To pass Makarov's area, Alex and the Tailed Beasts decide to dig a tunnel using Shukaku's ability. So Alex transforms into the humanoid Shukaku when he's still far from Makarov's area. Then he digs a tunnel below the cave and using Shukaku's ability to sense the earth around him, Alex follows the cave's path.
Alex does it slowly to avoid making sound and vibration that can alert Makarov. He also hides his presence as best as he can. As a hunter, Alex has trained to hide his presence for his hunt and he often hunts, so he is used to hiding his presence.
However, he makes a miscalculation because of his overconfidence. Alex thinks that he is skillful enough to hide his presence from Makarov.
Right now, Makarov is a few years younger than himself in the series. Also, he is very serious about this exam and has predicted many strategies that Alex might use.
After all, Makarov knows that Alex isn't stupid and won't just fight the examiners although he doesn't know that the smart one is Matatabi who gives advice to Alex. Either way, he knows that Alex will avoid direct fights, unlike most of his idiot Guild Mates.
Tunnel digging is the most predictable strategy because Shukaku's abilities are the most known in the Guild among all Tailed Beasts. So Makarov has prepared for it and he keeps checking the area around him, including the earth around him.
Alex's presence hiding skill is good though, because Makarov doesn't sense him even when he gets quite close. Instead of Alex's presence, Makarov senses the changes of the ground beneath him.
Makarov grins as his right arm becomes gigantic and he hits the ground in front of him. The ground collapses and the tunnel that Alex made is destroyed. Alex is also buried by the destroyed ground, but he doesn't get injured.
"Shit! It doesn't work." Alex curses as he gets out of the rubble in his humanoid Shukaku form.
"Don't you think it's the most predictable strategy, Alex? Digging a tunnel when your most known transformation is Shukaku that can control sand and soil."
"Tsk! It doesn't work just because it's you, Master. I'm sure Gildarts and Laxus won't detect me."
"Hmm, maybe that's true. They aren't as careful as I am. But it seems you are not as careful either."
Alex now doesn't have another choice but to fight Makarov head on. He can't run away now that Makarov has found him. The best he can do is try to find moments to pass Makarov while fighting.
*CLAP* Alex claps his big Shukaku hands and a wide yellow magic circle appears beneath Makarov.
"Monstrous Sand Hands!"
A pair of gigantic Sand Shukaku hands appear beside Makarov and clasp on him very strongly. Alex tries to squeeze them as strong as he can, but it's not enough. The giant sand hands suddenly get destroyed by a pair of giant human hands.
Makarov sends a punch at Alex with his giant right hand, so Alex makes a very thick sand wall to block it. Alex clicks his tongue as he jumps far to the right because Makarov's punch destroys his thick sand wall.
'Damn! That old man is ridiculously strong.' Even Shukaku is impressed by Makarov's strength.
'He is chosen to be 1 of 10 Wizard Saints for a reason. I'm sure the current him is still stronger than himself in the main story time even though he isn't in his prime anymore.' Alex thinks that Makarov is more of a beast than Gildarts.
'He might not be in his prime, but his experience far surpassed even the previous man who is still in his prime.' Matatabi seems to agree with Alex for thinking that Makarov is more of a threat than Gildarts in this exam.
Alex sends some more attacks using sand but Makarov can destroy them all. He can't even penetrate Makarov's defense using numerous sharp sand spears that he shot at high speeds.
Makarov counters each one of those sand spears using numerous light bullets instead of just making a shield to block them all. It is such a high level technique that needs precise calculation because each projectile is shot to a different spot at different angles.
"How the f-" Alex can't help but be shocked.
"Try harder, boy." Makarov grins before sending another giant punch at Alex.
Alex jumps away while transforming into Son Goku. As Makarov says, it's easy to predict the attacks of his known beasts' abilities. Son is the most recent beast he can transform into, so Makarov shouldn't know much of its abilities.
