Fairy Tail: Swallow the Fire

37. Teaching Juvia

.

.

.

A week after Mira and I had sparred, we had finally finished the top two floors of the house.

The uppermost floor would be the training room, and eventually the practical teaching room however Totomaru had stated that he would only start teaching after he retired from guild work.

It was divided in two, similar to how it was originally, but we replaced the concrete wall with a glass one and reinforced the load-bearing beams. The left side was turned into a weightlifting room where I frequented my time, while Totomaru stayed in the right-side dojo where plenty of training dummies, targets, and weapon displays could be found along the walls.

Below that was the library and study room. Unlike the top floor, no walls were separating each half of the room, properly. Instead, the wall was cut right down the middle, removing half of its overall length without removing the load-bearing beams. The two remaining segments were then turned into bookshelves which progressed alongside the rest of the walls. On the floor, there were desks, tables, and chalkboards that had all been covered and seen heavy use through primarily mine but also Juvia's studies.

Renovating the top two floors removed the two master bedrooms, four smaller bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Now we were beginning renovations on the first floor to add in what we've removed, changing it to have one master bedroom, two smaller bedrooms, a guest room, and a bathroom.

The main floor would remain largely untouched throughout it all, except we would be removing the kitchen and living area on the right side, expanding the dining room and kitchen into it and adding an in-house theatre.

The roof, though, would remain my project that Juvia and the neighbours have been helping with. It was entirely flat and the staircases of all the homes would all lead up to it anyway, so we've been building a small greenhouse up there complete with a bonfire, grill, and lounge.

It was pretty common for everyone to go up there now and then for a cookout, but with us changing the floor plan, it got everyone else in the complex into a renovating mood. Over the past few months, a decent pile has been building up on the back end of the housing complex made of old furniture and wood.

But life continues outside of the housing complex.

Totomaru's relationship with Adalina ended pretty early on. They both enjoyed what they had and no hard feelings arose, but with Totomaru disappearing for days to weeks on end it became hard to keep things steady.

They're still friends, with him often taking the time to babysit her kids when she's away or cut down trees for her lumberjacking business, but it won't be going beyond anything casual anytime soon.

My studies have progressed largely uninterrupted. With a bit of help from Mirajane, I've grown a bit more used to using darkness spells and at more powerful levels, the "price" for me helping her get more used to combat in general. One of the things I've been aiming to do with this knowledge is study the element aspect of slayer magic to try and learn something akin to Darkness Devil Slayer magic or an equivalent. However, even with enchanting, this has so far been beyond my grasp due to a majority of my understanding revolving around the flame element which focuses on destruction and heat, not the decay-like chaotic and sinful nature of darkness.

In my black magic studies, I have fully developed the seals for demonic transformation with notable side effects. There are five in total, each unleashing more and more of my demonic state. The plan going forward was to try and study the Law spell, but finding records of its existence was one thing and finding the spell was an entirely different beast.