Chapter 393: Archeops?

As Baimu's familiarity and mastery over Mega Evolution gradually deepened.

Baimu's confidence swelled to an unprecedented degree.

After all.

Mega Aggron really was strong!

Not only had multiple stats seen extremely significant growth, its energy reserves had risen to a practically inexhaustible level, and the silver-white steel armor covering nearly its entire body had transformed it into a moving metal fortress, its combat power surging geometrically.

If he hadn't guessed that the Mirage Tower existed in a separate dimension and possessed miraculous self-repairing power, he would very likely have tried to have Mega Aggron tear the whole tower down.

Alice heard what he said and felt a bit puzzled.

"Push it over? Push what over?"

"I mean just walk right past without caring about anything—I'm kidding."

Baimu waved his hand and said, "Let's try it a little, maybe we can figure out the pattern for triggering the mechanisms."

Adventure is adventure, but it's best not to casually hand someone a free kill.

"Okay."

Alice had no objections.

Although she felt the Pokémon statues posed no real threat until they reached a certain number, it was still better not to fight if they didn't have to.

In battle, things change in an instant—no one can say for sure what will happen.

"Then let's keep going."

Not wanting to waste time, Baimu commanded Mawile to use Baton Pass to return to its Poké Ball and switch in Hydreigon, "I'm counting on you, fly over carefully and check things out, remember to use Protect in time."

The Swords Dance boost hadn't ended yet, so inheriting it would help in any potential combat.

Seeing this, Alice quickly sent out Dragonite, "Dragonite, you go too!"

"Sha-sang!"

"Roar!"

Hydreigon flew forward as the vanguard, and the Dragonite following closely behind looked at the former's back and unconsciously felt a spark of fighting spirit, but it was quickly snuffed out.

It knew this was no time for a battle.

The two dragons flew one behind the other through the ever-narrowing adobe corridor.

Baimu and Alice, far behind, carefully observed the corridor in all directions, and suddenly noticed a red light flickering on the left wall as Dragonite passed by.

"Left!"

The two shouted in unison.

The sand and earth in the wall suddenly bulged, rapidly forming a sandy-yellow Archeops statue with glowing red eyes, its lifelike appearance making one wonder if the thing might actually be a living Archeops.

But before it could do anything, the Dragonite beside it swung a fist onto its head with the speed of lightning!

Boom!

Under the blinding lightning, the sandstone shattered, and the headless Archeops statue froze in place.

The Hydreigon, poised for action, silently lowered the heads on its left and right sides.

"Smash the head and it stops moving?"

Baimu looked at Alice in astonishment, and she nodded, indicating that all the Pokémon statues would stop moving once their heads were smashed.

He shouted, "See if anything strange dropped on the ground!"

The "head" of the Archeops statue might contain the core controlling it—otherwise, how could something made entirely of sand and earth stop moving just because its head was smashed?

Simulated zombies?

Hydreigon scanned the ground back and forth but couldn't detect anything out of place; instead, it saw the sand on the ground surging toward the Archeops statue as if it had come alive.

The shattered sandstone head was repairing itself at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Sha-sang!"

"I see it."

Hearing Hydreigon's roar, Baimu responded.

He'd just been guessing whether this thing's head might contain a core, and hadn't expected the slap in the face to come so quickly—unless it wasn't a "golem" reconstructed around a core.

Fortunately, this thing's reconstruction speed was, just as Alice said, not fast.

He glanced at the time on his watch—at this rate, the Archeops would probably be fully restored in just two minutes.

Then again, why hadn't the wall reacted when Hydreigon flew past, but triggered the statue mechanism when Dragonite flew past?

Was it flying too fast for it to react? Or had it already reacted, just more slowly?

"Come back~"

Baimu called Hydreigon back.

According to Alice, as long as they left this floor, these Pokémon statues would return to their original places—at least that was how it worked on the second and third floors.

The fourth floor was about the same at first when they hadn't taken the fossils, but once the fossils were taken, these things' behavior patterns would change—even if she fell from a trap to the very bottom and her bag was left on the fourth floor, these things would chase her all the way down.

Go back down a floor and come back up to reset, and find the reason for the mechanism triggering.

He told Alice his plan, and she didn't mind the trouble at all, calling Dragonite back as well.

Who would have thought that Dragonite, before returning, took one more look at the Archeops statue that was about to heal, and its gaze sharpened.

