id say this was to show that natsu is near gildarts level. i mean most could say that hes stronger than when gildarts fought bluenote but it could be said gildarts was holding back in the beginning to feel out his opponent (purely speculation i know) but i only say this because when gildarts got his magic back he 1 shot bluenote just like natsu except he did it with bare fist. kinda felt like to me he was messin around in beginnin then after losin his magic and lookin bad he got serious and k.o.d the guy
even if thats wrong and natsu is stronger than gildarts was there i believe gildarts got stronger since then in the past year.
this makes me excited to see gajeel just because how epic natsu was when they met him and gajeel always seems to be close to natsu strength even though obviously below they make it seem like they are close to being on par even giving gajeel a 2nd element shortly after natsu.
Hao2k said:
Wait wait wait...Natsu got this strong in a year? Imagine how strong he would've gotten if it wasn't for Tenroujima, considering that's a 7 year lapse
If for some reason him being around 7 years would've made it so he didnt get 2nd origin i bet the current natsu would still be stronger just because they said 2nd origin gives you an amount of magic power you could never gain no matter the amount of training you do.
which is kinda weird because other people certainly have higher magic levels than him without having 2nd origin i just think it means on a personal level though others may be stronger than natsu when they just trained instead of 2nd origin but im sure if they got the 2nd origin their strength would be even greater if that makes sense.