brains. Meaning that we are all born with the same potential for mastery.

How is it that, despite us all being born with the same advantage, that only a limited number of people across the annals of time have ever been able to actually truly shine and realize their full potential? Is it not outlandish that more and more Wizards refuse to acknowledge the both literal and metaphorical fortune that is at their disposal? After all, those born with magic make up a mere ten percent of the total human population. And only a startling one percent of all Wizards ever achieve their truest potential.

How is it that each of us are born with no true limit for sheer excellence, and yet, so few of us ever reach such heights of personal ability and mastery?

Exceptional skill and natural talent are far more common than you might be led to believe, my dear reader. Countless people all over the world display talents in their own respective fields, yet so few of them ever amount to anything. It only goes to show that while talent and skill can get you far, it cannot take you all the way.

Some of the most masterful and impactful mages I have had the pleasure of knowing were not even the most talented, nor the most skillful.

As a matter of stern fact, they were rather ordinary.

None of them were the smartest, the most intelligent, the most wise. Not even the most powerful, nor strongest. Quite a few of them were even socially inept, completely incapable of handling a single conversation. Some of them were even left behind in the dust of their more popular peers.

And yet, somehow, they were able to rise far to the top and excel. Not simply as Wizards… but as Humans. Men and Women both driven by youthful predilections and passions to practice and practice and practice, all because of their intense desire to learn and a burning want to fully understand their branch of Magic. Fighting through the pain of the process of mastery; the long, neverending hours of practice; the self-doubts; jealousy and ridicule from the resentful onlookers; the unavoidable setbacks. In this… they have learned true resilience and have earned their own confidence.

To become an individual of sheer exceptional quality-'

"Hey, Natsu!"

Nonchalantly, the Fire Dragon Slayer had torn his gaze away from the rather worn book which was cradled in his right palm. Almost as if the entire world had flooded back into his senses, he'd suddenly remembered where he'd been sitting in the guild hall; at a table near the bar on the western side of the hall. The booming noise comprising of so many jeering and cajoling voices depicting yet another busy day in the guild playing out around him.

Lucy was standing there across from him, with Happy floating in the air beside her. More than a few emotions passed over her expression all within a handful of seconds. Her usual cheerfulness was there, naturally. Next came curiosity, and then, her head turned almost in perplexion as she set her large brown eyes on the object in Natsu's hands.

"Is that… are you actually reading a book?"

"Yeah," Natsu said, seeing that Lucy was very obviously bewildered. "What else does it look like?"

"I thought you hated reading. Since… you know, Erza kind of forced you to learn how to read and write when you were kids."

Well… that was a fair enough point. While Natsu often preferred to take a simpler approach to life (he found he enjoyed himself a lot more that way), he also was fully willing to do things he didn't like in order to get work done.

"Never said I hated reading. And Igneel taught me to read and write. Erza just 'finished' my education… in her own way." He folded the page he'd left off on before closing the book. "Reading's inconvenient most of the time."

Lucy sweatdropped. "That's just a nicer way to say that you don't like to read." Now she took a seat on the bench across from him. "I think you're kind of missing the whole point of literature."

"Whatever," Natsu pushed the book off to the side. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing really, I'm just surprised to see you in here at this time of day. Usually you'd be off doing something else. So I thought we could catch up. Oh!" The blonde slid onto the bench across from him. She raised her hands up. "See anything different?" She asked as she, rather excitedly, wiggled her fingers.

"No."

Lucy let out a sharp sigh. "Come on, Natsu! I got my nails done this morning! How couldn't you tell?"

Natsu wasn't ever one to pay attention to those sorts of details. When it came to girls and their grisly female habits, he generally kept to himself. It was a methodology that hadn't let him down yet.

Besides. Lucy's nails didn't appear any different than when he'd seen her last.

He decided to take the honest approach. "I don't really pay attention to your nails, Lucy."

"Told you, Lucee." Happy said in a muffled tone, having spoken with a trout in his mouth. "Natsu doesn't care about those sorts of things."

"Spot on, buddy."

Lucy let out another dejected huff and finally placed her hands back down on the table. She pursed her lips and gave him a small glare. "Just wait until you get a girlfriend, Natsu. That's exactly when you'll need to care."

Natsu chuckled. "Why?"

The blonde had raised a finger, as if she were now a sophisticated professor giving some sort of educated response. "Because, Natsu, a woman is always right."

