Seraphina didn't stay long after collecting the exam papers. With a quick goodbye, she headed home, leaving Valen alone in the quiet of the Empathy Circle's clubroom.
He didn't waste the solitude. Surrounded by the Circle's small library of books, he cross-referenced them with searches on his phone, trying to digest the flood of new memories and make sense of this strange, familiar world.
He was so absorbed that he didn't notice the time until his stomach protested with a loud, insistent growl.
"Right. Food." He glanced at his phone. Nearly 2 PM. "Doubt the cafeteria's still open, but maybe the tuck shop is."
He was wrong. The cafeteria was deserted, and the little shop inside was shuttered tight. Even the woman who ran it had better things to do than wait for stragglers on the last day of the Ordeals.
Valen sighed and left the academy grounds, ducking into the first small eatery he found. He grabbed a table near the air conditioner and waved down a waiter.
"Spicy Garlic Pork over rice, please."
"You got it," the waiter chirped.
As he waited, a thought struck him. Pork? What kind of pork?
He dredged through his new memories. In this world, Anima coexisted with ordinary animals. After the initial chaos following the appearance of the Secret Realms, decades of careful human intervention had stabilized the ecosystem. The price of that stability was that most non-Anima animals now lived in protected reserves, farms, or zoos. The wild belonged to the Anima.
The two groups didn't mix well. He recalled a news story about a Summoner who left his pet poodle at home with his Growlithe. He returned that evening to find the poodle nearly burned to a crisp. Valen let out a dark chuckle. A grim lesson, but a clear one. The power gap was just too vast; it wasn't unheard of for regular animals to end up as Anima food.
The meal arrived, and his hunger overrode his philosophical musings. He devoured the plate of food in minutes, washing it down with an ice-cold cola. Satisfied, he tapped his phone on the payment sensor and headed out.
Instead of returning to the academy, he went home. His father, an electrician, and his mother, a retail worker at the mall, wouldn't be back until late. The house was his.
And he had only one thing on his mind.
What kind of starter Anima should I get?
It would be a while before he could actually purchase an egg from a nursery, but it was never too early to plan. His mind drifted to impossible fantasies. The elegant Suicune... the majestic Articuno... maybe even the mythical Diancie? He shook his head, smiling at his own absurdity. Unreliable daydreams.
"A family on a budget should always start with a Grass-type." The advice from his homeroom teacher, echoed by Mr. Li, came back to him.
He pulled up the website for Stonehaven's public Anima nursery. The list of available Grass-type eggs was decent: Bellsprout, Oddish, Hoppip, Sunkern, Paras. But his heart sank a little. There was no Bulbasaur, no Treecko, no Turtwig. None of the iconic, powerful starters from the old world's legends. A small icon in the corner of the page explained that such rare Anima had to be special-ordered, far in advance.
"Not that I could afford one anyway," he muttered.
The numbers were stark. His final year's tuition at Stonehaven was astronomical. The initial Summoner registration required paying a minimum of five years of professional taxes upfront. After that, he'd need a substantial fund for a full year of Anima supplements and specialized food. Whatever was left over would be his budget for the egg itself. It wasn't much.
"Easy to raise. High potential." He had to focus on those two criteria. That led him right back to Grass-types. On average, they were the cheapest and most self-sufficient, capable of surviving on sunlight alone—though a Summoner who actually did that would end up with a pathetically weak partner.
He scrolled through the options again, an analysis paralysis setting in. They all seemed like good choices.
"There has to be another way," he groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Some other angle I'm missing..."
Then, it hit him. The anime. How could he have forgotten? The Nurturer exam had rattled him more than he thought.
He recalled a specific storyline from his old world. The protagonist's Grotle, in a moment of desperation, had accidentally swallowed its own Energy Ball Art. The result was a massive, uncontrolled surge in power.
Valen's fingers flew across the keyboard, searching for the Art named 'Energy Ball'. The information available in this world was sparse. It was described as a high-energy attack, with a list of Anima known to be capable of learning it. That was it.
But Valen remembered more. The description from the games of his old world surfaced in his mind:
The user draws power from nature and fires it as a projectile.
What was the link between that principle and the explosive power-up his Grotle had experienced? Could other Grass-types replicate it?
He smiled, a thrill running through him. He'd found his angle. "I'll make it the core of my own Nurturing method," he whispered. "A plan built around consuming the Energy Ball."
The idea felt dangerous, unreliable. "It would have to cause internal damage, right?" He grabbed a pen and a notebook, his mind racing. "So, how to mitigate it? First, assume there will be hidden injuries. How can they be repaired?"
The pen scratched furiously across the paper as he brainstormed a list of supportive Arts.
Synthesis
Giga Drain
Growth
Ingrain
Grassy Terrain
He became completely absorbed, the words and diagrams filling the page. He didn't know if the theory was sound, or if he would even end up with a Grass-type Anima. But as he looked at the notes spread before him, he realized none of that mattered right now. He couldn't abandon this train of thought.
It was his first, truly independent idea as a Summoner.