Nova was not about to use a basic Revive on Graveler. He went straight for a Max Revive. The whole point was to get Graveler working at full capacity, and that required getting it back to full health first.
The second part of Graveler's reward, the item that would allow it to evolve into Golem, came with its own cost.
Anything connected to Pokemon evolution was never cheap. A Moon Stone with around seventy percent energy density could be found on the market for roughly seventy to eighty thousand League Coins, and that was only because the Pokemon that evolved with it were not particularly popular in competitive battling. Stones tied to stronger, more sought-after species cost two to three times as much.
Nova had already experienced this firsthand when securing a Fire Stone for Growlithe. The stone he found, with eighty-nine percent energy density, had started at one hundred and fifty thousand League Coins. After several rounds of bidding, he had ended up paying two hundred and seventy thousand to take it home. That single purchase had eaten through nearly a quarter of his available funds.
By comparison, the Linking Cord he purchased for Graveler was almost a bargain at fifty thousand League Coins. Unlike natural evolution stones, which were mined and came in inconsistent supply, the Linking Cord was a manufactured item. Stable production meant stable availability, and stable availability kept the price reasonable.
All told, Nova spent just under eighty thousand League Coins to bring Graveler on board.
It was worth every coin. A Graveler willing to cooperate could lead the entire Geodude colony through the mining operation far faster than Nova could ever manage alone with a pickaxe. Nidoking was strong enough to help with excavation work, but it was currently in one of its lethargic spells. Asking it to battle was one thing. Asking it to haul rocks after a battle was another entirely. Two weeks earlier, when Nova had tried to get it to help carry supplies, Nidoking had come very close to simply refusing. Sending it down a mine shaft in its current mood seemed like a reliable way to end up on the receiving end of a Poison Sting.
Graveler, on the other hand, threw itself into the work the moment the Max Revive took effect and Nova confirmed the deal. It organized the entire colony into a proper operation almost immediately. Some Geodude dug, others hauled, others broke apart the rock face. A mineral vein that would have taken Nova months to work through was being processed efficiently within days.
That was the benefit of dealing with a Pokemon that had the Leader trait.
As for how the rest of the Geodude colony felt about being mobilized by their own leader on a stranger's behalf, that was between them and Graveler. The moment the agreement was struck, the weight of managing the workforce shifted entirely onto Graveler's shoulders. Any resentment the colony had was Graveler's problem to deal with.
It was an old tactic, and it had worked reliably throughout history. Using it on a group of Pokemon who had never encountered such strategies made it almost effortless.
The mined corundum was split into two portions. One portion was distributed among the Geodude and Graveler as their agreed compensation and became part of their regular diet. The other portion was set aside as a food reserve for Trapinch.
Nova watched Trapinch work through the pile with quiet determination.
Eat up. One way or another, he was going to feed it until it evolved.
A month and a half later, Sand River City.
A dusty, travel-worn Nova finally emerged from the Cengluan Mountain Range after two months of intensive training in the Uninhabited Area. Standing now at the entrance to the Layered Peaks Gym, he felt the difference clearly. His team was in a different place than when they had started.
The progress over the past month and a half had been significant across the board. In particular, his third Pokemon had finally drawn level with the two senior members of the team.
Two weeks earlier, after weeks of hard training, Growlithe had grown to Level 42. It could hold its own in battle now, and it was a single evolution away from becoming Arcanine. Nova already had the Fire Stone purchased and ready. He was not planning to use it just yet.
In a game, evolving a Pokemon too early meant missing out on moves it would have learned naturally, though TMs could fill most of those gaps later on. In reality, the situation was a little different. A Pokemon evolving through an item needed to have its physical development fully caught up before the change would allow it to reach its true potential. The body had to be ready before the evolution could mean anything.
Nidoking was the clearest example of this in Nova's own experience. The ideal window for that evolution would have been to wait until Nidorino reached Level 61 and learned Earth Power naturally before using the Moon Stone. Nova had not waited. He had evolved Arno at Level 48 because the situation had not allowed for patience. There had been trouble brewing in the Gobi Desert and he had needed stronger combat power urgently. Waiting another half year for Nidorino to reach Level 61 had not been an option.
The moves Nidorino would have learned after Level 48 were eventually covered by TMs, and a Level 48 Nidorino had already been physically ready for the change. It had worked out well enough. Even so, Nova quietly considered it an imperfection in how he had handled Arno's development.
With Growlithe, he had the time and the resources to do it properly. There was no need to rush. Even in its current form, Growlithe's Double-Edge was powerful enough that most opponents could not absorb more than a few of its hits. It was holding up fine where it stood.
The biggest change on the team, though, belonged to Trapinch.
After a month and a half of steady feeding across every type of mineral Nova could source, Trapinch had not participated in a single proper battle. It had not needed to. The Tunnel Expert trait had driven its experience accumulation at a pace that did not require combat, and it had pushed all the way to Level 28 entirely through eating and burrowing.
Then the Early Bloomer trait had done its job. Trapinch evolved into Vibrava seven levels ahead of the standard threshold.
Nova had been deep in the Uninhabited Area at the time, and Aresdra was occupied with her training schedule. The small tradition the two of them had started, taking turns naming each other's newly evolved Pokemon, had quietly come to an end without ceremony.
Nova named his new partner Azir.
The name came from a story about a desert emperor in another world. Flygon and that particular figure did not share much in common at a glance, but Trapinch had carried the Prince of Quicksand trait since birth, and Nova genuinely hoped it would grow into something worthy of the name. An Emperor of the Sands.
Vibrava's addition had also addressed a gap in the team's capabilities that Nova had been aware of for some time. Vibrava was fast, comfortable at low altitude, and able to use Supersonic to sweep the area around it and detect nearby threats. It was well-suited to a scouting role and could strike quickly when needed. A lightweight, mobile member of the team had been missing, and Azir filled that gap cleanly.
Once Azir evolved into Flygon, it would naturally shift into a different role, and Nova would need to find a new scout and skirmisher. But for now, Azir was exactly what the team needed.
Nova led his team into Sand River City, ready to challenge the Layered Peaks Gym and face the Elite trainer Gilbert Armstrong.