After catching the Onix, Nova drove back to the original camp. He had expected that finding the spatial rift would turn into a long, grinding search, but to his surprise, the search team sent back good news before noon.
They had found the oasis so quickly thanks to Marshtomp.
Marshtomp's sensing ability was tied to Water type energy. The fins on its body could pick up even the smallest changes in the moisture carried on the wind.
Marshtomp had also studied the Old Explorer's notes together with Nova. It reasoned that since the oasis had formed from water flowing in from another world, following the direction of the damp air would eventually lead them to the very oasis the Old Explorer had written about.
It truly deserved to be called the Philosopher of the team. It had grasped the heart of the problem in an instant.
Following the bearing Marshtomp gave it, Vibrava flew out to search, changing course several times under Marshtomp's guidance, until at last it located the spatial rift.
The oasis itself wasn't large, only about a dozen square meters, roughly the size of a small courtyard garden. It sat in a low hollow between two large dunes, and no matter the angle of the sun, the hollow always stayed in shadow.
Calling it an oasis wasn't quite fair, really. What grew there were mostly dusty tumbleweeds, more withered yellow than green, which matched what Nova had already guessed about the rift.
Tumbleweeds were the most common short lived desert plant, the kind that sprouted the moment rain touched the ground. If the water here had been flowing for a long time, the plant life would not still be these tumbleweeds, but something hardier and greener.
That was exactly why, even from the air, this small patch of withered yellow was so easy to miss among the shadows.
As for the rift itself, the thing Nova cared about most, it sat roughly twelve meters above the hollow. It wasn't especially wide, but Nova judged it to be at least four or five meters across, wide enough for three people to walk through side by side.
The water feeding this little oasis seeped out from the rift itself, no more than a light trickle, not much stronger than a tap left running. Under the desert's brutal evaporation, it had probably taken months just to build up the small puddle below.
Even so, this was already far better than Nova had dared to hope.
A rift wide enough for a person to pass through meant the cost of developing it would be much lower. If no one could fit through, they wouldn't just lose the chance to explore and develop the secret realm beyond it; they would also have to spend a fortune hiring spatial researchers to widen the opening.
And if the realm beyond turned out to hold little value after all that, the whole investment would have been wasted for nothing.
Seeing that the entrance was large enough for him, Nova made up his mind at once. As the second person to find this rift, it fell to him to go in first and scout what lay beyond.
The Old Explorer, given his own strength, hadn't dared step into an unknown secret realm. Nova, however, stood a level above ordinary Elite Trainers, and that gave him the confidence to go in first and take a look.
Of course, Nova only meant to look around, not venture deep inside. If he could bring back information about the realm right away, the Layered Peaks Gym could plan its development work with a clearer purpose.
Before going in, he also couldn't neglect guarding the rift itself. Nova had no wish to climb out later and find some other group, whether Trainers or wild Pokémon, had wandered in and taken an interest in the place.
So the two heavyweights, Nidoking and Rhydon, stayed behind to guard the hollow, and Nova released all thirty two of Rhydon's Rhyhorn companions as well.
He also took the time to unload all of his stock of universal Pokémon rations from his space bag and set it out across the oasis.
Partly this was so the Rhyhorn would see there was plenty of food waiting, and that as long as they worked hard, three square meals a day were guaranteed.
Partly it was simply to clear out space, so that if Nova found anything worth bringing back from the secret realm, there would be room to carry it.
Along with Nidoking and the others, Nova also left his ever present partner, Little Love, behind outside.
It was the only Pokémon able to reach the outside world. If it went with him into the secret realm, that role would be lost the moment the space sealed behind them. Left in the main world instead, it could serve as Nova's safeguard if anything went wrong.
Nova struck an agreement with Rotom: two days, no more. If he hadn't emerged from the secret realm by then, Rotom was to contact the Layered Peaks Gym immediately and explain the situation without delay.
With the preparations settled, Nova gathered his remaining companions and stepped into the rift.
This was his first time entering a secret realm, and passing through the rift left him thoroughly unsettled.
He felt like a scrap of toilet paper being flushed down a drain, twisted, stretched, and pulled apart by some vortex like force.
Once he seemed to cross a certain threshold, the distortion suddenly snapped back the other way, wrenching his body roughly back into its normal shape.
Beyond the strange, unreal pain, Nova also felt sick to his stomach. Just as he thought he might actually throw up, he realized the ground beneath him no longer looked like desert at all.
That confirmed it. He had made it through the rift and had officially entered the secret realm.
The discomfort hadn't been his imagination alone. Meowscarada, who had come through with him, was on its knees, dry heaving over and over. The cat, it seemed, had suffered the same twisting sensation and the same nausea.
Nova said, "I told you to get in your Poké Ball, but you wouldn't listen. Serves you right, doesn't it?"
Meowscarada shot him a sour look. "Everyone else is sealed away in their Poké Balls. Who's supposed to watch your back? If something had jumped out to kill you the second we stepped through, would you still be laughing?"
That set the two of them bickering, each one worried about the other. One fretted over the other's suffering, the other over the other's safety, and somehow all that care came out sounding like nothing but squabbling.
This side of the rift resembled the inside of a cave: dark, damp, and cold to the bone.
Coming straight from the scorching desert into a place like this, Nova couldn't stop himself from shivering.
He couldn't very well scold the cat for being disobedient now, not when its body ran so much warmer than his own. Shivering, Nova pulled Meowscarada close, then reached for Growlithe's Poké Ball and let it out as well.