CH54 (115), Cave

One week had passed since I witnessed the territory war while diving and caught one of the Remoraid that had managed to escape the Tentacool.

After I put it in my space it received its own habitat that I placed to the west of my area in the center. It was only 900 m² right now with an average depth of 15 meters but it would get bigger in the future.

I was planning to do the same for the south and east as well so that all 4 directions would have a body of water in the future. So, I was keeping an eye out for any water types that were not too bad. Unfortunately, I hadn't found one yet, but I wasn't in a hurry so that was okay.

Besides, I would have the chance to get myself a Lapras in a few weeks so there was that. As for Remoraid himself, the space upgrade was pretty useful.

The 160% boost had literally increased his potential to the end of deep green at 99.2% and during this week I had filled in the missing 0.8% with the help of supplements.

'Name: None

Species: Remoraid

Gender: Male

Age: 2+ Years

-

Type: Water

Potential: Light Blue (0.2%)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Hustle, Sniper

Talents: None

Affinities: Water, Flying (budding)

-

Bond: Mikail (artificial, weak)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Iron Stage (high)

Vitality: A

Strength: A

Endurance: A

Agility: A

Energy Capacity: A

Energy Density: A

----

Resistance: Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Ice (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: Electric (Minor), Grass (Minor)

----

Condition: Healthy

----

Masteries:

Water Energy Manipulation (Beg.)

----

Techniques:

-

Beginner:

Lock-On, Bullet Seed

-

Proficient:

Psybeam, Aurora Beam, Bubble Beam

-

Advanced:

Water Gun, Water Pulse, Focus Energy'

After speaking with him I learned that he was indeed the son of the late Octillery boss and that he had been personally trained by his father. This was also the reason for his high parameters as well as decent move masteries.

On that point, I had adjusted the display of the move section hoping it would look more organized, and was happy with the result. Back to Remoraid, I had him train and stay together with my main Magikarp, they joined him in his pond leaving the old one to the non-team member ones.

I did this because he had been understandably sad by what had happened and it had only been two days that "Sad" had been removed from the condition section. He was still sad about what happened, I could feel as much, but it was not as prominent as it had been at the beginning.

I'd like to think spending so much time with my Magikarp helped the process. During this week I had Remoraid help Stan with his Water Pulse, while both tried to teach the move to the others as well.

It took a while, but Stan had improved his mastery to novice grade, while the others had started to get the hang of it. As for what I had been doing during this week? Well, the next day I began exploring the cave I had discovered.

So, from Mewday till Palkiday I explored the cave. On Dialday I did my personal training and like always the weekend was spent with my parents. Yesterday, I resumed my cave exploration and I am doing the same right now as well.

The cave system turned out to be much bigger than I had expected, I would even call it enormous. Still, I had no idea how large it really was since I had not even managed to complete the first passage I had chosen to explore first.

After I entered the cave for the first time and walked for a few minutes, I came across a point where the tunnel split into three. One maintained the same direction, westward. Another one led towards the north, while the third one led northwest.

I decided to keep walking forward and during the last 4 days that I had been exploring this branch. I have been heading deeper and deeper and still had not come across an ultimate dead end yet. Obviously, the tunnel did not stay the same all the time.

I sometimes felt the path going slightly upwards, while other times it was going slightly downwards. Occasionally tilting left or right was naturally par the course.

During my time here I came across streams of an underground river multiple times, I saw 2 underground ponds/lakes and came across multiple more branching points. Some of those ended in dead ends, while others combined with other tunnels. I had to backtrack multiple times when I reached a dead end, but I honestly found the whole experience pretty fun. Exploring the unknown was great.

Now one would wonder how I was seeing anything if there was no sunlight, and I would have to say the answer was twofold. First was my trusty sidekick Robin, sorry I meant Xatu, who used Flash to lighten the surroundings a bit when necessary. Great idea on my part to have him learn that one.

The other light source was luminous vegetation. There were actually a few types I came across the cave, but the most common one was the Luminous Moss. It grew nearly everywhere and depending on the day and night cycle it would illuminate the cave in a greenish light.

I collected some of them since they could be used with some other materials to create a supplement that helped improve one's energy density. There were also luminous mushrooms, and vines but most of them had negative effects, so I only collected those that could be used by poison types.

Also, Zubat, Sandshrew, Diglett, Geodude, Rattata, Wooper, Paras, Poliwag, Slowpoke, Barboach, and Krabby were only some of the Pokemon I met during this time. Well, I was actually the only human inside the cave system, at least as far as I knew.

I mean I haven't seen another human yet, so until I did I was going to believe that I was the only one that knew about it. Still, this meant there were no trainers I could challenge so I fought against some of the stronger wild Pokemon we came across, like Golbat, Sandslash, and Raticate.

When I said we, I meant Xatu, Nyx, Teddi, and me. I kept those three out so that they could keep me company during the exploration. I did call out the others for battles and lunch, while they spent the rest of the time inside my space.

Right now, I was returning to the last branching point since the path I had chosen ended in a dead-end. I was keeping up a leisurely pace and Xatu was walking right beside me.

Nyx and Teddi were too energetic, so they sometimes got a bit bored because of our walking speed. When that happened they would run around the areas we were passing to check if they could find anything interesting. They naturally did this while staying in a visible range.

Anyway, while Nyx and Teddi were busy turning the area upside down, I turned towards Xatu.

"Say Xatu, it's been some time since we last talked about it. How is it, have you thought about getting your own name?" It was something that I was genuinely curious about, and Xatu did a shrug at my question.

'Well, I told you I was going to think about it and I did. I just haven't come to a decision yet.' He telepathically told me before he snickered a bit.

