Pokémon: Trainers Returning from Monster Hunter

Chapter 113 Unknowingly Becoming a Super Stone Tycoon

After taking Growlithe to the academy's treatment center for a checkup and receiving the conclusion that Ms. Joy was "very healthy and had no foreign objects in her body," Oreki was relieved.

It seems that Growlithe has completely digested the Flame Orb in a peculiar way.

So here's the question.

If those three dark blue auras were the manifestation of the various energies within Growlithe's body, as the system described.

What does that third aura represent?

It couldn't possibly be culture medium.

Oreki can be certain of this.

After all, Kirlia and Tire were both properly hatched by absorbing culture medium in their respective research institutes.

Kirullian used the waveguide so many times but didn't notice anything unusual in her body.

"That's really strange."

Oreki was filled with curiosity as he watched the Growlithe frolicking and rolling around nearby.

The testing instruments couldn't detect it, and under normal circumstances, Kirullian's waveguide was also undetectable. It seemed that only external objects with energy could trigger the special aura reaction within its body.

Oreki put a question mark ("?") on this conclusion.

He wasn't sure.

"Growlithe, if you feel unwell at all, please tell me immediately."

"Woof woof!"

The Growlithe dog grinned in response.

Trainers care a lot about themselves~

"Speaking of which—"

Oreki suddenly stopped and turned to look at the girl who was following closely behind.

"Don't you have class this afternoon? Why are you following me?"

Caldelia pursed her lips. "I've taken the day off."

"reason?"

"uncomfortable."

"Where do you feel unwell?" Oreki pressed.

"I feel uncomfortable everywhere!"

"I understand what you mean."

"What do you know?"

"Looking at the person I admire and ————"

"Shut up!!"

"Tsk."

Oreki shrugged, with an expression that said, "I've seen through everything."

"Never mind, I'm going to class. I'll go home by myself tonight, you don't need to wait for me."

Gadelia was furious and turned to leave.

"You're overthinking it. I'll leave work on time and won't wait for you."

"Ugh! You're so annoying!!"

Having shaken off the strange and eccentric Gadriya, Oreki headed straight for the training facility.

He wanted to see how well Growlithe had mastered the inherited moves; Enrage and Dawn were considered relatively practical moves in actual combat.

Previous experiments have shown that increased willpower can, to some extent, provide immunity to intimidation and sleep-inducing effects.

Does this mean that the state of "chaos" can also be mitigated through training, or even eliminated entirely?

If possible, then in the future, Great Anger will definitely become Arcanine's ultimate Fire-type move, just like Flame Blitz.

But to his surprise, as he passed by the office, he was stopped by Daigo, who had changed his clothes and was squatting at the door.

"Teacher, do you have time now?"

Daigo's eyes looked somewhat anxious and—fiery?

"Nothing important—" Oreki replied.

"Then please help me check my ore harvest for the past month."

"Why don't you talk to Dr. Solans about the ore?"

"Well—" Daigo coughed lightly, "To be honest, some of those ores should be the kind that the teacher cut before."

"A super stone?!"

"I'm not entirely sure, but the smell is very similar."

Oreki looked at him strangely. "You really can remember a scent just by smelling it, and then dig it up?"

Almost subconsciously, he glanced down at the Growlithe.

"A dog-loving family | There's really no need to have 'dog' characteristics —"

"Let's go, I'll cut it for you."

Two hours later.

With Dr. Solans's help, Oreki not only completed the analysis of Growlithe's life energy waveform and various data, but also cut the three suspected Mega Stones for Steven.

That's right, there are three!

No wonder he disappeared for a month; he must have been holding back a lot of trouble.

Moreover, all three ores contained super stones inside when cut.

100% accuracy!

"Did you secretly evolve?"

Oreki looked at the excited Daigo and asked.

"If Oreki-sensei did something he loved for over a decade, I believe you would have the same intuition," Daigo said seriously. "Besides, if we're talking about evolution, shouldn't you be the one who's evolved more, Oreki-sensei?"

"There's no need to explain it so seriously," Oreki said, getting back to the point. "Is there any pattern to the distribution of these three super stones?"

He wasn't some kind of expert in identifying Mega Stones; he could only remember Gardevoir's Mega Stones because he used them a lot, so they skipped the identification process for now.

Upon hearing this, Daigo frowned, pondered for a moment, and then shook his head.

