Chapter 57: The Change in Magical Power (Patreon)

Renan wasn't short on money right now.

The things he really needed, like type gems, high-quality held items and evolution stones, could almost only be obtained through barter or by spending quest points.

And of course, the most important reason: back when he took the high-grade Moon Stone out of the package Dragon Tamer Lance had sent, Renan had discovered that he seemed able to draw the energy out of the stone with his psychic powers and absorb it.

So from the very start, he'd never planned to sell what he found in Mt. Moon.

As for Renan's real circumstances, Misty, who was still only a travel companion for now, naturally couldn't know everything.

When the boy stayed silent after hearing her out, she couldn't help urging him on. "Since you can find Moon Stones fast by projecting your psychic powers outward, I'd suggest you stay around Mt. Moon for a good while. Never mind the long term. At the very least, earn every resource you'll need to train your next team of Pokémon."

Even without the girl's reminder, Renan had been planning to do exactly that.

He nodded. "I know."

For the next four-odd hours, the two walked in fits and starts.

Every so often, Renan would raise a finger and point at the rock wall. Charmeleon, now that it had the experience of the first time, needed no further direction from him and volunteered to serve as the miner.

One Moon Stone, two Moon Stones, three Moon Stones…

Mid-grade, low-grade, low-grade, low-grade…

When the time on his watch read six in the evening, Renan and Misty stopped. They had covered only a third of the distance they normally would have.

Once the tent was pitched, they sat down close together and began tallying the afternoon's haul.

Renan's luck was neither good nor bad.

Even with Elite-class psychic powers helping him cheat, after half a day he'd found only seven Moon Stones.

Five were low-grade, and the other two were mid-grade.

As for high-grade Moon Stones, it was a pity, but he hadn't found a single one.

Still, that was only to be expected.

The League dared to let ordinary people run in and dig up evolution stones at will because it had already done the math. Away from the ore veins, the vast majority of people, or rather 99.999% of them, would only be wasting their effort.

Even if one or two "lucky ones" accidentally dug out a low-grade or mid-grade Moon Stone, all it would do for the League was boost Mt. Moon's popularity and foot traffic, letting the Pokémon Centers and inns at either end of the tunnel rake in money.

High-quality Moon Stones, as a rule, formed only in the core of the ore veins.

Exceptions did exist, of course, but they were far from common. After all, before Mt. Moon was opened to the public, the League must have combed through every inch of it.

Because he'd prepared himself in advance, Renan wasn't discouraged.

After dinner, he and Misty said good night to each other. He crawled into his own tent, switched off the light, sat down cross-legged, and took a low-grade Moon Stone in his palm.

His breathing quietly shifted to "Meditate."

In the next instant, his Elite-class mental power flowed out of his body and swept over the surface of the Moon Stone, drawing out wisps of pale pink energy. The energy was pulled into his body and finally mixed together with the azure mana in his brain.

Humans in the Pokémon world, in essence, were also a kind of Pokémon.

It was just that the vast majority were Normal-type, while a few had "evolved" through training into Fighting-type or Psychic-type Pokémon.

Then there were those who, whether by birth or through later blessing, had gained Grass, Dragon or other types.

Counting his original world, DanMachi, Renan currently carried the supernatural systems of four worlds.

And because of the shared space (or was it Falna?), similar energies like mana and mental power had been merged directly together.

The result was that the formless mana in Renan's body had, at some point, developed a slight attribute leaning.

When he'd first arrived in the Pokémon world it had been purely Psychic-type, but now, as the energy within the Moon Stones blended in bit by bit, a few new changes had appeared.

Mental power and mana were intangible things to begin with.

Renan had never studied any genuine cultivation technique that would let him look inward at his own body.

So he didn't know what was happening to him.

But the Pokémon living deep in Mt. Moon, especially the Clefable, Clefairy and Cleffa, clearly sensed some kind of power.

Beneath the bright moonlight, the pink fairies chattered, "Pi, pi, pi," as if discussing something.

And they soon came to a decision.

…

The next day, six in the morning.

Renan, who had Meditated through the whole night, slowly opened his eyes. A faint pink glow flashed across his pupils and vanished.

He sent out his mental power to check how much energy remained in the Moon Stone.

Then he curled his lip.

Because this was entirely active effort, not like Charmeleon and the others, who absorbed it instinctively while training, the energy inside the low-grade Moon Stone in his hand was already six or seven tenths gone. By his estimate, another five or six hours of absorbing it with "Meditate" and it would lose all effect and crumble into a heap of rubble.

Meanwhile, the mental power in his body, or rather his mana, hadn't grown much at all, all because of Falna.

He'd absorbed nearly ten hours' worth of energy last night, and it had gone who knew where. Well, most likely it was stored inside his Falna and would only truly manifest after a status update.

"Tch."

Renan clicked his tongue inwardly.

He didn't dislike dealing with Astraea. Among the gods of Orario, the Goddess of Justice had a rare, relatively normal personality.

Still, a transmigrator from China almost never pinned his hopes of getting stronger on someone else, if he had any choice at all.

What was more, his true patron god was Soma.

Thanks to Astraea's mediation, the two sides were at peace for the time being. But nobody could say whether that lunatic or Zanis might, on a whim or for profit, do something disgusting to him.

'Once I take the Indigo League title here in the Pokémon world and get my Falna up to Lv2, I'll spend some time in the Dungeon in the DanMachi world. I need to find a version of myself who can crack the Falna system.'

'And if I really can't find one…' Renan narrowed his eyes. 'Then I'll have to dig deep into the magic of the Harry Potter world and see if there's a solution there.'

He had a co-transmigration cheat built in, and he wasn't any kind of genius himself. Naturally, where there was a shortcut, he took it, and only when there wasn't one did he slowly dig into his own abilities.

After breakfast, Renan and Misty set out again.

Much like the previous afternoon, the two walked in fits and starts, sometimes going out of their way to enter side tunnels that other Trainers had dug in the past.

Then Renan would project his mental power. If he found a Moon Stone within his sensing range, he had Charmeleon dig it out.

If not, they turned back the way they came.