The light became less oppressive as Longwei channeled Qi to his eyes, making his surroundings visible once more. But something about the blinding light was spiritual in nature, and even his now-enhanced vision was struggling with slight blurriness and spots of colors.
"Freeze! Nobody move!" an authoritative male voice somewhere above commanded over a megaphone, their voice coming from the same direction as the blinding light.
Of course, freezing and not moving wasn't something criminals would just be willing to do.
"It's the fuzz!" "Oh shit!" "Let's scram!"
No longer caring about Longwei, all the thugs in the basketball court made a break for it in random directions together with their pokémon. Some ran for the alleys, some ran past Longwei into their base, while others simply ran into the nearest door or smashed their way through the nearest windows. A good number of them, however, were suffering from the momentary blindness worse than others, and were tripping over their own feet or getting caught on each other rather than making any progress in their escapes.
Luxio returned to Longwei's side, looking around in a panic and seeming completely at a loss. Before Longwei could ask why she abandoned her charge rather than push through the momentary blindness, he saw why.
The alley she was meant to charge down was now occupied by burly armored pokémon a bit further in, and they were making short work of any thugs foolish enough to get close. The skuntank that they were initially going to break past was currently being pinned to the ground by an armored machoke, while an armored nidoking by its side was holding two unfortunate thugs up in the air. Longwei could also see a lightly armored arcanine behind them, along with several armored policemen carrying riot shields and batons.
The armor looked to be made of something modern like kevlar and was colored in blacks and grays. And while the pokemon's armor pretty much only covered small portions of their torsos, arms, legs, and heads, the human's armor was anything but light. Their entire bodies save for the lower half of their faces were covered, and each of them wore black ballistic glasses, making them look more like modern military or kitted out SWAT than city cops.
Longwei looked to the other alley and saw it similarly occupied by an armored rhydon, bibarel, and another machoke, with yet more policemen loitering behind them. Looking up he saw several pokémon hovering in the sky, but there forms were too difficult to see due the magneton that was shining like a floodlight down onto the clearing, albeit with a bit less intensity than it had at first. At the very least, Longwei no longer felt like his spirit was being disoriented, and rather it was just his mortal eyes that were struggling. The light seemed to be mostly for visibility and possibly as an intimidation tactic.
Recognizing that his escapes were cut off and not wanting to incriminate himself by attempting to flee, Longwei gently ushered Luxio back to a corner and watched calmly as the police finally surged in, efficiently rounding up any thugs that were too slow to make their escape into the nearby buildings. The thugs made sure to express their disagreement with the situation by shouting a variety of expletives.
Several officers and some of their less-massive pokemon began filing into the buildings in groups, no doubt pursuing the thugs who got away. One such group was even joined by a luxray, which was obviously being brought in for its ability to see through objects rather than because it was suited for tight quarters. The poor thing could barely even fit through the single door, and would no doubt have issue maneuvering through the cramped buildings.
One of the thugs who recovered from the flash of light much later than his peers yet somehow avoided being captured by now ran up to Longwei. With desperation clear on his face, the thug got to his knees and held onto Longwei's leg.
Were the thug not so pathetic looking, Luxio would have surely attacked him the instant he got close to her human.
"Please man, I can't go back to jail! Y-you gotta tell them I'm your grandson or something, that I'm not with these guys!" Longwei acknowledged the thug with a slight smile and a small bow of his head, but otherwise did nothing to agree with their request. The fool was in their uniform, what chance did he have? A hopeful look formed on the blissfully ignorant thug's face. "Thanks man!"
Finally, the thing Longwei had been waiting for came: two policemen with a growlithe by their side approached. The heavy thud of their boots alerted the thug, who quickly got to his two feet.
"Officers!" he said casually, clasping his hands together with a smile. "Glad you got here in time! My gramps here was in a tight spot and—" the nearest officer locked a cuff around the thug's wrists without any fanfare. "Wh-what're you—" the same officer grabbed the thug by the arms and began dragging him away. "What? No I—no, wait! Grandpaaaaaa!"
The other officer stepped up to Longwei and quickly looked the old man up and down, immediately recognizing Longwei as the civilian that was reported fleeing from the criminals. He also spotted the bleeding wounds and came to a quick decision. "Civilian, return your pokémon and come with us. We will escort you to a safer place where you can receive medical attention."
Longwei nodded, and recalled Luxio to her ball before following the officer. The machoke and nidoking blocking the alley stepped aside, allowing the two men plus growlithe to pass. Longwei was guided through the alley beyond, past several officers and their pokémon who were still arriving onto the scene or simply standing guard.
They soon stepped out of the alley and onto a street where several police cruisers were waiting. The classic red and blue lights were flashing atop most of them, while some car headlights kept certain areas clearly illuminated. There were a number of officers and pokémon in the area, some of them stationed along the outer perimeter to keep the many curious or upset civilians from getting too close.