"There's no particular pattern. The three locations are different. The one on the far left is in the Kalu Tunnel, the one in the middle is a cave on the edge of a large lake near Route 120, and the one on the right is a ruin cave north of Ryukyu City."

"Oh right, the ore that hatches the Rainbow Growlithe is inside the Ruins Cave in Sootopolis City—"

It was only then that Daigo suddenly realized what was happening.

"Isn't 'Cleanse' an old name for Sinnoh? Why is the ore that can hatch Cleanse Growlithe found in Hoenn?"

"Well—"

Oreki shared his guess.

"Does the teacher mean that it was originally a normal Pokémon egg, brought to Hoenn by the Green People two or three hundred years ago, and then some unknown event occurred, causing it to be sealed inside the rock and remain there until now?"

"I think this is the only hypothesis that's relatively close to reality at the moment."

Solans, who had been listening in, agreed: "I think it's reasonable. Professor Birch's research on Pokémon habitats actually corroborates this."

"That's right."

Origami nodded.

Professor Birch, based on Professor Oak's National Pokédex, studied the habitats of Pokémon and eventually discovered that many Pokémon had fixed habitats long ago.

For example, the normal form of Growlithe originally only lived in the Kanto and Johto regions.

It wasn't until connections were established between different regions and people began to communicate extensively that Growlithe groups gradually appeared in other areas.

Therefore, it is normal to find Pokémon eggs that have been washed green in the Hoenn region.

"Wait a minute," Oreki asked, "Daigo, you mentioned the ruins cave north of Ryukyu City. Could you describe what it's like?"

"Hold on."

Daigo took out his newly bought phone and showed a photo.

The photo shows the entrance to a cave, with layers of rock behind it and rows of stone tablets on either side of the entrance.

"According to Michael, his ancestors called this cave the 'Temple of Awakening,' a rather strange name."

"As expected, it's the Temple of Awakening."

"Does the teacher know?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Daigo shook his head with a wry smile, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to doubt your knowledge, teacher."

Oreki smiled and said, "It's alright."

He knew all too well about the Temple of Awakening.

This is where you can catch Groudon or Kyogre in the game.

I wonder where Groudon and Kyogre are sleeping in the real world?

It's impossible for us to sleep together in the Temple of Awakening.

Anyway, based on what Heatran said before, Groudon is not on Mt. Chimney.

Undersea caves are a possibility, though?

After thinking for a moment, he asked tactfully, "Have you or Mikoli ever been to the deepest part of the Temple of Awakening?"

Daigo denied it: "The interior is too complicated; even I almost got lost. Did you go to the deepest part, teacher?"

"How could that be?" Oreki changed the subject. "Let's ask Dr. Blatano if he has any clues about these three super stones."

"Too."

Soon, Oreki made a video call to Bratano. The contact method was the same one that had been forcibly given to him by the other party during the exchange meeting in Shinwa Town that day.

"Oreki? Are you coming to Carlos to help me research Mega Evolution?"

Bratano could not hide his surprise.

Although he discovered several more late-blooming Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution during this time, he was always worried that something might be wrong without Oreki by his side to offer advice.

"Professor Blatano, I know you're in a hurry, but please don't rush me. My Kirlia hasn't evolved yet. Let's talk about our research together after it evolves into Gardevoir."

Blatano wanted to say that your more important role was actually your extraordinary understanding of super-evolution, rather than the super-evolution itself, but after thinking about it, he swallowed those words and instead asked, "So, have you made any other discoveries?"

"That's right, Doctor, please take a look."

Oreki pointed the camera at the three super stones.

Before he could ask, Blatano blurted out, "Metamorphosis and Garchomp?"

This is one of the results of his recent research.

"Metamorphosis?!"

"Garuda?!"

Daigo and Oreki spoke at the same time, both sounding somewhat surprised.

"Ahem, sorry, we were a bit out of line, Doctor, please continue."

With a dry cough, Oreki gestured for Bratano to continue.

"Let me think. The one on your left is Garchomp Mega Stone, the one in the middle is Metagross, and I haven't seen the one on your right before."

"Okay, I understand. Thank you, Doctor."

Oreki hurriedly flipped his phone, ready to hang up.

"Wait! Let me memorize that super-sized stone on the right!"

"It's alright, Doctor. I'll take a picture for you later, I guarantee it will be clear and without any blind spots."

Click.

Origami hung up the video call.

