(A/N: Bonus Chapter! Thank you for your continued support! And don’t hesitate to leave a comment or powerstone if you like the story!)
A few days later, John and Saul boarded a plane bound for Mayan Forest.
John still hadn’t figured out why Gardevoir had learned "Spacial Rend."
Following the principle that if you can’t solve something, don’t worry about it for now, John resolutely put this "unsolved mystery of the world" aside.
All he knew now was that Gardevoir would also be competing for the position of his ace Pokemon.
Gardevoir’s original held item was "Gracidea," but Gracidea didn’t provide any stat boosts.
[Gracidea: When carried, absorbs any negative effects in the surrounding area. Moves gain "Purify" effect, dealing double damage to Poison and Ghost-type Pokemon. When negative effect absorption reaches maximum, automatically releases "Seed Flare." Current progress: 98/100. When carried by a certain Pokemon, grants additional power.]
Perfect for battling Poison and Ghost-type opponents.
For this reason, John had deliberately kept the progress at 98/100, just waiting for some unlucky Poison or Ghost-type specialist with sufficient skill to take this devastating attack.
Compared to the Lustrous Orb, Gracidea was still slightly inferior.
In fact, the 100% Water-type and Dragon-type move bonuses were useless to Gardevoir. Gardevoir didn’t know any Dragon-type moves, and the only Water-type move it knew was "Life Dew."
However, the Lustrous Orb’s bonus of "increases space move effectiveness by 200%" made Gardevoir’s most proficient move "Teleport" even more terrifying!
Teleport with the 200% bonus meant:
No startup animation, no recovery frames, no cooldown, group teleportation, and forced teleportation even against opponents stronger than the user.
Combined with the devastating "Spacial Rend"...
Gardevoir after Mega Evolution was a strong contender for John’s ace Pokemon position! Even considering type matchups, Greninja and Garchomp would have to step back.
Although his mentor had originally given the Lustrous Orb to John specifically for Gengar, his intention had been to give John a "spatial storage ring," allowing Gengar’s stomach to become a space where John could store numerous items and free up his hands.
However, John didn’t need a storage space because he already had a "Secret Base" created by Gardevoir using "Secret Power."
The Secret Base had running water and electricity, was livable, and had maximum concealment.
Wasn’t that better than Gengar’s stomach?
So the Lustrous Orb was ultimately assigned to Gardevoir as its held item. After all, Gengar already had a 2-star exclusive item while Gardevoir didn’t.
As for Gardevoir’s previous held item, Gracidea... he’d swap items based on the situation. Gracidea didn’t require constant carrying, so he could give it to whoever needed it.
"We’re almost there," Saul Badman said to John, who was resting in his seat.
John opened his eyes to see a sea of green forest outside the window.
Back to Mayan Forest.
The last time he’d come here was for the Breeders Camp, where he’d also obtained the Sacred Treasure: The Orb of Abundance from Landorus.
He wondered what he might gain this time.
The plane landed at the crude airport, then they took a car to their hotel.
Compared to John’s last visit to the Mayan Forest, there were many more Trainers coming here now.
Earlier this year, Landorus had rampaged through the Mayan Forest, though it had ultimately been slapped away by Regigigas. However, Landorus’s destructive act had still sparked countless people’s imagination.
Why had Landorus rampaged through The Mayan Forest?
Was it searching for something from its earlier battle with another Landorus?
Like... a legendary artifact!!?
Of course, this speculation was widely believed to be mere "advertising" to attract Trainers to the Mayan Forest, without any real basis.
Only John knew that the Landorus that had rampaged through Mayan Forest was probably looking for the Sacred Treasure he’d taken away.
However, during this past year, Mayan Forest had been very calm. There was no news of Landorus rampaging again, and no one had even spotted Landorus. It seemed Landorus had been knocked to its senses by Regigigas’s slap.
The Mayan Forest wasn’t a place where Landorus could run wild.
However, while Landorus had come to its senses, the Trainers hadn’t left, they were still flocking to the Mayan Forest.
In a region known for legendary Pokemon encounters, there had to be all kinds of treasures here!
They arrived at the five-star hotel outside the Forest and checked in.
John and qSaul had arrived in the afternoon and planned to spend one night at the five-star hotel. Tomorrow morning, they would enter Mayan Forest and head to the location where Scarlett had entered the spatial rift.
After checking in, John and Principal Badman took the elevator to their floor.
However, what neither of them noticed was that ten pairs of eyes were watching them intentionally or unintentionally from the hotel lobby.
"Boss, that young man is the latest talent from Draconia, John!" A middle-aged man with a goatee pretended to casually glance at the elevator through the corner of his narrow eyes, whispering to the suited middle-aged man beside him.
The middle-aged man called Jack seemed uninterested and continued drinking his wine.
Seeing Jack’s lack of interest, the goateed man reminded him, "He’s the John who owns that Mega Shiny Gardevoir!"
"What?!" Upon hearing "Mega Shiny Gardevoir," Jack immediately turned his head.
But all he saw was the closed elevator door.
"Are you certain?" Jack asked, a glint of greed in his eyes.
"I’m sure. When I first saw him, I checked his photo on my phone. I’m certain it’s that genius John from Draconia." The goateed man handed his phone to his Boss .
Jack glanced at John’s photo and immediately sneered. "Rich but lacking strength, yet he dares to travel abroad? Heh heh heh."
He asked again, "How many people did he come with?"
"Who’s the other one?"
"I don’t know, probably nobody famous." The goateed man had also looked at Princibal Badman, but in his eyes, Saul had an ordinary, forgettable face, the kind so plain you’d lose him in a crowd.
Jack nodded slightly, reached into his pocket, pulled out a Pokeball, enlarged it, and released it.
A Sableye appeared at his feet.
Without any instructions from his trainer, Sableye’s body immediately merged into the floor and quickly disappeared without a trace.