The officer and his growlithe lead Longwei to an area where several foldout chairs and tables were laid out. Multiple unarmored officers were on their radios or organizing the various supplies, while a young man in a mostly light purple and partially yellow uniform who looked to be in his mid-late twenties was having a heated discussion with a blue haired officer lady.
One of the unarmored officers got up from their chair and hailed the officer guiding Longwei. The guiding officer gestured a hand to Longwei. "Got a wounded civvy with me, he needs a look over. Check his pokémon too."
"Understood." The unarmored officer turned to face Longwei, his eyes lingering on the bleeding cut across Longwei's cheek. "Sir, come with me."
He guided Longwei to one of the foldout chairs, then grabbed an antiseptic wipe to use on Longwei's bloody arm and cheek.
While he attended to Longwei's wounds, the conversation nearby continued. With a posh and arrogant tone, the brightly uniformed young man continued speaking to the blue-haired lady officer. "And how could they have so many members without having drawn notice sooner? Has your force simply been standing idle while these criminals grew in number and power within our very city? I expected better from a force led directly by a Jenny!"
"Sandgem is a port city, there's not much we can do to prevent crime from arriving overseas," Officer Jenny replied with a hint of exasperation. "The most we can do is deal with them whenever they appear and work together with other regions to keep this from happening in the first place."
The man scrunched his nose in disapproval. "These ruffians were marching in a group of no less than 20 and strong armed hotel staff without fear! They would only do this if the local law enforcement was not doing their job well enough!" he all but shouted.
Officer Jenny sighed. "Most of the arrests made so far are against people from Kanto. We've only just begun looking into them, but if my hunch is right then they only arrived in Sinnoh recently. There's not much we can do about roaming gangs trying to act tough— unless you're suggesting we begin profiling all travelers from Kanto?"
He scoffed. "Nothing but excuses. Your lapse in duty has made Sandgem City less safe and has stained the good image of the Sandgem Gym."
He then turned to Longwei, and his eyes narrowed. Marching forward and rudely dismissing Officer Jenny, he spoke directly to Longwei. "You are the one those criminals were after, then? On behalf of the Sandgem Gym, I would like to apologize regarding the police force's failure to keep you safe."
He reached into a pocket and handed Longwei a small slip of paper, ignoring the annoyed look given by the officer that was attending to Longwei's wounds. "Take this. It is a voucher that will permit you several free uses of our teleportation service, given to me by the Sandgem Gym Leader to hand out as needed. It is the least we can do after the harm that came your way." The gym trainer shot a glare towards Officer Jenny. "And rest assured, we will be taking measures of our own to ensure the city's safety."
His hand went to his belt, and he released a kadabra. "Kadabra, take us back to the gym." The kadabra's eyes shone light purple as it held up a similarly glowing spoon. After a brief moment of focusing its power, the kadabra and the gym trainer vanished in a clap of Psychic energy.
Officer Jenny placed a hand to her forehead and groaned in frustration. "Ugh, why do some gyms just have to overreact like this…" She shook her head, then walked further away to speak into her radio.
There was a tug at Longwei's arm, and Longwei looked down to see the bandaging was finished.
"Sir, may I see your pokémon now?"
"Certainly."
(~)
After giving a statement to the police—one where Longwei claimed he was attacked in the middle of the night and fled, only to be intercepted by the gang's leader and forced to hide in the gang's very own hideout once the rest caught up—Longwei went to sleep at yet another different hotel. After eating a hearty meal together with his disciples, Longwei made his way to the Professor's lab.
As always, Luxio was by his side. Poochyena, however, was currently fast asleep in his pokéball. The young pup was still tired after everything that's happened recently, and was only made more tired when Longwei taught them the Dao of Nutrition. Poochyena struggled far more than Luxio had, likely owing to his much younger age, and ended up exhausting himself in his efforts.
'Such strange growth…' Longwei thought as he looked inward with spirit sight, paying close attention to the areas associated with his hands.
He held his palm up, and the sunlight cast upon it was quickly overtaken by the blue glow of Qi. He then flexed his spirit with much more force than needed, and the blue glow began to churn in such a way that it looked like his hand was wreathed in blue flames.
Such wasteful usage of Qi would have been something he'd shy away from only a day ago, but after last night he no longer felt the need to be so frugal. His dantian had miraculously improved by many meal's worth from the ordeal, and even his meridians had seen improvement. While he was still nothing compared to his past self, he had improved considerably. By his own estimate he was in the upper-middle levels of the Qi Flowing stage, where cultivators truly began to become untouchable by mere powerless mortals.
It seemed to Longwei that combat truly was a powerful means of growth in this world.
But to his annoyance, his meridians had expanded autonomously rather than growing in accordance to his will as every human cultivator's meridians ought. Regrettably, this would necessitate manual adjustment to bring his meridians in line to his own design… a design which Longwei was still yet to devise, thanks to the many differences with this world's mechanics keeping him from plotting it out in advance.
