Seeing Ember looking like she was breathing out more than breathing in, Julian was startled. He quickly took a few steps forward and came to her side.
Because of their size, Ember's Pokémon couldn't enter the tree hollow. Only a little Chimchar was keeping her company. This Chimchar was a shiny one, clearly recently caught.
Chimchar didn't know Julian, but it knew that Charizard and Blaziken trusted him, so it didn't act aggressively toward Julian approaching Ember.
"Don't worry—now that I'm here, she won't die."
Julian's words were directed both at Chimchar and at Ember's Pokémon outside the tree hollow.
He took out Heavy Water from his system space, which could regenerate limbs.
Then he took out a Flesh-Regenerating Berry, which could regenerate skin.
After feeding these two things to Ember, Julian had Celebi use Heal Pulse.
Having done all this, Julian bought a new set of clothes from the System Shop and placed them beside Ember.
She was still unconscious—but when she woke up, her injuries should be mostly healed.
As for exactly when she would wake up, he estimated it would take at least four or five hours.
"Your luck is pretty good that I happened to appear near you," Julian said.
When entering a Top-tier secret realm, one appeared at a random location within the realm.
And the place Julian appeared happened to be not far from where Ember was, and he was quickly spotted by the patrolling Charizard.
Given Ember's condition, if the treatment had been delayed for even another day, she would have basically breathed her last breath.
And if the person who came had been anyone other than Julian, even if they found her, they probably wouldn't have been able to heal her injuries.
So it could be said that Ember's luck was pretty good.
"Take care of her," Julian said to the Chimchar, then immediately left the tree hollow.
Chimchar nodded happily. It could already sense that its trainer's aura had returned to normal and was no longer as weak as before.
"It's fine now—you all can relax."
After stepping out of the tree hollow, Julian said to Ember's other Pokémon.
Hearing that, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Julian then plopped down on the ground and asked Charizard, "How did you all end up entering this secret realm, and why did Ember end up in this state?"
He was extremely curious about all of this.
So Charizard began to recount the whole sequence of events to Julian.
"I see," Julian nodded.
The gist of it was internal strife within the Hearth family. Although Ember had been designated as the Hearth family's heir, several other direct-line members were more or less unwilling to accept it.
In particular, there was another person whose strength was on par with Ember's and who was three years younger. In terms of talent, the other party surpassed Ember.
And both were of the direct line, yet Ember was chosen as the family heir. Beyond considerations of strength, talent, and how one conducted oneself, there was another crucial factor—Ember was Julian's nominal cousin.
With Julian as a connection, if Ember became the head of the Hearth family, then the relationship between the Walkers and the Hearths would definitely become even closer.
The other candidate lost out precisely on this point—he had no connection to Julian whatsoever.
Naturally, he was unwilling to accept this, and his personality was quite extreme. So after Ember entered the Flame Mountain Secret Realm, he bribed certain guards and secretly entered the secret realm as well, intending to kill Ember inside.
Under careful planning, although he didn't manage to kill Ember outright, he did severely injure her. However, while Ember was escaping, a secret realm gate suddenly appeared in front of her. So to save her life, she had no choice but to enter this unknown secret realm.
However, the other person did not follow her in, because he recognized this was a Top-tier secret realm.
Once inside, there was no guarantee he would be able to find the exit gate. In that case, even if he killed Ember, he himself would also die alongside her.
Internal struggles like this within a family were fairly common.
Many families had even declined entirely due to internal strife.
This kind of strife was unavoidable—whether in small families, large clans, or even top-tier families.
As long as a family had enough members and more than one direct-line descendant, unless the chosen heir had overwhelming strength, conflict was inevitable.
Of course, a certain degree of competition could also promote progress within the family. If controlled well, it could even be a good thing.
"Good thing I don't have any siblings," Julian muttered.
He had been designated as the heir since birth. The Walker family had only one successor—there was no one to compete with him, and his position was rock solid.
"Deoxys, find the exit gate for this secret realm," Julian said.
Now they were inside a Top-tier secret realm, and the location of the exit gate was completely unknown, and Julian also had no idea how large this Top-tier secret realm actually was.
If it were before, Julian would have had no choice but to explore slowly with Metagross.
But now, with Deoxys, a Psychic type First-class Legendary, not to mention anything else—when it came to scanning terrain and perceiving the overall layout, it was truly a cheat.
Metagross could also do it, but compared to a First-class Legendary, it was definitely somewhat inferior in this aspect.
The very fact that Julian dared to enter a Top-tier secret realm meant he was confident he could find the exit gate.
If Deoxys couldn't find it, he could use the Lucky Charms. If even that didn't work, he could always summon Mewtwo.
Deoxys nodded and vanished from the spot.
By finding the exit gate first and resolving the lingering worry of sending Ember out, Julian could turn his mind to exploring this new Top-tier secret realm.
Gurgle—
Charizard's stomach suddenly let out a hungry rumble.
Right after, Blaziken, Camerupt, Ninetales, and the others' stomachs started growling too.
Because the environment here was unfamiliar and they had to protect Ember, they hadn't really gone out to find food these past few days.
Ember's backpack had also been lost when she was attacked, so naturally there were no Pokéblocks or Potions left—otherwise, Ember wouldn't have nearly died.
"Here."
Julian smiled and took out quite a few Pokéblocks, placing them in front of the Pokémon.
Of course they wouldn't stand on ceremony with Julian, and on top of that they were truly starving, so they immediately began wolfing them down. And once they tasted that the flavor was even better than Ember's Pokéblocks, they ate with even greater gusto.
With their trainer's injuries healed, food to eat, and someone so powerful nearby, their safety was fully assured—these factors let the Pokémon's originally tense nerves immediately relax.
After eating and drinking its fill, the little Chimchar sprawled right on top of Ember and fell asleep. It was the weakest among them, and being able to hold on without sleeping until now was already impressive.
The other Pokémon, however, were fine.
Once a Pokémon reached the Elite-level, they could go more than half a month without sleep and still be fine—of course, that was under the condition that they didn't engage in activities that consumed too much energy during that time.
*****
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