Chapter 520 - 518
Of Geeta's other two plans, one involved searching for a large island nearby and using Ever Grande City in Hoenn and Lily of the Valley Island in Sinnoh as reference points, then building around the natural caves already present there.
However, after surveying the seas all around Paldea, there really wasn't a suitable location.
There were certainly plenty of islands if one was only talking about islands in general, but most of them were unfit for such a task. They were basically just exposed offshore reefs without caves.
And beyond the island plan, there was the mainland plan.
The vast mountain range in the north was undoubtedly a good candidate, meaning North Province (Area One) and North Province (Area Two). It was also where the dragon tamers lived in seclusion, and along the coast there were still ancient bronze cannons left behind.
That mountain range had once been a battlefield, though no one knew exactly which nations had fought there, or whether the war had been against invaders from overseas.
Geeta thought that perhaps it was finally time to find someone who could sort through Paldea's historical records for her. She vaguely remembered someone like that... a descendant of royalty who spent all day robbing tombs.
Of course, the northern mountain plan had its own problem too: it would be inconvenient for League management. That area was simply too remote.
There was a reason the Paldea League had been built along the mountain road behind Naranja Academy.
The academy was Paldea's greatest talent-development base, while the League was one of the academy's main backers. At the same time, the location of Paldea Academy, meaning Mesagoza itself, sat at the center of the entire Paldea region. Only by building the League headquarters there could its influence and control radiate across all of Paldea. (Bulbapedia)
Though its influence over Glaseado Mountain in the far north was relatively weak, that snowy region only had Montenevera as a town, along with two Gyms, and the population there was sparse. So even if the League's reach there was weaker, it didn't matter much. Besides, Montenevera was really more of a tourist town anyway. (Bulbapedia)
Don't expect a tourist town to produce talent.
And if it does, then pretend I never said that.
Geeta said, "If we built a giant cavern facility in the northern mountain range and moved the League headquarters there, people might start to feel that the Paldea League is 'up on high above them.' And since transportation in the north is inconvenient and people can only get there via Flying Taxi, if that arrangement continued long enough, some subtle thoughts might start forming among the staff and Gym Leaders below."
Hikaru said, "I know. You're worried they'll start slacking off long-term, right?"
Geeta: "..."
Hikaru laughed over the communicator.
"Of course, of course. Slacking off is only one possible thought. There are plenty of 'subtle thoughts.' I'm sure you know all about the villainous organizations in other regions."
"Under your management, no evil organization has appeared in Paldea, and there's no giant corporation monopolizing everything either."
"Or rather, the academy itself already combines politics, commerce, and education, while the League and the academy can more or less be considered parts of the same whole."
"Paldea's academy and League are effectively Paldea itself. They focus mainly on strengthening the League as a whole and cultivating talent, while interfering relatively little with the secondary and tertiary industries. That's also why Paldea gives people the impression of being rich in goods and high in overall happiness."
"That's your achievement."
Geeta rubbed her brow and suddenly laughed.
"The way you say that makes it sound as if you're the Chairwoman and I'm the Elite Four member. Still, sometimes it really is nice to hear clear-eyed opinions and sincere advice from an outsider."
"As for secondary and tertiary industries... compared to us, I know exactly which region your words are referring to. The Paldea League has no intention of copying Galar. We have our own way of living and our own development plan."
"Adapting to local conditions is best. That's also why, even though I feel our talent reserves are overwhelmingly inadequate, I've never tried to completely overhaul Paldea's entire system from top to bottom. There's simply no need."
"I sincerely hope to make this a region where people can all live happily. I mean that from the bottom of my heart."
There was genuine concern hidden in Geeta's honesty.
Because she understood perfectly well that in other regions, for example...
"The reason Team Rocket arose in Kanto traces back to what the Viridian Gym Leader did. Everyone in every region knows that. And in my eyes, any massive corporation could become something like that, including our own institutions, so we must remain cautious."
"If the League does not intervene in regional governance, we may repeat the same mistakes."
As for Team Aqua and Team Magma, they had used the banner of environmental protection to become extremist groups.
And after thinking it through carefully, Geeta realized that the local reflection of those two groups in Paldea had really been Professor Sada and Professor Turo.
It was only because both of them had died, and because AI Sada was more rational and understood the root cause of every tragedy, that things were now being suppressed instead.
At that moment, though, Hikaru thought of Team Rocket's old motto.
