Dominic had explained that the materials existed, but David would have to gather them himself. For every battle his Pokémon won inside the Secret Realm, he would earn one material in return.
The message was clear enough: research was welcome, but training could not be neglected in its name. David agreed without hesitation.
Free materials and stronger Pokémon at the same time—a win-win in every sense. Why would he ever say no to that?
That was, in large part, why Lucario had been fighting so hard lately. With David's usual gatherer of materials now in seclusion, the job of collecting them had fallen to the little fox and the rest of the team.
"Kirlia~"
Just then, Kirlia appeared in front of David, having teleported in together with the little fox.
"How did it go?" David asked, reaching out to stroke both of their heads.
"Zorua~ (Leave it to us—of course we finished the job!)"
"Kirlia~ (That's right. We brought back everything you asked for.)"
The little fox hopped nimbly onto David's shoulder, grinning as it announced its success, while Kirlia—watching with a touch of envy—pulled out a backpack and held it out to him.
"Good work, both of you. Go get some rest—you must be worn out after all that."
While Lucario had spent this time sharpening his understanding of his own abilities through combat, the little fox and Kirlia had been anything but idle either.
Much of that came down to Salamence's late surge in strength. Despite joining the team last, Salamence had closed the gap so quickly that it was now nearly the strongest Pokémon David had.
For the little fox, who had always considered itself the eldest sibling of the team, and for Kirlia, who had always rivaled it for that very title, Salamence's rise had lit a fire under them both.
Every one of David's Pokémon had been pushing themselves against each other during this stretch. Zorua fought its way through the Secret Realm, sharpening its illusions, its mirages, and its use of Hypnosis for every situation a real battle might throw at it.
Kirlia, meanwhile, used combat to work through the surge of Psychic power it had built up—first from the strange incense, and more recently from the Psychic potions.
In just a few months, Kirlia's Psychic strength had grown by nearly thirty percent, and it still hadn't fully absorbed all of it.
For an ordinary Psychic-type, a gain like that might not mean much in the grand scheme of things. But Kirlia had always been unusually gifted where Psychic power was concerned, which made even this kind of increase considerable.
It could sense that its evolution was drawing near, so it had decided to fully digest this new power before letting itself evolve.
By now, every one of David's companions had made real progress since winter break. Salamence had reached Level 39, at the peak of the Superior stage. Zorua and Kirlia were both Level 38, in the advanced range of the same stage. Lucario had climbed to Level 36, also in the advanced range.
Every Pokémon on David's team had now crossed into the late Superior stage—even Lucario, who had always lagged a little behind the others, had finally caught up.
David took the backpack from Kirlia but didn't leave right away. Instead, he brought out some Moomoo Milk and Energy Cubes he'd prepared earlier, and gave the two Pokémon a massage before letting them go.
A good massage could do wonders for easing a Pokémon's fatigue after battle, and it was considered one of the signature skills of any capable Breeder. In the anime, Suzie—the breeder who once entrusted her Vulpix to Brock, leaving him hopelessly smitten—had been especially known for it.
David recalled that she'd gone on to open her own Pokémon beauty salon.
Once both Pokémon had settled in to rest, David carried the backpack over to a small wooden house not far from where he was staying.
This was David's makeshift laboratory. He'd built it after an earlier experiment had gone badly wrong—an explosion that very nearly set their living quarters ablaze—which forced him to set up somewhere separate for anything involving that kind of risk.
Inside sat a cluttered array of equipment, bottles, and jars, most of it brought in from outside by Dominic, whom David had asked for the favor.
David was the only one granted this kind of freedom—left to pursue his research into potionology whenever he pleased, with hardly anyone checking in on how he spent his time. Everyone else had their own obligations to keep them occupied. Luke and the others, for instance, were still out in the Secret Realm, locked in one battle after another. The rest of the group had assignments of their own as well—like the twin sisters who specialized in double battles, currently training under a teacher the school had sent specifically to coach them in 2-on-2 strategy out in the Realm.
Setting those thoughts aside, David turned his attention back to the task in front of him.
He studied the half-finished crystalline liquid in the bottle and gave a satisfied nod. At the very least, its appearance suggested his efforts so far hadn't been wasted.
"Phew. Still a lot of work left to do."
He pulled a heap of materials from the backpack and surveyed the table, now crowded with them, letting out a wry smile.
Still, he reached for the extraction equipment nearby—the tool he used specifically to draw essence from plant matter.
"Not much time left. I really need to move faster."
And so, for five days straight, David split his time between his usual check-ins on his Pokémon's training and long hours shut away with his experiments, barely stepping outside for anything else.
Time slipped by quickly, and by the time David finally stepped out of the "laboratory" with a wide, satisfied smile on his face, the intensive training period out in the Secret Realm was drawing to a close as well.