A week passed in the blink of an eye.
Nova had only packed enough supplies for eight days when he set out for the deep wilds of the Uninhabited Area. He had left the rest of his provisions at the inn in Layered Rock Town. So, on the seventh day, he called the training phase to an end. It was time to head back to town and restock.
The Geodude colony that had been pushed around for an entire week was more than happy to see Nova go. They had spent most of those days huddled high on the cliffs, not daring to come down even once.
Toward the end of the trip, Nova had grown bolder and bolder in the valley. On the final day, feeling particularly inspired, he had Nidoking use Earthquake twice in a row, just to see what it could do.
The two powerful tremors cracked open the mountain wall where the Geodude made their home.
But that crack turned out to be a lucky break. Nova's treasure-hunting Marshtomp caught a whiff of something unusual and started digging. Following Marshtomp's lead, Nova discovered a small corundum vein hidden inside that very same mountain wall.
It was an incredible find.
No wonder the Geodude in this colony had such a high chance of carrying jade on them. They had been living right on top of a mineral vein the whole time. Eating rocks rich in corundum every single day, it was only natural that gemstones would eventually form inside their bodies.
It made sense, really. A place that could raise a wild Pokémon all the way to level 58 was never going to be ordinary.
A level 58 wild Pokémon might not turn many heads in truly dangerous places like the depths of the Tamar Desert or the Western Plateau. But out here in the Cengluan Mountain Range, it was genuinely rare. An average Professional Trainer stumbling across one in the wild could easily find themselves in serious trouble.
It was a bit like running into a powerful boss in a beginner's area, only to find the same creature treated as a common encounter somewhere much farther along.
For people, the safest places were always the well-developed human settlements. The bigger the town or city, the less wild Pokémon tended to pose a threat. In cities, humans were clearly the ones in charge. Pokémon that had adapted to urban life, like Rattata or Purrloin, rarely grew strong enough to be a real danger to anyone.
Beyond those settled areas came the wild zones. Out there, the types of Pokémon grew more varied and their behavior more aggressive, but on the whole, they still were not much of a match for a trained Professional Trainer.
The North Mountain near Harmony City, which Nova had once climbed, was that sort of place. As long as a Trainer had at least one solid Pokémon on their team, even someone without much experience could move through freely without much worry.
The stretches of the Cengluan Mountain Range closest to the two nearby cities were much the same.
The Uninhabited Area, however, was a different story entirely. The Pokémon here had the strength to threaten lower-ranked Professional Trainers. It was dangerous, but for that same reason, it was also one of the best places for serious Trainers to push their limits.
When even the Uninhabited Areas no longer offered enough of a challenge, there were always the Secret Realms to explore. Those hidden places held rare Pokémon that were almost never seen elsewhere, along with all sorts of unusual treasures. How much a Trainer walked away with was entirely down to luck. Whether they walked away at all was also entirely down to luck.
As for the Western Plateau, the deep reaches of the Tamar Desert, and the far-off Dark Continent, those were places where survival was never guaranteed. Only the most dangerous Secret Realms, marked as forbidden zones, could match those places for sheer peril.
In any case, the easy days of the Graveler lounging around on top of a mineral vein were over.
It could not hold its own against Marshtomp or Nidoking, and it had long since given up even glancing at Corviknight. When Nova found the vein, the Graveler simply did not have the nerve to rally the other Geodude for another fight.
For the rest of that day, Nova set aside skill training entirely. He had Nidoking herd the scattered Geodude away to one side of the mountains, then spent the time with his partners mining the cracked wall by hand.
It was not that Nova had any problem disturbing the Geodude's home. The simple truth was that he only had supplies left for one more day. He needed to head back to Layered Rock Town first and restock before he could do anything more.
Even so, once he had a proper look at what he had dug up, his enthusiasm for the mining life cooled off quickly.
It made sense when he thought about it. If the corundum in this vein were truly high quality, the gems forming inside the Geodude would not be so low-grade, and the colony as a whole would not be sitting at such modest levels. The ore here was perfectly fine as a meal for Rock-type or Ground-type Pokémon, but it was not the kind of thing that would make anyone rich in the jewelry trade. Even if Nova swung a pickaxe until his arms gave out, the returns would not be worth it. It was better to stay focused on being a Trainer.
His brief dream of becoming a mine owner ended before it had really begun.
Nova packed up what he had mined and headed back to Layered Rock Town, carrying a bag of rocky snacks for Nidoking and Growlithe.
He was riding on Corviknight when, the moment he came within range of Layered Rock Town's signal tower, his phone, silent for a full week, suddenly lit up with a rush of notifications.
Aresdra and Thelma had both known he was going into the Uninhabited Area, so they had each sent only a handful of messages to check in, not really expecting him to reply right away.
Nova worked through their messages one by one. Most of the other notifications were not worth much attention, but one stood out. It had been sent by the Purrloin he had left at home to keep an eye on things.
That one caught his attention right away.
Before leaving, Nova had set up a phone for Purrloin. Pokémon with intelligence close to a human's could certainly learn to use one. The devices had not been designed with Pokémon in mind, though, and even with Purrloin's nimble paws, using a phone was still awkward and slow.
Because of that, Purrloin only ever bothered sending a message if something actually needed reporting.
In that way, Purrloin was quite different from Sprigatito. Both of them were attached to Nova, but Sprigatito could barely stand being away from him for any stretch of time. Even a little distance was enough to send the small Grass Cat Pokémon into a panic.
Purrloin was more like the pet cats Nova remembered from his old life. Fond of their owner, but perfectly capable of getting on just fine when left alone.
The message from Purrloin had only two words.
"Egg. Moving!"
Nova knew exactly what it meant.
There was still a Pokémon Egg at home. Before heading out, he had asked Purrloin to keep a quiet eye on it each day.
It was normal for a Pokémon Egg to shift a little during the incubation period. Sprigatito's egg, for example, had wriggled around several times a day. That sort of thing was nothing unusual.
But the fact that Purrloin had gone to the trouble of sending a message at all meant this was different. The Egg was not just shifting here and there. It had started moving with a steady, regular rhythm.
That was a sign. The Egg was close to hatching.