To protect the world from devastation, to unite all peoples within our nation.
Then again, of course a villainous organization would chant something like that.
No evil cult ever calls itself an evil cult. They all call themselves the sacred faith.
Hikaru said, "So in other words, neither the island plan nor the northern mountain plan really matches what you want, right?"
"But if that's the case, then I'd suggest putting both of those plans to use anyway and turning them into special facilities."
As a Generation IX title, Scarlet and Violet had cut a lot of things.
A number of strange but memorable facilities from earlier generations had simply been erased.
That led to a situation where, even though the map was huge and there really were plenty of items everywhere, so many that you could pick up an entire backpack full almost at random, once the scavenging was over, it was hard not to feel a weird sense of emptiness and disappointment when standing in front of a "new" location that barely differed from the last.
Most of the facilities that should have existed had almost all been flattened into restaurants instead.
That made the number of restaurants in Paldea absolutely absurd.
There were even roadside stalls.
Even Artazon, supposedly an art town, only really had Brassius's Gym as something that barely counted as an art gallery. Everything else was still restaurants. Artazon is indeed the town associated with Brassius in Paldea. (Bulbapedia)
Of course, Paldea had practically given up on many of its public and civilian facilities in the main games.
For example, the "Paldea Post Office" appeared in the animated shorts, and from that you could tell the workers there were very diligent, yet in the mainline games you had no idea where that post office was supposed to be.
"Pokémon graveyards, Safari Zones, underground passages, Sprout Tower, Dragon's Den, Mt. Silver, Trick House, Trial Chambers, temples, abandoned ships, parks, flower shops, lottery shops, burrows, bays..."
"A lot of facilities don't look like battle facilities on the surface, but in practice they're almost no different from them."
"In my view, facilities can be divided into four categories."
"First, Battle facilities. These are challenge facilities, simple and direct. Their logic is just all kinds of profession-based battling. Their leaders, the Frontier Brains, must be masters of battle."
"Second, Exploration facilities. These focus on searching and survival. Ancient ruins or more modern ruins can serve as examples. Ruins can attract Pokémon to move in, and may also draw in mysterious presences and rare Pokémon. Their rewards would be the three great natural field moves that don't exist in Paldea. Once those are mastered, people could take part in 'Secret Base survival battles,' or hunt for treasure and gourmet food."
"Third, Trial facilities. Places where you complete a certain commission or job, with battles woven in between, while also emotionally moving the people who take part. Gardens, bays, parks, temples, graveyards... all of those would fit this category. I'm modeling this after Alola's island challenge. The main point is to reflect human emotion, strength, artistic spirit, and so on."
"In the sacred rites of the island challenge, the captains appointed by the island kahunas deliberately raise strong wild Pokémon and make them part of the trial. Those Pokémon are called Totem Pokémon, and they have a great deal in common with Titan Pokémon."
"As for the final category, I originally wanted to call it Puzzle-Solving."
"But after thinking about it more carefully, requiring every single person to solve artificially designed riddles would be too difficult, and it would probably leave those facilities deserted. So it would be better to turn that into a wild encounter element instead."
"At the same time, the fourth category should be changed into Obstruction or Mystery... something that requires both intelligence and skill. Maybe it could borrow from the Battle Factory setup? We could even organize a special student corps to interfere with challengers across different areas and raise the difficulty that way."
"And lastly... heh, even though there are four categories, there should be five facilities. After all, it's common sense that the Elite Four has five people. So for the final hidden facility, I think it should be placed inside Area Zero."
"And the leader guarding that final hidden facility, that Frontier Brain, must possess strength, wisdom, and courage all at once."
Not only was Geeta listening with complete concentration, AI Sada was also intensely curious about the four, no, really five elements Hikaru had proposed.
She had to admit that even the true personality of the Sada inside her felt a little expectation and longing stir to life.
"However, there's one point I'm unsure about." AI Sada brought the question up on her own, beating Geeta to it.
"You said a puzzle facility wouldn't attract many people, so you wanted to turn it into a wild encounter element instead. Are you referring to things like the Titan food quests from earlier? In practice, wouldn't the puzzle just be finding where the Titans are, and where they hid their ingredients?"
Hikaru shook his head.
"No, that's only one part of it. The Titans have already all been found, so in the future there will definitely be endless numbers of people going after them for gourmet food and Herba Mystica."