For the moment, however, it was not a problem. His meridians had mostly expanded where they should, covering each of his limbs and extremities as he would have originally intended. And, curiously, the strange nodes that had grown near his hands without his say-so held some functionality that he understood instinctually. He simply knew that, were he to channel Qi to these new nodes and the one in his heart, he could condense a shock wave into his palms that he could then deliver with a strike, or he could form a sphere of Qi that he could then fire with unerring accuracy.
While he could have brute forced similar techniques by forcibly externalizing the Qi with his masterful spiritual control, utilizing techniques without nodes to facilitate them is heavily inefficient at best and downright impossible at worst. Any cultivator could enhance their physical body with Qi even without nodes; refining the body with Qi is the first thing every cultivator must do after passing the Qi Sensing stage, after all. But something like launching wind blades or forming pillars of earth was practically impossible without properly aligned nodes. Each node aligned to a technique's concepts made the technique easier to use, both in cost and in execution, making nodes quite important.
One of the first nodes Longwei realigned was the node for his heart—the most crucial node of all—which allowed him to brute force the few techniques he had used so far. The heart is associated with many important concepts: most notably life, purity, fire, and the self. With just the heart node, a cultivator can execute many techniques— provided they know how to use those techniques in the first place and are willing to waste the Qi on a technique while lacking its other nodes.
That heart node was what allowed him to use the Qi Transference technique with ease, as that technique relied mostly upon concepts covered by the heart. It's also what allowed him to show off the raw ball of Qi the other day, but that technique was still heavily brute forced due to a lack of proper nodes, making it very cost ineffective and much more difficult to produce than it should be. Now, however, Longwei would be able to form a superior ball of Qi thanks to the new nodes close to his hands, and at much lower cost. He still had to familiarize himself with the these new nodes and strengthen their makeup before they would be truly effective, but just having them there at all was already a massive improvement.
'Hmm. I suppose it's acceptable that my spiritual body designs itself for now. While some rules are the same, others clearly are not. I will have to study the design that comes naturally and optimize it later once I have deepened my comprehension.'
Finally, he neared the lab's sliding glass doors and cut off the technique in his hand. The flames petered out along with the ambient glow.
Sunlight reflected off the glass doors in such a way that he couldn't clearly see inside. But he doubted there was any danger to be found here.
The doors began to slide open automatically, and at once a number of things happened.
Luxio darted in front of Longwei with a growl, electricity building up around her form as she put herself between him and the doors.
A young lady shouted from further inside the lab, sounding more annoyed than alarmed. "Lucario! Where are you—"
A blue and black bipedal jackal-like pokémon—a lucario—tried to squeeze through the small opening in the glass doors prematurely, it's eyes locking onto Longwei the instant its head poked through.
And a flash of light as Luxio unleashed a Thunderbolt upon it, striking the lucario immediately and launching it back inside whereupon it crashed against the front of the reception desk.
"Oh my!" the same scientist from the other day exclaimed with a hand to his mouth from behind the desk.
The lucario got up quickly and looked between Luxio and longwei with a shocked expression, seeming less concerned with the damage it took and more confused about why it had been attacked in the first place.
Luxio took a step into the building and put on an Intimidation display which didn't seem to effect Lucario, while Longwei quickly scanned his surroundings to check for additional enemies and to make sure his escape wasn't being cut off.
But before things could escalate further, a blond-haired girl wearing a fairly simple mostly-blue dress who looked to be in her mid-teens burst through a set of doors further in.
Her eyes immediately locked onto her errant pokémon. "Lucario!" she scolded, adjusting the two little blue ribbons in her hair before pointing at her pokémon accusingly. "What do you think you're doing? Bad! No randomly fighting strangers!" Lucario raised its hands and shook its head in defense, but the girl wasn't having any of it. "No excuses! You're not getting any poképuffs for the rest of the week now, mister!"
Lucario's eyes shot wide open and his jaw dropped. He waved his hands and shook his head vigorously, pleading with her to not do such a thing, but she only responded with a stern glare. Seeing this, Lucario dropped to his knees and shuffled closer to her, then planted his head to the floor and held his hands up palms-together in a begging gesture.
The girl held her glare. After a brief moment of silent judgement, a single chuckle broke its way through and shattered her fierce demeanor. She then looked down with a smile. "Alright, alright. Apologize to them and I'll forgive you."
Lucario shot to his feet and nodded amicably to the girl, then faced Luxio and Longwei to offer them a deep bow. "Ro!"
Luxio eased her stance a little and let the electricity arcing around her die off. Longwei, meanwhile, simply raised a brow in uncertainty and gave the lucario a slight nod.
Three heartbeats of nothing passed.
A deep sigh from the scientist at the reception desk broke the awkward silence. "R-right. Well, now that that's settled, I'll go get Professor Rowan! Wait one moment, Sir Aura Guardian!" With that said, the scientist quickly went deeper into the lab through the same door the young girl had burst through.
