User blog comment:EvanDude345rv5/Fairy Tail 3 chapter special Part 2/@comment-4829046-20130717033018

"Nearly" naked? They are naked.... its just that its censored. Also I think its cause that's an okay thing among women and its only a problem when men do it but it is true that Cana swings that way and that was present for a long time. Also you might piss Tristan off with that bit about Levi >_>

Also the "4" reference is there in quite a lot of media, you just need to find them.

And the youngsters part is better explained in the very beginning of the series in the manga version. The vanish brothers said how they could eliminate mages easily and described how a certain sage worked for years to develop a magic that could destroy bones and all the vanish brothers had to do was punch him once to break all his bones while he was chanting his ridiculously long spell. Same thing applies here maybe.

For one thing he is about 125+ years old so he has low resistance to damage now plus he became a tree-man. And another thing, he took some time to chant that powerful spell so yeah I'm sure he was being both modest and truthful that time.