"Got it!" Lucy nodded thoughtfully, then dashed up to Roger, pointing at herself with excitement. "Me! Can I sign a contract too?"
Roger glanced at the glowing golden exclamation mark above her head and nodded lightly. "Sure."
"Yay!" Lucy's eyes sparkled. "Does that mean I can get as strong as Natsu someday?!"
Gray spread his hands with a smirk. "You should be aiming to be stronger than Natsu."
"Huh?!" Natsu butted heads with Gray, glaring. "What's that supposed to mean? If anyone's getting stronger, it's gotta be stronger than you, Ice Freak!"
Gray shoved back just as hard. "Don't forget, you lost that last fight, loser!"
Flames sparked in Natsu's hands as veins popped on his forehead. "Lost?! I was just taking a nap!!"
Lucy sighed, "=w= Can we not get ahead of ourselves? I haven't even signed the contract yet…"
She scratched her head, feeling a strange mix of emotions. "It's kinda weird, though. I just signed a contract with a Celestial Spirit, and now I'm about to sign one with a human…"
Happy floated up beside her, grinning mischievously. "(￣▽￣) So, Lucy, you're not gonna sign it?"
"I'm signing it!!" Lucy shouted, worried Roger might change his mind. She hurried to his side and sealed the contract with him.
[Ding! Acquired Celestial Spirit Magic]
[Magic Mutation: Magic gained from defeating enemies has a chance to fuse with your Celestial Spirits, creating entirely new magic.]
Lucy rolled the word "fusion" around in her head a few times, still processing, before blurting out, "Wait! Fuse with my spirits? Does that mean my Celestial Spirits can gain the magic I get from defeating enemies?"
Roger pondered for a moment before replying slowly, "Pretty much. When others sign a contract with me, defeating enemies sometimes 'drops' magic. But that magic is like a newborn bird—weak and needing to be trained from scratch to grow stronger."
"You're a bit different, though. When magic 'drops' for you, it seems to fuse directly with your spirits' existing power, skipping the slow grind. You can use it right away."
"It depends on the situation, though, for how exactly it fuses."
Lucy didn't fully grasp all the details, but she got the gist. "So, you're saying my spirits might get stronger after defeating enemies?"
When Roger nodded, Lucy's heart practically leaped out of her chest. "That's awesome! I'm gonna be a super badass wizard!!"
Hehe, what should I say if Weekly Sorcerer interviews me? she thought. Oh! Maybe I'll even make it onto the cover of Sorcerer Magazine! No more worrying about rent! I need a cool nickname…
She cupped her cheeks, her eyes curving into crescent moons, her lips curling upward as she giggled to herself, completely lost in her daydreams of stardom.
The others watching her—seeing every thought written plain as day on her beaming face—felt a collective sweatdrop slide down their foreheads. Happy zipped up to her, one paw covering his mouth as he teased in a drawn-out tone, "Luuu~cy, you're drooling!"
"What?!" Lucy snapped out of her fantasy, horrified. Her public image! A future star can't be caught drooling! She frantically wiped her mouth—dry! Nothing there! She glared at Happy, cheeks puffing out. "There's nothing there, you dumb cat! Watch it, or I'll squish your paw pads!!"
"Yare yare~" Happy's tail swished smugly as he spread his paws, shaking his head like a wise old man. "Lucy, you'll believe anything. So naive."
"You little—!" Lucy clenched her fists, fuming, but quickly caught herself. She was a future star, after all—she had to stay classy! No way was she stooping to argue with a cat.
With a huff through her nose, she turned and marched excitedly to the request board.
Staring at the array of job postings, Lucy felt a bit torn. "Mirajane said to start with something simple, but low-level jobs don't give much magic power. Which one should I pick?"
After a moment's thought, she decided to play it safe. "It's my first job, so I should go for something easy. Messing up and failing would be way too embarrassing."
She reached for a request, but Natsu's voice cut in. "You could team up with some guild members. That way, you can take on slightly tougher jobs," he said, grinning as he sidled up to her.
"Team up?" Lucy tilted her head, confused.
"Yup!" Happy floated over, pointing a paw at a group of girls nearby. "Like Cana, Levy, and Kagura. They train together all the time, so they usually form a team for missions."
"When you complete a job as a team, even tough ones become easier. You get better rewards and more magic power than you would from low-level jobs."
"Magic power?" Lucy's eyes widened. "You mean magic power gets split up like the reward money, based on how many people are on the team?"
"Exactly," Happy said, pointing to a job about finding a lost cat. "But magic power is distributed based on how much you contribute to the job. The more you do, the more you get. The less you do, the less you get."
Natsu flashed a thumbs-up, grinning. "Lucy! Wanna join our team for a trial run? Get the hang of things! It'll make snagging those sweet subjugation jobs easier later!"
"Snagging?" Lucy glanced at the wall covered in job postings, puzzled. "There's so many here—why would you need to 'snag' anything? And why pick me for your team?"
Happy hovered in front of the request board, explaining, "Subjugation jobs are different. They give the most magic power out of any job, plus you can get extra magic power from defeating enemies. That's why they're super popular—move too slow, and you might not get one for weeks!"
Natsu crossed his arms, dead serious. "We're inviting you because you've got potential, Lucy. You're gonna be a big deal someday, so we want you on our team!"
"Hehe, really?" Lucy's cheeks flushed at the compliment, her heart doing a little happy dance. Her idol dreams floated back to the surface. "Guess I can't hide my beauty or my strength! Alright, I'm in!"
"Awesome! No time to waste—let's go!" Natsu whipped out a job posting from behind his back like a magician and shoved it into Lucy's hands.
"Huh? So soon?" Lucy took the paper, her excitement building. "But I do wanna start earning magic power quick. Let's see—"
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "No way! Just burn a book in Duke Everlue's mansion, and we get 200,000 Jewel?!"
Natsu grinned. "Easy money, right? This is one of the highest-level jobs outside of subjugations. It's simple, gives tons of magic power, and if you're not fast, it's gone!"