He is right, Makarov becomes more wary now because Alex never shows Son's full abilities to anyone else. So his next attack is something that Makarov doesn't know. 6 rather wide red magic circles with black spots appear around the room, surrounding Makarov.
"Lava Release: Flowers of Huaguo Mountain!"
A miniature volcano comes out of each magic circle and they immediately erupt after being formed. They shoot a lot of lava everywhere. The eruptions look like blooming flowers made of lava, beautiful to look at, but dangerous to touch.
Makarov quickly creates a thick earth wall around him. But the lava waves melt the walls very quickly. So Makarov changes his defense. Many golden magic runes appear around him, forming a shield with the shape of a dome.
The shield blocks the lava waves that keep crashing at it without much problem. The lava can't penetrate Makarov's shield no matter how strong they push it. Then suddenly, the lava waves are pushed back by a strong invisible force from the shield.
But after the lava waves are repelled, 3 big lava gorillas are attacking the magic shield. They punch it, slam their fists, and ram onto it as strongly as they can. Bits of lava splash every time they hit the shield, but their attacks can't do anything to the shield.
Makarov shoots 3 big light beams from inside the shield. They pass the magic shield and destroy the lava gorillas easily. He sees Alex is trying to escape from this room and almost reach the exit, so Makarov sends a giant punch to stop Alex who jumps in mini Son Goku form.
Alex has prepared for Makarov to attack him when he tries to escape and has prepared a counter. He opens his mouth and a light green magic circle appears.
"Fire Release: Monkey Flame Arson!"
Alex shoots a green flame blast at Makarov's giant fist. To Makarov's surprise, this attack is much stronger than Alex's previous attacks. It pushes him back until he crashes onto the wall on the other side.
"Surely you don't think that my previous attacks were serious, right, Master?" Alex grins before he leaves the room very quickly.
Makarov can only smile when he realizes that he has been fooled by Alex from the beginning. All of Alex's previous attacks were not at their full power. But he acted as if he had gone all-out to make Makarov lower his guard and thought that Alex couldn't use stronger attacks.
Still, Alex needs to lower his attack power carefully to avoid making Makarov suspicious. So he used the level of power that he showed Makarov last time, which was more than a year ago.
He has grown a lot since then and he even used an ability that Makarov has never seen before for the last attack, so he could surprise the old man when he used the last attack that was much stronger than the previous attacks.
Makarov wasn't ready for that level of attack, so he didn't defend properly. As a result, he was thrown back very hard by Alex's attack and he couldn't stop Alex from leaving the area he guarded which is also the last area.
After passing Makarov's guard, Alex can finally get out of the cave. This means that he has cleared the last trial of this S-Class exam. He passes it with much lower effort than what was expected from this trial.
"Hehe, it's a good thing that 2 examiners are idiots. Master was the only one who could do his job properly. This S-Class exam is not as challenging as I thought it would be."
Alex smirks while nodding and closing his eyes in satisfaction. But then suddenly, someone grabs his head from above with a strong grip. It's Gildarts who seems very pissed by how Alex fooled him before.
"Oi, kid, that wasn't how you should pass this exam. You should show your ability to me and gain my approval to pass my area." Gildarts has a lot of tick marks on his forehead, showing how annoyed he is.
"The task is only to get out of the cave from the exit. You never said I should fight all the examiners and gain their approval. If you couldn't stop me from passing your area, it means you are the one who failed as the examiner because it means you weren't ready for any schemes I might use. Master could stop my initial plan, so that means you could do it too if you think more."
Alex grins while mocking Gildarts even though his head is being squeezed strongly by the pissed middle-aged man. It only makes Gildarts more pissed though, so Alex is thrown to the forest as if he is just a ball.
But anyway, Alex has completed all the S-Class Exam trials. So now he is officially getting promoted to S-Class. Finally, he can take S-Class jobs that pay more and obviously, more dangerous.
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Ch. 120: 9-Tailed Demon Fox