Nova had planned to call out his only Fire-type Pokémon to help him warm up. But the moment Growlithe sniffed the air, it got so excited, as if it had just seen its favorite spot on the couch at home, and it dashed straight out of the cave.
Nova didn't even get the chance to say a word before he saw an orange-red streak flash past his eyes. His dog was already gone.
Nova: "Where did my dog go? A big, silly dog was standing right here. How does something that size just disappear in a blink?"
"You little troublemaker, using Extreme Speed before you've even evolved? Is that even allowed?"
Nova had no idea why Growlithe was so worked up, but he couldn't just let it run off. Luckily, the cave had no side paths and didn't look very deep. He only had to walk a short way and turn one corner before he saw daylight ahead at the exit.
Growlithe was sitting right at the mouth of the cave. A cold wind was blowing outside, ruffling its gray fur into a wild, beautiful shape.
It turned its head toward Nova and Meowscarada, who had just caught up, and let out an excited bark. Nova could see its bright, lively eyes peeking out from beneath the fur covering its face.
Nova walked up next to Growlithe and looked out at the view.
He was standing at the bottom of a steep cliff, with a deep blue lake spread out below. The cold wind stirred ripples across the lake, and the water slowly made its way down through the cave, gathering at the lowest point to form a small stream, barely two fingers wide.
This tiny, unremarkable stream would eventually pass through a spatial rift, travel into a desert in another world, and form a small, quiet oasis there.
On the far side of the blue lake stood a range of rugged mountains, their peaks covered in snow.
As Nova studied the land around him, he noticed that the cliff face above his own cave was also dusted with snow. Not far off, he even spotted a river that had frozen solid.
That must be a glacier.
Rotom wasn't with him, so there was no way to get an electronic map made automatically. Nova had to rely on the old skills he had trained himself, taking out paper and pen to sketch the area by hand.
Nova hadn't always known how to do this. If he had gone to a proper Pokémon vocational school, he would have taken survival classes and learned basic mapping and surveying. But Nova had only finished general schooling. He had never sat through a single class like that.
Once he actually started traveling and exploring the wild, not knowing this skill caused him real trouble.
Still, hardship teaches the best lessons. People telling you things doesn't always stick, but living through it once usually does.
While exploring deep inside Purple Lychee Mountain, Nova once wandered into a misty forest full of Ghost-type Pokémon, simply because he didn't know how to map his surroundings. He spent several days walking in circles like someone under a curse, and he nearly got lost for good.
After making it out of that mess, Nova immediately studied mapping as fast as he could. Now, if someone asked him to sketch a rough map of the land, he could manage it well enough.
With mountains and terrain like this, if you don't get a high enough view, you can't see the whole picture or understand how everything connects.
But as Nova used his binoculars to study the land while sketching, the full shape of the area slowly became clear to him, and he suddenly understood exactly where he was.
Or rather, back in his previous life, Nova had once visited a place with terrain just like this.
Wasn't this a classic volcanic crater lake?
When a volcano goes quiet for many years, water gradually collects in the hollow at its center and forms a crater lake. Looking at the snow and glaciers covering the surrounding peaks, Nova guessed this volcano stood at a fairly high altitude.
He roughly measured the size of the lake in his mind and realized it was even bigger than the crater lake he remembered from his past life. And while the cliffs around it were covered in frozen glacier, the lake's surface still sparkled, with layers of white mist rising above it. That could only mean one thing: the water was much warmer than the air around it.
That meant there had to be a heat source underneath the lake, one that kept supplying warmth nonstop.
Just thinking about it made Nova feel a chill of fear.
A heat source under a volcanic lake could only be one thing: magma. That meant this volcano was still active, simply resting quietly for now with no sign of erupting.
Even so, that was frightening enough. No one could say for sure what a volcano might decide to do next. If it chose to erupt right then, Nova wouldn't stand much chance of getting away, unless he could sprint back to the spatial rift and return to the main world in time.
After all, he was currently standing right above its crater.
Thinking this through, Nova believed he had finally figured out why Growlithe had gotten so excited.
This little Pokémon had a trait called Volcano Fighter, something clearly tied to volcanoes, along with another trait called Granite, a kind of igneous rock that also forms through volcanic activity.
Could it be that Growlithe's birthplace, a home it had never actually seen, was a volcano in some ancient region?
If that were true, then Growlithe must have caught the scent of its homeland, which explained its excitement. And if that was the case, didn't that mean this whole place was actually some kind of ancient secret realm?
Holy smokes!
Nova couldn't just sit still after that thought. He didn't even bother finishing the last part of his map, which was maybe eighty percent done. He needed to know right away whether this really was an ancient secret realm. If it was, its value would be beyond measure.
Learning that he stood above an active volcano hadn't been enough to shake him. But the moment he realized the secret realm's hidden worth might be greater than he'd imagined, he felt like sprinting off immediately.
Talk about turning into a walking Gimmighoul!
Nova quickly called out Corviknight, climbed onto its back, and had it carry him away from the cave entrance so he could get a proper look over the lake. If he found nothing useful, he planned to leave the volcanic area right away and head further into the secret realm.
The wind out here cut straight through him, and Nova was still dressed in his desert gear. The only reason he hadn't frozen solid yet was thanks to the warmth coming off Growlithe's body.
So this time, while riding on Corviknight, Nova didn't return Growlithe to its Poké Ball. He kept holding it close to stay warm.
This didn't sit well with Meowscarada at all, though it couldn't exactly hiss about it. After all, while its own fur was beautiful, it wasn't nearly as warm as Growlithe's, and if Nova caught a cold, that would trouble it just as much.
Truthfully, the clothes Nova had on weren't right for exploring a place this cold. The smart move would have been to turn back, get proper winter gear, and come again later.
But telling Nova to go home first and grab some clothes? The question of whether this was really an ancient secret realm would drive him crazy with curiosity long before that.
Nova made up his mind. Even if it meant holding Growlithe close every single day, he was going to confirm his theory within two days. This discovery could be worth hundreds of millions, and he wasn't willing to waste even a moment.
As it turned out, though, he wouldn't need two days at all to prove his theory.