To be a Blackhearted Capitalist or not to be a Blackhearted Capitalist... THAT is the question!

After swallowing the Ice cream cone whole, Ace wiped his lips and turned over his hand, snorting, "Your welcome!" as an egg appeared in his hand. Cynthia licked the ice cream slowly, looking at the egg.

She took it with one hand, "What is it?" Ace waved a finger, smirking, "A Cyndaquil!" Cynthia looked at him strangely as Ace made a 'Tsk Tsk', "I found another Ruin on my way here, that happened to have more information about Hisui! Oshawott, Cyndaquil, and Rowlet all have Hisuian Forms in their final evolution! Also, you have a lack of Fire Types."

Cynthia took the egg and licked the ice cream suspiciously, "A Ruin, huh." Ace nodded with a smile, "Don't ask, I didn't take pictures and it exploded." Cynthia rolled her eyes and continued to lick the Ice cream, "So, you're strengthening my team?"

Ace paused and sneered, "What is that supposed to mean? When I'm done with my main team… Hahaahaha!" he got out of the Hot Spring, slapping his forehead and laughing, "Then forget about you, even Red will not be able to stop it!"

Cynthia was amused and teased, "You have 6 now…" Ace held out three more fingers, "There's 3 left. 3 more Pokemon that are the Key! Then we can have a 9v9 if you want!" as he walked to the house, laughing a perfect three paragraph laugh!

If he could, he would've summoned Blue Ey-

The next day

 Ace and Cynthia were exploring the remnants of Jubilife Village in the Space-Time Rift to Hisui. As they were exploring, they came across a lot of 'relics' though these were mostly papers of research on Hisui Pokemon.

As Cynthia was looking at these papers seriously, Ace frowned and looked up at the sky with his arms crossed. 

He saw Arceus casually strolling in the sky, looking at everything with an unreadable expression. But Ace could feel that he was a bit sad.

Arceus paused and looked down at Ace.

[Thank you, Otherworldly Human.]

Ace was surprised and pointed at himself.

Arceus turned and left without saying anything more.

[Arceus Friendship +10]

Ace: ??????????

As for the so-called 'Purpose of Rebirth', there was no such thought at all! Ace just felt that Arceus was very strange and ignored him. After all, an Alpaca was cool and all, but compared to Rayquaza…

Ace clenched his fists, one day!

One day, I will achieve my dream!

The rest of the day was spent excavating relics from the ruins of Jubilife Village. Ace walked around looking at the familiar and yet not familiar area. He could remember the general lay out, but the buildings were so ruined that it was hard to know what was where.

In the end, they collected all the salvageable relics they could find and left. Just before leaving, Ace caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He turned and walked over, picking up a pure gold necklace.

He was startled, this…

This was the Arceus Emblem! The Gold Halo thing that was around its body. Unfortunately, the only thing left was a knot and the gold Arceus Emblem pendant.

Cynthia looked over and saw the Emblem, "Arceus?" Ace looked at her and teased, "You know Arceus? Is he on your team too?" Cynthia rolled her eyes and picked up the Emblem, speculating, "Maybe Arceus worship was extremely popular during these times?"

Ace nodded and replied, "Probably. Now, I think there should only be a few villages worshiping Arceus, right?" Cynthia thought about it and nodded, "That's right, there's only one. But they rarely leave their land, only getting supplies when it's a dire need."

Ace tilted his head and didn't really care about Arceus' little fanatics. Now… if there was news about Zinnia!

Ace would instantly jump on it and hunt her down like a dog! After all, someone as passionate about the Lord of Dragons… They would have a great talk! Plus, Zinnia also wanted Rayquaza…

This is the old adage 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer!'

As Ace cooked up nefarious plots to trick Zinnia in this imaginary scenario… Cynthia nodded and handed the Emblem back to Ace, "Here." Ace woke up and handed it back, "I don't need this thing, you keep it." Cynthia asked him, "Are you sure?"

Ace looked at her in confusion, "It's only an Arceus Emblem. What am I going to do with it? Put it up for sale?" Cynthia's lips twitched and they walked back as she sighed, "You're really strange sometimes, Ace. You can get all these incredible achievements in the Archaeological world, but you don't care at all. Legendary Pokemon don't seem to interest you at all!"

Ace didn't have the heart to tell her that he had caught every single Pokemon including Legendaries… These guys were awesome but… they weren't that eye-catching anymore. He wasn't like Cyrus, wanting to catch a God at every turn…

He already suffered not treating Pokemon as real beings, he wasn't going to make the same mistake again. For those who died in his hands, he owed them a heavy debt. This was part of the reason he didn't go insane and start hunting only Pseudo Legendaries.