"Of course, the kind of wild encounter element I'm talking about... well, have you heard of Mirage Tower?"
Geeta thought for a moment.
"I don't think I have any matching memory in my records. Perhaps League affairs are so numerous that I simply forgot?"
"Please explain it more clearly. I think these suggestions are very good."
AI Sada said, "Then it must be something from another region again? Is it connected to ancient legends, or supernatural forces?"
Hikaru said, "If you want to say it's connected to supernatural power, that's close enough."
"Mirage Tower is a legend of the Hoenn region, something left behind by Hoenn's ancient people."
"It's a tower made of bricks, and if you do happen to find it, it actually looks completely ordinary. There's nothing particularly astonishing about it."
"But if you leave the tower, and then come back after a while, or arrive at the wrong time, the tower may suddenly vanish without a trace."
"Mirage Tower appears and disappears at irregular intervals."
The moment that explanation came out, both Geeta and AI Sada froze.
Geeta's thinking had to adjust rapidly, while even AI Sada's electronic processes briefly failed to fully parse what Hikaru meant.
So when Hikaru continued his explanation, the shock and surprise in their eyes only deepened.
Hikaru said, "According to Hoenn legend, you need very high speed to dash across collapsing floors and reach the top. The tower is four stories tall, and at the top you can obtain two kinds of ancient fossils from Hoenn." Mirage Tower in Hoenn is indeed a four-story tower that appears and disappears in the desert on Route 111, and its top floor contains the Root Fossil and Claw Fossil. (Bulbapedia)
"And two years ago, Mirage Tower disappeared, because someone rode a Mach Bike all the way to the top and took the fossils."
"Hoenn has many similar legends. Aside from Mirage Tower, there's also Mirage Island, Sea Cavern, and Terra Cave. They continuously appear and disappear depending on changes in time, space, weather, and terrain, and all of them hide treasures unknown to the world."
"In Kanto, on Island Five of the Sevii Islands, there's a place known as the 'island where time flows fast and slow.' But the time there only changes slightly. It doesn't abruptly appear and vanish."
"But Hoenn's legendary Mirage Island is different. They say that time there flows differently from the outside world. Sometimes time on Mirage Island moves seven times faster than outside, and sometimes seven times slower. Some say even that pattern isn't exact, and that it's tied to pseudorandom fluctuations in time instead."
"Mirage Island... that one, I know." Geeta interlaced her fingers in front of her desk and stared at the communication screen in the classic Commander Ikari pose, though unfortunately she wasn't wearing glasses.
She cleared her throat and spoke one word at a time.
"Mirage Island. Hoenn. That planned large-scale aerial competition we mentioned before... supposedly it was adapted from some town, together with Sinnoh's Sky Ring competition. Its true purpose remains unclear."
"But one of its prizes is a special Berry called the treasure of the sea - a Salac Berry!"
"This Berry has appeared only in very small numbers in other regions... and seems to carry tremendous power."
"It seems contestants from many different regions have been told to win that Berry back and cultivate it locally... while the Hoenn League claims that this Berry grows only on a special island that ordinary people cannot find."
"That's right. That's Mirage Island." Hikaru nodded. "That said, Salac Berries do also exist in distant island regions like Alola and Oblivia. But even there, they're extremely special and very rare Berries."
"Only tropical climates and regions with special environmental energy can support something known as the treasure of the sea."
In the games, it looked like you could also pick up Salac Berries in Area Zero, but Hikaru had never seen one himself anyway.
Still, the reason the treasure of the sea, and perhaps other legendary fruits too, could appear here was because the parent tree of the Herba Mystica existed here, and because there was a time machine. Who knew where those fruits had originally come from?
After all, some distributed Pokémon arrived holding Berries.
And how was this time-machine transportation any different from another kind of distribution?
Come on, everyone line up one by one and claim your Mystery Gift!
"Things like Mirage Tower are something I can build. And once they're built, they probably won't differ much from Hoenn's original ancient towers, or even Mirage Island itself."
"If I place important treasures inside them by hand and make them part of certain trials, that's the kind of outdoor 'puzzle-solving' I mean."
"I'll also pass on the techniques for constructing Mirage Tower to Professor Sada. In other regions, you need natural power, mental force, fantastic energy, or even ripples in time itself to create that kind of building."
"But in Paldea, Tera and Stellar energy can solve those problems in a much more direct way. Because even time itself has attributes."
