Chapter 83: Keystone (Patreon)

A spherical orb shimmering in seven colors dropped out of the shattered amber. Renan, who had been ready for it all along, caught it with Confusion and held it hovering in midair.

Misty looked closer, her pupils contracting, and her voice shot up a couple of notches.

"A Key Stone?!"

As the next Gym Leader of the Cerulean Gym, she had naturally heard about Mega Evolution in Kalos, and about the components it required: the Key Stone and its matching Mega Stone.

In fact, although the core principle behind this special evolution still hadn't been explained, that didn't stop plenty of high-ranking Trainers in the League from starting to collect Key Stones and Mega Stones.

When Misty first heard the news, she had wanted to get a set for herself, or rather for the Cerulean Gym.

Unfortunately, the yield of such items from the various ancient ruins in the Kanto region was extremely low. On top of that, unlike Key Stones, each Mega Stone was tied to one specific Pokémon species.

The result was that, according to some rumors, in the entire Kanto region only the Elite Four and a handful of Gym Trainers at Elite Four level could trigger Mega Evolution in battle.

As for everyone else, even Gym Leaders, they had no way of getting their hands on both items for the time being.

But now, a Key Stone had suddenly appeared right in front of Misty. How could that not shock her?

Renan released his Confusion and reached out to catch the slowly falling orb. When he heard the girl's exclamation, he gave a light nod, a clear smile at the corner of his mouth. "That's right, it's a Key Stone, and it only cost me 18,000 League currency."

Misty was no fool. The instant he finished speaking, she realized he had used his psychic abilities to snag this bargain.

Even so, she couldn't hide her envy, and she let out a sigh. "Must be nice, being a psychic. You can wander around a market and still run into a rare item like this."

Renan's expression didn't change, but inwardly he made a small correction: an ordinary psychic couldn't have found a Key Stone.

Psychics perceived and influenced the world by projecting their spiritual power outward.

In other words, if someone could hide their own spirit or energy fluctuations from a psychic's 'field of view', then with their eyes closed, the psychic really couldn't detect the target.

That was also why the greatest enemy of psychics and Psychic-type Pokémon had always been the Ghost type, rather than Dark or Bug types, which were just as effective against Psychic. If a Ghost-type Pokémon wanted to, it could truly vanish completely into the shadows.

By the same logic, a Key Stone, which gave off no spiritual fluctuation and didn't even carry energy of its own, normally couldn't be detected by a psychic either.

Renan, however, happened to be an exception.

After all, he wasn't a native of the Pokémon world. The powers of his selves from multiple timelines had stacked together, so what he actually spent when using psychic abilities was his own mana. And that mana was currently made up of both Psychic-type energy and Fairy-type energy.

So whenever he projected his spiritual power outward, although he had always liked to describe it as spiritual fluctuations, what Renan actually sensed was a blend of two energy fields: spiritual fluctuations and life fluctuations.

And in the Pokémon world, there was a similar word for exactly that: Aura.

Yes, Aura.

Everything in the world, living or dead, possessed Aura.

The Key Stone Renan was pinching between his fingers was no exception.

Though faint, a field fluctuation existed inside it, different from the kind found in evolution stones and type gems.

What's more, back when he'd noticed something odd at the gathering stall, the mana inside Renan's body had trembled twice for no reason at all.

Misty spoke up again, her tone carrying a hint of anticipation that anyone could hear. "Too bad you only found the Key Stone and not the matching Mega Stone. Otherwise, we might be able to trigger Mega Evolution right now."

She had seen Clefable's Mega Evolution form once before at Mt. Moon, but that elder of the Clefairy clan had probably been alive longer than the League had existed.

Much of what it had mastered simply wasn't suited to Trainers and Pokémon living in the modern age.

Of course, even if Misty's and Renan's Pokémon, Clefairy and Cleffa in particular, were lucky enough to receive Clefable's teachings, with their current strength they still couldn't Mega Evolve freely without the help of items.

Renan, though, paused when he heard the girl's words and murmured, "That's not necessarily so."

His voice was so soft that even with Misty sitting right beside him, she didn't catch any of it. "Huh? What did you just say?"

Renan shook his head. "You misheard."

Misty: "…"

"Renan, have you forgotten what you promised me?" She planted her hands on her hips, and her whole aura switched in an instant. All that was missing was her grabbing him by the ear like a shrewish wife. "What, you want to go back on your word?"

Renan hadn't expected her to latch onto such a small thing. All he could do was raise both hands in surrender. "What I meant was, there's so much for sale at the gathering that if we're lucky, we might snag a Mega Stone too. It's not guaranteed to happen, though, and I was afraid you'd set your hopes too high. That's why I was thinking of keeping it to myself."

Misty was clearly already lost in the future he'd described.

Without a moment's hesitation, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's keep going! If we're late, someone might buy the stone first!"

"Wait. At least let me put the Key Stone in my bag."

…

For the next six days, Renan and Misty left early and came back late, covering every gathering stall in the commoners' district.

During that time, with mana to cheat a little, the two did snag quite a few good items.

There was a marble sculpture of Aaron priced at 8,000 League currency, with a high-grade Thunder Stone hidden deep inside.

There was a dragon scale carved into a bracelet charm that still gave off considerable energy, likely taken from a Dragon-type Pokémon of Elite Four class or even Champion class while it was alive.

And there were a dozen or so odds and ends that could be sold straight for cash.

After all their wandering, Renan tallied up the income and expenses and found he had even come out a few hundred ahead.

It was just a pity that, even after combing the entire commoners' district of Cameran Palace, the two of them never found a single Mega Stone, the very thing Misty had been hoping for most.

Still, that was only normal.

Nobody had ever decreed that wherever a Key Stone appeared, a Mega Stone had to be there too.