In fact, he only had a Dragapault!

Otherwise, what's the big deal? Keep Noibat as a mascot and catch all the Pseudo Legendaries before attacking a couple Legendary Pokemon with them all, capturing them and then ruling the world.

He felt it was pretty simple.

As for who could stop him… Let's just be honest here.

When you see 6 legendary Birds, 3 legendary dogs, the Eon duo, Palkia, Dialga, Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza all appear at the same time. There was basically no way to fight back unless Arceus descends and kills you himself!

Which, by what would happen if he stole Pikachu, is probably very likely!

Not to mention, if he was REALLY crazy, Eternatus was sitting in Galar on Vacation!

With a System, he had the confidence to catch every Pokemon in the world, including Arceus. As for whether he could actually accomplish it… that was another thing. There's no shortage of Heroes in this world, and on top of that the Legendary Pokemon wouldn't just sit there and wait for Ace to arrive.

Highly likely it would be an extremely stressful life full of dangers and cruelty.

So, after listing all these things, Ace honestly felt tired.

Ruling the world or whatever… Tedious and boring.

What's he gonna do when he does? Keep everything the way it was?

'Oh, now I get all the profits behind the scenes, muahaha!'

So, rounding up, nothing changed in the end, right?

Craaaaazy…

Ace sighed and replied tiredly, "Interest in these Pokemon for what… They're just rarer than the Pokemon we usually see. There's not much difference in the end. What do you want me to do? Publish all kinds of crazy research and rule the world?"

He rubbed his neck and yawned lazily, "Forget it, I don't know the first thing about ruling the world. The Human Mind can't create new things out of thin air, we derivative new innovations based on existing ideas. Creating a new world or whatever, it would only be the same thing with little differences, then what's the point?"

Cynthia's lips twitched again, this guy… She shook her head and laughed, "Well, I guess that's what makes you unique, Ace. You're really…" she pursed her lips and continued, "Pardon me. Really fucking strange!" 

Ace was dumbfounded, "You're really rude, you know that?" Cynthia chuckled and smiled happily, "Usually, I have to be very proper and respectable. I don't usually get to feel relaxed like this… Speaking of relaxed, are you and Elesa going to get married?"

Ace nearly choked to death as Cynthia covered her mouth, "You're really two peas in a pod. I would like to be invited, but if I ask her, she'll probably try to kill me." Ace froze and sighed, hanging his head, "I don't know. Maybe in the future… not now. And she would 100% kill you."

Cynthia flexed and made a rare joke, "No way, I'm very strong! I run every morning and do yoga!" Ace was finally speechless with this 'Bubbly Cynthia' what do you mean you do yoga?

??? What is the correlation!?

Ace finally said after a long time, "You know… Yoga doesn't increase strength… right?" Cynthia rolled her eyes, "I was joking, obviously." Ace looked at her seriously, "I can't tell. Honest." Cynthia rubbed her eyes, sighing, "Caitlin usually laughs."

Ace nodded seriously, "She must be as stupid as you then." Cynthia nodded before pausing, "Are you calling me stupid?" Ace shook his head, "No no, you heard wrong just now. I said that Caitlin was stupid." Cynthia looked at him suspiciously, "Then you added 'as you' after."

Ace scratched his head and complained, "Just move on! Did you get what you needed? How many days do we have to spend in this place?" Cynthia sorted out the documents, saying seriously, "We can leave, but further searching needs to be done. We have to thoroughly search every nook and cranny of Hisui for more details, who knows what we'll find."

Ace thought about it and nodded, "Not a bad idea… But we should probably set up something similar to a shelter around the Rift exit. Then we can charge people to visit Ancient Hisui and fund the research operation." Cynthia hesitated, "This is a bit… blackhearted?"

Ace sighed and replied with a shoulder pat, "Business is a ruthless ordeal." Cynthia sighed, "Okay, but not a lot!" Ace nodded, "Oh… Oh! Leave it to me." Cynthia nodded and muttered, "If this research is successful, we can restore ancient Pokemon! We can even set the Rift as a Pokemon Reserve for endangered Pokemon!"

Cynthia was full of hope while Ace rubbed his chin, that's not a bad idea actually. They can slowly build in this Rift and create a new area. If they Populate this place with enough Hisuian Pokemon, it can even act as a Safari Zone…

Then more Trainers will have more diverse Pokemon and make things more interesting.

But the premise is that this Space-Time Rift is a closed world and not a bubble in time.

Ace decided to check it out with the System. If the System couldn't do it… he would probably have to go ask Arceus himself…

That would be a pain in the ass!!!