Wes stiffened at this but I patted Hades keystone to calm it and with a hiss it withdrew back into my pocket. "Relax, Hades is won't harm you unless you give me a reason to allow it to. I can tell you still don't believe me so why don't you stop by my new home in a few days since I need I furnish the place and I'll cook you up a nice meal, my treat." I said with a friendly smile. Normally I wouldn't care about a random person that I met out of nowhere but something told me that Wes was important somehow.-

Call it a trainers intuition if you want but I felt like he would be worth knowing like May, Brendan and Steven. "Now then about this dark and twisted aura you said you saw, can you describe it more clearly?" I asked Rui after leaving Wes to his own thoughts. "Um well, it was wrong feeling, cold and hostile sort of like the impression your pokemon gave me but not natural, fake. I don't think I can really describe it better than that but i did notice that the pokemon that had it was like a fighting machine that was even willing to attack people without hesitation or reason." she said seriously.-

I quickly went over my aura knowledge before frowning when I did indeed find something that sounded strikingly similar. A forbidden aura technique that closed the door to the heart in pokemon. These closed hearted pokemon were basically monsters as they were insane and in exchange for this they gained a sharp increase in power and ruthlessness. It was an accursed existence that knew only violence and destruction without the tempering influence of morality and care.-

Even more so anyone bonded to that pokemon was infected by this through their own auras leading them to be more criminally inclined than normal. The issue was that according to the information i had on the technique there shouldn't be anyone capable of doing it as it required either a grandmaster of aura or a corrupted life jewel. I honestly didn't think that without the information I myself possessed on the skill that it was possible to become a grandmaster of aura anymore. A corrupted life jewel was even less likely as to create one you needed both a grandmaster alchemist and jeweler plus countless ritualistic sacrifices.-

The things also had short shelf lives so it wasn't possible that someone had simply found one that had been lost to time until now. "I see, if my theory is correct what you describe might be a shadow pokemon and I pray that you are wrong. The techniques to create them are forbidden to aura masters for a good reason, it's an abomination and perversion of the natural way. Thankfully the technique is revertible so if you come across any I implore you to seek me out with them if you can. " I said seriously.-

After that we parted ways and I officially entered Phenac properly. My first impression was that this place was a vacation resort. It was hard not to think that with the cleanness and well maintained appearance the stone town had. There were grooves with flowing fresh water all over the place and an almost tropical vibe going on. The pokemart was a modern style building that was clean and well stocked and everyone seemed pretty happy. After asking around I discovered that Orre was basically a fitness region which was why no one batted so much as an eye at my powerful form.-

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Practically three quarters of the regions population were trainers and took their physical fitness seriously as it kept them healthy for longer apparently. If anything the looks I received were more about my sense of fashion as i was wearing only a pair of loose cargo shorts, my bag, spear and an eyepatch. It wasn't the most over the top appearance but it still drew some curious looks. I unfortunately learned quite quickly from asking around that unless I was going to import furniture from other regions that my options were quite limited in that department.-

My options were basically stone, metal, synthetic cloth or plastic in all regards as for obvious reasons wood was a scarce resource. Even in the cases available I myself would have to assemble the furniture like it was all from Ikea. The only exception I found was if I were to go north west from Phenac to Agate village I may be able to get wooden premade furniture there as it was at the edge of a forest and thus had a few wood workers. I got warned though that it was likely to be expensive due to the rarity.-

In the end I chose to purchase a steel table and chair set , cabinets and synthetic cloth couch. I didn't need a bed as Vulcan was much more comfortable than any options I had here. It wouldn't care anyways since that was the usual way we did things anyways. This cost me a good twenty thousand poke since it included delivery to my house that was way out of the way in the desert. With that taken care of I started scouting out the locals and found a few interesting places in town.-

The first was a deceptively small building that was called the Pre gym and was an interesting take on the leagues gyms. The gym leader was a man named Justy that reminded me of Brawly and Norman oddly enough. He was cheerful and friendly but at the same time had a seriousness to him that lended well to his control of the Pre gym. The gym itself worked based on a challenger having to face six slightly stronger than the last trainers before battling Justy himself. Much like the normal gyms each trainer had different teams of pokemon depending on the strength of the challenger as well though low Ace level was as high as it went.-

After learning this I politely rejected Justy's offer to take the challenge myself as I wouldn't gain anything from it as an elite level trainer myself. Still the man insisted on at least swapping contacts since he felt it was a good idea. That settled the matter of my second contact in the region and I leisurely checked out the other interesting places in town. The colosseum was of course the next worthwhile place to check as it was exactly as one would expect with a massive arena that regularly held tournaments for rare resources in this region like supplements and TMs.-

I was flat out told I wasn't allowed to participate though as I was too strong and would ruin the events if I did with my pokemon. That was, admittedly, disappointing to hear but something I could understand. The final place that caught my attention though was the mayors office as I witness Wes and Rui encountering a tall man with a frankly sinister appearance. He had wild unnaturally flowy serpentine white hair and red eyes. His outfit was a purple skin tight body shirt that revealed his gaunt figure and tattered looking red waist cloth and dark blue pants.