He turned his head, remained silent, and stared intently.

Daigo's eyebrows twitched; he felt uncomfortable being stared at.

"I understand, Oreki-sensei, please don't look at me like that."

Daigo, having been defeated, was straightforward.

"Metamorphose Mega Stone is mine, everything else is yours."

"Huh? Does this one on the right belong to me too??"

This was something Oreki hadn't expected.

Alpaca, on top, swore he only wanted the Garchomp Mega Stone to seduce—oops, I mean, to repay Cynthia.

"It's not of much use to me anyway; having a Metagross Mega Stone is already a pleasant surprise."

Daigo played consistently well and remained generous.

"But—how should we use this super stone?"

"This one—"

Oreki gave a brief overview of the principles of hyperevolution based on Bratano's paper.

Daigo seemed to understand, but not quite. "So, all you have to do is give the Mega Stone to Metagross, and then activate it with special energy to perform Mega Evolution?"

"Simply put, that's how it is. But currently, only the Blatano Research Institute has the activation device. It's so huge that it can't be carried around. Also, Mega Evolution requires the Pokémon to be strong enough and to establish a strong bond with the trainer for it to proceed reliably."

The final conclusion is based on Blatano's latest research findings, not something Oreki made up.

Although he was involved in reaching this conclusion.

"I understand, Oreki-sensei."

Daigo suddenly became somewhat excited.

Oreki was completely confused. You understand now, but what's next?

You don't have a trigger device either.

Daigo added, "I'll have the company contact Dr. Blatano immediately. I'm sure he wouldn't mind having another sponsor and organization helping his research. As long as we have the blueprints, this device can be built as soon as it's ready!"

Can you do this?

Oreki thought to himself, "As expected of a 'big spender,' does he even want to buy the core research of the doctor with money now?"

Speaking of which—

At present, the research on hyperevolution should only be reduced to the step of shrinking the energy activation device into a super ring.

From this perspective, it seems reasonable to include Dewen in the research.

after all.

Although Silver Company was the originator of the modern Poké Ball, Devon must have also mastered the most crucial "shrinking" technology, otherwise there wouldn't be so many Poké Balls manufactured by Devon.

With that in mind, Oreki also told Daigo about the "Key Stone".

This is the core of the energy activation device; I wonder if Blatano would be willing to share it.

Unexpectedly, after hearing Oreki's description, Daigo immediately turned around and took out a small box from his backpack and opened it.

"Is this the kind of stone the teacher is talking about?"

Inside the box was a glass bead several times smaller than the Super Stone. The bead was filled with tiny, rainbow-colored particles, and in the center of the particles was a spiral blade-like substance that was very similar to the inside of the Super Stone, but it was pure black.

"This is one of the things I learned from this trip. I was thinking of asking my teacher if this has anything to do with super evolution."

You really can pull out any kind of stone.

After internally criticizing it, Oreki explained, "That's right. By using a special device to activate the energy within the Key Stone, and then establishing a channel between you and your Pokémon through 'Bond,' you can transfer this power to the Mega Stone, thus completing Mega Evolution."

"How amazing! How many secrets are still hidden in the world of Pokémon?"

Daigo was deeply moved.

He then said with a hint of apology, "I've only found one keystone so far—"

"It's nothing, it's nothing."

Oreki quickly waved his hand.

He's already gotten enough free stuff from Daigo, why would he want more?

Of course, if the other party really wants to give it, that's another matter entirely.

With his biggest worry over, Daigo let out a long sigh of relief.

A month's hard work was not in vain.

He glanced at Oreki, who was examining the Super Stone, and said with a smile, "Teacher, don't feel guilty. Now I have the experience and I can dig one up again quickly."

"Hmm? You're not planning to disappear again, are you?"

Oreki turned his gaze away from the super stone on his right, which was predominantly pink with a hint of yellow, and asked a question.

"How could that be?" Daigo's eyes suddenly turned serious. "I'm ready to officially challenge the path to the championship."

Oh? Is Champion Daigo coming?!

Errors, etc.

Did you forget something important?

Oh right.

Of course I'd ask Daigo if he knew anything about slates—but that's a lie!

Oreki quickly told Daigo about the tremors at Chimney Mountain.

The causes of the latter two tremors are now clear, but the one at the beginning of the year was somewhat strange.

"At the beginning of the year—Chimney Mountain shook—"

Daigo frowned slightly; he remembered this incident.