The girl's head snapped to Longwei the instant the scientist left the room, his words seeming to take a moment to register in her mind. "Aura Guardian!?" She then looked to her Lucario for confirmation, who nodded excitedly. "You're the one they were talking about — the old man who made the Aura Sphere!"
Longwei stroked his beard. "Well, I certainly use aura, and I am a guardian of sorts." he replied sagely, not directly answering her implied question about him being an Aura Guardian while still giving her enough to presume he had. The lucario looked at him a bit funny, but Longwei ignored it. "However, my capabilities are nothing special when compared to a sufficiently powerful pokémon."
"That doesn't matter!" She rushed closer, but not so close as to invade his personal space. "You have to show me!"
"I'm a bit old to be putting on shows." Longwei said, avoiding eye contact. "You'll have to wait until—"
The girl waved a wad of cash in the air. "I'll pay you!"
Longwei's eyes flashed with greed. Before she could specify an amount, Longwei snatched the cash completely from her hand and stuffed it into his bad of holding, his hands moving faster than a viper. "I suppose this old man can make an exception for such an earnest child."
The girl's expression twitched at being called a child, but she moved past it quickly when Longwei brought his two hands up. He turned his palms to face the ceiling, and with a simple flex of his spirit two apple-sized spheres of aura flew out of his hands and hovered in place mere inches above his palms.
"Whoa!" the girl exclaimed, while her lucario looked raptly at the display.
Longwei then faced his palms together and joined the two spheres together, producing a much larger Aura Sphere. He pulled it away with his right hand and, feeling like giving the girl her money's worth, suddenly opened his jaws wide and shot the Aura Sphere directly into his own mouth. He then exaggeratedly crunched down, miming the motions of chewing and swallowing as if he were snacking on an oran berry.
The aura, being his own, was easily reabsorbed into his spirit before it could cause harm. He no longer needed to be frugal, yes, but that didn't mean he would be too wasteful. An Aura Sphere was still fairly costly to produce, after all.
There was a sort of alien sensation to the process—the technique creating something from an element that he was unfamiliar with. He presumed it had something to do with this world's supposed "18 elements", but he had yet to discern which of the 18 elements this technique was. Until the girl had called it an 'Aura Sphere' he had no name to go with the technique, and thus could not search it on the internet with his good friend Porybot.
"Holy miltank!" she shouted.
The door the scientist went through opened, and a gruff looking man with black hair and a thick mustache that reached his sideburns walked in, followed by the original scientist. "Indeed. You took the words straight out of my mouth, Cynthia."
For some reason, Longwei had the distinct feeling that this man's hair would soon go gray.
The girl whirled around. "As if you would ever say that Professor Rowan!"
Professor Rowan sniffed and twitched his mustache, expertly hiding a smile that only Longwei noticed. Stepping forward, Rowan adjusted his brown trench coat and addressed Longwei. "Greetings Sir Aura Guardian. Apologies for not entering sooner, me and my colleague did not wish to interrupt you." He then offered a hand to Longwei. "My name is Rowan Denboku. However, everyone just calls me Professor Rowan. Before we go any further, might you tell us your name?"
Longwei took the offered hand and gave it a firm shake. "Greetings Professor Rowan. This one is known as Longwei Sun." Longwei took his hand away. "However, I do not believe I am knighted by any existing region or organization, so the 'Sir' is unnecessary."
"Ah, my apologies then Mr. Sun. It is typically assumed that anyone capable of wielding aura had been knighted by the Rota Kingdom. Well, assumed by those who even know about aura guardians. The order has fallen from grace, so to speak, and actual aura wielders are scarcely but rumors these days."
Something about that kingdom sounded familiar, but Longwei had little idea what it was beyond the stated association with aura wielders. Regardless, Longwei filed that information away in his mind, hoping they may have ancient cultivation knowledge that may assist him.
"Obtaining spiritual mastery is no easy feat," Longwei said, "especially for humans. We're naturally disinclined to its usage, so it requires extreme dedication, talent, and luck to make significant headway. It's not surprising the practice has faded from public mind given the effort needed to match the average spirit beast."
"Match them?" Rowan said inquisitively. "You mean to say you can match a pokémon in combat?"
Longwei nodded. "Certainly none of the more powerful ones now that I've grown so old, but I've held my own against a number of ruffians and their beasts. Why, just the other day I took down a score of bandits and four of their pokémon—of course, Luxio's assistance was necessary against two of the more powerful ones."
The teenage girl looked at Longwei with surprise. "That was you?!" She then looked him up and down. "Wait, they said the old man who was attacked needed bandages, yet you're not hurt at all?" Lucario placed a paw on her shoulder.
Longwei shook his head. "Nothing drinking a healing potion couldn't fix."
"You drank a potion?!" she blurted out with a look of disgust.
"Young lady!" Rowan said sternly, fixing the girl with a scolding look.
