Ben has returned to Ishgar after sending the Dragon Hunters from other continents back. He goes to the ruins of Magnolia with the Ishgar Mages. There's nothing here but ruins, destroyed skeletons, and memories now. But they still want to return here because this is their home.
They rest for a few days in a camp they made there while discussing their next plan. Everything has been destroyed, so they surely need to rebuild this continent. That will surely take a very long time to finish, but they need to start, and they choose Magnolia as the starter to show their gratitude for Ben.
"I don't mind if you start from Magnolia, but don't make this city a Capital. Turning Magnolia into a Capital City will change its value for me."
"We understand, boss. Our plan is to use the previous locations as they were, so we'll still make Crocus into Fiore's Capital. We only want to make Magnolia the place for us to gather while rebuilding the cities."
"So you plan to take the refugees here before you start rebuilding, is it?"
"Yes, none of us know how to build cities, so we hope to find those who know it among the survivors."
"Don't rely too much on that. The chance to find people like that among the few survivors is small. Try to get books about construction, civil engineering, city landscape, and everything about building a city while you try to find the survivors. Matter of fact, it's better that you take every book you come across to increase your knowledge."
"We understand."
The rescue team leaders leave Ben after discussing a few more things. There are 10 rescue teams in total that will go all over Ishgar to find survivors. They will need as many people as possible to start rebuilding this continent.
Ben gives every team a teleportation door that will connect to their pairs in Magnolia. This way, they won't need to go back and forth to save people. They just need to use the teleportation doors to send the survivors to Magnolia before they search for more survivors.
8 people including Ben are left at Magnolia to receive the survivors and prepare accommodations for them. The 7 people are Earth Mages, so their job is to build temporary place for the survivors to stay. They have become much more powerful after the war, so building sturdy structures is easy.
Their only problem is they can't design good buildings, so they just make wide sturdy rooms with roofs. Each building is just a wide empty room. That's why everyone calls the buildings camps or barracks. Well, at least they won't break for a rather long time despite being constructed badly.
While the earth mages build the camps, Ben is working on making protection. He digs his destroyed house to get a few things from its underground room. If the Ben of this timeline has the same thinking as him, then there must be valuable things left around the house.
Ben really finds a lot of useful things although the most useful ones have gone. Well, they must've been taken by this timeline's Ben when the Dragons attacked. So all things useful for battles have been taken, but there are still many useful things that can be used to help the plan to rebuild the cities.
He also takes many things in his lab to build Anima. Ben plans to take ethernano from another universe using his modified Anima just like what he made under the Guild building. The one in the Guild had been destroyed completely, after all, so he needs to make it again.
Ben plans to make barriers that will protect the cities they'll build, but barriers need a lot of magic power to maintain. His best solution is to take it from another dimension that has an abundance amount of ethernano to supply the magic power to maintain the barriers.
That's why he needs to make his version of Anima that he has made a long time ago. It was a safer version of the one used by the King of Edolas with better results too. Ben will make some Animas and spread them all over Ishgar to increase the ethernano here which will benefit all living creatures in Ishgar.
The rescue goes well even though it's slow because there are many places to search and the number of rescuers is limited. But they don't save everyone they find. They only save those who are willing to help rebuild the continent. Children and the elderly are saved regardless of their opinions though.
Ben has told them they don't need people who aren't willing to even work for their own future. They don't need to break their bones, but at least they should make some effort. There are many things to do for this plan, so they will need everyone's cooperation.
After 5 weeks, they have gathered some hundreds of survivors. The survivors' conditions weren't good, so they are being treated before starting the first project which obviously is construction. There are some people with little knowledge about construction, so the buildings should be better than the ones made by the earth mages.
In the last 5 weeks, Ben also has made Jarvis's clone which gets connected to the current main Jarvis in his lab. He is very glad that he made Jarvis to be independent from Quorra despite being controlled by her in the past. Quorra died when Ben died, but Jarvis didn't get deleted and just can't work for years until he fixed the problem himself.
"Jarvis, use all the knowledge that I've put in your database to help them. This is Magnolia, a place with so many memories for my family. So I want to make this place looks the same as before it got destroyed."
{Understood, Master. I will make sure the city will look exactly the same as in the past. However, such a project will take at least a decade to finish with our current manpower.}
"That's fine. This is not a short-term project, and we still need to rebuild the other cities in the future. There aren't that many survivors either. Even finding more than 10 thousand people who still live on this continent will be a miracle. It will take centuries to make this continent lively again."
Ben gives Jarvis some more orders before he leaves Ishgar. The people should be able to take care of themselves now, so he can do his own plan. Wendy & co are still searching for survivors, so he leaves without meeting them first.
He won't go for too long anyway because his destination is Guiltina. Ben is going to keep his promise to help the 5th Generation Dragon Slayer remove their risk of Dragonization. He and Quorra have found a way to do that after researching it for the last 5 weeks.
Ben meets the 5th Generation Dragon Slayers and Elefseria in Guiltina's fortress city which is being rebuilt too. Elefseria is ruling this place now because no one dare to go against a Dragon who won the war. It makes things convenient for them because now Ben can do the procedures without any disturbances.
They start right away because Ben has another plan after this. The procedure will also take a long time for each Dragon Slayer and there are 17 of them. It will take at least a week even if he is focusing on it.
His method is by gathering their Dragon Slayer magic power in their heart. It will turn their heart into a Dragon Lacrima while still functioning as a heart. He tried to find a way for the Dragon Lacrimas to be separated from their bodies like him in the past, but it's impossible because their Dragon Slayer Magic is bound to their bodies, unlike the other generations.
They are turning into 2nd Generation Dragon Slayers in a sense. But they will die if their Dragon Lacrima hearts are taken. So they need to be very careful and protect their Dragon Lacrima hearts very well. Though they will still protect their power as best as they can even without Ben telling them.
As they promised, they give Ben their shares of Dragon King Lacrimas. 3 Dragon Lacrimas are cheap prices for their future. Guiltina won't be at a loss too because now they have 17 prime Dragon Slayers who won't turn into Dragons.
It takes 9 days for Ben to finish helping the 5th Generation Dragon Slayers. Then after having a feast on the 10th day, he goes somewhere with Elefseria. They go to a massive crater that can fit at least 2 big mountains in it.
"This place was a Labyrinth before Acnologia destroyed it. Great Labyrinth of Dogra, it was a big labyrinth made by Earth Dragon God, Dogramag after our battle that resulted in me losing my heart."
"He turned himself into a labyrinth to stay alive in a sense, was it? I never thought that it was possible. There's no trace of any Dragon power anymore here, so we can assume that Dogramag has died for real now. What about the other Dragon Gods?"
"Some places are worshipping them and they were also destructed to smithereens. It seems Acnologia tried to recruit them, but failed, so he destroyed their places. I really hoped he killed them though."
"Hmm, that's a plausible theory, but we still need to assume they are alive for now. Take me to the places that worship them or anywhere related to them to find clues."
Both of them are going around the continent to find the trace of the Dragon Gods. Ben always has an assumption that they are still alive. They have hidden from Acnologia for hundreds of years without being found by that Black Dragon at all, so they must've got a way to escape, and they must've used that method to escape again.
After inspecting every place related to them and gathering clues, Ben finally found them. Quorra states that the chance of his assumption being correct is just 2% because they didn't find too many clues. But it's enough for Ben because at least he knows where to go now.
________________________________________
You can read more 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 443. The End (Fairy Tail: Sun Eater)
2. Chapter 481. Buggy's Domination (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)