By the time that it turned into full night the group had been traveling at a fairly fast pace for several hours, and had left the capital far behind them. When it finally came time to camp Gordan and the General collected the materials for a fire and had Drake sit down on the blankets since he was still recovering. Ever since he had suddenly woken up and they had started on their journey Gordan seemed to be quite worried about his condition. As soon as they had stopped for the night Gordan had refused to let him do any work saying that the horse ride had been to stressful as it was, Drake had the feeling that there was something else bothering Gordan, but he wouldn't say what.
Gordan had kept the spear with him and had examined it while they were riding. The paralysis had been the obvious but upon further inspection he realized that the spear had several incantations overlapping each other. It was most likely at least part of the reason why they had kept him waiting so. The spell that Gordan had cast on Drake to wake him up transferred some of the effects over to himself, and the down effects that he gained were not pleasant ones by any means. But the one that stood out was the one that attacked the mind. It was easy enough for Gordan to dispel the effects without any of the group finding out about the problem. But that didn't mean that they were totally oblivious to the situation. He could tell that they could at least tell that he might be hiding somthing. Gordan quickly made a portion of food for each of the group and then sat down to eat his own food. He was extremely thankful that the drawbacks had reduced since all he had to deal with becouse of the healing spell that he had used earlier was the partial loss of his control over his entire left half of his body. All that ment was that he had to concentrate a bit more, but if they had been walking it would have been a whole other story. In all likelyhood he would have been in some serious trouble, and luckily the effect ended right before they stopped for the night.
Gordan was not in the best of moods, but if things worked out well then he could move onto his next stage. He silently watched as the General and Drake chatted with each other about battles long gone. Their conversation changed toward battles that had occured before the two had met which made Gordans mind also go back to a time long ago, it wasn't a very pleasant time for him so he decided to sleep off the remaining effects.
"I'll take second watch if that's fine with you."
Both of them had forgoten that Gordan was even there, and instantly felt a bit bad that they had been excluding him from the conversation.
"Sure, that sounds like a good idea. Sleep well."
Gordan took the fir that had been gifted to him, and rapped it around his shoulders. It was warm and gave him a feeling of comfort. He yawned and layed next to the fire, slowly drifting into sleep.
He opened his eyes, but in instead of the usual place that he ended, instead of the black sand and flowing blood, a familiar desert plain formed in front of him. The sand was golden with hints of silver spaced through, when the sun beat down on them it looked like a field of jewels. To his left he heard the sound of sand falling softly. He looked over and saw that indeed there was a thick colum of sand gently falling to the ground like an hour glass. Somthing didn't seem entirely right, he felt a strong pull toward the colum in front of him. Then he realised when he had felt this kind of feeling before, it had been when he met Zero for the first time. With this in mind Gordan walked briskly toward the colum in order to find out what was going on this time. He could tell that it wasn't Zero, it did have a similar feeling to Zero's world, but this was completely different.
It was almost a peaceful location, but at the same time it had a hint of turmoil mixed in with it. When he reached the colum he walked through it in a similar way to when he walked through the barrier the first time.
"Oh you're finally hear, I've been looking for you for awhile now."
As Gordan made it through a familiar voice greeted him. He looked over toward the voice and saw that it was the cloaked figure who had sent him to the forest almost a week ago. When he got over the shock of seeing the figure again he noticed that he was now in a very simple room, with a table and some chairs being the only real decoration. He should be used to dealing with this kind of situation but it was still quite the sensation when he ended up in some unknown location like this.
"I know you are probably tired but there is somthing that we have to talk about."
The figure motioned for Gordan to sit in the chair opposite of him. Gordan obliged his offer with a slight tip of the head and sat down quietly.
"Well then, I guess I'll get to the point. I sent you to the wrong location due to some geographical oversight on my part, so I came to see if you want to go to the place that I had originally intended you to go to. Since I haven't given you the stone yet there shouldn't be much of a problem about that."
He lulled out a white smooth object that looked almost exactly like the one that he had in his pocket, when it had first been given to him. He pulled the egg out of his own pocket and handed it to the figure, who looked quite shocked by the development.
"How did you get this?"
He seemed extremely confused as he rolled the stone over in his hands. Due to Gordans habit of absently feeding it, the egg, now looked like a perfectly cut stone.
"Actually a better question is, how did you get one of this level in less than a week?"
The figure set the stone down next to the other one, and it instantly swallowed both the table and the stone next to it. The figure looked extremely distrest about this, and Gordan quickly picked up the stone before it was able to eat through the floor.
"Why is it like that? It's already time for it to evolve."
Gordan looked at him confused, what in the world did that mean. Sure it was a stone that was able to consume just about anything, but that didn't mean that it was alive. Even if it had looked like an egg before, but then he remembered that Zero had said that the Stone would turn into somthing to assist him. He turned the stone over in his hands
He had no idea what that ment for him since this kind of thing was entirely new to him. He looked up at the figure and decided that he would just ask about it.
"So what am I supposed to do about it then?"
The figure sighed and held out his hand for the stone again. Gordan handed it to him without hesitation wondering what in the world was going on.
"Well first things first we have to get rid of that pesky thing on your neck."
Gordan wasn't sure what the figure ment by that, since by all accounts there shouldn't be anything on his neck, which bothered him. He looked at the figure questioningly.
"What's on my neck?"
The figure pulled back in a shocked manner like Gordan had just said somthing totally ludicrous. He waved the question away, and instead touched the air in front of Gordan and a golden seal appeared in mid air. Gordan looked closely at it to try to make out what it said, but it was in a language that he had never seen before.
"Yes, just as I thought, it's a high level seal, most commonly used to mediate the power levels of class S and above monsters, and even by those standards this thing is well built."
The figure mumbled out the words and Gordan was barely able to make them out. What he heard made him quite confused, he thought about why somthing like that would be on his throat but he couldn't think of a reason for the life of him. Nor could he remember when it would of happened.
"Can you remove it?"
The figure looked up at him and smiled wildly.
"Well don't you think that it would be more interesting if you tried to let the stone do that? Might be some really good learning material, and after you absorb it I can help you evolve that thing so that it stops eating peoples tables."
Gordan shrugged and lifted the stone up to his throat and gently pressed it against his skin. Emedeatly he felt a strange sensation that he knew he had gone through not to long ago, but he couldn't place where. After awhile he heard a snap and then flakes of gold fell down to the ground around him. He pulled the stone away from his throat and set it down in his lap, but as soon as he released the stone he felt a surge of energy begin to whell up inside him and threaten to burst forth. His vision began to go white and a searing pain shot through him like almost nothing he had ever felt before. The last thing that he was aware of was a hand resting on his shoulder to keep him from falling out of the chair that he was sitting in.