'You seem to be more anxious about the whole thing than I am. Chill, bro. I'll tell you once I feel ready for a name.'

Sometimes, when he said things like "chill, bro" I wondered if I had corrupted him too much since psychic types were supposed to be all logical and all that jazz.

Nonetheless, I preferred him this way, so everything was good. Being too logical would be a bit boring and being too quirky would get annoying. My side, namely balance, was superior. We beat the dark and the light side since we had cookies and milk. Anyway, back to the conversation.

"Alright, I'll leave it to you. It's your name after all." I conceded with a nod. "Say, how's it going with Miracle Eye? Made any progress yet?" I asked in a curious tone, and I could feel Xatu's annoyance as soon as the words left my mouth.

Xatu released a frustrated sigh.

'Argh, that sh*tty move is so hard to learn.' He complained a bit, before sighing some more.

'At least I made some progress. Or more like I think I did.' Xatu tilted his head while saying that, then he shook his head and continued.

'Anyway, it's going to take me a while longer until I manage to use it.'

"That alright, I knew it was going to be really hard to learn Miracle Eye. You can take as long as you need. We're not in a particular hurry anyway." I patted his shoulder in encouragement and it was true too.

The move was a complex one so him having some trouble was to be expected. After that brief but important conversation, I looked around for Nyx and Teddi to see what they were doing.

I found them a bit in front of me on the left. Nyx was speaking with a Graveler that was definitely not here when we passed this area while heading towards the dead-end. At least, I think so? Maybe it just managed to disguise itself perfectly causing me to overlook it.

Anyway, Nyx seemed to have come to an agreement with Graveler, because Teddi went to the side and started rooting for Nyx while she started to fight Graveler.

Graveler began bombarding Nyx with rocks, which she all successfully dodged. She fired a Swift in return, but Graveler chose to ignore that and used Bulldoze instead.

This forced Nyx to jump in the air to escape the move, but Graveler used her inability to dodge mid-air to send over a volley of rocks, using Rock Throw.

However, my little Nyx used Copycat to release a volley of rocks herself to not only block some of Graveler's rocks but also as stepping stones to change positions in the air.

As soon as she landed on the ground she used a Quick Attack to shoot towards Graveler. Once she was close enough she jumped up, did a spin, and delivered a momentum boosted Iron Tail.

She used the force of the clash between her tail and Graveler to jump away and assumed a ready position while checking her foes situation. Graveler was slightly out of it after her successful offensive and it looked like her attack caused quite some damage.

Nyx seeing the situation began creating a Shadow Ball when Graveler waved his 4 arms indicating his surrender. Seeing that she had to disperse her move which took a bit to safely do, after which she went over to Graveler. Teddiursa cheered at her victory and joined them.

A moment later Nyx turned around and walked up to me. She asked for a few Sitrus berries as well as a few Hard Stones, which I gave her. I took out 4 Sitrus berries and 3 E-class Hard Stones. Nyx thanked me, before calling Teddi over to help her carry the things.

They carried everything to Graveler and handed them over. It thanked the two and directly ate one of the berries as well as one of the Hard Stones. Afterward, it took the rest into its arms and walked away.

Nyx and Teddi returned to my side and I praised her for her great performance. After that, it took us a few more minutes to reach the fork, and this time we entered the other path. I noticed the path moving slightly downward, but this was not uncommon so I ignored it.

We checked out the places we were walking past and Teddiursa and Nyx would occasionally challenge some of the stronger Pokemon we came across.

If the Pokemon accepted, they would battle. They regularly switched who would fight and who would do the cheering, but they would come to me every time for some compensation that they gave their opponents. At least for those who agreed to their request.

The ones that simply attacked us, cause that happened a few times, got trashed and were left knocked out without anything to show for it. It took more than 20 minutes, but the tunnel opened up to a medium-sized room.

Unfortunately, I couldn't see another passage anywhere, which meant this was a dead-end as well.

After checking the room for anything useful I would have to return to the fork before the previous one since both of this fork's paths ended in dead-ends.

"Alright, guys, and gals, you know the drill. Check the place and see if you can find something useful." Once I said that Nyx and Teddi started running all over the place, while Xatu and I slowly moved around trying to detect something useful.

We all combed through the room, but it looked as if we would have to return empty-handed. At least it did before we all of us noticed a stone that was a bit larger than a fist, which gave off a peculiar feeling. I couldn't tell what the feeling it gave off was, but all 4 of us noticed it nonetheless.

After checking it out I knew what the feeling was, and I had to admit this was an extremely lucky find. The stone came up as an Ancient Stone on the status screen of my observe function.

'Name: Ancient Stone

Type: Rock

Class: D

Uses: It's an extremely old stone that has somehow managed to store large amounts of energy from the environment during ancient times.

Contains compressed and thus purer energy with an ancient aura and can be used as a supplement to help rock-type Pokemon, as well as trigger the evolution of some Pokemon.

May provide slight insights into Ancient Power.'

From what I understood this stone could trigger the evolution of Pokemon like Tangela, Yanma, and Piloswine, without them having to learn Ancient Power and raising its mastery.

It seemed like just learning the move was not enough to trigger their evolution as it was in the games. No, here they had to raise their mastery of Ancient Power to advanced as well before their evolution got triggered. The Ancient Stone allowed them to skip the step, so it was pretty useful in that regard.

On top of that, it would grant knowledge on Ancient Power after the evolution, if the Pokemon had not already learned it but it would start at the novice grade.

I told the others what it was and we celebrated our lucky find. Afterward, we made our way back to the fork before the one we had just entered.

-----------------------------

Advertising plug-in:

Help me stay motivated.

patreo*n/Azrail93