"Welcome back!"
The moment the pink-haired boy stepped through the doors, mugs were raised across the hall. Cheers followed instantly. It was obvious he wasn't some nobody in this guild.
The buck-toothed mage who had mistaken Rowan for Happy earlier laughed loudly."Natsu! I heard you caused another huge mess in Hargeon—"
He never finished the sentence.
A foot slammed into his face.
The man went flying, crashing through several tables and scattering mages like bowling pins.
"You told me that Fire Dragon lead was real!" the boy roared, flames practically rising from his glare.
Rowan, still perched on a stool near the counter, narrowed his eyes.
Fast.
Absurdly fast.
This was Natsu Dragneel. A fire mage. Yet the sprint from the doorway to the strike had left faint afterimages, and the sheer physical force behind that kick far surpassed anything Rowan had seen from ordinary close-combat mages.
"So that's Fire Dragon Natsu," Rowan thought. "A fire specialist… but his body's ridiculous."
The dark mage Rowan had killed earlier didn't even compare.
Instead of feeling threatened, Rowan felt a quiet thrill.
Good.
If someone like Natsu was considered strong here, then the ceiling of this world was high. And a high ceiling meant more room for growth.
He had never feared powerful enemies. What he feared was a world too weak to offer him anything worth learning.
"I just passed along what I heard!" the buck-toothed mage shouted, dragging himself out of a crater in the floor. "If you want to fight, Natsu, I'm game!"
The two lunged at each other.
That was the spark.
Within seconds, half the guild was involved. Fists flew. Chairs shattered. Bodies slammed into walls and bounced right back up. Rowan quickly realized something unsettling.
They weren't using magic.
This was all physical.
And yet no one stayed down.
Mages were embedded in walls, face-planted into floors, or sent skidding across the hall, only to curse, stand up, and dive straight back in.
Normal people would have been dead. These people treated it like roughhousing.
Then things escalated.
The blonde woman who had entered with Natsu had tried to stop the fight at first. That effort ended the moment Gray got stripped down to his underwear mid-brawl and asked to borrow her clothes.
She snapped.
Chaos doubled.
Rowan stared as the guild hall rapidly transformed into something resembling a battlefield.
"So this is why they're called the most troublesome guild," he muttered, recalling the magazine descriptions almost word for word.
Just as magic circles began flaring across the room and things threatened to cross a real line, a furious shout thundered from above.
"Enough! Do you idiots want to tear the guild apart?!"
A small, frail old man leapt from the second-floor balcony.
Midair, his body expanded.
Bones thickened. Muscles swelled. In seconds, he became a towering giant nearly eight meters tall, white beard bristling, presence overwhelming.
The brawl stopped instantly.
Mages scattered to the walls like startled animals.
Only Natsu stood his ground, hands on his hips, laughing."Hahaha! Guess that means I won!"
The laughter ended when a massive foot slammed down, pinning him flat to the floor.
Rowan's golden eyes widened.
"So this is him," he thought. "Makarov."
Fairy Tail's guild master. One of the Ten Wizard Saints.
And that spell.
Giant Magic.
Rowan had read about it, but seeing it in person was something else entirely. This wasn't illusion or projection. The body truly grew, strength and durability scaling with it.
This wasn't just size.
This was power.
Legends claimed ancient users of Giant Magic could move mountains. Whether that was exaggeration or not, Rowan could see why people believed it.
The hall itself seemed to shrink beneath Makarov's presence.
Rowan's mind began racing.
He had been thinking about this for days. There were too many magic systems in this world. Mastering even one required focus. Two at most, if he was careful.
So which one?
He didn't have the experience to judge purely from theory. But there was a simple rule that rarely failed.
Learn what the strongest use.
Makarov was one of the strongest mages in the world.
The answer felt obvious.
Giant Magic wasn't about brawling for its own sake. It solved a fundamental problem every mage faced: fragility.
Magic users died easily once an enemy closed the distance. Even wizards with reinforced bodies were still mortal.
But with Giant Magic…
Imagine an enemy enduring spell after spell, finally breaking through, ready to strike the caster down.
Only for the caster to become a towering giant and crush them into the ground.
And even more importantly, it worked when magic didn't.
Anti-magic fields. Magic immunity. Spell suppression.
Giant Magic was applied to the self.
When spells failed, brute force remained.
Rowan's whiskers twitched as a slow smile formed.
"Yes," he thought. "This one."