Edolas Jellal, also known as Mystogan is the one who's supposed to be promoted to S-Class this year. So Alex isn't surprised when he is chosen as a candidate, but it's surprising that he is the only candidate for this year's S-Class exam
Well, the other potential S-Class have retired from the Guild because of their ages. Some of them are still not too old, but they retire because they start families and want to avoid danger. So it leaves the young ones who aren't strong enough to be S-Class yet.
Though it might be wrong to call the young ones weak because the only old S-Class now is Gildarts while there are 5 young S-Class Mages in the Guild. So it's more that the Guild simply has promoted almost all of their S-Class potentials and only Mystogan is left now.
The younger Mages like Natsu, Gray, Wendy, Elfman, etc, will still need a few years to reach S-Class levels. So now there's only Mystogan that fits the criteria of an S-Class Mage.
Because they only have 1 candidate, Makarov only chooses Laxus and Alex as examiners. Both of them are more experienced than Erza, Mira, and Cana as examiners because they were promoted earlier and Gildarts isn't here, so only both of them are available.
Then, because there's only 1 candidate, Makarov only prepares 1 trial for the exam. Usually, the early rounds were to sort the candidates, a kind of qualifying round.
The real test is the last trial and because Mystogan is alone, they don't need to sort the candidates again and can just do the real test. It's also more effective to just do 1 test that's really hard and can show the candidate's real potential.
Mystogan's test is called the Cat and Mouse trial. He is the Mouse while Alex and Laxus are the Cats that will hunt him. He will be hunted by Alex and Laxus for a whole day and he needs to survive to pass the test.
Of course, Alex and Laxus have handicaps. They are wearing bells on their wrists, feet, and waists that will ring whenever they move. The bells will alert Mystogan every time Alex and Laxus are close, but it still won't be easy to face 2 S-Classes even with such handicaps.
This trial's difficulty is the same as some trials being merged into 1. After all, each year's exam is equally difficult to make them fair. Their arena is the whole island, so they are free to move anywhere for a whole day.
Mystogan is given 15 minutes to move first and the Cats will move after that 15 minutes is over. The trial starts when the Cats start moving, so Mystogan can find a good hiding spot and prepare strategies in that short 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, Alex and Laxus start moving to hunt Mystogan while Makarov stays in the camp. Laxus is rushing while Alex just walks slowly because they have plenty of time.
Alex is looking for Mystogan's traces in the forest while also trying to sense him. Mystogan doesn't have inner magic power as someone from Edolas. But the magic items he uses have quite a lot of magic power that Alex can sense and he already knows how they feel like.
Looking for Mystogan isn't really a problem for Alex because even though Mystogan tries to hide his traces, Alex can still see them clearly with his high-level hunting skills.
The problem is the bells on his body. They are really annoying because they keep ringing every time Alex moves. His ears are very sensitive, so the bells sound very loud in his ears and he needs to bear it for a whole day.
Not long after he starts his hunt, Alex senses Mystogan's magic items. Mystogan is still very far from him, but his keen magic sense can already sense those magic items.
If this is a normal hunt, Alex will quickly go there to fight. But the purpose of this trial is to see Mystogan's ability to handle pressure for a long period which also tests his endurance, strategic skill, power, and even patience.
So Alex doesn't really need to rush at Mystogan. He can do other things that pressure the guy because the purpose isn't to fight and defeat Mystogan.
Alex transforms his right arm into Isobu's arm and raises it to the sky. A big blue magic circle appears high above the forest and water starts gathering below the magic circle.
It attracts everyone's attention because it can be seen from all sides of this island. All of them know that it must be Alex's spell. Makarov and Laxus think that Alex has found Mystogan, but Mystogan is confused because Alex hasn't found him yet.
At least that's what he thought until suddenly, numerous water bullets are shot from the giant water ball that floats in the sky. The water bullets are flying at high speeds toward him from a very far distance, much to his surprise.
Mystogan runs away to dodge the powerful water bullets that can pierce through the trees easily. He keeps running while making a magic shield to defend against the water bullet rain that keeps chasing him.
The water bullets are so strong that he has a hard time stopping them with his magic shield. They can even break his shield after a while, forcing him to keep running instead of trying to defend.
He runs while trying to locate Alex using his magic item. But he can't find Alex in his searching radius at all. Instead of Alex, he senses Laxus entering his detection range. Alex's attack makes Laxus find his location too, so now he'll also need to face Laxus.
To his surprise, Alex's attack suddenly stops when Laxus gets closer to him. Alex doesn't want to gang up on Mystogan with Laxus, so he stops to let Laxus attack Mystogan. For Alex, it's better to keep pressuring Mystogan all the time until the trial is over to truly test him than just attacking strongly in the beginning.
He can sense that Laxus is attacking Mystogan now. But the fight doesn't last long as Mystogan can quickly escape from Laxus. He is really smart and can find a way to escape from Laxus rather quickly without spending too much magic power in the fight.
Alex tries to find Mystogan with his senses again without moving around too much. He actually uses this chance to train his senses. The Tailed Beasts say that if he trains his senses well enough, he can detect everything that happens in this whole island.
That's why he trains his senses, especially his magic sense. It is very useful in almost all of his jobs because he can sense his enemies' presence and estimating their power so he can prepare the best strategy to fight them.
Now, in this exam, Alex will attack Mystogan from a very far distance every time he senses the guy. It really makes Mystogan flustered every time Alex attacks because Mystogan can't find Alex's location with any detection spell he can use.
Then because of Alex's attacks, Laxus will find Mystogan's position, so Mystogan can't rest at all. Alex can even find him when he hides deep in a cave and the attack will come from the ground instead of the sky in that situation.
This trial is very stressful for Mystogan because of Alex. Even hunting and closing Anima portals was never this stressful. It's all because Alex almost doesn't give him time to rest during the test.
It's not just Mystogan who can't rest because of Alex. Laxus who relies on Alex's attacks to find Mystogan also ends up working all the time. He is actually the most tired because he keeps attacking Mystogan seriously after chasing the masked man all the time.
In the end, Laxus gets too exhausted to continue chasing after Mystogan in the middle of the night. There are still 10 hours left for the trial to finish, but Laxus decides to stop and sleep in the forest. He has run out of magic power, so he can't continue chasing Mystogan.
Alex works alone now and it just increases the trial's difficulty because now he won't stop attacking Mystogan. Previously, he just stopped to let Laxus attack Mystogan.
But now, he can't do that because Laxus is resting. So he just keeps attacking Mystogan until the guy can escape from his attack range. But it won't last long because Alex will find him soon and attack him again, so Mystogan really can't rest during the trial.
Even so, Mystogan succeeds in finishing the trial in the end. But he becomes so exhausted that he can barely stand when the time runs out. After Makarov announces that he passes the exam and gets promoted to S-Class, Mystogan falls asleep on the spot because he is extremely exhausted.
Well, at least he is getting promoted to S-Class, just like in the story. Laxus gets scolded by Makarov though because he ditched his work to sleep before the trial ended. Things really end well, for now.
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Ch. 144. Throwing Out Trash