The next day.
Darwin, who was regarded as having entered his "Eighth-Grader Syndrome" phase early, set foot on the road to complete his first job, accompanied by Precht.
Their destination was quite a distance from Magnolia, so they rented a horse carriage for transportation.
Although Magic Trains had been developing within the Kingdom of Fiore for seven or eight years, the technology had not yet reached modern standards. Its speed was not as fast as expected, yet the price was much higher than that of a carriage. Consequently, for ordinary people, the cost-performance ratio was not high. Unless one needed long-distance travel—such as going from Magnolia to the Royal Capital—no one would choose it.
For the wealthy, the Magic Train was a decent mode of transport.
Wizards, while belonging to a high-income profession, were not exactly considered "wealthy." People in this line of work needed to go out frequently, often over long distances. Sometimes, to complete a single job, they had to travel to very, very remote places. Under these circumstances, "high-end consumption" like the Magic Train was not a great choice. After all, neither the client nor the guild would reimburse travel expenses.
On the way to their destination, Darwin and Precht were not idle.
Precht sat in a corner of the carriage, holding a Magic Phone and staring intently at a magic e-book titled The Thirty-Six Principles of Black Magic.
Several years ago, when the Magic Phone was first promoted, Precht had purchased one immediately. He then sought Weston's help, spending forty-nine days converting all the magic books he had collected into electronic versions and inputting them into the phone.
At the time, he had said: "This way, I can study whenever I want."
Later, he actually lived by those words. While others were in online relationships, he was studying; while others were listening to music, reading novels, or playing games, he was also studying. Only when others started ordering food delivery would he stop for a moment to order a meal for himself, and then continue studying.
Precht's learning speed was very fast. Roughly every three months, he would ask Weston to update his data, inputting even more magic books into his phone. So far, he had scouted and digitized at least eight to ten thousand magic books.
With such a massive amount of data, one phone was naturally insufficient. He had no choice but to buy several more, using each phone for a different function. For example, the first phone was dedicated to daily life—contacting people, ordering food, and so on; the second phone stored all knowledge related to Elemental Magic; the third phone stored various profound Black Magic...
Because he never let his phone leave his side and spent all day and night studying and researching magic, Precht had been jokingly dubbed by his guildmates as the "Man with the Most Phones in the Guild" or the "Phone Expert."
However, although Precht owned many Magic Phones, he didn't carry them all at once. After all, the magic knowledge within those phones was too vast; if they were picked up and exploited by villains, it could easily cause trouble. Therefore, every time he went out, he only brought one phone—the one for communication—and would upload the books he was currently reading onto it.
However, for this trip, he brought two. One was for himself, and the other was a temporary loan to Darwin.
While Precht was using his spare time to study Black Magic, Darwin followed his example. However, what Darwin was scrolling through was not Black Magic, but a children's publication titled Three Thousand Monsters of Ishgar.
Precht had recommended this book for a simple reason. Darwin's magic, Imaginary Take Over, relied heavily on his own imagination of a creature. The more specific the imagination, the easier the Take Over, and the more he could manifest the creature's true strength. Therefore, books documenting various fantasy creatures were the best nourishment for increasing his magical intensity!
Time flowed silently as the two studied. After an unknown amount of time, Darwin suddenly put down the phone. "Uncle Precht..."
Precht didn't even look up. "What is it?"
"Of all the creatures you know, which is the most powerful?"
"The most powerful? That would be Dragons."
As expected, it's Dragons?
"I remember there's a dragon skeleton in a corner of the second floor of the guild, right? Where did that come from? Did you guys fight dragons before, or have you seen one?"
Although Darwin didn't explicitly state who "you guys" referred to, Precht knew he was asking about the first generation of "Original Fairies" like himself and Weston.
"That skeleton was dug up by your father in a Dragon Graveyard near the Royal Capital years ago. I haven't seen a dragon, and of course, I haven't fought one."
Precht only told half the truth. He actually knew there were two dragons currently in Fairy Tail—one was Licht and the other was Irene. However, since he had neither seen their dragon forms nor fought them in that state, his answer wasn't technically a lie.
"Speaking of which, I remember the day your magic awakened, didn't you perform a Take Over on a dragon's right arm?"
"How did you think of it back then?"
"Has that Dragon Soul progressed any further since?"
Since the topic of "Dragons" had come up, Precht couldn't resist poking around. He remembered that Weston had once evaluated Darwin's magic as something "capable of shaking the rules of the world!" The reason he agreed to Weston's request to accompany Darwin on this novice mission was precisely to see how far his application of magic had reached.
"If you're asking why I thought of it, there wasn't really a specific reason. It's just that Dad told me the most powerful creatures in the world are dragons."
"I figured if I'm going to take over a creature, I might as well take over the strongest one!"
"But I've never seen a dragon with my own eyes. All my information comes from books and legends, so for now, I can only manifest an arm."
"Otherwise, I should have performed much better against you during the collective guild exam the other day!"
Precht reminisced. On that day, Darwin had only used one move, "Evil Dragon's Claw," a physical attack. It was clear his imagination regarding dragons was not yet full or specific enough.
"Uncle, do you know where else in the world there are dragons?"
Darwin's question made Precht's heart skip a beat. "What do you want to do?"
"I want to find them, of course! To enrich my imagination of giant dragons and become stronger!"