Time passed and months soon rolled by,
During that period of time, Nicolas continued to train relentlessly, constantly asking Carbos to bring strong monsters and magic creatures to fight against.
Nicolas's current strength and magic power was more or less equivalent to Laxus's power at the beginning of the anime. Although he had no way of knowing that because he had no benchmark to compare since all of the people around him were either kids who couldn't even beat C-rank monsters or giant dragons far beyond his current level.
He also interacted with the dragon slayers daily and became a big brother figure to them.
Ever since he announced that he was their boss, Natsu and Gajeel would pick a fight with him occasionally to challenge his "Authoritay". He then began to beat them up under the guise of sparring and put them under a "Spartan" training regimen to hone their bodies.
They would be the main force against Acnologia alongside him in the future so he wanted to train them to be stronger than their cannon selves.
He didn't put Wendy and the other two on training for now since they were not even 5 years old yet and would likely stunt their growth.
He also learned Requip magic after begging Anna to teach him. He thought that the Pocket dimension the magic gave him was handy so he learned relentlessly and learned it in two weeks.
The reason why he wanted to learn it was because, Nicolas and Carbos were previously living in a gemstone mine so after asking Carbos to go back to their old nest for a while, he mined everything that he could and put it into his pocket dimension to kickstart a rich life when they'll go to the future.
….
6th July x377 - evening.
This day, Carbos approached Nicolas who was watching Natsu and Gajeel's misery and told him that he wanted to talk alone.
"Alright." Nicolas said. He then looked at Natsu and Gajeel who were doing push-ups "You can stop after doing 200 more push-ups. Wendy, you count for them. If they don't finish, you tell me and I'll….."
Nicolas left without finishing his words but Natsu and Gajeel understood the meaning so they did their push-ups furiously.
Carbos and Nicolas finally arrived to a quiet place. Carbos's face suddenly turned serious and he began to talk.
"It's time to say goodbye, kid."
"Huh?! What do you mean by that?" Nicolas said with a flustered face clearly not understanding why Carbos said that.
"Well, turns out that the lacrima didn't work so I'll have to enter your body." Carbos said.
"Didn't we already confirm that it stopped the dragon seed?" the confused Nicolas asked.
"Yeah. It should've worked but your dragon seed had already grown too much at that point so it will just delay it, not stop it."
"Then just add another Lacrima." Nicolas interjected. His voice getting louder and louder.
"Stop whining, you little brat. I'm trying to say my last words so if you don't want to listen, I'll just knock you out and enter your body anyway."
Hearing that, Nicolas tried to calm himself down and began to listen to Carbos
"Where was I? Oh crap, I should've rehearsed a speech beforehand. Oh well, It was fun living with you during these years, brat. Thank you for trusting me."
As Carbos said those words, Nicolas began to tear up, to which Carbos jokingly said:
"Hey hey, why the hell are you crying? Are you still a little kid?"
Carbos then turned into light. Nicolas immediately became aware that Carbos was transforming into spirit form to enter his body.
"Thank you for taking of me all of those years." Nicolas said loudly while bowing with eyes full of tears and nose full of snot.
"Take care, you brat. Live a life without regrets." As Carbos said those words, the beam of light entered Nicolas's body, causing him to faint.
...…
Nicolas woke up disoriented. He then began to remember what had happened.
'I guess he's really gone then' Nicolas thought while patting his belly still a little bit sad.
After sitting in place for a bit, he stood up to get back to the other kids but as he looked around, everything seemed unfamiliar.
'Huh? Where the hell am I? I can't smell any of the other's scents.'
After thinking for a bit while walking around to determine where he was, a revelation suddenly dawned on him.
'Did I already go through the Eclipse Gate?'
'Oh well, no point in just sitting around here. I'll just walk that way since it has multiple smell coming from there'
Nicolas then started to walk while following the lingering smell.
After a while, He finally began to see a town in the horizon.
'Damn. It's been 12 years since I saw human civilization.'
He then activated his Requip magic to see if the gemstones he mined were still there. Thankfully, everything was still there and the possible passage through the eclipse didn't mess with his pocket dimension.
As he entered the town, He noticed that the architecture was somewhat modern so he immediately asked a nearby man.
"Excuse me, sir. What is the date today?"
"Today is 7th July." the man responded
"Could you please tell me what year it is?" Nicolas asked the man.
"You're a weird one, young man. It's obviously the year x777."
'As expected.' Nicolas thought to himself. He then asked the man what the town's name was.
The man replied that the town's name was Shirotsume town.
Although he didn't have a clue where that was, he was at least able to confirm that he was in the Fiore Kingdom.
Nicolas decided to sit on a bench to reorganize his thoughts and overheard someone talking about a Duke Everlue and his ugly maids so he was finally able to determine that he was currently in the town where Lucy and Natsu did the request to destroy the DAYBREAK book.
'Well then, what should I do from now on? My first priority should be to find where Gajeel and the others are.
Natsu's the only one I know where he went but even that could've changed because of butterfly effect since I entered Eclipse with them and could've altered their trajectory when they flew out.'
After thinking for a bit, Nicolas was finally able to decide what he would do for the time being.
'I should go to Magnolia to find Natsu first. If Natsu is there, that's good. If he's not, it doesn't matter. I'll just issue a request to Fairy tail to search for the five of them. Miss Anna is already an adult so no need to search for her. She'll probably ask us to live away from civilization anyway so I'll pass on that.
As for whether or not to join Fairy tail, let's put that aside for now.'