"Roar!"

It rapidly threw a flurry of punches, and amid the flashing lightning, the upper half of the Archeops statue was instantly blasted into rubble, dust filling the corridor.

"Your Dragonite is way too fierce."

He waved away the drifting dust and turned to say.

Worthy of being the individual officially called the "Little Tyrant Dragonite"—Old Qingliu had always said his Hydreigon was fierce; he wondered what evaluation that old man would give upon seeing this Dragonite.

"Ahahaha…"

Alice laughed awkwardly, looking at the returning Dragonite with a face full of helplessness.

The two people and three Pokémon went downstairs and then back up.

The ancient Armor Fossil statue had indeed vanished without a trace, the corridor so tidy it was as if no one had ever set foot there.

And this time.

All Baimu planned to let Hydreigon go through alone to test it out, to see whether the mechanism simply didn't react to it, or whether there was some other reason.

"Sha sang~"

Hydreigon nodded and flew forward, neither fast nor slow.

When passing the spot where the Pokémon statue had been triggered earlier, All Baimu's heart tightened, but the walls showed no reaction at all.

That's right.

Hydreigon flew past safely, even flying all the way to the corridor's far corner before drifting leisurely back.

"The mechanisms shift position?"

All Baimu asked Alice.

Alice shook her head blankly. "I don't know."

"... Want to let Dragonite try next?" He patted the Hydreigon that had flown back, glancing at the Dragonite beside him whose expression seemed a bit indignant.

Hm? This guy seems to have a strong sense of rivalry toward Hydreigon?

"Of course."

Alice nodded. "Dragonite, I'm counting on you!"

Having received its Trainer's approval, the long-restrained Dragonite shot forward, not flying slowly but racing toward the end of the corridor at a speed far exceeding Hydreigon's.

"It's flying too fast!"

All Baimu's face changed as he stared intently at the walls, suddenly seeing countless red lights flare up where Dragonite flew past, and one after another ancient Armor Fossil statues burst out of the walls in a frenzy, nearly filling the corridor.

"This is a disaster! Get it back now!"

He shouted, and had Hydreigon launch an attack on the nearest few Pokémon statues. "Dragon Pulse!"

"Sha sang!"

Hydreigon opened all three mouths to their widest, tri-colored dragon flames surging forth and transforming into a roaring energy dragon that thundered forward, blasting the frontmost few ancient Armor Fossil statues into rubble, with many of the ones behind crumbling as well.

All Baimu let out a slight breath of relief — looks like although there were many ancient Armor Fossil statues, they were still fairly easy to deal with—

Provided everything developed the way he imagined.

Because at some point Alice and Axew had already charged into the corridor, shouting as they ran, "Dragonite! Come back!"

"You two come back too!"

All Baimu was stunned — he had never expected them to rush in.

Although the two of them moved with monkey-like agility, easily weaving past a large number of ancient Armor Fossil statues, it also meant Hydreigon couldn't freely use its ranged attacks.

"—No time to overthink it, just charge through and use an item drop glitch to get back to the first floor!"

He quickly thought of a solution, leapt onto Hydreigon's back, and chased after the direction Alice and Axew had run off in.

——

Five minutes later.

First floor.

All Baimu stared at the one person and two dragons kneeling before him — Alice and Axew hung their heads in embarrassment, while Dragonite frowned with a thoroughly indifferent look.

"If this keeps up I'll really kick you all out. I'd rather tackle this place alone than have teammates who only know how to cause trouble."

"Sorry..."

"Ong ong~"

"And you? Do you understand now?"

He looked at Dragonite — even kneeling down, this guy was about as tall as him, maybe even a little taller.

But under his gaze, Dragonite actually felt a bit guilty and didn't dare meet his eyes. Alice and Axew watching from the side both found it quite surprising — Dragonite was always tough and fierce in front of strangers.

And now it was actually avoiding eye contact?

"The answer? I need to hear an answer!"

All Baimu raised his voice.

"Grr."

"I can't hear you!"

"GRR!"

Dragonite furiously roared at him.

All Baimu's expression didn't change. "I hope you follow through on what you say next."

He wasn't even afraid of Lei Gong, so why would he be afraid of a little Dragonite?

Back to the main topic.

