Five or six hours later, the Pokémon that Julian and the others had sent out started returning one by one, and the first to come back was Asher's Dragonite.
Half an hour later, Julian's Dragonite returned as well.
An hour after that, Pierce's Archeops came back.
Ten minutes later, Rowan's Delibird showed up.
Based on what the four Pokémon had seen during their flights, Julian sent out Slowking and had it use a pen to jot down everything they described.
With Slowking's intelligence, it would definitely be able to perfectly understand and record what the four Pokémon were saying.
Each of the Pokémon described the landscapes they'd flown over and the dangerous auras they'd sensed along the way.
Although it was impossible for them to explore the entire Top-tier secret realm in just a few hours, they'd probably covered at least a quarter of it.
Soon, Slowking finished organizing all the information from the four Pokémon and drew up a map centered around their location.
The map included rivers, mountains, lakes, forests—everything you'd expect in a natural landscape.
Julian's Dragonite had also encountered a powerful wild Pokémon in a rocky area to the east, whose strength was at the pseudo-champion level.
Fortunately, it didn't show any hostility toward Dragonite—otherwise, things could've gone really badly.
Night had fallen, but there was still one Pokémon that hadn't returned.
Ember stared in the direction Charizard had flown off earlier, biting her lip tightly. A trickle of blood ran down, but she didn't even notice.
It had already been three hours since the last one—Delibird—returned.
And Charizard still hadn't come back.
Was it just delayed by something? Or had it run into danger?
"If it doesn't come back tonight, we'll search for Charizard together tomorrow," Pierce spoke with a heavy tone.
As the team leader, he was responsible for the whole team, and that included their Pokémon.
Even if Charizard had died, they needed to at least recover its body.
It might seem irrational, but if they didn't do this, the bond between teammates would weaken, making it harder to continue exploring the secret realm as a group.
Julian and the others all nodded in agreement.
"Let's eat something first."
Pierce took out some military rations from his bag and sat down on the ground to eat. The ration bar wasn't very big—only about the size of two fingers—but even such a small piece could meet a person's full nutritional needs for a day.
Without the space backpack technology, there was only so much humans could bring into a secret realm.
Unless you had a Gengar. Gengar's body had a large internal space and could store a lot of stuff.
But Gengar were rare, and there weren't nearly enough for every trainer to have one. Plus being a Ghost-type, if it wasn't properly trained, the one who got hurt might end up being you.
That's why military rations had become a must-have for most trainers venturing into the wild.
They were pretty good and even tasted decent, but the portions were just too small. Even if the energy packed in was enough to meet your daily needs, your stomach would still feel empty.
If Julian was exploring the secret realm alone, Slowking would've already prepared a proper meal. At the very least, Julian could've taken food out from his system space.
But now, just like Pierce, he had to chew on the dry energy bars.
The Pokémon were also eating their prepared Pokéblocks.
Asher's Dragonite caught a whiff of the Pokéblock in Julian's Dragonite's hand and instantly felt like its own Pokéblock didn't smell good anymore.
It stopped eating right away and turned its head, staring longingly at Julian's Dragonite's Pokéblock.
Julian's Dragonite noticed the longing gaze from its fellow Dragonite and blinked in surprise. Then, without hesitation, it stuffed the rest of the Pokéblock into its mouth.
Then it turned to Asher's Dragonite and said, "All gone."
Asher's Dragonite: ⊙0⊙
Julian was quite pleased with his Dragonite's action. Not swayed by a pretty face—that's the way it should be.
Beauty would only slow you down on the path to becoming a champion.
For the record, Asher's Dragonite was female.
"Your Dragonite is so stingy."
Watching his own Dragonite look like it was about to cry, Asher couldn't just stand there and say nothing.
"My Dragonite's perfectly fine. The real issue is you, the trainer—what kind of trash Pokéblocks are you feeding it?" Julian shot back.
All of his Pokémon's Pokéblocks were purchased from the system and tailored to their types.
Anything made by the system easily outclassed any Pokéblocks on the market.
Even if the Drake family, well-known Dragon-type specialists, customized their Pokéblocks specifically for their dragons, they still couldn't compare to the system-made ones.
So of course Asher's Dragonite would be drawn to them.
Watching his own Dragonite look at him with those pitiful eyes, Asher sighed. "How much? I'll buy some."
There were rumors going around that the reason Julian's Pokémon were so insanely strong was because he himself was a Top-tier breeder, and all the Pokéblocks his Pokémon ate were supposedly made by him personally.
He hadn't believed it before—but now looking at his own Dragonite, he was starting to believe them a bit.
After all, though the Pokéblocks he gave his Dragonite weren't as good as those his father-Victor-used, but they were still second only to him in the family.
And yet, his Dragonite was still drooling over the other Dragonite's snack.
"Not for sale. It's not about money."
'It was about system points.'
Julian added that in his heart.
If he could just buy Pokéblocks from the system with money, he would've already stocked up and fed them to his grandpa and dad's Pokémon too.
"Stingy."
Asher muttered in dissatisfaction, but he didn't press Julian any further.
If those Pokéblocks really were made by a Top-tier breeder, then the ingredients used probably weren't something money could easily buy.
Julian glanced at Asher's Dragonite and suddenly noticed its belly was quite a bit smaller than his own Dragonite's.
Was it because it was female?
"Has your Dragonite's belly always been that small?" Julian asked curiously.
"Small?"
Asher looked at Julian in disbelief, wondering if he was messing with him.
Among all the Dragonite in his family, his one was considered to have a 'big' belly.
But then looking at Julian's Dragonite…
"Compared to yours, yeah, it 'is' small."
Seriously, that belly. If it wasn't eating Pokéblocks made by a Top-tier breeder, there's no way it could've gotten that big.
A big belly on a Dragonite didn't just mean excess fat—it usually meant it had high energy reserves.
That meant during battle, it could fight longer and harder, with more stamina to spare.
Julian, of course, knew the advantages of a big belly. It was just hard to look at.
Just look at how sleek and elegant Dratini and Dragonair were before evolution. But then, after evolving into Dragonite, they went from "sleek and elegant" to "round and bulky."
Sometimes Julian couldn't help but wonder—was this really one evolutionary line?
Online, some trainers even joked that Dratini, Dragonair, and Milotic were the true evolution line, and that made a lot more sense, elegance-wise.
*****
Upto 30 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/ReduxMagister