After a brief moment of stunned silence, Cynthia suddenly snapped to attention.
She controlled her character to quickly approach the stone.
Golden text began appearing on the screen:
[Special Item: Pokémon Fossil (???)]
[Description: A fossil of some unknown ancient Pokémon. It seems to still contain the breath of life within?]
Just as she'd suspected—this really was a fossil of an ancient Pokémon!
And not only that—judging by the fossil's appearance, it was a completely new species she had never seen before.
Cynthia couldn't help but feel amazed again. From the earlier Lileep to that Archen that seemed to be an ancient fossil Pokémon...
Why was this game creator so knowledgeable about ancient fossil Pokémon?
He'd even deliberately placed a fossil here for players to find, combined with the system prompt that had just appeared...
Could there be some method in the game to revive these fossils?
Thinking about this, Cynthia felt a bit regretful. When she'd finished battling Roxanne earlier, she hadn't asked where her ancient Pokémon had come from.
The battle had been so intense, and when she finally won, even someone as experienced as her had been swept up in the joy, completely forgetting she could have normal conversations with NPCs.
She shook her head slightly and clicked to put the fossil in her bag.
The chat began updating:
[What ancient Pokémon fossil is this? Look at that huge mouth!]
[Don't know, but my gut tells me with a mouth that big, it must love to eat.]
[Big eater means strong, right? Snorlax eats a lot, Tyranitar eats a lot—which one's weak?]
[So what? A fossil's just a fossil. It's not like it can come back to life, right?]
[True, but selling it should still make decent money, right?]
The chat didn't know that revived ancient fossil Pokémon had already appeared in the previous gym battle.
So they didn't think this fossil could be revived—at most, it had some collector's value.
But Cynthia thought differently!
Her instincts told her that maybe later, there really would be a chance to revive this fossil.
While the possibility was slim in reality, this was a game after all—what couldn't be done?
Speaking of which, she wondered how Professor Oak was doing now...
During her brief breaks from gaming, she had already sent him information about Lotad's and Stufful's abilities.
As she pondered this, a figure quickly emerged from the darkness nearby.
"Hm? Young person, what are you doing in a place like this?"
The speaker was a man with blue hair, orange goggles, and a black tracksuit.
His voice was rough but cheerful, radiating an upbeat, sunny disposition.
This was Brawly, the Gym Leader of Dewford Town in the Hoenn region—the target character Cynthia had entered the cave to find!
Although Cynthia had never dealt with Hoenn Gym Leaders, she had heard of Brawly.
Bruno, the Fighting-type Elite Four member from Kanto, had once mentioned Brawly to her, saying he was naturally gifted in the fighting arts and might one day become a Fighting-type Elite Four member himself.
"I came to challenge the gym, and I heard you were training in the cave, so I came here," Cynthia pressed the interaction key and responded politely.
"Ahaha, I see! Sorry about that—today just happens to be my training time."
Brawly seemed a bit embarrassed, scratching the back of his head with a laugh.
"In that case, I'll head back to the gym to prepare."
"Oh, by the way, I thought I heard some battle sounds from the upper level. Were you fighting wild Pokémon?"
"No, Team Rocket members."
Cynthia had her character explain what had just happened.
Brawly was immediately stunned.
"Team Rocket?"
"Strange... what are they doing in Granite Cave?"
He stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to look at Cynthia.
"I didn't see any Team Rocket people come to this level. Looks like they're operating on the second floor—maybe they're after some minerals in the cave."
"In that case, I'll go up and deal with them."
With that, Brawly turned and headed toward the second level.
Cynthia stood there thinking, originally wanting to follow and see what was happening.
But she suddenly noticed that not far behind her, there seemed to be a path leading to the next level down.
And somehow, something seemed to be calling her in that direction.
After a brief hesitation, she decided to trust her instincts and entered the next level through the passage.
After a long downward climb, she finally reached the fourth floor.
This time, the surroundings weren't dark but brilliantly bright.
Cynthia could clearly see the scenery around her—
This fourth level had an enormous space, with darkness stretching over ten meters high above, and below was a vast, completely flat open area.
In the center of that open space stood a stone monument.
The monument continuously emanated brown light, illuminating the entire space.
Besides that, there was nothing else here.
Cynthia's gaze and attention naturally fell on the stone monument.
Just that single glance made it impossible for her to look away.
The monument was densely covered with some kind of symbols, like stars arranged across the universe—mysterious and profound.
Looking closely, she could see that all the monument's lights actually came from these symbols.
The radiance rose and fell as if the mysterious symbols were breathing.
Meanwhile, the stream viewers began commenting:
[What is this thing? It looks so impressive!]
[Don't know... can't understand it, but it feels like some kind of writing?]
[Isn't Cynthia an archaeology expert? She should recognize it?]
As they say, laypeople watch for excitement, experts watch for technique.
As Sinnoh's top ancient mythology scholar, Cynthia recognized this as a special script from an ancient civilization.
This civilization had vanished in the river of time, leaving only broken fragments.
Even she only had a superficial understanding of this ancient script—most of it was completely incomprehensible to her.
Ordinary archaeologists wouldn't even know this script existed.
But why were these characters now appearing in a game, on the monument before her eyes?
As Cynthia felt amazed, she unconsciously controlled her character to approach the monument.
But the next moment—
"WHOOOM!!!"
The symbols on the monument transformed into streams of light, suddenly shooting skyward!
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones