After Blake left the guild, Makarov sprang into action. The guild's resources were mobilized. While the children were given temporary beds in the infirmary and spare rooms, Makarov was already in negotiations.
Using the vast sum of gold and jewels Blake had provided, he purchased a large, sturdy house on the edge of Magnolia, one big enough to comfortably house Rob and all twelve children.
The guild members, seeing a genuine need, rallied.
Macao and Wakaba led a team to procure daily necessities, hauling beds, tables, and vast quantities of food into the new home.
Erza, though now a guild member, chose to stay with them, her new family, feeling a sense of responsibility for the friends who had shared her trauma.
The next day morning, Makarov, acting as a worried grandfather, took all of them to Porylusica. He herded the children through the woods, warning them not to touch anything. The eccentric healer was, as expected, furious.
"Humans! More noisy, disgusting humans! And children! The worst kind!" she snarled, swatting at Makarov with her broom. "Get them out!"
"Just check on their health, Porylusica, please!" Makarov begged. "They've been through... a lot."
Grumbling, she did. Her examination was swift and thorough. She checked their vitals, their magic levels, and their bone density.
Finally, she huffed. "Hmph. They're fine. Magically stable, at least. But they're all severely malnourished. Skin and bones, the lot of them! You mages are terrible caretakers!"
She shoved several large bottles of foul-smelling green liquid into Makarov's arms. "Supplements. They help with growth and magic stabilization. One spoonful each, every morning. Now get them out of my house! I hate humans!" She summarily threw them out, broom and all.
Once the checkup was finished, Makarov, relieved, took them all to the guild to have breakfast and spend some time.
As they ate Makarov moved from child to child, placing a hand on their heads, checking if they had magic in them.
"Remarkable," he murmured. "Everyone has magic." He confirmed that some of them, like Erza, Cobra, and Macbeth, had already awakened their innate magic. To the others—Jellal, Sorano, Wally, and the rest—he pointed toward the back of the guild.
"Those of you who haven't awakened your magic, check the library. Find something that calls to you." He gestured to the dusty, sprawling archive. "Take the books that you find interesting and learn any magic you want. I can help you if you need."
Hearing that, the kids nodded excitedly and, with a newfound sense of purpose, ran off to the library.
The Fairy Tail library was vast, containing thousands of tomes on every conceivable magic, but it was tragically, comically unused.
The guild members would rather fight than read a book, so the children had the entire archive to themselves, their eager minds a stark contrast to the brawling adults just meters away.
After a month of rest, recovery, and light training, Blake was ready for another mission. The kids were settled, Erza was already taking small jobs with Gray, and the guild was lively. Blake, however, needed a challenge. He found one on the S-Class board.
"S-Class Quest: Examine Temple Ruins." The location was remote: the Shirotsume Mountains, north of Fiore. The client was the Magic Council, reporting a malevolent magical aura seeping from the area and causing localized plagues.
After taking the quest and getting it approved by Makarov, Blake made his way to the train station. His journey was long, taking him north to the city of Oshibana, then a carriage ride to the base of Mt. Hakobe, and finally a grueling trek to the remote border-town of Shirotsume.
After reporting to the town chief, a nervous man who begged him to cleanse the "evil wind" from the mountains, Blake set out.
The temple ruins were not on any map. He searched the mountain for half a day, using his Observation Haki as a compass, constantly scanning for the source of the dark energy.
Finally, he located it at the top of the mountains, hidden in a high-altitude, mist-shrouded plateau.
The entrance of the temple was decorated with ominous snake carvings. It was less a building and more a gaping maw in the mountainside.
He stepped inside. The air was cold, dead, and thick with a palpable, ancient malice. He used his Observation Haki to see if there was anyone present in the cave, but there was no one.
No life. Just a deep, malevolent feeling that slithered against his senses, whispering of decay and undeath.
He started moving carefully, his hand on the hilt of Tensa Zangetsu. As soon as he passed the threshold, he triggered traps.
Poisoned darts shot from the walls—he slapped them out of the air. A section of the floor gave way to a pit of spikes—he used Geppo to walk over it. A crushing stone block—he shattered it with a single, Haki-infused punch. These were rudimentary, designed to kill tomb robbers, not S-Class mages.
He moved deep into the cave, following the dark aura with his Haki. He eventually reached the centre, a vast, circular cavern.