"How so?" He asked again, actually curious now. "You've wrong about loads of things since we teamed up."

"Because… err..."

Natsu looked to his best friend. "Does that make sense to you, buddy?"

Happy shook his head. "Nope."

Natsu had once heard such a common saying before. But it really didn't make sense at the time. Neither did it really matter. Natsu was just wondering whether or not he should keep messing with Lucy, or just change the subject.

Lucy folded her arms and glanced away. "I'm starting to regret coming over here."

"Maybe you should have thought before we sat down at the table," Happy quipped.

"Shut up, cat!"

Well, it was about time. Natsu smirked and opened up his book again, easily tuning out all the voices around him, and continuing from where he left off.

'To become an individual of sheer exceptional quality, one must also go through a similar process. Especially if you yourself do possess raw natural talent with your innate form of magic.

It is the prodigies who are often the laziest of the bunch. They feel that they have nothing to prove as most of their capability has come naturally, almost without effort to them. And yet at the end of the day, they are constantly outclassed by those who are far more practiced and seasoned than them. If you, my dear reader, fall into the former category, then it is of the utmost importance that you apply yourself to the fullest extent imaginable. Mastering your magical abilities will take time and an extraordinary amount of effort - but it is very possible. Discovering the learning process is what will clarify this for you.

The simplest way to gain access to this insight is to learn other forms of magic. Doing so will enable you to understand what it is like to take on a new challenge, and to approach it from the perspective of an ordinary Wizard. You may not see it now, but taking this path will make you open to new ideas and help form new connections in your mind and ultimately instilling in you a hungering drive to master what has already come to you innately.

From there, you should-'

"What's it about?"

Natsu glanced up again and met Lucy's eyes. "Hm?"

"Your book. What's it about?"

He paused. What should he tell her? He couldn't very well say that Master Makarov had given it to him. Neither could he say why the old man had given him the book either. The mentorship was strictly between himself and Makarov, so telling anyone else about it was out of the question.

Natsu wasn't even halfway through the introduction. Though the book was only an inch thick, it seemed almost deceptively longer. Might as well tell her about what he'd gotten through so far, then.

Can't believe I still gotta write a book report about this…

"It's more of a practical guide on how to master magic in general."

Unfortunately, Lucy had perked up at his reply. She seemed almost unusually energetic now. "Really? What's the name of the book? Who wrote it?"

Natsu simply folded the page again, closed the book, and then showed Lucy the cover. That's probably all it would take for her to lose the scent, and then he could get right back to reading. Even he was willing to admit that he was interested in the concepts the old tome was going over, and Natsu was pretty keen to get back to it.

What he wasn't expecting, was for the blonde to go completely wide-eyed upon seeing both the title and the name of the man who wrote the book itself.

"Oh. My. God!" The blonde had flushed, almost fusing her hands to her face out of shock at what she was seeing. "Is that what I think it is?!"

Oh no… not again.

Natsu knew what that look meant. He'd seen it before, when both he and Lucy had taken on that Daybreak Job. The fascination. The eager greed in those twinkling brown eyes. He slowly pulled the tome back towards him. He didn't want to lose a finger. She's totally gonna nerd out over this thing, isn't she?

His instincts were proven right. Lucy looked at him then, and Natsu knew that what was coming.

"Where did you get that, Natsu?!"

"I-"

"Don't you know what that is?"

"Err, I just-"

Lucy planted both her hands down sharply onto the table. "Oh my! I've only ever heard stories about Understanding Magic & Spellcraft! It's so rare that collectors pay over forty million jewel just for a few pages alone! It was the only book that Commander Jon Fleming ever wrote in his whole military career and he was such a great wizard that he was personally knighted by King Hora - he was King Toma's father in case you didn't know - for all of his successful campaigns defending against invading forces from Bosco and Minstrel and he only published just over a thousand copies of it and-"

"I get it Lucy," Natsu cut in. "Sounds like he was a great guy."

But the blonde just kept rambling on. "And he-"

Natsu decided to tune her out. He shared a knowing look with Happy. No words needed to be said between the two.

I go ahead and show her the book for only a moment and then this happens.

Happy shrugged. Total geek, right? Can't be helped.

