"This is a nice town."
Alex is already in Fiore now. He is in the 1st town he finds after crossing the mountain range that serves as Fiore's border.
The town he's at now is Clover Town, a town located in a valley surrounded by the mountain range that Alex climbed before.
He could have a much easier time if he just followed the road to this town from the previous country, but he was too obsessed with exploring the wilderness and fighting different creatures to get stronger.
Anyway, Alex's first destination in this town is a material store. He has fought and defeated many creatures, so he has a lot of valuable materials too. Every time he visits a town, he always sells what he collected to cover his expenses.
Sometimes he is lucky enough to find valuable items other than materials from Magical Beasts like herbs or even magic crystals that's also known as Lacrima.
He doesn't find any Lacrima mines. It's just that he's lucky enough to find some of them in cracks or caves he finds and checks.
There aren't many of them, but even a small Lacrima can give him a good amount of money, so he now has enough to live in a town for a while.
"Ooh, these are some high-quality Lacrima crystals. Did you find a new mine?" The material store owner is very happy seeing the glowing Lacrima crystals.
These Lacrima crystals have a lot of Ethernano stored in them naturally which is enough to make them high-quality Lacrima crystals.
Thanks to that, Alex receives quite a lot of money just from the Lacrima crystals. Along with the other materials, he receives 1.5 million Jewels, which is quite high.
It's mainly because Alex sells materials from rare and high-ranking Magical Creatures. He doesn't give all the high-ranking creatures to the Tailed Beasts because he also needs money to live in this world, after all.
Besides, they can still absorb the remains of those creatures after Alex takes all the valuable parts. Doing that means they can only absorb a little magic power to break the seal, but it's better than nothing.
Alex decides to stay in the town for a few days before continuing. He wants to take a break and enjoys civilization after living in the wild for a rather long time.
Also, he needs to buy supplies for his next trip to Magnolia because again, he will go by foot and through wilderness too.
There's a train service that can take him to Magnolia faster. But he wants to enjoy his trip before joining a Guild. After all, it will be quite difficult to travel as he pleases after joining a Guild because of the jobs.
There are several towns on the way to Clover to Magnolia. If Alex follows the normal route, he won't go through wilderness that much, so he makes his own route as usual which will take him longer to reach Magnolia, but he can explore the wild.
Alex continues his trip after staying for 3 days in Clover. He follows the route he has decided after buying a map yesterday.
"Heh, the forest here is already different from the ones I saw before. There are creatures and plants I haven't seen in other forests. Being separated by a massive mountain range can create this much difference, huh?"
Alex is amazed by the difference between this forest and the forests he visits before crossing the mountain range.
Normal people might not see the differences, but for Alex who has been living in the forest and seen many things there, spotting the differences is an easy task.
"Hmm, even the same species has differences. Must be because of their adaptations to their environment. As they are unable to get in touch with their kin on the other side of the mountain, they grow and evolve differently."
Alex now acts like a scientist even though he only knows a little about evolutions from his past-life knowledge. But it's really interesting to see that the same species can be different with his own eyes.
He keeps walking toward Magnolia like that. Exploring and seeing new things like this is much more fun than he initially thought.
Of course, he doesn't just look around. He also fights many creatures for his meal, to weaken the 3rd Tailed Beast's seal, to learn about them, and to collect valuable materials for money.
The trip that can be done in less than a day if he just uses the train or less than a week even if he walks if he just uses the road ends up being a month trip because he goes through the forest and takes his time to explore it.
Even so, he finally arrives in Magnolia after spending a little more than half a year to walk from Ur's house.
He won't even be surprised if Gray is already registered in Fairy Tail even though Gray hadn't planned to leave Ur's wings yet when Alex left.
It's already more than half a year, after all, so it won't be strange for Gray and Leon to already finish their study under Ur's teaching.
Alex doesn't know how all of them are doing now because although he always sends letters to Ur's house whenever he visits a town, he can never get any reply because he never stays in a town for more than 3 days.
Ur actually gave him a Communication Lacrima, but it was broken a month after he left because he was careless in his fight against a beast that looks like a Gorilla.
Well, he will now stay in Magnolia, so they can exchange letters, and Alex can buy a new Communication Lacrima now that he has enough money.
Anyway, Alex quickly goes to Fairy Tail's guild building. He just needs to ask around a little to find the Guild because it's the only Magic Guild in this town.
"So this is Fairy Tail, huh? It looks different from what I imagined how it will look in real life if I compare it to the picture I remembered from manga and anime. But maybe it's because this is still year X775, so the building design is different. Well, doesn't matter. It's just a building design."
Alex stands in front of the Guild for a while before opening the door. Everyone turns to look at who is coming into the Guild and he really takes their attention.
Dirty appearance, ragged clothes, a big backpack with some sacks tied on it, bare feet, long untrimmed silver hair that looks very contrast with his dark skin, and the thick smell of sweat.
His appearance makes everyone wonder if he is a beggar coming to beg for some money. But what he says to them while smiling widely makes their ears twitch a bit.
"Excuse me, is this Fairy Tail Guild? I came to join."
Everyone is looking at each other before turning their head at the short old man sitting on the bar. Alex is already looking at this old man since the beginning because he can guess who this gramps is.
'He must be Makarov Dreyar, Fairy Tail's 3rd Guild Master. Damn! That's a ridiculous amount of Magic Power. No wonder he is one of the 10 Wizard Saints.'
Alex is surprised by how much magic power Makarov has. His senses have gotten much stronger and now he can sense others' magic power quite accurately.
He couldn't do it when he left Ur's house, so he doesn't know how much magic power that Ur has. But she is said to be strong enough to compete for a Wizard Saint position, so maybe she has a similar amount of magic power with Makarov.
"You want to join Fairy Tail? What is your name, boy?"
"Alex, Alexander Sterling."
"Okay, Alex. Before you join Fairy Tail, there is something you need to do." Makarov looks very serious now.
"A test?"
Alex doesn't know that there is a test to join Fairy Tail. But he thinks that it really makes sense for a Magic Guild to test the ones that want to join their Guild.
After all, they need to at least know that the ones who want to join can use magic, it's a Magic Guild, so only Mages can join. They will also need to know the applicants' power to assign the correct jobs.
"Are you ready, boy?"
"Anytime." Alex smiles excitedly while putting his backpack down and cracks his neck.
"Good. Do it!"
Makarov snaps his fingers and suddenly 2 women grab Alex's arms from both sides.
"Clean him thoroughly!" Again, Makarov says it very seriously.
"Eh?" Alex is surprised by what he hears.
But he can't even ask anything because the 2 women already drag him to the bathroom at a very high speed. They even remove his clothes while dragging him until he is fully nude.
"GYAAAA! STOP IT! I CAN TAKE OFF MY CLOTHES MYSELF. NOOOOO!"
That scream of shame is the last thing everyone hears from Alex.
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Ch. 69: Last Trial