"ROAR!"
A sky-shaking roar of fury erupted from the cave!
In the nearby trees, several Pidgeys were so terrified by the roar that they lost control of their bowels. A few particularly timid ones fainted outright, falling straight from the branches to the forest floor.
With a single punch, the Rhydon sent the neatly piled fluorescent ores flying in every direction, many of them shattering into fine dust. A perfect circular hole now sat empty in the rock wall; the Key Stone that had accompanied it since childhood was nowhere to be found.
"ROAR! ROAR!"
The Rhydon beat its chest with massive, pillar-like arms, creating a sound like heavy metal clashing. Its massive tail swept through the cave, making the walls vibrate and sending loose stones flying...
The muffled, heavy booms coming from the cave made Hisoka, who was hiding at the top of a large tree not far from the entrance, wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.
Thankfully, he had slipped away quickly. Who could have known this Rhydon would return so fast? It was lucky he wasn't pinned down at the cave mouth, or he would have been in serious trouble.
Beyond the shock of the Rhydon's sudden rage, Hisoka was puzzled. How did it know its nest had been looted? It was clearly near the beach earlier, yet it had suddenly accelerated into a wild sprint.
Hisoka looked at the orb still embedded in the rock in his hand, his brow furrowing. "Could there be some kind of link between this Key Stone and the giant Rhydon?"
He couldn't worry about that now. The deed was done. He absolutely could not let the Rhydon find out he was the one who took the stone, or it would be a fight to the death.
With that thought, Hisoka wrapped the Key Stone and its surrounding rock in several layers of plastic wrap and threw it into his Spatial Backpack. He trusted that the backpack's dimensional properties would be enough to mask the orb's presence from the Rhydon.
What did it mean when a beast standing over four meters tall and weighing 1.2 tons went berserk? Especially when that beast was a Pokémon that possessed terrifying power... it was no ordinary animal.
Finding nothing, the Rhydon charged headlong out of the cave. It looked around at its familiar forest, but it could no longer feel the connection to its treasure. Consumed by extreme grief and loss, the Rhydon clenched its fists and slammed its right leg down onto the ground.
Cr-crack!
The earth fractured, cracks spreading rapidly forward. Then, the entire ground began to heave and shake violently.
The mountains trembled.
Rocks tumbled! Trees were uprooted! The soil collapsed!
Hisoka, who had already fled a significant distance, felt the tremors beneath his feet. He braced himself against a nearby tree and looked back toward the cave. He saw massive, ancient trees toppling over one after another.
Hisoka gasped. Was that the Earthquake skill? The entire island was shaking! Avoiding a direct conflict with that Rhydon had been the wisest decision he'd ever made.
...
Twilight fell. At the seaside, the sun always seemed to drop so quickly. The temperature difference between day and night on the island was vast; the scorching sunlight vanished, replaced by a moonlit night chilled by a biting wind.
Hisoka hadn't returned to the beach. Instead, he set up camp on the opposite side of the deserted island. The terrain here was high and steep, lacking a beach; beneath the sheer cliffs, the turbulent waves crashed relentlessly.
He lit a campfire. Hisoka sat cross-legged on a soft mat, using a pocket-sized telescopic microscope to carefully examine the Key Stone in his hand.
The outer shell, which looked like glass, was not made of any material he recognized. It wasn't as hard as he'd imagined; instead, it felt slightly soft and warm to the touch. Yet, when he pressed down, it felt incredibly oily and slickno matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't find a point to exert force. It was extremely peculiar.
If he had to find a natural substance to describe the shell, Hisoka felt that jade was the closest match.
He recorded every detail of his observations into a computer file. He aimed a precision camera at the Key Stone, and soon, a perfect 3D model appeared on the screen.
Hisoka's long, graceful hands moved across the keyboard like a pianist, clicking and clacking in a rhythmic melody as strings of dizzying computer assembly language scrolled across the window...
Diameter: 8.14 cm.
External Ambient Temperature: 47.5 degrees Celsius.
Preliminary Radiation Calculation: 1568 J.
...
Summary: Under direct sunlight, the energy radiation of this orb spikes to 4429 J within a short period.
If this level of energy radiation were harmful, a human body would begin to undergo pathological changes after just one hour of proximity. After three hours, muscles would stiffen or even begin to dissolve. After eight hours, you'd be dead.
Living organisms have their own biological magnetic fields. The stronger the individual, the more powerful the magnetic radiation they produce, even to the point where they can influence the natural environment just by being still or moving.
The Legendary Pokémon that have left their marks on history for millennia are the prime examples of this. There is the legend of Ho-Oh, the God of Life, passed down from the Bell Tower in Johto, and Lugia, the God of the Sea. Both are Pokémon possessing terrifying biological magnetic fields.
To be more precise, they can hardly be called Pokémon anymore. They have transcended to a different level of life, far beyond the reach of a high-intelligence species like humanity. They are truly gods.
The magnetic radiation of an ordinary sapphire is roughly negligible, neither harmful nor beneficial to the human body. This Key Stone radiated 10,453 times that amountreaching 29,526 times at its peak under direct sunlight.
Hisoka wrapped a device similar to a blood pressure cuff around his right arm. Beneath the stiff cloth of the device were a hundred needles thinner than hair. They would pierce the skin and enter the muscle tissue; a human wouldn't feel the pain, and it wouldn't leave any lasting marks.
The other end of the device was linked to his computer. He needed to measure his current cellular activity and muscle strength to verify a theory forming in his mind.
"Lulu, I need your help!" Hisoka called out.
Hearing him, Lulu quickly set down the cooking utensils she had been manipulating with her mental power. With a Teleport, she appeared by Hisoka's side... Her little head tilted up, her face full of expectation as she looked at him.
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