Pokemon: Reborn Rich Alternate Earth

Chapter 1022: Chapter 1239: Ember DisappearedChapter 1023: Chapter 1240: Secret Realm

After staying at the Cavendish family for a while, Julian was preparing to leave and return home, but a phone call delayed his plan.

Orient City, at the Hearth family residence.

"Champion Walker."

Travis Hearth, the head of the Hearth family and Ember's father, was present, along with Ember's grandmother, Rose, who was also Julian's grandaunt.

"Uncle, there's no need for formalities," Julian said.

With the relationship through Rose and Ember being one of the few friends Julian acknowledged, his attitude remained quite respectful.

"What exactly happened to Ember?" Julian asked.

He had originally been about to return to Lake City, but Rose had called him, saying that Ember had gone missing, which was why Julian came to the Hearth family.

"Let's go inside and talk," Travis said.

Julian nodded, and the group walked into the main hall of the Hearth family.

After taking their seats, Travis gathered his thoughts and said, "Ember entered the Flame Mountain Secret Realm six months ago and hasn't returned yet."

"The people we sent in also couldn't find her."

The Flame Mountain was a Special Advanced-level secret realm, similar to the Walker family's Oreburgh Great Wall and the Drake family's Dragon's Den.

The secret realm was inhabited solely by Fire-type Pokémon, with no other Types present.

This secret realm was jointly managed by the Hearth family and Drakoria, and it was also the main reason why the Hearth family had long held the top position among Fire-type trainers.

Each year, there were only ten entry slots—five for the Hearth family, and the remaining five allocated by Drakoria.

After all, since this secret realm was jointly managed by the Hearth family and the nation, it was impossible for all the slots to belong to the Hearth family alone.

"Your family should be very familiar with the Flame Mountain secret realm. And Ember even told me before that she had entered this secret realm before—so how could she still go missing?"

Hearing that, Julian immediately became puzzled.

The Hearth family was, of course, very familiar with a secret realm they had controlled for centuries, and they even updated its information annually.

Ember was also not entering it for the first time, yet under such circumstances, she had still disappeared.

"The two Pseudo-Champions in the family have already searched the entire secret realm, but still couldn't find her. They even fired signal flares, but Ember gave no response."

A worried expression appeared on Rose's aged face. Ember was the granddaughter she valued the most and had already been designated as the next successor of the Hearth family.

And now she had actually gone missing.

"Could it be—"

An unpleasant thought crossed Julian's mind.

"No." Travis beside him shook his head, his expression extremely certain.

Then, under Julian's puzzled gaze, he took out a faint red crystal ball.

Inside it were ten tiny flickers that looked like burning flames.

[Bloodline Crystal: Drop blood onto it—if the person who shed the blood dies, the Blood Flame within the crystal will disappear.]

[Note: It can hold up to ten people's blood.]

"A Bloodline Crystal?"

Julian said, the words slipping out before he could stop himself.

Travis had been about to explain what the object was, but Julian had already named it, catching him quite off guard.

"Champion Walker is indeed knowledgeable," Travis said, clearly surprised. "I didn't expect you to know of this special treasure. It seems the Walker family should also have one."

Julian: 'We really don't.'

This Bloodline Crystal was categorized as a treasure, but it belonged to the category of Special-grade treasures.

What were Special-grade treasures? Simply put, they were items with bizarre and unusual effects.

"This flame is Ember's."

Travis pointed to the third flame on the left.

As long as the flame hadn't disappeared, it meant Ember wasn't dead.

These ten flames inside the Bloodline Crystal represented the ten most important members of the Hearth family.

And since Ember wasn't dead, there was still hope.

"In a Special Advanced-level secret realm, the human body can only endure about half a year at most, or else you will be eroded by the realm's energy," Julian said.

Ember had already been inside for half a year, yet she still seemed unharmed—this made Julian somewhat curious.

"Ember has some resistance to the realm energy of the Flame Mountain. For us, the limit is half a year, but she can stay for eight months."

Julian nodded—that explained it.

Having resistance to a secret realm's energy erosion wasn't unusual.

Everyone's physique was different; some fortunate individuals were naturally resistant to secret realm energy erosion, allowing them to stay longer inside and naturally reap more benefits.

