Under Travis's guidance, Julian quickly arrived at the entrance of the Flame Mountain secret realm, which was, of course, heavily guarded.
Some of these guards belonged to the Hearth family, while others were from Drakoria's official forces.
This year, whether it was the five slots allocated to Drakoria or the five slots belonging to the Hearth family, all had already been used. If it were anyone else, wanting to enter the secret realm after the slots were filled—even for the purpose of rescuing Ember, a future Champion prospect—they would still have to go through approval before being allowed in.
But this was Julian, a Champion. All secret realms in Drakoria were freely open to Champions, meaning a Champion could enter any secret realm without any restrictions.
Under the excited gazes of the guards, Julian stepped into the gate of the secret realm.
In the blink of an eye, he was inside the Flame Mountain, and what hit him immediately was a wave of scorching heat.
The temperature here was around forty to fifty degrees.
To survive long-term in this secret realm, anyone entering would definitely need to wear heat-resistant suits or have corresponding Pokémon to help resist the heat.
Otherwise, the deeper one went into the Flame Mountain, the higher the temperature would become.
As the name suggested, the Flame Mountain secret realm had a massive volcano at its center. And the volcano continuously extended outward, forming the entirety of the realm.
Julian was currently at the edge of the volcano. Looking up, he could see in the distance a towering peak rising into the clouds like a pillar—that was the central region.
The entire secret realm was also filled with the smell of sulfur.
This secret realm was a paradise for Fire-type Pokémon though. There was no energy of any other Type within the realm—only Fire-type energy.
So once you released a Pokémon that wasn't a Fire-type here, it would face rejection from the entire realm, and its strength would be greatly suppressed.
Even at the Champion level, this suppression was quite significant—capable of reducing a Champion-level Pokémon's strength by about half.
At the same time, it would attract hostility from many Fire-type Pokémon within the realm.
It made sense—this place was entirely for Fire-types, and suddenly a Pokémon of another Typing appeared. Wasn't that basically a provocation? Naturally, it would get beaten up.
There were also Champion-level Pokémon in this secret realm—two of them, in fact. These two Champion Pokémon had been released into this secret realm after the passing of ancestors from the Hearth family.
If the family ever faced an unstoppable danger, these two Pokémon, out of regard for their deceased trainers, would naturally help defend against the enemy.
This was also why, even though the Hearth family currently only had Pseudo-Champions and no Champion-level trainer active, they could still be considered a top-tier family, just like the Walkers.
There was only one standard to become a top-tier family—that was whether the family possessed a Champion-level trainer or a Champion-level Pokémon.
Of course, if a family only had Champion-level Pokémon but no Champion-level trainer, its strength would certainly be somewhat inferior compared to a family that had a Champion-level trainer.
For instance, the Walker family currently possessed three Champion-level Trainers, and they also had Champion-level Pokémon left by their ancestors. This level of power absolutely crushed the other top-tier families in Drakoria.
Julian didn't waste any time. He didn't even take out his Dowsing Machine. Right now, the most important thing was to find Ember. As for treasure hunting, that could wait until after he found her.
"Deoxys."
He sent out Deoxys. As a First-class Legendary, Deoxys could ignore the effects of a Special Advanced-level secret realm.
And if it wished, it could even destroy this entire realm directly.
At the level of a First-class Legendary, things could no longer be measured by conventional logic, even for one at the early-stage.
"Check whether there are any people in this secret realm," Julian said.
The people who had previously entered the Flame Mountain had all already come out, except for Ember.
So right now, the entire secret realm should only have himself and Ember.
With Deoxys's psychic power, having it scan the entire Flame Mountain would allow him to know where Ember was.
Of course, to perform such a precise scan—missing not even a blade of grass, and covering such a vast range—was something a psychic-type Pokémon below the Champion-level absolutely couldn't achieve.
Deoxys, though, only needed a few seconds to scan the entire secret realm.
"Did you find her?" Julian quickly asked.
What he thought would be a certain success turned out otherwise—Deoxys actually shook its head.
This immediately surprised Julian.
"You didn't find her?"
His tone was filled with shock.
Deoxys nodded.
"Are you sure you scanned the entire secret realm without missing anything?" Julian asked.
Deoxys nodded again.
"I even scanned the magma inside the volcano, and I also found a Moltres sleeping inside."
According to the information the Hearth family had given Julian, there was indeed a Moltres inside—one that had belonged to a certain Hearth family ancestor, with Champion-level strength.
"Could it be that the person died just as we entered?" Deoxys said.
Julian was stunned for a moment, feeling that this actually made some sense. He quickly took out the Bloodline Crystal, silently hoping his troublesome cousin not to be that unlucky.
And when he saw the small flame representing Ember on the Bloodline Crystal still there, Julian immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
He then looked at Deoxys somewhat suspiciously. "Are you sure you're not just... incapable?"
Deoxys: (╬▔皿▔)
"Ahem, what I mean is, did you notice any particularly strange places while scanning?" Julian quickly backpedaled.
'You are genderless—if I say you're incapable, you get angry, but if I say you are capable, well, you don't even have that thing anyway.'
"There is something."
Deoxys nodded.
"Take me there to have a look," Julian said.
The next second, Deoxys teleported and disappeared from the spot together with Julian.
When they appeared again, there was a glowing portal right in front of him.
"A secret realm gate? We didn't move—wait, this isn't the gate we came in through."
Looking at the realm gate in front of him, Julian at first thought it was the same one he had entered through, and subconsciously assumed Deoxys had moved him just to mess with him after he said it wasn't capable.
But very quickly, he realized his location had changed, and the size of this gate was larger than the one he had entered through.
This discovery left Julian astonished.
"A secret realm within a secret realm?!"
Looking at the realm gate in front of him, Julian understood what was going on—within the Flame Mountain secret realm, another secret realm had appeared.
This kind of extremely low-probability event wasn't unheard of.
Across the world, there were countless Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Top-tier secret realms and Ruins combined, and up until now, cases of a secret realm existing within another secret realm had only appeared twice.
But now, that number could be changed to three.
*****
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