Chapter Ninety-Five: Ancient Secrets, News of the Exhibition Match

After Coral confirmed it, the bone flute was indeed an instrument once used by the Plateau Performers, though that had been a very, very long time ago.

Su Yi then asked Coral about the abandoned camp and the mural.

Coral scratched her head and said, “The Plateau Performers have lived on the Coral Highlands for so long, meow. Many tribes have left and vanished, meow.”

“The place you mentioned may have belonged to another tribe, meow, and some of our ancestors’ records were long lost through all manner of migrations and upheavals, meow.”

“But the elder dragons you described, Kirin and Namielle, do appear in our records, meow.” As she spoke, Coral had one of her people bring over a piece of hide inscribed with strange characters.

“The beast known as the Thunder Phantom Beast came with the lightning, and left just as swiftly with it.”

“The beast known as the Master of Torrents descended in the sudden rain, and in the end hid itself within the raging current.”

Coral recited the contents of the ancient hide scroll with solemn reverence, and even her usual feline habit of ending sentences with “meow” had disappeared.

But what she described was not much different from what Su Yi had already learned.

“Elder dragons really are mysterious beings,” Su Yi said with a sigh.

Precisely because so little was known about them, and because they possessed unimaginable power, people held them in awe.

“Also, according to the oral traditions of our clan, the Coral Highlands of old were far larger than they are now, meow.”

“In those days, countless plateaus were joined together, meow. Only after a catastrophe of ground collapse did they gradually become what they are today, meow,” Coral said.

“Ground collapse? Was it because of Dalamadur, or some other powerful elder dragon?” Su Yi guessed.

In the Rotten Vale, one could see that part of the highlands was supported by slender stone pillars. Over long years of wind and rain, those pillars would eventually crack and break, causing the plateaus above to fall.

In other words, over the course of ages, portions of the highlands had indeed collapsed and plunged into the Rotten Vale, though it must have been a slow process.

And the elder dragons that came to rest in the Rotten Vale possessed strength great enough to do the same.

So the disaster Coral spoke of might well have been caused by an elder dragon.

Thinking of the mural, of Kirin fighting some unknown monster, Su Yi seemed to grasp something faintly, though he could not be certain.

“Perhaps, meow. Legend says there is a place in the Coral Highlands called the Heart of the Highlands, meow, where the great treasure of the Coral Highlands is hidden, meow,” Coral said.

“A great treasure? The One Piece? What is this, some pirate king tale?” Su Yi said, half laughing, half helpless.

After sitting with the Plateau Performers for a while longer, Su Yi took his leave.

It would probably be four or five days before the Fieldmaster returned to the Seliana base, and before then Su Yi could first make some preparations in the Pokémon world.

...

Back in the Pokémon world, his Rotom Phone dinged and chimed with several missed-call notifications.

“This constant disappearing act of mine, this intermittent vanishing, really doesn’t look very good,” Su Yi said awkwardly.

He opened his phone, checked the call log, and began returning the calls one by one.

“Hello, Auntie. Any progress?” The first person he called back was Moxi. He assumed it had to do with the study of the skeletal remains of Dalamadur.

“Ahem. The fossil you gave me is a little complicated. To put it simply, at present there is absolutely no way to revive that Pokémon,” Moxi said from the other end.

Su Yi frowned. Auntie, are you really up to this? If not, I’m heading to Hoenn. Worst comes to worst, I’ll dig up some ore and bribe that rich young scion from Devon, Wallace.

Hearing the silence on the other end, Moxi hurriedly added, “It’s not as though we got nothing out of it. I analyzed the sample and found that with only that fragment of remains, it’s impossible to restore the Pokémon in full. We would need more pieces of the bones to ensure the revived Pokémon resembles its original form as closely as possible.”

“And it would also require a great deal of some peculiar kind of energy. My equipment can’t do that at the moment.”

Su Yi sighed. He had never expected much to begin with. After all, Moxi was only a researcher, not a member of some major research organization; resources were limited, and for her to provide this much information was already impressive.

Elder dragons and Pokémon were ultimately very different. Without proper study, this kind of thing could never be accomplished.

“Still, thank you, Moxi,” Su Yi said gratefully.

In any case, the fact that she had helped him and spent time researching it was already a great favor.

“Haha, I’m actually a little embarrassed. I boasted so boldly before, and then got stumped so quickly. It seems my knowledge is still lacking,” Moxi said.

“You’ve already done very well,” Su Yi replied.

After all, those were the remains of an elder dragon.

“Then do you want to try reviving the other fossil combinations I mentioned?”

“I’d better not...”

Su Yi hung up.

Reviving Dalamadur had only ever been a wildly fanciful idea, and it wasn’t as though there were no way to do it now. The problem was simply that the conditions were far too stringent.

“I’ll see if there’s another method later,” Su Yi muttered.

Then he called Leon. It took a long while before Leon finally answered.

“Yo, Su Yi, you were actually out of service before. Where did you go adventuring this time?” Leon’s voice came through.

“A very wondrous place, where I encountered some unexpected things,” Su Yi said with a smile.

“What is it? Busy man,” Su Yi teased.

“Remember that exhibition match between Galar and Paldea I told you about a long time ago?” Leon said.

Su Yi thought for a moment, then said with sudden realization, “Oh, right. Yes, I remember that.”

“As for that, Chairman Rose has already worked everything out on this end. The exhibition match will be held at the Hammerlocke Stadium in two days, and I’d like to invite you to come and watch,” Leon said.

“Of course! By the way, is there some kind of cooperation going on between you?” Su Yi asked curiously.

“Well, mainly it’s business in Paldea that Chairman Rose has invested in,” Leon said.

“Business?”

“A partnership with the Rotom Phone company. The two sides have already reached an agreement, and from now on in Galar, Rotom Phones will probably become increasingly common and popular,” Leon said with a smile.

One could only say: as expected of Chairman Rose, with his sharp eye and talent for investment.

“But how did a business deal end up involving matters between two regions?” Su Yi asked, even more puzzled.

They were talking business, so why had it turned into an exhibition match between two regions? Shouldn’t that have been an official matter for the League?

“Chairman Rose is also the chairman of the Galar League, and this has something to do with the daughter of the Rotom Phone company’s owner,” Leon said.

“How does the owner’s daughter come into this now?” Su Yi was getting more and more confused.

“Put simply, the owner’s daughter of that Rotom Phone company is the Champion of the League,” Leon explained.

Su Yi: ???

A wealthy heiress and the League Champion? What kind of life winner was that?

“So the matter was elevated into an exchange between the Pokémon Leagues of the two regions?” Su Yi said belatedly.

“That’s right.”