After Avatar's eradication, Ben enjoys his life and takes things easy. By easy, it just means he doesn't take dangerous jobs. But well, there is no job too dangerous for the current him, so he needs to purposely make things harder to improve himself.
Ben always puts a lot of restrictions on himself so that things will be a lot more difficult for him. Either he limits his power, the skills he will use to fight, or the classic only use one hand or something similar. He can't ask his opponents to get stronger, so he makes himself weaker.
There aren't many people who can threaten Ben right now. And even those who can give him a fight need to fight him together. Without enough good opponents, Ben's progress becomes a lot slower that it feels like he doesn't improve.
That's not something he likes, so he tries to get decent fights to improve himself. His solution is by fighting against those at Wizard Saint levels. He often 'asks' everyone he knows who's at that level to spar with him and no one can refuse, they just don't dare.
But fighting just one of them will be too easy, so he always fights several of them at the same time. He also uses those sparring sessions to help them improve their skills. So now, all Wizard Saints and the S-Class Mages who sparred with him have gotten much stronger.
Even so, no one has succeeded at clearing Ben's Dragoram Dungeon after a few months. All Wizard Saints and S-Class Mages who sparred with Ben have tried to conquer the dungeon. But it is still uncleared by anyone, even when 5 Wizard Saints tried it together.
Draculos, the official 2nd rank in this continent can't even pass the 80th floor. The highest floor he ever reached is the 79th floor after he challenged the dungeon a few times in 7 months. But it's not the highest floor ever reached by a challenger.
The highest floor ever reached is the 91st floor by Mira. She reached it after 7 months on her 7th try. Mira only challenges the dungeon once a month because she focuses on improving herself in that gap of time rather than kept challenging it which will only tire her.
Her method seems to be effective for her because now she can climb higher than anyone else. The 2nd place is Draculos on the 79th floor while the 3rd place is Gildarts on the 74th floor. Gildarts has just tried it 2 times because he rarely returned, so it's a great record.
All Fairy Tail Mages and allied Guild Mages have tried to challenge the Dragoram Dungeon. Ben has allowed their allies to use the dungeon after he made the schedule. They can only challenge the dungeon on Monday & Tuesday while the other days are for Fairy Tail Mages.
Ben always planned to let them use it, but he waited for them to ask him. Rather than telling them to do it, it is far better if they do it because they want it. He didn't need to wait long because Mages like them are always curious about things and surely they wanted to check the Dragoram Dungeon.
"Natsu and Gray will be very upset when they return from their 1-year training," says Mira while putting clothes on Ariel.
"Well, it's their own fault for not returning. I'm sure they have heard about the Dragoram Dungeon. But they still haven't returned, so they should blame themselves," says Ben while putting on Gabriel's clothes.
"What if they never heard about it?" asks Mira.
"Of course, it's still their own fault for not being well informed about their own guild," says Ben.
The family is wearing good clothes now because they will attend an event. It's already time for this year's Grand Magic Games and Fairy Tail will participate again. Although their participants are quite unique that they will surprise the public.
Fairy Tail go to the Royal Capital using their airship as usual. Their Guild is the most awaited Guild in this year's event because they were the winner last year. They are still the favorite winner candidate this year, especially because now they have the strongest Mage in Ishgar.
Ben is now prohibited from participating in the tournament because it will be too unfair. He didn't plan to join it again, anyway, so he doesn't have a problem with that. But he doesn't want to just comply, so he made a request that has been granted.
His request is to let all 8 teams that passed the preliminary fight him after the final. Their reserve members will join too, so he will fight 48 Mages at the same time. It will be an event more exciting than the final itself, hopefully.
No one knows it though because they will only announce it after the final. Ben is anticipating the last event to fight 48 Mages from different Guilds at once. Although there's also one more thing he anticipated right now, the preliminary result.
The preliminary concept for this year's tournament is different from last year's. All teams will fight over 8 flags spread in the forest near the Royal Capital. They need to capture the flags and defend them from other teams.
So they can find hidden flags or take flags from other teams. They can use anything as long as they don't kill their opponents. The teams that still have the flags after 1 hour pass the preliminary and move to the next round.
Just like last year's preliminary, no one can watch it again this year. The organizer wants to make it a surprise when they announce the result. Also, if they broadcast the preliminary, the next round might look a bit dull.
Anyway, the preliminary has finished and they will announce the 8 teams that passed it now. Those 8 teams are Fairy Tail, Lamia Scale, Sabertooth, Blue Pegasus, Mermaid Heel, Quatro Cerberus, Scarmiglione, and Orochi's Fin. It's the same line-up except for Orochi's Fin that finally passed the preliminary after failing all the time.
The Guilds that participate last year mainly have the same team members. However, when Fairy Tail's team members are introduced in the end, everyone is surprised. Ben is chuckling mischievously as his guildmates sigh.
Team Fairy Tail's members are Wendy, Bella, Carla, Lily, and Romeo. Everyone is stunned seeing their team because out of 5 members, only Wendy looks strong enough to fight. Romeo is somewhat decent, while the 3 Exceeds aren't convincing at all.
"Sigh, I don't know what to say. Even the commentator is speechless and hasn't said anything since he announced our team members," says Makarov.
Ben just smirks and says, "They are speechless by our team members' appearances now. But soon, they will be speechless by our team's performance. We aren't here to play, after all."
"It looks like we are playing and don't take this tournament seriously though," says Mira.
"Well, that's from outsiders' perspectives. But we know well how capable those kids are. Also, we never aimed to lift the trophy this year. We just want to develop our guild because there is something more important than winning this tournament," says Ben seriously.
Mira smiles and says, "If those kids win this tournament, then the effect will be greater. I hope it will motivate other Guilds to get stronger too so that we all will be safe when that time comes."
"Yeah, hopefully," says Ben while looking at the sky. His expression is quite serious despite this being a fun day.
______________________________________________
You can read up to 35+35 chapters ahead of my fanfics and more pictures on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.
Voting for this book is highly appreciate. Cover image is the MC, artist's ig: @fatmaqn_
I've uploaded:
1. Chapter 410 of Fairy Tail: Sun Eater
2. Chapter 421 of Transcended as Lord Buggy
3. Pictures of both stories (ex: bounty poster & magazine cover) by fatmaqn_
https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain
(the web didn't use _underscore_, it's to avoid censorship)