In the middle stood the source: a giant snake statue, carved from black obsidian, its eyes two glowing, red gems. The malevolent feeling was pouring from it in waves.
When Blake entered the centre structure, the ground began to shake.
A dry, scraping, chittering sound echoed from the darkness. It was the sound of bone on stone. From the cracks in the floor, from the piles of ancient rubble, and from the very earth itself, the undead began to emerge.
Skeletal warriors, their eye sockets burning with the same red light as the statue, armed with rusted, ancient weapons. There were dozens, then hundreds. They pulled themselves from the ground, their sole purpose to protect the statue.
Then, once the undead appeared, he started fighting them.
Blake drew Tensa Zangetsu. This wasn't a fight against power; it was a fight against a concept. The skeletons were just puppets, animated by the statue's dark, cursed magic.
He coated his blade with Anti-Magic, the black metal now sheathed in an aura of pure non-existence.
A skeleton lunged, its sword high. Blake didn't block; he simply cut.
The moment Tensa Zangetsu's Anti-Magic edge touched the skeleton, it didn't just shatter. The bones turned to fine, black dust, and the red light in its eyes vanished. The curse reanimating it was instantly, violently nullified.
"So that's the game," Blake murmured.
He moved. He was a black whirlwind in the cavern. The undead horde, numbering in the high hundreds, surged at him. They were C-Class at best, but they were relentless.
As soon as he destroyed the skeletons, new undead began to appear. The ground was a constant, churning mass of emerging bone. The statue was an infinite generator of guardians.
This was the S-Class test: not a test of strength, but of endurance.
Like that, the fight continued. For the first hour, Blake was a blur of motion. He used Soru to flicker through the horde, his blade a continuous arc of Anti-Magic.
He didn't use Haki to shatter them; he used Anti-Magic to erase them. The cavern filled with a haze of bone dust. He was a reaper in a field of brittle wheat.
He leaped into the air with Geppo, raining down Rankyaku (Tempest Kicks) infused with Anti-Magic, sending black crescents of nullification energy into the crowd, disintegrating dozens at a time.
But they kept coming.
The fight continued for two hours. Blake's S-Class reserves were immense—but the sheer, mind-numbing monotony was a mental trial.
He was a machine, performing the same function over and over. Cut, erase, flicker, cut, erase. The malevolent aura from the statue pressed on him, trying to instill fear, despair, and fatigue.
Blake defeated them easily, but it was the ease that was the trap. A lesser mage would have been overwhelmed, run out of magic, or been caught by one lucky strike.
Blake was simply too fast, his stamina too deep, and his Anti-Magic the perfect counter.
Finally, after four solid hours of continuous slaughter, the last skeleton crumbled to dust. The ground trembled... and then fell still. The horde was depleted. The statue's immediate defense was gone.
Once every undead was killed, Blake moved towards the snake statue in the middle. The malevolent aura was now pulsing with defensive rage. It was then that he realized the 13th Celestial Spirit, Ophiuchus, the Snake Charmer, was bound to this cursed temple.
He raised Tensa Zangetsu, this time coating it in the black lightning of his Conqueror's Haki and the internal-destruction force of his Advanced Armament.
"Divine Departure."
He didn't swing hard. He swung precisely. The wave of pure Haki struck the obsidian statue. It didn't explode. It simply cracked, and the dark, malevolent aura that had plagued the mountain for centuries vanished, purified by the force of his will. The statue crumbled into rubble.
And there, lying on the pedestal inside it, lay the 13th Celestial Gold Key. It was an ornate gold key with a snake coiled around it.
Blake picked it up. The key felt cold, heavy with a power that felt... familiar. He looked at the key, and his mind, filled with the knowledge of his past life, made the connection.
Ophiuchus. The Eclipse Gate. The 7th of July, X777.
He knew that in just over a year, Layla Heartfilia would use her own life force to open the Eclipse Gate because she was missing one of the twelve Zodiac keys. But this... this was the thirteenth key.
Perhaps it could act as a substitute, a bypass. Or perhaps, by finding Layla and giving her this, he could make a trade for it.
Either way, he knew one thing: he thought to sell her the key. He had a new, personal quest. He would find Layla Heartfilia, save her life, and perhaps, in doing so, secure a vital piece for the future. He pocketed the key, his mission complete, and began the long walk back to the surface.