After accepting the mission, the two came before the Guild Master. The Guild Master saw that the mission location was a forest near Magnolia, and it was an ordinary forest without magical beasts. He nodded, agreeing for Statiw and Mirajane to undertake this mission. Having obtained the Guild Master's approval, the two then found the client who posted the mission on the outskirts of Magnolia.
"Are you the mages who accepted my mission? This mission is very simple: just go to the forest to the east and pick three horsetails. This grass looks just like a horse's tail and is very easy to recognize. Although it looks quite ordinary, horsetail is a herb with faint magical power. Therefore, there are always some wild beasts guarding horsetails, and ordinary people cannot obtain them. So, we can only entrust mages to help." Upon seeing Mirajane and Statiw, the client immediately pulled them to sit in the living room and then told them the detailed information about the mission.
Having received the detailed mission information, the two immediately set off. Statiw first led Mirajane to the top of a small hill on the edge of the target forest. He set up his easel and began painting the lush green forest.
This time, Statiw's painting speed was much slower. After all, man-made objects like houses are straight and have patterns to follow, but natural landscapes like forests are extraordinarily complex. However, for his Pict Magic to be effective in finding specific items in such a large forest, he needed to paint it very detailed. Therefore, it wasn't until sunset that Statiw put away his brush and activated his magic.
At this moment, Mirajane, who was bored and dazing nearby, suddenly noticed a magic circle appearing on Statiw's painting. Seeing a circle in the center, with a constantly rotating ring outside, she approached and said, "There's an extra ring on the outside of the magic circle. It seems you really are a C-rank mage."
"Isn't that obvious? If the magic circle hadn't changed, I wouldn't have explicitly told Elfman that I was already a C-rank mage." Statiw, who had just come back to his senses and noticed Mirajane's presence after hearing her speak, suddenly realized that she seemed a little different from her usual personality. He knew that, according to her usual character, she would have already grown impatient. Not like this time, where she hadn't made a big fuss until sunset, even making Statiw momentarily feel as if she wasn't there.
However, perhaps it was indeed an illusion, as Mirajane, after a brief silence, immediately burst out, "What did you say? How dare you say what I said was nonsense! Do you want a beating?"
"Ah, no." Hearing her tone, Statiw immediately defended himself, "That was just a figure of speech, please don't mind it."
"How could I not mind it, you idiot?" Mirajane, with an annoyed expression, glanced at him and then continued, "Hurry up and start searching for it. The sooner we find it, the sooner we finish the mission."
"What?" Statiw was stunned and said, "You're not thinking of entering the forest immediately, are you? It's already sunset. Wouldn't it be better if we went back to rest and came back tomorrow? Anyway, it's just in the eastern forest, so close, and those herbs won't run away."
"Less talk, listen to me. Immediately start pinpointing the location of the horsetails." At this moment, Mirajane showed her impatience and spoke with an extremely firm tone.
"Alright." Seeing that he couldn't persuade her, Statiw could only nod in agreement. If he continued to object, he might actually get a beating.
He zoomed in on the forest in the painting, then moved as if a person was rapidly running through the forest. Just as Mirajane was beginning to think his magic was unreliable, a bright light suddenly flashed in a very distant place. When Statiw arrived at that bright light, she realized that it was indeed the horsetail glowing.
"So beautiful." Mirajane looked at the glowing bundles in the painting, like fine, fuzzy threads hanging down like willow branches, and couldn't help but praise them.
"Is it?" Statiw didn't find it particularly beautiful. He directly marked the location on the painting with magic, then once again began to manipulate the painting to speed through.
Another half an hour passed before he once again discovered the glowing horsetail in the painting. As he zoomed in on the image, he said to Mirajane, "It seems horsetails are very rare in this forest. It's taking so long just to find three of them."
"Isn't that obvious? If they were easy to find, would they need to post a mission and entrust mages to find them?" she said with an expression of course, "Hurry up and find them. The sooner we find them, the sooner we complete the mission."
"Yes, yes." Statiw perfunctorily responded, then continued to manipulate the painting to search while asking curiously, "Mirajane, are you short on money recently?"
"Hmm? Why do you ask?" She looked at him with a puzzled expression after hearing him ask that.
Statiw focused his attention on the painting but directly said, "Because you usually never accept missions like this. You always take on missions to subjugate magical beasts or certain rare and powerful wild beasts. This time, you chose a mission to gather herbs, which I find quite puzzling."
"Hmph, what's so hard to understand about that?" Mirajane suddenly realized, "I heard there's a very rare bird in this forest that likes to live around horsetails. More importantly, this bird always comes out at night and hides somewhere during the day, so… can you use your magic to find that bird?"
"Do you know what that bird looks like? You need to at least know some unique details about it, otherwise, it will probably be very difficult." Hearing this, Statiw finally understood why she had accepted this mission, and also why she insisted on acting at night. The horsetails weren't important; the bird was. At this moment, seeing her look at him with a face full of expectation, he couldn't help but become curious about that bird himself.
"I don't know." Hearing his words, Mirajane immediately said with a hint of disappointment, "It seems there's no way then."
In fact, she always took either Elfman or Lisanna, or sometimes both of them, whenever she accepted a mission. The reason was that her main purpose in taking missions was not the mission itself, but to ensure her siblings had enough strength to protect themselves, so she always looked for subjugation missions involving rare animals or magical beasts.
Because both Elfman and Lisanna also used Take Over Magic, the only difference was that Elfman's transformation depended on the creature's strength; the stronger, the better. Lisanna, however, was different; her transformation depended on their appearance. Only those birds and animals with beautiful appearances would be taken over by her.
Having known Mirajane and her siblings for so long, Statiw naturally understood the reason. So, as soon as he heard her words, he immediately understood that she wanted to capture this bird, but didn't want Lisanna to stay up all night with her. Therefore, she planned to capture the bird alive and then have Lisanna perform the Take Over.