Not long after he officially becomes a Wizard Saint, the 1st rank God of Ishgar at that, Alex calls Natsu, Happy, Makarov, Lucy, Levy, Freed, and Mavis. He wants to break Natsu's life connection to Zeref so that when Zeref dies, Natsu won't die as well.
But he doesn't know anything about magic letters and can't use them. So he needs some experts to help him. He also calls Makarov because the old man needs to know this as the Guild Master and the one who found Natsu after being sent from 400 years ago.
Mavis also should be able to help them because she has a lot of knowledge about magic. With her, Lucy, Levy, and Freed who have deep knowledge of magic letters, they should be able to change the END Book more thoroughly.
"Alright, I gather you here because I have some surprising news for you. But before we start, I want you to keep everything here a secret. You shouldn't tell anyone about this, not even your closest person. If you can't agree to this, you can leave now."
Alex always wants to say these movie lines that sound really cool. Now he finally has a chance to say it because it really is appropriate for this situation.
Though no one there knows about that. They only think that Alex wants to tell them something very important and he trusts them enough to share this secret. So they don't want to betray his trust and no one leaves.
However, no one expects that it won't be his secret he'll share, but Natsu's secret, a secret Natsu himself doesn't know.
Alex takes out the Book of END from his spatial storage, an ability to replace his Rinne-Sharingan summoning ability. He explains what the book is which requires him to explain Natsu's origin as well.
Obviously, no one is prepared to hear all these things, not even Natsu. They are surprised, especially when knowing that Natsu is Zeref's younger brother that was revived using forbidden magic and he's basically a Demon from the Book of Zeref.
"But unlike the ones from Tartaros, Zeref made Natsu more humane. That's because he wants to revive his younger brother, who obviously wasn't a demon. You can say those demons were failed products of his attempts to revive his younger brother. That's why those demons said their true leader was END, because END is Zeref's perfect creation."
"And I am that END?" Natsu is really surprised.
"Yeah, Etherious Natsu Dragneel, the younger brother of Zeref Dragneel. Actually, saying you are a demon is also wrong. I think your species is still human. The problem is you have something called the thing I call Demon Seed. It seems like Igneel has suppressed it and weakened it when he resided in your body. But it can't be removed and it can suddenly grow, turning you into a demon, that's why I call it the Demon Seed. If it just turns you into a demon, then it's nothing to worry about. The problem is, you might lose your mind and just become a beast whose sole purpose is to kill Zeref or cause destruction. We never know what effects this Demon Seed has, after all, so we need to be prepared. But if you can keep your mind and actually even control that Demon Seed, I believe you can use your Etherious Demon's power to get stronger. For example you can activate an Etherious Form."
"You mean like when those Tartaros demons transform from their human-like appearances into demonic forms?" Lucy asks.
"Yeah, it will boost your power, but it might be difficult for your case to keep using that form because I believe it uses Curse Power which stems from negative energy and you lack such energy."
Everyone nods when Alex says it because Natsu really lacks negative energy. If it's positive energy, then he has an abundant amount of it. Unfortunately, it's not the fuel of Curse Power, so he can't use it.
"Hmm, then maybe the Demon Seed will affect Natsu's mind so he will be full of negative emotions. An extreme example is it might make him want to kill everyone." Mavis immediately has a conclusion after hearing some information.
"I see. So we need to research the book to find a way to stop that Demon Seed from demonizing Natsu, right?"
"Yeah, but there is a bigger problem. Zeref made it so that if he dies, all Etherious Demons will also die, that includes his revived little brother."
"WHAT?!"
Everyone is surprised to hear that because it means Natsu will also die if Zeref dies.
"Wait! But he is immortal, right?" Levy asks unsurely.
"He is. But it's possible to kill him and it's also better if he dies sooner. The longer he lives, the worse his care for others' lives. His humanity disappears along with age as he sees more and more bad things that humans do. He also wanted to die, that's why he programmed his demons to want to kill him. It was described that END was the strongest Etherious Demons that could kill him. So Zeref thought you could kill him once you reached your peak power. But once you kill him, you will also die because of the life connections between all Etherious Demons with him. That's why we need to find a way to break that connection so I can go to kill that guy without worrying about killing Natsu. But we also need to find other problems in this Book to avoid future problems. Once I kill Zeref, we might not be able to alter his Books, so we need to do it now while we're still alive."
Everyone is surprised by everything they hear, but they also understand now why Alex wants to keep everything a secret. Surely this won't be good if it's known by many people. So they promise to hide everything and help to solve this problem as best as they can.
Mavis seems to be more surprised by something else though. That's why after the discussion and everyone promises to do some research about the book at a later date, Mavis asks Alex to talk privately with her.
"You know how to break the Curse of Ankhseram?"
As Alex expected, Mavis wants to ask about this matter.
"Yes. I believed you would be very interested in this as well, that's why I brought it up because I knew you also wanted to break your curse."
Alex doesn't hide anything and just reveals the method to break the curse. He only says what he remembers from the series, but Mavis should know the gist of it. She is a magic genius, so just some rough explanation from Alex is enough.
"That is.... I..." Mavis seems surprised by the method, but she quickly understands that it really is possible.
She herself is the one who strongly theorizes that love can strengthen magic. In fact, she even believes that magic is the power of feelings, with love being the strongest power.
It might sound too edgy, but it also has truth in it because people often suddenly get stronger when trying to protect their loved ones. This theory came from such things.
The theory of Magic being the power of feelings also gets stronger when thinking about Etherious Demons' Curse Power. It stems from negative emotion that's also a form of feeling.
Curse comes from negative emotions, so it's possible that Magic comes from various emotions. That's why magic power can feel warm, soothing, calm, raging, ominous, etc. All because the users' feelings affect them.
But well, Alex doesn't want to rely on that because the power boosts from strong feelings also usually disappears as the users get calmer. It's just a sudden burst of energy and how much they get also depends on their basic power.
No matter how determined and strong a new Mage's feeling is, they won't be able to defeat a Wizard Saint. So getting stronger by training consistently, learning more about magic, and always improving bit by bit are always better than just simply relying on having strong feelings.
For Alex, his feelings are his motivations to get stronger. His desire to protect himself and his loved ones are the things that push him to work harder so that he won't lose anyone he cares for.
Anyway, after he tells Mavis the method to break the Curse of Ankhseram that will kill both Zeref and her, Alex drops another bomb to Mavis. He tells her that she has a child with Zeref, a child she doesn't even know exists.
Alex tells her about August and how Precht a.k.a Hades abandoned him not long after his birth when Mavis was crystalized. But August found out everything that happened because he could recall his memories from birth.
He knows but he hides everything, even from Zeref who took him under his wings because of his great magic power. So until this day, when he is already so old, August's parents don't even know they have a child.
Mavis is obviously very shocked. She knows Alex very well. He is the closest to her among the Guild's younger generations and she knows he won't lie to her about something like this, that's why she is very shocked and even cries.
But then, obviously, Mavis asks how Alex knows all of this when August himself never told anyone about this, not even Zeref. So Alex just smiles and tells Mavis the truth about his existence, a secret he never tells anyone.
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Ch. 282. Alex vs Selene