"If nothing unexpected had happened, Ember would have come out after half a year, but she didn't. And the two elders we sent in couldn't find her either."

"She must have encountered trouble inside the secret realm."

Rose's hands clenched slightly. If not for her body being unable to endure entering a harsh environment like the Flame Mountain's, she would have wanted to go in and look for Ember herself.

"Grandaunt, you don't need to worry too much. Ember is a Pseudo-Champion—with that level of strength, the odds of something going wrong even in a Top-tier secret realm are slim, let alone in a relatively familiar secret realm," Julian quickly reassured her.

"It's precisely because of that that I'm worried," Rose said.

A familiar place should naturally be relatively safe, but if something goes wrong in a familiar place, then the problem was bound to be anything but small.

"I'll head in right now to look for Ember."

Julian stood up. He took this matter very seriously—Ember was one of his few friends and also his distant cousin.

Even though this cousin had a rather troublesome personality.

"We'll be troubling you, Champion Walker," Travis said.

He didn't stand on ceremony. If the one in trouble wasn't Ember, he wouldn't have gone to such lengths.

Moreover, the Hearth family had already used all the methods they could, yet still couldn't find Ember. Only after confirming that she was still alive did they turn to Julian.

"This contains all the information about the Flame Mountain Secret Realm."

Travis handed over a notebook, which contained the most detailed information about the secret realm.

Metagross copied all the data into its supercomputer.

The information was extremely thorough, to a degree similar to what Metagross itself would record. Most likely, the data had been recorded by a Metagross or other Psychic-type Pokémon.

After all, only a handful of Pokémon were capable of something like this.

Julian had already informed his grandfather about this matter. Otherwise, if he disappeared without saying anything, his family would definitely worry when they couldn't contact him.

"Julian, please, you must find her."

Rose grasped Julian's hand, her eyes filled with hope.

"Grandaunt, don't worry. I will definitely bring Ember back to you safely," Julian nodded.

After receiving Julian's promise, the expressions of Rose and Travis visibly relaxed.

Julian's strength was the greatest source of their confidence in him, and along his journey, he had always carried a strong sense of mystery, which invisibly increased their level of trust in him.

*****

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Under Travis's guidance, Julian quickly arrived at the entrance of the Flame Mountain secret realm, which was, of course, heavily guarded.

Some of these guards belonged to the Hearth family, while others were from Drakoria's official forces.

This year, whether it was the five slots allocated to Drakoria or the five slots belonging to the Hearth family, all had already been used. If it were anyone else, wanting to enter the secret realm after the slots were filled—even for the purpose of rescuing Ember, a future Champion prospect—they would still have to go through approval before being allowed in.

But this was Julian, a Champion. All secret realms in Drakoria were freely open to Champions, meaning a Champion could enter any secret realm without any restrictions.

Under the excited gazes of the guards, Julian stepped into the gate of the secret realm.

In the blink of an eye, he was inside the Flame Mountain, and what hit him immediately was a wave of scorching heat.

The temperature here was around forty to fifty degrees.

To survive long-term in this secret realm, anyone entering would definitely need to wear heat-resistant suits or have corresponding Pokémon to help resist the heat.

Otherwise, the deeper one went into the Flame Mountain, the higher the temperature would become.

As the name suggested, the Flame Mountain secret realm had a massive volcano at its center. And the volcano continuously extended outward, forming the entirety of the realm.

Julian was currently at the edge of the volcano. Looking up, he could see in the distance a towering peak rising into the clouds like a pillar—that was the central region.

The entire secret realm was also filled with the smell of sulfur.

This secret realm was a paradise for Fire-type Pokémon though. There was no energy of any other Type within the realm—only Fire-type energy.

So once you released a Pokémon that wasn't a Fire-type here, it would face rejection from the entire realm, and its strength would be greatly suppressed.

Even at the Champion level, this suppression was quite significant—capable of reducing a Champion-level Pokémon's strength by about half.

At the same time, it would attract hostility from many Fire-type Pokémon within the realm.

It made sense—this place was entirely for Fire-types, and suddenly a Pokémon of another Typing appeared. Wasn't that basically a provocation? Naturally, it would get beaten up.