He brought his attention back to Lucy, who was still going on a full-blown monologue. Natsu figured she knew what she was talking about, but he still wasn't entirely sure. After all, this was just some dusty old book that Gramps had taken off the small bookshelf in his office. Chances are, Lucy was just blowing a fuse.

Unexpectedly, his savior from this hell came in the form of his worst enemy.

Gray had appeared amidst the hurricane of loud voices and cheering in the guild hall. The Ice Wizard seemed to have spotted them from the twin main doors to the building and slowly weaved his way through the crowd and over to their table.

Great, thought Natsu. Now Mr. Droopy Eyes was gonna lord this one over him next time they go out on a job together.

Still, he was willing to take that loss instead of listening to Lucy's bookworm speech.

Too soon had Gray made over, he stopped just by the short side of the table, and his arrival was just curt enough to make Lucy close her mouth. "Hey guys, how's it hangin'?"

Natsu capitalized on the opening. "I was just showing Lucy this book I've got until she started nerding out about it." he said sharply, now showing the cover to Gray.

Before the blonde could even let out a reply, Gray had beaten her to it. "You? Reading a book? Yeah right." He shook his head. Still he glanced down at the tome and raised his eyebrows a little in recognition. "Commander Jon Fleming, huh?"

"Yeah," Natsu paused. How had Gray known the name? Was he going to geek out over this book too?

Ah shit… now there's gonna be two of them.

"Don't know much about the book, but the guy who wrote it was a certified badass," Gray said casually. "About ninety or so years back, Fiore and Minstrel quarreled over some trade routes by sea and a small war broke out between us and them. Since Minstrel is like five times larger than Fiore, they didn't really take us seriously. But this guy Fleming takes a fleet over to their mainland and busts up their biggest coastal city. Place called Enkara. He takes over it over and holds it hostage, meanwhile the Minstrel Royal Corps tries to take it back with their forces of roughly around three hundred thousand, while he's only got around twenty thousand men. Not only does Fleming hold the city for almost a year, but he actually pushes back Minstrel's army into the countryside since they hadn't planned for a prolonged siege on their own city and didn't have the food and supplies to sustain all their troops for that long. Fleming also goes ahead and has his fleet raid all of the smaller towns and settlements along the coast. Since Enkara was their capital for maritime trade, all of this resulted in their economy taking a big hit. Plus, Minstrel had pretty bad relations with both Caelum and Stella at the time, and it looked like both of those kingdoms would also jump onto Minstrel after seeing how quickly we took over one of their cities. Situation got so bad that Minstrel's Queen went ahead and opened negotiations for a peace treaty with old King Hora. That's why they don't mess with our maritime trade routes anymore, and the reason why we've got such strong tariffs on them. They underestimated Fiore, didn't expect that we'd hit them right in the jugular."

…

The whole table had been stunned into absolute silence.

Natsu was actually… mildly interested in the unexpected history lesson, and somewhat relieved that that was what Gray spoke about rather than yet another rant about the book in his possession. Might do me some good to learn more about the world. He'd save that for later, though.

As for Lucy and Happy, they both appeared to be completely dumbfounded at the sheer dump of information they'd just received. The latter of whom simply sat on his side of the table with his mouth gaping open.

The Ice-Make Wizard raised an eyebrow at the lack of reactions. "What? None of you ever read a history book?"

Natsu looked down at the tome once again. The plain leather covering with the simple black title seemed to be cast in a whole new light. So the guy who wrote this was some sort of military genius?

Did Gramps give this to him on a whim? Or was this all part of the old man's master plan… or something? After all, the old man said this was some sort of practical guide. Very hands-on, or at least that was Natsu's understanding of the statement.

And based on the title alone, it was fairly easy to figure out how this would work. If he, Natsu, could feasibly learn other forms of magic with this thing…

…then what should he learn?

Author's Note:

The redraft was a bit of a pain, but we got there.

Just let you all know - I have zero plans to include Zeref or Acnologia in this story (besides name-drops or direct mentions, especially of the latter). In fact, I've already decided that we'll be going with a much more grounded main villain (one of the better, more formidable villains from Canon I might add - feel free to speculate on who you think it'll be).

On another note: I already know what types of magic Natsu will learn along the way throughout the rest of his year-long journey. Let's just say… it's gonna get explosive.

Up next we've got Natsu and Laxus' first bout, as well as some light Natsu x Erza stuff. We'll see how it goes ;)