Cynthia shrunk back. "Sorry Professor Rowan… and Mister Sun…"
Longwei nodded to Cynthia. "Apology accepted. And yes, I did drink a potion. The taste was quite foul and it's efficacy was very poor compared to the potions I am accustomed to, but it did it's job overnight. Although I do wonder why they didn't bother to at least add a little flavoring…"
Rowan coughed into his hand. "Potions are meant to be sprayed upon the damaged area, not ingested. And they're meant for pokémon."
Longwei blinked. '… What?' He then pulled out a standard potion from his bag of holding and examined the fine print(otherwise known as the basic directions that even a 10 year old could follow). "I see. Very curious…"
He thought back to when he had consumed the potion. While it's overall effectiveness seemed superior to a single oran berry, there was a certain… roughness to it. As if, although it could work through a spiritual base, it had not been imbued with the actual intent to do so.
This was something that he had only ever seen from novice alchemists; those who knew how to create a potion but lacked the finesse to infuse their creation with intent, resulting in a potion that still worked because of the magical ingredients but not as well as it should have. It was like the difference between a mortal blacksmith and a spirit smith: both knew how to make a sharp edge from metal, but only one knew how to imbue the very concept of sharpness itself into the blade.
He returned the potion back to his bag, a deep look of contemplation lingering on his face as he placed a hand over part of his mouth and chin. "Medicinal potions and pills are meant for absorption through the spirit, easiest facilitated through consumption. A topical application, although functional, is much slower."
Longwei's assumption that this world lacked true cultivators only further reinforced itself from this knowledge. Who would waste their time, let alone even common ingredients, on a deliberately inferior potion?
The possibility that there may be hidden sects operating outside of mortal society was not dismissed entirely, but he now felt the odds of that were low. Humans with power were prone to flaunting it, the odds of cultivators refraining from showing off to the mortals were slim to none. Especially since this world apparently had an order of so-called Aura Guardians, confirming that humans have at least made the attempt to cultivate openly.
If those Aura Guardians had any success, they would surely have bragged about it. Because of this, Longwei began to form the idea that the humans of this world simply never progressed past the Qi Sensing or Qi Refinement stages, and thus had nothing to brag about compared to the many spirit beasts.
It was understandable; while reinforcing your own bones, skin, and muscles was fairly simple, things got really complicated once you moved on to reinforcing your more complicated organs. You could easily relax your arm while you imbued Qi into its bones, skin, and flesh. Care would still need to be taken around nerves, but it was manageable without guidance.
But reinforcing your lungs when you need to constantly breathe? Reinforcing your brain when thoughts were always firing? Or your eyes, which at times seem to have a mind of their own and snapped to and fro without conscious input? A careless junior who hasn't mastered meditation and lacked the supervision of a senior could easily injure themselves or even get themselves killed while reinforcing these parts of their body.
And all of this was nothing compared to the Spirit Foundation stage, where one had to form a meridian system that linked throughout one's spiritual body, and then form a dantian from within the very center of one's own soul. The slightest mistake in dantian formation could prove even worse than fatal—the very soul itself could be destroyed, potentially removing it from the cycles of samsara permanently. Or so it was believed, anyways.
There's a reason there were still so many mortals in Yongyu despite cultivation being so appealing: it was very difficult and very dangerous. Most who tried to cultivate without any talent or backing wouldn't even reach the Qi Sensing stage. Those who did would then mostly be filtered by the Qi Refinement stage, often coming out of the ordeal crippled. The Spirit Foundation stage wasn't too bad, as most sects would recruit someone who got that far and provide them assistance with dantian formation, but even then they were often doomed to a life of servitude as an outer-disciple.
Longwei had no idea when or how the humans of Yongyu first discovered how to pass the Spirit Foundation stage, but he imagined many had to die for it. Dantian formation was not exactly something a spirit beast could teach a human as spirit beasts were all naturally born with a spiritual system, so surely it was something learned through terrible amounts of trial and error.
For this reason, Longwei figured that the humans of this world had simply given up the pursuit of cultivation. When spirit beasts are friendly or at least peaceable, what pressure is there to risk one's life to cultivate? Especially when there is no confirmation that one could ever become as powerful as a pokémon or achieve immortality through cultivation. To someone who doesn't know better, cultivation would just be a good way to get yourself killed.
Longwei looked to the ceiling, eyeing nothing in particular. "I suppose a lack of spiritual practitioners would lead to alchemy being a dead art. It is just one more thing lost."
"Alchemy…" Rowan placed his fingers to his own forehead and gave a heavy sigh. He then turned to the scientist. "Bring our guest to the lounge and have the staff prepare tea and biscuits. I need to go fetch something for this building pressure in my skull."
"Certainly." the scientist replied, allowing Rowan to leave through another door. "Mr. Sun, if you would follow me?"
With a nod, Longwei did so, and followed the scientist further into the building. Walking through a hallway, the scientist turned right and led the group through a door leading to the staff lounge.