There were also Champion-level Pokémon in this secret realm—two of them, in fact. These two Champion Pokémon had been released into this secret realm after the passing of ancestors from the Hearth family.

If the family ever faced an unstoppable danger, these two Pokémon, out of regard for their deceased trainers, would naturally help defend against the enemy.

This was also why, even though the Hearth family currently only had Pseudo-Champions and no Champion-level trainer active, they could still be considered a top-tier family, just like the Walkers.

There was only one standard to become a top-tier family—that was whether the family possessed a Champion-level trainer or a Champion-level Pokémon.

Of course, if a family only had Champion-level Pokémon but no Champion-level trainer, its strength would certainly be somewhat inferior compared to a family that had a Champion-level trainer.

For instance, the Walker family currently possessed three Champion-level Trainers, and they also had Champion-level Pokémon left by their ancestors. This level of power absolutely crushed the other top-tier families in Drakoria.

Julian didn't waste any time. He didn't even take out his Dowsing Machine. Right now, the most important thing was to find Ember. As for treasure hunting, that could wait until after he found her.

"Deoxys."

He sent out Deoxys. As a First-class Legendary, Deoxys could ignore the effects of a Special Advanced-level secret realm.

And if it wished, it could even destroy this entire realm directly.

At the level of a First-class Legendary, things could no longer be measured by conventional logic, even for one at the early-stage.

"Check whether there are any people in this secret realm," Julian said.

The people who had previously entered the Flame Mountain had all already come out, except for Ember.

So right now, the entire secret realm should only have himself and Ember.

With Deoxys's psychic power, having it scan the entire Flame Mountain would allow him to know where Ember was.

Of course, to perform such a precise scan—missing not even a blade of grass, and covering such a vast range—was something a psychic-type Pokémon below the Champion-level absolutely couldn't achieve.

Deoxys, though, only needed a few seconds to scan the entire secret realm.

"Did you find her?" Julian quickly asked.

What he thought would be a certain success turned out otherwise—Deoxys actually shook its head.

This immediately surprised Julian.

"You didn't find her?"

His tone was filled with shock.

Deoxys nodded.

"Are you sure you scanned the entire secret realm without missing anything?" Julian asked.

Deoxys nodded again.

"I even scanned the magma inside the volcano, and I also found a Moltres sleeping inside."

According to the information the Hearth family had given Julian, there was indeed a Moltres inside—one that had belonged to a certain Hearth family ancestor, with Champion-level strength.

"Could it be that the person died just as we entered?" Deoxys said.

Julian was stunned for a moment, feeling that this actually made some sense. He quickly took out the Bloodline Crystal, silently hoping his troublesome cousin not to be that unlucky.

And when he saw the small flame representing Ember on the Bloodline Crystal still there, Julian immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

He then looked at Deoxys somewhat suspiciously. "Are you sure you're not just... incapable?"

Deoxys: (╬▔皿▔)

"Ahem, what I mean is, did you notice any particularly strange places while scanning?" Julian quickly backpedaled.

'You are genderless—if I say you're incapable, you get angry, but if I say you are capable, well, you don't even have that thing anyway.'

"There is something."

Deoxys nodded.

"Take me there to have a look," Julian said.

The next second, Deoxys teleported and disappeared from the spot together with Julian.

When they appeared again, there was a glowing portal right in front of him.

"A secret realm gate? We didn't move—wait, this isn't the gate we came in through."

Looking at the realm gate in front of him, Julian at first thought it was the same one he had entered through, and subconsciously assumed Deoxys had moved him just to mess with him after he said it wasn't capable.

But very quickly, he realized his location had changed, and the size of this gate was larger than the one he had entered through.

This discovery left Julian astonished.

"A secret realm within a secret realm?!"

Looking at the realm gate in front of him, Julian understood what was going on—within the Flame Mountain secret realm, another secret realm had appeared.

This kind of extremely low-probability event wasn't unheard of.

Across the world, there were countless Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Top-tier secret realms and Ruins combined, and up until now, cases of a secret realm existing within another secret realm had only appeared twice.

But now, that number could be changed to three.

*****

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