"Brat, are you planning to go in right now?"
Just as Julian was talking to Victor, Jake walked over.
"Yeah, you've all come out, and there's nothing left for me to do out here anyway."
Julian nodded. The Primal Secret Realm was so vast that he needed to make the most of his time exploring. On his second entry, he had to at least finish exploring the second region.
"Champion Walker, has the secret realm's energy erosion on your body already dissipated?"
Professor Charles looked at Julian in surprise.
According to his estimate, even though they had only stayed in the Primal Secret Realm for a month and a half, it would take at least three months—twice the duration of their stay—for the secret realm's energy to dissipate from their bodies.
Julian had stayed inside for more than half a year, yet it had only been a little more than a month outside, and the erosion from the secret realm's energy had already disappeared.
This truly left Professor Charles utterly astonished.
"Professor Charles!"
Before Julian could say anything, Victor, standing nearby, softly rebuked him.
"This old man spoke out of turn."
Professor Charles, coming to his senses, hurriedly apologized to Julian.
Such matters undoubtedly concerned Julian's secrets. By asking outright, wasn't he trying to probe into Julian's private affairs? That was practically a suicidal move.
Realizing how rash his behavior had been, Professor Charles's face turned a little pale.
He was afraid that Julian might take offense.
"Teacher, it's fine. Professor, my body is quite special, so I have a strong resistance to the erosion of secret realm's energy," Julian said with a smile.
Given his current strength, even if he were to expose his System, no one could do anything to him. Of course, he certainly wouldn't do something so foolish.
"So that's how it is. Champion Walker must have obtained some kind of rare treasure. I must say, Champion Walker, your luck is truly remarkable."
Professor Charles nodded in understanding.
He naturally attributed the uniqueness of Julian's body to some kind of treasure or rare artifact.
As for exactly which one, he had no idea.
After all, there were many types of Ultimate treasures in the world, and humanity had only discovered an extremely small portion of them so far.
Many Ultimate treasures still remained hidden throughout the Secret Realms.
Although the highest chance of discovering Ultimate treasures was in Top-tier secret realms, they had also been found in Intermediate-level secret realms, and more than once.
For example, the Fire Crystal that Julian obtained in an Intermediate secret realm was a fire-type Ultimate treasure.
So there really were a lot of Ultimate treasures, they were just too well hidden for people to find.
Unless everyone had a Dowsing Machine.
Waving goodbye to John and Jake, Julian stepped into the Primal Secret Realm once again.
"Back again."
Looking at the endless grassland, Julian found himself back in the Horseshoe Plains.
"Whoa—what happened to you? Who beat you up like this?"
Just after sighing, Julian caught something out of the corner of his eye. Turning to look, he saw Rillaboom, bruised and swollen, staring back at him with teary eyes.
Its appearance startled Julian quite a bit.
Hearing Julian's words, Rillaboom seemed to feel even more wronged. The tough guy's tears finally couldn't be held back any longer and began to fall.
When a cute Pokémon cried, it might be described as delicate and lovely.
But a bruised and swollen Rillaboom was honestly a bit ugly, and crying only made it worse.
"Shut it."
Julian glared at it.
The latter reacted like a conditioned reflex, instinctively covering its mouth.
"What happened? Aren't you the ruler of the Horseshoe Plains? How did you end up beaten up like this? Was it that Gyarados?"
Rillaboom shook its head. Although Gyarados was strong, it wasn't that strong.
It was the humans who came in earlier.
Every day they had their Pokémon battle it—beating it up, trampling it, and even scolding it for being weak.
Listening to Rillaboom's tearful complaint, even Julian felt that his grandpa, his dad, and the others had gone a bit too far. Why did they keep picking on just this guy?
Look how wronged this poor thing feels.
Jake and the others would argue that Rillaboom was the strongest Pokémon on the Horseshoe Plains, so of course they had to battle it to train their own Pokémon.
A late-stage Pseudo-Champion—it really was a decent opponent.
Unfortunately, the ones who entered were seven Champions and three peak Pseudo-Champions.
Before its injuries from one day could even heal, it had to battle the next trainer.
Although some trainers would kindly heal it, once healed, the next trainer would fight even more fiercely.
Eventually, Rillaboom learned its lesson and refused any healing—if they had the guts, they might as well just kill it.
"You've suffered during this period."
"But why are you here? Shouldn't you be in the west?"
Julian looked at Rillaboom knowingly.
This guy just said that as soon as John and the others entered the secret realm, they surrounded it like a helpless little lamb.
But when Julian first encountered it, it was in the western part of the Horseshoe Plains, quite far from here, because it had been guarding against the Gyarados in the west, and when Julian was leaving, he had also told it not to stay here.
Julian's question made Rillaboom hesitate, unsure how to answer.
Should it tell Julian that it couldn't beat him and wanted to fight other humans instead, so it decided to guard the secret realm gate, thinking it could take on any human that came through?
It just never expected the humans who entered to be so strong. It had already backed down, yet they still wouldn't leave it alone.
"Fine, don't tell me then."
Julian shook his head and tossed it a bottle of healing potion.
But when Rillaboom saw the potion, it reacted as if it had seen a ghost, quickly backing away from it.
Its expression seemed to say, 'Are you going to beat me up too?'
"I'm not going to fight you. This is just for healing you. I'll be heading to another region in a bit," Julian said, annoyed.
After all, it was a late-stage Pseudo-Champion, and the overlord of an area. How could it be this spineless?
Hearing that, Rillaboom finally relaxed. As it used the healing potion, it asked, "Which region are you going to?"
"Do you know where the Crimson Mirelands is?"
That was the name for the second major region.
"I don't know."
Rillaboom shook its head, looking confused.
Its strength was considerable, but the secret realm was just too vast. The places it had been to were only within the Obsidian Fieldlands, and it hadn't even explored all of Obsidian Fieldlands—let alone the second major region, Crimson Mirelands.
"This thing works really well. I think I'm all healed now."
Rillaboom touched its cheeks, no longer feeling any swelling. It seemed it had returned to being that handsome Rillaboom once again.
Actually, its injuries were just superficial—they looked bad, but even without the potion, it would have healed on its own over time. John and the others had shown restraint.
But what surprised Julian was that none of them had tried to capture it. After all, William, the Grass-type Champion, was among them, and Rillaboom's strength was quite impressive. Why hadn't they tried to catch it?
It couldn't be that they looked down on it, could it?
*****
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