It took nearly two hours for Julian to look through all the places in the national treasure vault where the Pokémon-related treasures were stored.
Overall, there were many treasures—worthy of being in the vault indeed.
Unfortunately, he could only take one.
Julian finally stopped at a corner of the vault where an especially large number of treasures were placed—at least fifty to sixty items in total.
They all shared one common label: "Unknown Treasure."
In other words, these were items whose specific effects and purposes were currently unidentified.
Perhaps these items truly were treasures, or perhaps they were nothing at all.
After all, the world of Pokémon contained countless treasures, and it was impossible for humans to discover and understand them all.
Even among the Ultimate treasures Julian himself had found before, there were a few that had never been documented, so finding "unknown treasures" was a very common occurrence.
As for how to determine whether these unknown items were genuine treasures or just ordinary objects—that required appraisal by professionals.
Of course, even appraisals could go wrong. For example, something that actually was a treasure might be mistakenly identified as worthless, and then it would be tossed into some forgotten corner.
The reverse also happened—ordinary items being misidentified as treasures.
But such problems meant nothing to Julian, who possessed the Probing Eyes.
Whether it was a true gem or just a piece of glass, nothing could hide from his gaze.
Looking at the pile of unidentified treasures before him, Julian subconsciously rubbed his palms together—he felt like a gold prospector sifting through sand.
He activated the Probing Eyes and casually picked up one item.
[Stone: Useless. Hurts when thrown at someone.]
[Mutated Fire Stone: When used to evolve a Pokémon that requires a Fire Stone, there is a 10% chance it would become a shiny Pokémon, and a 90% chance the evolution would fail—resulting in the Pokémon's death.]
Reading the description of the Mutated Fire Stone, Julian's face darkened. The name sounded impressive, but it turned out to be something only a supremely lucky person could use successfully.
Was he such a person?
Yes—he was.
Julian nodded with confidence, then put the Mutated Fire Stone back, since he didn't need it. None of his Pokémon required a Fire Stone to evolve anyway.
Out of the fifty-six items, forty were confirmed treasures, five were Ultimate treasures, nine were useless items, and one was…
He looked at the object in his hand—smooth and white like jade, about the size of a fist.
[Light Stone: The form taken by Reshiram's physical body after its destruction. It is said that it will awaken again when it encounters a hero with Truth.]
Coincidence, destiny, or fate's arrangement?
Julian was a bit stunned. At this moment, he truly felt like the luckiest man alive—the fabled "Chosen One."
Out of an entire pile of unidentified items, he had directly found the Light Stone, the very form into which the Truth Dragon, Reshiram, had transformed.
Previously, he had obtained Zekrom's Dark Stone, and thanks to a system reward, he had acquired the "Words of Ideals," allowing him to revive Zekrom. Right now, that guy's Poké Ball was hanging right on his belt.
He hadn't told anyone—keeping it completely secret.
[T/N: True that!]
If he ever encountered someone he couldn't defeat, he'd directly release Zekrom and give them a huge surprise.
And now, he had obtained the Light Stone, transformed from the Truth Dragon, Reshiram.
Although he hadn't obtained the "Words of Truth" yet, otherwise he could revive Reshiram directly.
Once that happened, he'd have the Light Dragon Reshiram on his left and the Dark Dragon Zekrom on his right, with the Wish star Jirachi held in his arms, Mewtwo floating imposingly in front of him, and Kyogre riding giant waves beneath his feet.
Damn, with that kind of power—if he didn't dominate the world, it would be because he chose not to.
Metagross: 'So there's no place for me, huh? Guess love does fades.'
Thankfully, Julian had only imagined this scene in his head. If he had actually said it aloud, Metagross would probably have thrown the Light Stone out the window—and buried Zekrom's Poké Ball for good measure.
Now that the Light Stone had practically delivered itself into his hands, not taking it would have been an insult to fate itself.
Though it was a pity he couldn't take any of the World-class Ultimate treasures, the Light Stone's value far surpassed any of them.
Just thinking about reviving Reshiram—about having the black dragon on his right and the white dragon on his left—made Julian's heart race with excitement.
Holding the Light Stone, he went through the procedures after leaving the vault, before returning to James's office.
"Chosen already?" James asked.
"Mm."
"What did you pick?" James was somewhat curious. There were several Ultimate treasures in the vault that suited Julian, any one of which could significantly boost his strength.
"This." Julian pulled out the jade-like Light Stone from his pocket.
"What's that?" James had no impression of this item. He only remembered the details of those Ultimate treasures stored in the vault.
"Light Stone, it was on the miscellaneous shelf," Julian explained.
He didn't mention the specific function of the Light Stone, afraid it would scare the old man.
"You know what this thing does?" James was very aware of the miscellaneous shelf in the vault, where items whose specific uses couldn't be identified but were considered treasures were placed.
"No idea," Julian said with a straight face. "It just looked nice, so I thought I'd put it on my bedside table as decoration."
James rolled his eyes. He didn't believe a word of that. This brat clearly knew exactly what that thing was—he just didn't want to tell him.
Given Julian's personality, it was entirely possible that this "random" item was actually the most valuable treasure in the entire vault—perhaps equal to, or even greater than, a World-class Ultimate treasure.
Since Julian didn't want to say more, James didn't press him.
The Walker family knew very well that Julian had his own secrets—and big ones at that.
Everyone in the family understood their own situation clearly. Though they were one of Drakoria's top families and had no shortage of resources, even they couldn't possibly nurture a Champion-level trainer at the age of 22.
What's more, Julian had rarely ever requested resources from the family. With what little he had taken, becoming an Elite at his age would have already been remarkable.
In fact, it was Julian who often handed things over to John and Jake that benefited them tremendously. The breakthrough opportunity that John had to become a Champion was achieved with Julian's help.
James remembered that clearly—back then, Julian had only been a pseudo–Elite, yet he had the means to help someone complete the final step toward becoming a Champion.
Because of that, the Walker family had always allowed Julian to develop freely, without interference. Of course, they had taught him everything about raising Steel-type Pokémon long ago.
And through that freedom, Julian had grown at a shocking pace—rising to the Champion-level and even commanding First-class Legendary Pokémon without suffering backlash.
To keep his family from worrying about whether he had suffered any backlash from commanding Kyogre, Julian had already told them that he could command a First-class Legendary for twenty minutes without any side effects.
Unown's Protection lasted only twenty minutes for now, but perhaps in the future, as the number of Unown within him increased, that duration might extend even further.
*****
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