It was a simple space with mostly wooden flooring. A few were tables laid out with chairs placed around them, enough to accommodate a couple dozen people total. On the wall directly from the door were windows facing out to an expansive field where some pokémon could be seen milling about. At the right end of the room was a small kitchen that had tiled flooring, complete with a small line of counters with chairs where people can be served sort of like a bar counter. At the left there was a large television against the wall with a few couches and ottoman's facing towards it, its screen visible from anywhere in the room.
The scientist gestured to the tables. "Here we are. Wait here while I go speak with the kitchen staff to procure some tea and biscuits, although the Professor will probably be here before I'm done. The real kitchen's much bigger than the one here, you see, and the kitchen staff are usually busy preparing meals for the many pokémon staying in the area, so it was built a bit further away. Oh, what am I saying, this doesn't matter. Be right back with the tea and biscuits!"
With that said, the scientist left the room and closed the door behind him.
…
"So…" the young Cynthia said, having invited herself along. "Alchemy, huh?"
"You have more to say." Longwei replied, brushing a hand through the fur atop Luxio's head. The action lightened Luxio's mood somewhat, but her dead-to-the-world look would only go away once the waiting-for-humans-to-finish-talking game ended. "Speak openly and honestly then. This senior has no time for playing with words or dancing through formalities."
Of course, Longwei had plenty of time. But juniors who had questions or requests yet were hesitant to ask them were something he always found annoying. He believed that one should either speak their intentions or not bother an elder in the first place, that way no one's time is wasted. He understood that some elders weren't quite so accommodating, but Longwei was certainly not one of those unpleasant old fools. It was an elder's duty to look after the juniors, and that was a duty Longwei would not shirk unless necessary.
"What do you mean by alchemy? Do you mean like, turning lead into gold?" Cynthia asked.
Longwei smirked. "While possible, such a transmutation is in no way worth the cost. But to answer your question, alchemy has a number of uses. It covers transmutation, yes, but typically it's used for making pills or potions."
"Sooo, like how survivalists or crafters in the past used to make healing ointments by grinding up orans and leeks in a mortar and pestle before lightly heating it in a wooden bowl over a campfire?"
"A wooden bowl over a campfire? No, alchemists use cauldrons."
While there was no rule that an alchemist's cauldron had to be made of metal, metal was still simply the better material. There were some who experimented with cauldrons made of other materials, sometimes even ones made of living spirit plants, but none had ever surpassed a properly crafted metal cauldron in terms of quality.
Cynthia laughed, but her laughter trailed off when she noticed Longwei was serious. "Wait, really? Like a witch's cauldron?" She received a strange look. "Well, anyways, could you show me?"
Longwei innocently turned away. "These old bones are a bit too weary for another display."
She sighed and rolled her eyes, then pulled out another wad of cash. Longwei glanced over and, judging that the amount wasn't enough, simply arched a brow. Cynthia groaned, and pulled out more cash from her wallet. Before she could even raise her eyes to see if he thought it was enough, the money was taken from her hands and stuffed into his bag of holding faster than an innocent child's burger would be snatched by hungry gulls at an ocean pier.
"For some reason this senior is feeling rather energetic. Perhaps a demonstration is in order." He walked over to the kitchen and began looking through the cabinets.
Grabbing the largest cooking pot he could find, he dropped it onto the stove.
"What, you don't have an actual cauldron?"
Longwei looked at her sadly. "Not anymore, no. And they're very expensive to create. I'd need at least 20 common spirit stones just to make a basic alchemist's cauldron. Well, not like I'd be able to fit one in this tiny bag's opening anyways." he said, slapping his bag of holding.
He then looked through the cabinets for ingredients worth using. Activating his spirit sight, he appraised the many ingredients available, closely examining the many fruits/vegetables/etc and doing his best to discern their effects and qualities. Luckily, he had already spent some time familiarizing himself with a couple of this worlds berries, chiefly the oran and the sitrus, and so he easily recognized some healing traits within the various ingredients.
However, there was a problem. He hadn't appraised anything from the lens of an alchemist yet, which has lead to a bit of an oversight and overconfidence in his abilities.
Simply put, all the ingredients were too high-quality. His meager reserves, although recently strengthened, would not be able to handle processing even a basic potion from the ingredients available. Not without a proper alchemist's cauldron or some assistance.
"Disciple, come to me."
Luxio, who had taken to resting her head on one of the chairs, immediately perked up and hurried to his side.
"Give me your paw."
She did so, and he took it into his hand.
Longwei appraised her spiritual base once more to make sure she would be capable of the task he was about to ask of her. "I suppose now is as good a time as any for you to learn the Qi Transference technique."
Luxio looked at him like something was wrong but he simply wagged a finger with his free hand, already knowing what concerned her. "One does not need sight to feel. Your control has improved considerably, and I am confident in your ability to do this. Close your eyes."
She closed her eyes.
"Now, feel the Qi flow through you." He began to channel Qi through his hand and into her paw, causing a dim blue glow. "Know from where it comes and where it flows. Feel the energies of heaven and earth, and comprehend them."
