Night soon came around and Nicolas asked Carbos for a talk in private.
"What? Do you miss me already after not seeing me for a few hours?" Carbos said jokingly but seeing Nicolas's serious expression, he stopped talking and waited for Nicolas to talk.
"You brought me here to stop the dragon transformation, right?" Nicolas directly said without beating around the bush.
Carbos wasn't surprised much to know that Nicolas deduced the reason why they came here and just responded truthfully by saying yes.
"I have another solution to stop the dragon transformation without you having to enter my body to stop it."
This time, Carbos was quite shocked after hearing Nicolas and tried to ask him how he knew.
"Don't mind how I know it. We just need to find a dragon lacrima and implant it inside my body."
After thinking for a while, Carbos finally started to speak:
"It has a high chance of working but your body wouldn't be able to support the implant…."
"No, it will work. Don't forget that I train my body every day. It was precisely because I was preparing for a time like this."
Carbos was quite shocked after knowing that Nicolas already planned for this method a long time ago. He finally relented after seeing Nicolas's confidence and determination, choosing to trust his words.
The next day, Carbos and Anna left the forest to search for dragon lacrimas.
The reason why Anna left with him was because, only she had the necessary magical skills to convert a dragon heart into a lacrima. And also because, if the implant of dragon lacrima idea was doable using Nicolas as an experiment, they could just implant the other kids with lacrima too to stop the dragon transformation and still retain the power of 6 dragons at full power when confronting Acnologia later.
...
A week later.
Carbos and Anna finally came back and went to find Nicolas.
They brought back three dragon lacrima this time specifically, the water, sound and sand dragon lacrima so they planned to let him choose which lacrima to implant on himself.
After thinking for a while, Nicolas chose the water dragon lacrima because of one simple reason: "Water jet cutter".
Using diamond particle as abrasives for the water cutter should yield the best result for cutting attacks. Although the diamonds would dissipate after a few seconds when separated from him, it still gave him enough time to launch an attack with them.
He could also think of more applicable techniques such as advanced swimming techniques, being able to breath underwater and it was also a counter for Ignia, the fire dragon god if they ever fought in the future but the icing on the cake was that he could replenish his magic power by drinking water or other liquids.
The sound dragon lacrima was also a good idea but unfortunately, he studied law not physics in university so he didn't have any advanced knowledge about the proprieties of sound.
As for the sand dragon lacrima, he didn't even consider it because, what use would it have for him? Put sand in the enemy's eyes or put sand in their shoes or pants to irritate them? If it had capabilities to transform him into sand or even absorb moisture like Crocodile from One Piece, he would've given it a look but even if that was the case, he would've still not chosen it.
After Nicolas made his choice, they immediately prepared for the operation.
Nicolas was first put into a deep sleep because the operation would hurt very much.
And Anna then began to operate on him.
Even though he was put in a deep sleep, Nicolas still struggled multiple times throughout the operation due to nerves responses.
Thankfully, after a few hours of operation, the lacrima was successfully implanted and Nicolas didn't die. Although, he only woke up three days after the operation.
After Nicolas woke up, He was put under observation for a month to monitor the changes occurring to him.
After a month, they were able to confirm that the dragon lacrima was able to counteract the dragon transformation but unfortunately, they also confirmed that they wouldn't be able to transplant them to the other kids because the transplant only worked due to Nicolas's strong body which was already mature enough to withstand the operation.
...
Days passed after that and Nicolas was currently training alone to test his newly found water dragon slayer powers.
Seeing Carbos approaching him, Nicolas stopped what he was doing and asked Carbos if he needed something.
"So…Do you know about our plan?"
"Yes, it's to go 400 years in the future to defeat Acnologia, right?" Nicolas said truthfully.
"So you really knew?!" Carbos was quite surprised because he had just asked on a whim but he didn't expect Nicolas to really know.
Carbos then ended the conversation "That's all I wanted to know. You can go back to your training." but Nicolas interrupted him by saying:
"Huh?! Is that all you wanted to know."
"Yeah, did you expect me to pry all of your little secrets or something?"
"No, but…"
"I trust you and that's all that matter. You must have your reason for keeping secrets so stop worrying about every little things, you brat. I'm not the kind of guy who doesn't know how to read the mood. Also, acting as a nonchalant guy makes me look cool, right?" Carbos said in a casual tone.
Nicolas was surprised for a bit then just smiled without saying nothing.