Kira couldn't quite tell what Loke was thinking, but he could feel the mix of envy and admiration in his words.
"Huh? I can't just let that slide!" Gray snapped. "You wanna see what Ice-Make magic can really do?"
Ever the peacemaker, Kira quickly stepped in before his two buddies could start throwing punches. "Whoa, Gray, chill out! Loke's just blunt—he says it like it is. No need to take it personally!"
Gray's face darkened. "What, you think Ice-Make is weak too?"
"Ice melts, doesn't it?" Kira replied casually, sidestepping a direct answer with a simple fact of nature.
"And your stuff lasts forever or something?" Gray shot back.
"What kinda nonsense is that? When you're done with something, you clean it up. Keeping it around forever would drain magic power. Hmm… actually, ice doesn't have that problem since it's a one-and-done deal. That's a point in its favor, but it also means it eats up more magic overall… So, yeah, my molding magic's still better!" Kira grinned.
Gray, knowing he couldn't outmatch Kira, just grumbled and stayed quiet.
The group boarded a ship headed for Galuna Island.
Onboard, Loke couldn't help but pipe up. "Y'know, I've always wondered—your magic's kinda special, isn't it?"
His comment caught everyone's attention, even Cana and Gray, who turned to look at him.
They'd known for a while that Kira's Word Spirit Magic was a type of Letter Magic, but it was different from Levy's Solid Script or Freed's rune-based magic from the Thunder God Tribe. Kira's version let him shape words into physical forms.
But shaping words? That was just plain weird.
"What's so special about it?" Kira said, shrugging. "Molding magic comes in all sorts of crazy flavors. Shaping words is nothing—heck, I've heard of Memory-Make magic out there!"
"Exactly!" Gray jumped in, thinking of his master's words. "Molding magic is the freest kind of magic out there!"
Gray, his master Ur, and his senior disciple Lyon all used Ice-Make magic, but each had a different twist: Ur shaped plants, Lyon shaped animals to represent "motion," and Gray shaped weapons for "stillness."
"Anyway, molding is just one way to use Word Spirit Magic," Kira added. "If I had to describe it, I'd say it's closer to Manifestation Magic."
"Manifestation? What's that?" Cana asked.
"It's a super mysterious, ancient, and complex type of magic—one of the Lost Magics," Kira explained. "Like I mentioned, Memory-Make is another Lost Magic. It lets you create stuff from your memories, including magic itself, and even combine magics. It's probably the most powerful kind of molding magic out there."
"My Ice-Make is plenty strong too!" Gray huffed.
Kira shook his head. "Elemental molding's got its limits—attribute weaknesses, for one. If you run into a wizard with a bad matchup, you're in trouble. And if your magic power or physical strength isn't up to par, it's even worse."
Gray smirked. "All this talk just to flex that your strength's on another level, huh?"
"Wow, Cana, you're sharp!" Kira teased.
"You're such a punk—saying stuff like that makes me wanna punch you!" Cana groaned.
Kira's expression turned smug as he leaned into his show-off moment. "Think about it. How do I churn out so many unique, high-quality magic items? Sure, I'm a genius with magic, but am I also a master blacksmith? Even if I was, I spend most of my time training my magic—when would I have time to practice forging?"
"It's gotta be tied to my magic, right?"
Cana rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh, and I've never seen you actually train your magic."
"Seriously, though," Gray added, "I've always wondered how you make those magic items."
"What, you think I just manifest them?" Kira laughed, patting the ship beneath them. "If I did that, people would've figured it out by now. Plus, like I said, stuff made with magic disappears if you don't keep pouring magic into it."
"Then how do you do it?" Cana pressed.
"Alright, alright, no more guessing. Don't worry—this mission's gonna open your eyes."
Thud. The ship docked.
Time flies when you're traveling. The card game onboard came to an abrupt halt.
Kira stood, stretched lazily, and waved at the trio, their faces covered in penalty stickers from the game. "Alright, no more playing. We're here. Let's go do this mission!"
"Hey, don't think you can weasel out of this!" Cana yelled. "You lost, so stick those stickers on!"
But Kira, already focused on the mission, wasn't having it. "Nonsense! We're on a job here—how can you think about games at a time like this?"
His tone was all high-and-mighty as he nimbly slipped out of their encirclement and hopped off the ship, his shoes sliding smoothly on the deck.
"That jerk!" Cana fumed. "He's the one who suggested cards in the first place, and now he's bailing because he lost!"
Seeing Kira about to dispel his magic, the three had no choice but to drop their antics and disembark.
"By the way," Gray said, "what's the mission again?"
"No clue," Cana admitted.
Kira groaned. "Seriously? You didn't read the job posting yesterday? It's about breaking a curse."
He couldn't believe these guys. So obsessed with chasing S-Class missions that they didn't even bother checking the details before tagging along. Typical Fairy Tail—bold and reckless.
"Breaking a curse?" Cana asked. "How're you gonna pull that off? Can your Word Spirit Magic even do that?"
"Who knows?" Kira shrugged. "The whole 'curse' thing is just what the islanders are calling it. As an S-Class wizard, I can't just buy into one-sided stories. We'll figure out what's really going on when we get there."
"Just follow me and watch how an S-Class wizard handles a mission!"
The trio followed the map through the island's outer forest, arriving at the village. Along the way, Kira realized why the Magic Council ignored Galuna Island. The place was practically stuck in the Stone Age.
Wooden stake fences, a watchtower barely three or four stories tall, and guards wielding crude weapons made of sticks and stones—it all screamed technological backwardness.
In the Kingdom of Fiore and other Ishgar nations, magic and technology went hand in hand, neither lagging behind. Well, the "technology" here was magic-based. Take magic crystals, for example: they were everywhere, powering streetlights or recording images for magazines and newspapers. They were the cheapest, most common magic items around.
That meant this world's tech, deeply tied to magic, was on par with a high-tech society. Even advanced tech—like magical spirit power or Face weapons—existed.
By comparison, Galuna Island's tech was at least three hundred years behind.