Chapter 35: Learning 'Meditate' (Part 2) (Patreon)

Renan knew his own situation best.

The mental power he held now was, thanks to sharing the Harry Potter world self's magic, actually slightly stronger than his physical fitness.

His body alone already matched a level 30+ Fighting-type Pokémon. The psychic power converted from that mental strength wouldn't be any weaker.

Of course, he had no intention of explaining any of this to the man across from him.

Right now he simply put on a resolute expression and answered, "When I made my decision, I was already prepared to bear the consequences."

Seeing that response, the man stopped trying to talk him out of it.

He'd said everything he could. Even if the kid regretted it someday, Elite Four Lance couldn't pin the blame on him.

"All right. I'll start teaching you 'Meditate' now."

Meditate wasn't hard to learn. In essence it was a lot like Thunder Breathing, since both were a way of regulating the breath.

The difference was that Thunder Breathing drew large amounts of oxygen from the air into the lungs, where it bonded with the blood and boosted the working efficiency of every organ and muscle.

Meditate did the opposite. It slowed the breath as much as possible, letting the emotions and the mind settle into stillness.

And even if someone got it wrong, the worst that could happen was falling asleep mid-attempt.

Because of that very side effect, plenty of elderly people in Saffron City went to the Gym to pick up a bit of 'Meditate' too.

It wasn't that they wanted to become so-called psychic users. They just wanted a few good nights of sleep.

Renan now combined the bodies and mental strength of his four worlds' selves, and his control over his body was better than that of many martial artists in the Pokémon world who had steeped themselves in the fighting arts for years.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground in the park, he tried only three times in total. In the next instant, his mind plunged into a state of perfect clarity.

In reality.

Seeing Renan get the hang of Meditate so quickly, a flicker of surprise crossed the man's face.

He thought to himself, 'This talent looks pretty good.'

'Still, he's a bit old to start learning psychic powers. If he'd been raised from childhood, like Sabrina...'

At the thought of his daughter, the man's expression stiffened.

He did have some regrets. Once his daughter had shown enough talent, he'd devoted himself single-mindedly to training her psychic powers and neglected the bonds of family in the meantime.

As her powers grew, Sabrina's personality had become stranger and stranger. These days she'd even gone so far as to turn her own mother, his wife, into a doll.

If Elite Four Agatha hadn't stepped in back then, he himself would most likely have been locked up by her too.

The man sighed.

As the Saffron Gym's Gym Leader, he'd tried asking Psychic-type Gym Leaders in other regions for help. He'd even invited one of the Psychic-type Elite Four members. Every time, the conclusion was the same: they had to wait until Sabrina grew a bit older and her body could withstand her own immense mental power. Then she should recover.

But if he could choose, he naturally wanted his family of three reunited as soon as possible. He just hadn't found a way to solve the problem yet.

Just then.

—Hum!

A faint, barely perceptible resonance rang out in the air.

The black-haired boy sitting cross-legged not far in front of him had completely defied gravity. His whole body slowly rose from the ground and finally hovered in midair.

The man: "!!!"

The man was a psychic user himself, and the former Saffron Gym Leader from before Sabrina. His strength and experience went without saying.

Yet even he had only mastered moves like telepathy and teleportation by relying on the secret manuals passed down in the Saffron Gym and training for ages.

Lance's nephew, however, was entering a meditative state for the very first time, and had instinctively used psychokinesis.

And judging by its power, it was Elite-class at the very least.

This...

Anyone else might truly have been struck speechless by the aptitude Renan displayed.

But the man merely exhaled a slow, weary breath at that moment and murmured, "A natural-born holder of great mental strength, then?"

Come to think of it, that made sense. With a genius psychic girl like Sabrina as the standard, unless Renan had shown Gym-class or even near-Elite Four-class psychic potential right off the bat, he'd still count as an ordinary talent in the man's eyes.

...Even so.

The way the man looked at Renan from then on clearly changed.

It was no longer the earlier, strictly businesslike attitude. Now it carried a trace of scrutiny and a measure of expectation.

Renan slowly opened his eyes. Around his light-brown pupils, the bright blue glow that marked psychic power was now flickering.

He looked down at his own body hovering in midair and felt the mental strength in his mind, more active than before he started meditating, almost as if it could take solid form.

Even though he'd expected this, the corner of his mouth still curled up slightly. "Looks like I succeeded."

He withdrew the mental strength he'd projected outward, unfolded his legs, and settled steadily onto the ground.

Then he looked at the man in front of him. "Thank you for your guidance just now."

"You're welcome," the man replied. After a two-second pause, he suddenly spoke again. "Ren, you don't mind if I call you that, do you?"

The boy looked puzzled but didn't shake his head in refusal, so the man went on. "Are you interested in learning more psychic moves?"

Being able to keep enriching himself and make his combat strength even stronger?

Renan was naturally willing.

But there was never a free lunch in this world.

He understood that as well.

So instead of giving a yes or no right away, he answered with a question. "What's the price?"

Having his scheme laid bare so bluntly, the man looked a little awkward.

He rubbed his nose, his gaze drifting. "I hope that once you've collected two badges, you'll challenge the Saffron Gym."

Among the leagues of the various regions, many Gyms impose badge requirements on challengers.

The Viridian Gym, for example, requires challengers to already hold six badges.

The Cinnabar Gym and the Vermilion Gym require four.

The Saffron Gym required the fewest, only two. But if some fool actually went to challenge Sabrina the moment he met the requirement, he probably couldn't go anywhere for at least the next month. He'd have to obediently become the plaything in her game of 'house'.

Renan had a pretty clear sense of his own situation.

The reason he'd become an Elite-class psychic user in one go wasn't because his talent was so outstanding.

It was simply because the powers of his four worlds' selves had stacked together.

And because Falna was shared along with everything else, unless he met some condition that was still unknown for now, got his consciousness back to the DanMachi world, and had Astraea update his status, then no matter how he trained afterward, his physical fitness and psychic power level would most likely never improve any further.