"The power of Steel and Dragon created time. The power of Water and Dragon created space. The power of Ghost and Dragon created the reverse side of the world. Combine the corresponding attribute powers, and you can achieve the desired effect. We can realize all of this through the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero."
"After all, since you already made a time machine... making a few towers should hardly be difficult for you."
"And with those powerful wild Terastallized Pokémon, we can also launch Tera Raid Battles. I think that gives students more than enough training and rewards for their outdoor journeys."
"Battle, Exploration, Trial, Obstruction... just like the Battle Frontier in Hoenn, Johto, and Sinnoh, we can also choose suitable students here - ones with real strength - and appoint them as the Frontier Brains of those four facilities!"
The moment the topic reached that point, Geeta's eyes lit up at once.
At this stage, she no longer even cared why Hikaru could build ancient structures like that. She wasn't surprised anymore.
After all, with the supernatural sitting right in front of her, she found it hard to pass judgment. She could only say that Paldea still had too few human ability-users.
Though if she really thought about it... maybe there actually were people like that?
Geeta remembered that near the academy there was a woman in sunglasses who claimed she could see people's past lives. Geeta had met her before, though at the time she had assumed the woman was just clowning around.
Plenty of people said her behavior was suspicious too, and the woman herself even joked about it.
But now that Geeta thought about it, maybe she really had been telling the truth?
In that case, Hikaru being able to build things only ancient people could once create was perfectly normal too.
There was no reason ancient people should be able to build something modern people couldn't.
Science and the supernatural both had to be grasped together.
That was the real world.
"Selecting five Frontier Brains..." Geeta murmured. "If I remember correctly, Hoenn's seven Brains each presided over one of the seven Symbols."
"Knowledge, Spirit, Tactics, Luck, Guts, Bravery, and Ability!"
Meanwhile, the Frontier Brains in Sinnoh used commemorative prints instead, but Geeta felt those commemorative prints lacked the same sense of power and mission as actual Symbol emblems. In Hoenn's Battle Frontier, Frontier Brains do indeed award Symbols, while Sinnoh's Battle Frontier awards commemorative prints instead. (Bulbapedia)
Geeta muttered to herself and sank into deep thought.
Five additional Frontier Brains meant five more Elite Four-level staff members who could work overtime, which would significantly reduce the League's workload.
And on top of that, AI Sada and the AIs of the Three Sacred Swordsmen could also help with overtime... well, all right, at least this AI professor currently planned to refuse overtime so she could spend more time with her child, but that was fine too.
Geeta had learned a fair bit about Arven's situation as well, and she thought highly of the boy.
Even though he had illegally entered Area Zero, he had followed Hikaru all the way to the bottom and had even participated in shutting down the time machine.
That kind of experience would become a priceless asset in his personal growth, and his future would benefit from it.
And, judging from AI Sada's description, this child intended to become a master of Herba Mystica cooking. Wasn't that perfect for one of the Frontier Brain positions?
A hunter of gourmet treasures. A flawless fit.
Then Hikaru told her about the Tinkaton village, and about his plan to establish commercial ties in everyday-goods supply with the city overseen by Tulip. Geeta was startled, but quickly realized that the "work" these Pokémon friends did was just their ordinary daily life to them, yet it could bring enormous change to both the League and the region's towns. Tulip is the Gym Leader of Alfornada, and Tinkaton is a Paldean Pokémon line. (Bulbapedia)
"And then there's the Tinkaton village responsible for forging tools and equipment... heh. Students provide the materials, and the Tinkaton provide the items. That's very good."
"With powerful items in hand, challengers can then go challenge those pioneering leaders, each located in the east, south, west, and north."
"The Symbol of Battle: its leader must possess outstanding battling power and the ability to counter challengers."
"The Symbol of Exploration: its leader must have excellent physical strength and the ability to go out and hunt treasure."
"The Symbol of Trial: its leader must have the ability to guide people correctly and help resolve commissions."
"The Symbol of Obstruction: its leader must possess both intelligence and technical skill, and also organizational ability, mobilization, and the power to unite others..."
"And finally, the unknown Symbol... yes, let's call it the Symbol of Victory."
At that moment, Geeta suddenly thought of the unhealthy tendencies spreading through the academy. She considered it briefly, and a plan formed in her mind.
Heh heh heh...
The next three years should be very interesting.
"Paldea's tender shoots will grow strong because of this!"
(End of Chapter)
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