Time is fleeting, and in the blink of an eye, the latter half of the year X700 passed.
Weston led Fairy Tail into the new century.
According to the original timeline, Yuri was supposed to die this year, but due to Weston's appearance, he is still alive and well today. His wife Rita is also doing well, and their son Makarov is growing as robustly as a wild boar.
Everything was calm and effortless; they were living quite successfully.
On the surface, Precht continued to live an unchanging life, but Weston discovered that he had begun to secretly study Black Magic.
Out of necessity, Weston used the pretext that "he was also interested in Black Magic" to intervene in his research from time to time, silently preventing him from going astray.
Warrod, who was traveling abroad, would send video calls to everyone every so often, and he posted on his Moment every day, eager to share every little detail of his wonderful life with the entire guild.
According to his travel diary, since leaving Magnolia, he had already visited 13 countries and 88 cities.
The lives of Mavis and Zera remained the same as always, except for a recent addition: supervising the academic progress of Darwin and Chris.
Of course, this wasn't magical academia, but cultural academia!
Children raised in Fairy Tail have never focused solely on magic training.
Starting from the Tenrou Island period, Weston had established several courses in the village school, such as "Language and Literature," "Numerical Calculation," "Magic History," and "Physical Application." Therefore, not only Mavis but even Zera, and later Hugh and Stuart, possessed a considerable level of cultural literacy.
During the first few years in Magnolia, because there were no children in the guild and the tasks of building the town and developing the guild were heavy, Weston naturally set these matters aside temporarily.
In the following years, the four children—Makarov and the others—were born one after another.
Weston certainly would not neglect the education of the guild's children, so he had instructed the four mothers early on to handle their children's primary education and required the children to attend the school in town.
However, because children in this world are generally precocious and the primary education provided by the mothers was too effective, the four children spent less than half a year learning all the knowledge in the school and graduated early, shifting their focus back to magic training.
This focus lasted for a full year.
But as anyone who has attended school knows, if knowledge is not reviewed, it will be forgotten after a while.
This phenomenon appeared in Darwin and Chris.
Lately, Mavis and Zera discovered that the two children were frequently making blunders in grammar and numerical calculations—such as unclear communication or miscalculating the bill when buying things.
The two approached Irene and Rita to discuss the matter, only to find that their children's situation was even more severe. Makarov and Erza are a year older than the other two, so they started school and graduated a year earlier, meaning they had an extra year of "flying free."
The four mothers finally realized the gravity of the situation and hurriedly reported it to Weston.
Upon learning of the situation, Weston didn't dare to be careless. With a tap of his head, he herded the four little ones back to the school.
Unexpectedly, after the four little ones returned to school, they brought along the habits they had picked up over the past year from the guild and their other partners. Every day was spent either causing trouble in class or fighting with classmates after school, damaging public property, and so on. In short, trouble was constant, leaving the school teachers overwhelmed.
The parents and the school teachers eventually submitted a joint petition, reporting the situation to Weston.
Weston had no choice but to bring the four children back and hand them over to their respective mothers for education.
...
At nightfall, the two children had already fallen into a deep sleep in their rooms.
The three adults—Weston, Mavis, and Zera—were not yet asleep, but were gathered in the study for a small meeting.
"Maybe you should do it yourself, Weston."
"Assisting Darwin with his studies lately has truly been driving me crazy!"
Mavis curled up on the sofa, arms around her knees, her upper body leaning against Weston's shoulder, looking as if all her energy had been drained.
She couldn't understand; both she and Weston were smart and studious people, so how could the son they gave birth to, Darwin, be neither smart nor studious?
Could "having a child" actually be a form of detoxification?
"Stop it!"
"I still have guild work to do!"
Weston rejected Mavis's suggestion and turned to Zera: "What about Chris's situation?"
Zera said: "Chris's situation is okay. She can understand what she's learning, but she just has no patience and refuses to study."
"Is that so? That part is quite like you! I remember you didn't like studying before either..."
Under Zera's unfriendly gaze, Weston continued to think about the children's major academic issues.
The town school was rebuilt to develop the local economy after they first arrived in Magnolia. it primarily catered to ordinary children; children with magic like Darwin and Chris were not originally within the scope of consideration.
Firstly, there were essentially no children with magic in town at the time, and secondly, there was a concern that children with magic and those without might negatively influence each other if they studied together.
The events involving Darwin and the others in the school recently proved that his original concerns were correct.
In that case, why not...
"Let's just open a Magic School in Magnolia!"
Weston slapped the table and made a bold decision.
This decision immediately drew the attention of Mavis and Zera: "A magic school?"
Weston nodded and smiled: "Just like we did back on Tenrou Island, we'll recruit a group of children with magical talent and teach them magic."
"I've already thought of a name for the school—let's call it 'Fairy Academy'!"
Recalling their time on Tenrou Island, the eyes of the two women sparkled, and they felt an itch in their hearts.
"Opening a school? It sounds interesting, but it's not something that can be done easily!"
"The site, the classrooms, the faculty, the students, the textbooks... there are a ton of problems that need to be solved!"
"Didn't you just say you have guild responsibilities?"
"With so much to do, are you sure you can handle it?"
It must be said that Mavis's concerns were quite thorough, but none of these could stump Weston.
"Of course there's a site!"
"Of the land Queen Lily bestowed upon me next to Magnolia, less than one-fifth has been developed so far."
"The remaining land is more than enough to build an ultra-luxurious school!"
"Oh, right, right..."
"Let's just build it as a castle!"
Since a magic school was mentioned, Weston inevitably thought of the famous Hogwarts.
If he could replicate that in this world, it seemed like a good idea.