288. 10 Years Quest
After Flare joins Fairy Tail, Ben & Mira train her magic. They also teach her many things about the world, especially common sense. She doesn't know much about the world, so they need to teach her like they teach a child.
But after a few days, they finally know that Flare is quite mischievous. She likes to tease the others using her rather scary expression and hair. The one that she likes to tease the most is Lucy because her reaction is the best.
Other than training Flare, Ben is researching to improve his training. He has finished scanning all the magic books in Magic Library. So now he wants to learn magic from other Nations in Ishgar.
Luckily, with his position as a Wizard Saint, it is quite easy to get a lot of magic books. He asks Magic Council and other Wizard Saint for help. It needs a high amount of money and it is one thing that he has a lot of.
The books will need a lot of time to gather, so he will take jobs while waiting. But normal S-Class jobs are easy for the current him, so he needs to take 10 Years quest. He can't leave right away though because he needs to make sure that Flare can be left alone in the guild.
Ben finally dares to leave Flare on her own after a month. Then he takes a 10 Year Quest with Mira because they always want to do it. But in the past, they couldn't do it because they needed to save the Tenrou team first.
The quest that they take is an exploration of a cave in The Country of Deserto. Many Mages have taken this quest but no one succeeded. Only a few could return alive and they all said that the cave is a giant maze full of demons from the Book of Zeref.
There isn't enough information about the cave, but it's not a problem for Ben. As a Devil Slayer, he has high confidence that he can defeat those demons. Mira's power is also very effective against demons and she can take over a demon if they find a strong one.
Ben & Mira go to Deserto using Light Runner as usual. They need to cross some Nations, but it's not a problem with Light Runner's speed. It still takes 5 days even though Ben drives very fast, but it's still faster than other modes of transportation.
The cave is located in the middle of a desert as Deserto's land is mainly desert. Its entrance is on a big red rock mountain. Ben can feel the ominous aura & magic power even when the cave entrance hasn't appeared in sight.
"No wonder that many Mages failed this quest. Just from this high amount of magic power, I can predict that there are hundreds or even thousands of them," says Ben.
"Are they strong?" asks Mira.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I think they are just low-level Etheriouses that can't even talk the language, just a bunch of mindless creatures. But that number is still a massive threat to most S-Class Mages. Even Laxus & his team will struggle here and they might get annihilated," says Ben.
Mira has expected that level of danger for a 10 Years Quest, but it's still shocking to hear that even Thunder God Tribe might get annihilated here. Those guys are the strongest team after Ben's team, after all.
"So, what's the plan?" asks Mira.
Ben smirks and says, "Let's just fight them until we get dead tired."
Mira has a stunned expression before sighing, "Sigh, do you really need to do this?"
"Of course, I haven't had a thrilling battle for so long. You know it too, that tough battles are the best way to grow stronger. But that's the biggest problem for me at this level. There aren't many opponents that can force me to use my full power so it's difficult to use this method. I need to grow stronger fast before Acnologia appears. This is the only method that I can think of before I can improve my training," says Ben.
Mira just sighs and says, "Just make sure to not die."
Ben nods and Mira can't say anything else. She knows she can't stop Ben and there's no reason to stop him. He has set his goal and he will do anything to reach that goal. Also, he's not reckless, he has plans with high chances of success.
The cave entrance finally gets into sight and there is no demon at all. All the demons seem to be inside the cave. Ben thinks that it's very strange for Etheriouses to just stay silent inside a cave for a long time.
"This is a 10 Years Quest, so I assume that the demons have lived in this cave for at least 10 years. But there is no record of them attacking even the nearest town," says Ben.
"It's indeed strange. Aren't Etherious usually very thirsty for blood? It's quite unbelievable that all of them will stay in one place for a long time," says Mira.
"Unless someone or something is commanding them. The only one that I can think of is higher level Etherious. There might be a very high-level one inside there. An Etherious with a higher level than anyone that we've encountered," says Ben.
Ben & Mira prepare themselves before they enter the cave. It's very dark inside and normal light magic can't even illuminate it nicely. So Ben uses his Dragon Slayer's light magic that has the brightest light to make some big & bright light balls.
"Sigh, the Sun God Slayer's Light Magic is useless for this kind of thing. It is powerful, but it's black and dark. What's the point of dark light?" complaints Ben.
"Well, everything has its good & bad side, right? In exchange for power, God Slayer Magic's elements lose their reliability," says Mira before she transforms into her Satan Soul form.
Ben sends his light balls ahead of them while a light ball is kept on top of them. Now they can see the cave interior and it really can't be called a cave. The correct name for this place is a dungeon or a labyrinth.
The dungeon corridor is square and it's very wide even though the entrance is quite small. There are many of engraving on the floor, walls, & ceiling. Pictures, symbols, and letters are engraved all over the surface area.
Ben gets interested in all these engravements, so he decides to inspect them first before going deeper. There might be secrets being hidden here. Who knows? Maybe he'll find a Lost Magic if he's lucky.
Mira sighs when Ben tells her his intention, but she can't do anything about it. So she cancels her transformation just a moment after she activated it. She takes out a sofa of her storage space and a tea set so she can wait for Ben finishes his inspection comfortably.
Strangely, there is no Etherious that approaches them even though they don't hide their presence. But Ben & Mira realizes that there are many Etherious that are watching them from deep inside the dungeon. None of them attacked though and Ben find the reason after half an hour.
"Oh, damn, so this is why these Etherious didn't go out to attack any town. No, it's not even the correct sentence. It's not that they didn't, they can't," says Ben while smirking.
"What do you mean?" asks Mira.
"There are some layers of Enchantments here, and they all have one purpose, preventing the demons from leaving this cave. All these enchantments are very high-level too, so they didn't break even after a long time. These enchantments are at least 200 years old," says Ben.
"But isn't this just a 10 Years Quest?" asks Mira.
"It doesn't matter, the quest just means that this cave was discovered less than 100 years ago. As you know, 10 Years Quests aren't actually quests that haven't been finished in 10 years, but they haven't been finished for at least 10 years. The only quest above it is 100 Years Quest."
"So, unfinished quests within 10-99 years are named 10 Years Quests. The case with this cave is that it was discovered by a high-level enchanter far in the past. That enchanter put these layers of Enchantment. Probably because they couldn't kill all the Etherious, so they sealed the cave. The Country has just found this cave tens of years ago and made this quest that hasn't been solved for years," says Ben.
"... Oh, ok," says Mira confusedly.
Ben grins and says, "Anyway, I've finished my inspection and got some good enchantments data. Now, let's start the subjugation."
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