Luxio tilted her head slightly, trying her best to make sense of the word salad Longwei was verbally throwing at her.
"Good. Now I want you to imagine yourself overturning that flow. You wish to reverse it, and so you push back against it with your own flow."
Longwei had mentored many spirit beasts in his years and knew well how naturally the spiritual arts came to them. It is for this reason that he wasn't shocked at all when Luxio, despite being green to the manual control of Qi and the spirit, began to slowly push back against his flow. It was gradual at first, just the barest hints of a slowdown like a pebble upsetting a stream's momentum, but soon that lone pebble turned into a line of pebbles, and then a flow of water from the other side was arriving to push back what little water of his own managed to slip through the cracks.
The moment Longwei felt that metaphorical line of pebbles form into a solid wall, he cut off his own flow to end his own resistance and allow a reverse flow. This proved to be a mistake, however, as that metaphorical solid wall had suddenly turned into a metaphorical rapid waterfall and—
Longwei hastily erected a barrier within his spirit to reject Luxio's Qi, but not before a significant amount of Electrical Qi made its way through and shocked him mightily!
An expert at Qi manipulation and combat, Longwei quickly took charge of the situation where most others would have faltered. He forced his free hand to point two fingers towards the ceiling, then discharged the foreign Electrical Qi that was overcharging his spirit through them. Lightning shot out of his fingers and crashed into the ceiling with a bang, leaving a large scorch mark!
When he opened his eyes, he saw Lucario freeze mid-step towards him, as if the lucario had run over to help the instant things went wrong. Longwei nodded a silent thanks to him for his good intentions, then looked down to the concerned Luxio. "You did good, disciple. Perhaps a bit too good, hoho!"
He brushed his hair back into place and then tried again, instructing Luxio to be less forceful with her flow. After a couple minutes of careful adjustment, she reached a satisfactory output that Longwei could handle.
With that settled, Longwei looked through the ingredients once more and sought out the easiest ingredients he reckoned he could make a potion with. In the end, he took a few orans and leeks from the cabinets, coincidentally the same ingredients Cynthia had mentioned earlier. The sitrus and other high-quality ingredients were simply out of his league for now.
He then grabbed a cup and filled it with water. After checking that the water was pure enough, he poured water into the pot until the berries were half-submerged. Next he resonated the pot itself with his Qi, making it and its contents more receptive to spiritual manipulation. He would still be limited to potions since a proper cauldron was necessary to condense pills, but that was fine.
Preparations complete, Longwei decided to release Poochyena onto one of the ottomans. He gently pat the sleepy pooch between the ears and quietly explained what's happening, then left a bowl of water and an oran berry nearby for the drowsy pup.
It would take upwards of a couple hours for the potion to be complete, and he did not want Poochyena to be cooped up in his pokéball for the duration.
Longwei then returned to the kitchen. "As I am without a proper alchemist's cauldron, this will take quite some time. Possibly even more than an hour. I ask that you do not interrupt unless absolutely necessary, as this task will require complete and unbroken concentration."
Cynthia tersely nodded, looking equal parts intrigued and dumbfounded. Her lucario had it even worse.
The stove's flame was turned on and set to a moderate intensity. A glowing hand was placed just shy from touching the open pot's surface. Another hand held onto Luxio's paw, each glowing with a dim light.
And so the alchemical process of filtering away undesired effects while amplifying desired ones began. Very quickly the water in the pot began to bubble, not from heat but rather from Qi, as many undesired spiritual traits began to purge from the pot's ingredients.
Rowan stepped into the lounge and immediately noticed the stove was running. Standing directly by the stove was the Aura… wielder, Longwei Sun, who was holding hands with his Luxio that was sitting on the floor. Cynthia, her lucario, and Rowan's own colleague were watching from a respectable distance at the bar counter, each of them sipping from cups of tea that his colleague somehow managed to acquire before Rowan could arrive. Curiously, the aura wielder seemed to be doing something with the pot on the stove.
Walking up to join the observers, Rowan asked them a question that was only partially serious. "He's not making a bomb, is he?"
Cynthia immediately turned and hissed a "Shhhhhh!" at him, holding a finger to her lips.
Rowan's more helpful colleague thankfully decided to answer the question. He spoke in slightly hushed tone, keeping Longwei in his sight as he replied. "I have been told he is performing 'alchemy'. Apparently he is lacking the proper tools, so he needs to remain in deep concentration to compensate."
Rowan glanced at the pot, unable to see the contents from his perspective, and arched a brow. "Not able to see much from here, are we." he said at a softer volume. He then looked around the area nearby Longwei. "And I see there are no recording instruments set up either." He sent a disapproving look to his colleague.
His colleague smiled painfully. "Ah, by the time I arrived the process was already underway. I felt it prudent not to leave without at least one researcher observing the process."