Hydreigon flying through didn't trigger the mechanism, but Dragonite flying through did — clearly there was some difference between the two.

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What was it?

After All Baimu's speculation, he believed it might be color.

Hydreigon's body was always covered in black fur, and black theoretically reflects no light at all or has an extremely low reflectance, meaning the light beams from the mechanism received no feedback.

He returned to the second-floor corridor and turned on his phone's camera function — through the screen he could see the walls, which had appeared completely empty, now constantly flickering with red light.

"Infrared...?"

All Baimu couldn't be sure, so he let Alice take a look as well.

The latter stared at the flashing red dot on the screen and asked in astonishment, "What is this?"

"A special sensing light, but I can't be sure."

He shook his head and pulled a black raincoat out of his bag. "Still, I may have already found a way to pass through safely. Wait here, I'll go try it."

Alice's face went blank, and then she saw All Baimu and the Three-Headed Hydreigon walking toward the passage. "Huh? Huh—wait!"

Didn't we just say not to take risks in person?

But soon she noticed that All Baimu and the Three-Headed Hydreigon passed through the passage safely, and never triggered any mechanism all the way to the end, never making any Pokémon stone statues appear.

They even wandered around.

"Why?" Alice's forehead was full of question marks, and Dragonite and Axew were the same.

"It's a long story…"

All Baimu gave a rough explanation of why black is black, along with things like light, infrared, and ultraviolet. The more Alice listened, the more confused she got, her head about to start steaming.

"Basic education is very important, Young Lady Alice. You must have skipped class a lot back in school, right?"

He said with a sigh.

Alice's cheeks flushed. "That's because class is boring!"

"I can tell you're not the type who can sit quietly in your seat either." All Baimu shook his head and took out a second black raincoat from his bag. "Recall Dragonite. From now on, move according to my instructions."

Axew isn't big—if you're careful, you can dodge the 'infrared beams.'

"Oh."

Alice nodded.

Honestly, having learned bad habits from Ash, she'd recently been charging through all her adventures by brute force and relying on her keen sixth sense to escape danger. This was her first time getting through a crisis in such an orderly, methodical way.

Very novel.

Not long after.

The two people and two Pokémon safely passed through the second and third floors and arrived at the staircase leading to the fourth floor—the top floor.

Alice was about to go up, but was stopped by All Baimu.

"Wait, you also said those stone statues chasing you on the top floor won't disappear, right? Maybe they're waiting for you right now."

"No way?"

"Better safe than sorry. Observing never hurts."

He quietly poked his head up toward the top floor, only to find that the light up there was more abundant than he'd imagined—not only coming from all four directions, but also shining down from above.

And the top floor was no longer a series of crooked passages, but a space broad enough, with a tall platform at the very center. Alice's backpack was plainly sitting on top of the platform.

"I can see your bag, and there are no stone statues nearby."

All Baimu turned to Alice and said, "You said before that when you went up there were no Pokémon stone statues, but the moment you took the fossils, a whole bunch suddenly activated?"

"Mm-hmm."

The latter nodded vigorously.

Looks like this Phantom Tower exists to guard those two fossils… but are fossils really worth that much? Building an entire tower inside a separate dimension.

Maybe that was how it was in ancient times.

Phantom Tower is clearly no modern creation.

The two arrived at the top floor. All Baimu first used his phone to scan the surroundings, but couldn't spot a single red dot.

Looks like the trigger rule for the top floor's mechanism is simply taking the fossils.

He walked all the way up onto the platform, didn't touch the luggage, and told Alice not to touch it either, searching the surroundings for things like inscriptions.

There's no way a tower this big doesn't even have a bit of ancient writing—

It really didn't.

All Baimu circled the platform seven or eight times, saw nothing, swept the surrounding walls with a flashlight, even leaned in to look and touch, and still found no writing.

"Tch, my first time exploring an ancient mystery and you hit me with an unsolved one?"

He held up his camera and took pictures—click, click—wanting to leave a little memento.

Too bad dismantling those Pokémon stone statues wouldn't drop any items, otherwise collecting some might come in handy in the future.

"Let's leave it here."

All Baimu regretfully put away his camera, turned to Alice, and said, "We're getting ready to head out."

"Okay."

Alice nodded and reached for the luggage.

"Hold on!"

He stopped the impatient dragon tamer and released Porygon from its ball. "I have a better, safer way."