This time, when he came face to face with the same formation, he was calm, as he studied carefully, trying to remember something more, before going for the stone in the middle.
"Hmm, no wonder she suggested I go to her house," he muttered under his breath as he looked at the dilapidated house with the bright red formation. As he looked closer, he realized that inside the big bold outer circle, there were multiple faint arrangements of circles, and in between the spaces of those circles was the strange inscription. He had never seen this writing before, but now, as he focused, he realized it was likely some writing. There were some drawings too, but he could not figure them out at all, so he let his focus on the writings instead.
He could not memorize everything, but a few characters that were repeated throughout the formation, he remembered them, and calmly went to touch the glowing stone.
The same feeling of blacking out came as he felt a great force yanking his soul from his body. As soon as the blackout faded and he looked where he was, he sighed with relief. Looks like there were multiple formations spread out in the town, which can help him figure out what's going on.
He again looked at the colorful and bright town, and people walking past him, no one noticing him, he smiled as he moved away from the city center and directly towards Niel's place. He knew of his place, but what if he was not there? There was some worry in him, but despite that, he strode forward unhesitatingly, and as he arrived in front of his destination, he paused in surprise to see Niel just right out at the door, leaning on the door frame lazily as he smiled at him.
Niel unhurriedly came in front of him, the young boy now much older, maybe almost 5 or 6 years older, "I guessed it right!" but there was still a youthful hint in his gait.
"Hmm?" Agate looked at him, confused.
"I calculated your time of arrival and guessed it would be sometime this week, so I have been waiting like this for 3 days now." Niel grumbled, "Let's go and find my grandma."
Agate just smiled; he felt kind of strange, as it had been just a moment for him that they had separated, but after coming back, it seemed like time had passed quite much for people here.
"How long has it been since my return?"
"Almost 5 years now," Niel replied calmly.
"Hmm, didn't grandma tell that time passed parallely?"
"That is still true, but it only works when you are here. Grandma said, It must be because the formation had some set of mechanisms, set for it to return to some time period."
"Ah, that makes sense."
"So, what was it that you got while returning?" Niel looked at Agate, his brown eyes shining with curiosity, but Agate just teased him off, saying, "I'll tell both of you at the same time."
"You have become such a tease." Nielf huffed as he walked ahead of Agate.
While laughing with amusement, he just shrugged, "I was always such a person, and remember it has not been that long for me. I just took a short nap, then came back here."
"Fine fine, save all that talking for grandma."
"Hmm"