Rowan grunted in acknowledgment. "Hrmph. Well luckily I always come prepared." Reaching a hand into his coat, Rowan pulled out a pokéball and several technological thingamabobs that were each designed to gather information in the field.
Firing the pokéball beam behind them, his porygon materialized in the middle of the room. "Porygon, be a dear and help set these up around our guest over there. Be careful not to bother them."
Porygon nodded it's low-poly head. Taking the devices from Rowan on its flat upper polygons, it hovered to the area near Longwei and began placing them in appropriate locations that would both ensure their functionality and ensure they did not interfere with the subject. One of the cameras in particular was placed on a cabinet above and to the side of the subject, adhered to the cabinet's surface with a miracle adhesive and with its lens pointed down to face the inside of the pot.
Returning to Rowan, a small antenna was placed on the top of Porygon's head, allowing Porygon to act as a wireless central hub and storage center for the devices. With a flex of its power, Porygon activated each of the devices through their wireless link and began gathering the data.
Rowan nodded, then pulled a bulky briefcase-sized laptop from inside his coat and set it up on the bar table that everyone was seated at. Taking a seat of his own, Rowan turned the bulky computer on and wirelessly connected it to Porygon. Immediately a number of windows appeared, each revealing the feed of data that was coming from the devices while also storing the data on its own hard drive. Porygon helpfully began transferring the small amount of data that was gathered before the computer was turned on.
"Now then," Rowan said, "how long should I expect this to take."
His colleague merely gave a sympathetic smile. Cynthia, however, openly groaned in annoyance before answering Rowan's question. "He said it could take over an hour at worst."
Rowan blinked. "Then it's a good thing we brought snacks."
Cynthia tch'd, then bounced off her chair. "Call me if he finishes or if something happens. I'm going to train."
"Please don't go through the—" Rowan began to say, but it was too late. Lucario had already opened the window for her, and the two climbed through it before running further into the field. "Ahh, youth."
"Great job Gabite!" Cynthia cheered as the dragon pokémon pulled off another successful Draco Meteor against the pillars of stone Gastrodon had formed with Stone Edge. Her accuracy and charge up time for the powerful dragon move was getting and better and better! Cynthia felt confident that she was close to evolving again. Maybe even before the next conference!
A tap on her shoulder shifted her attention, and she turned to face the culprit. Lucario looked back at her with a frown, and Cynthia's cheery mood practically vanished. "What's wrong?" she asked.
The rest of her team paused their training and looked over. They were well-used to Lucario being their danger sensor, and were curious about what kind of danger would dare come to Rowan's Lab. There were many other powerful pokémon here after all, and each of them were very protective of the territory and those that resided within it. Only someone extremely powerful or exceptionally foolish would dare come here with ill intent.
Lucario simply turned and pointed towards the road leading to the lab's front entrance. Cynthia squint her eyes. She didn't see anything at first, but after a couple seconds she saw a police cruiser come into view.
Cynthia wondered what could be wrong about that, but then she remembered the scientist who usually manned the reception desk was currently in the staff lounge going over the still-incoming data with Professor Rowan.
Annoyingly, the aura wielder's assumption that it could take over an hour had proven to be accurate.
She sighed. "Well, I guess I'll handle it for him since he's busy. Alright team, training's over for now!" Each of her team gave sounds of acknowledgment as she returned them all to their pokéballs save for Lucario.
Breaking into a light jog, she hurried to beat the officers to the front room. Quickly combing her hair into place and brushing off any dirt she could find on her clothes, she took a seat at the reception desk and patiently waited for their arrival. She's worked for Professor Rowan occasionally, so she knew what to do for the most part.
It didn't take long before Officer Jenny and a deputy walked through the front entrance, followed closely by a growlithe. Without pause they walked straight to the reception desk.
Officer Jenny squint her eyes at the sight of a young lady manning the front desk, but disregarded it. "Have you seen an old man with white hair and white clothing come by this area? He's been charged with pokémon theft, specifically of a poochyena, and we were told he was last seen headed this direction."
Cynthia was shocked, but a series of almost imperceptive light squeezes and pushes from Lucario's paw on her shoulder told her that something was amiss.
Why would Lucario signal that an Officer Jenny was lying, but also telling the truth? What was going on?
Deciding that Lucario would only do that if he thought the aura wielder was innocent, Cynthia quickly thought of a way get the officers to leave. And the only way she could think to do that was to blatantly lie.
With a polite mask, Cynthia lied directly to an officer of the law. "I'm sorry, but no one like that has come by today. And if any pokémon from the lab were stolen I'm sure there would have been an uproar among the rest of them by now."
Officer Jenny tsk'd. "Well, that's one more dead end. Come on men, we have more leads to follow." Growlithe barked happily and followed the two officers out of the building.
It was only a minute after the doors closed behind the officers that Cynthia dared to let out a relieved sigh.
"What was that about?"
Lucario shrugged.
"Do you think Poochyena was actually stolen?"
Lucario looked at her seriously and shook his head no.
"Huh… weird."