I won't lie and say that I didn't sigh in relief as the cold water rolled off my skin during my rinse. Hell I'll feely admit that I very much did. Perhaps very few people truly understand the relief that cool water on sunburnt salt and dirt encrusted skin brought but I did at this moment. While it was fairly pointless I also did a light soapless wash of my clothes as well in the water before I put them back on. The wetness of my clothes helped keep me cool as Gaia and I left the area to find more opponents for her.-

I don't know if I mentioned it already but Hoenn was as hot and humid as Satan's balls after sex. It certainly didn't help that gnats , yes normal bugs existed here , swarmed around me relentlessly. Gaia at least found my constant swatting and irritable cursing amusing as we walked through the shade of the forest. We found a few a few different pokemon during the next three hours of being local tyrants and attacking anything that looked at us funny. Jokes aside I was surprised to see that there were members of the Treecko species and some of those from other regions as well such as a single spearow.-

'I knew that Kanto and Johto were near each other but not that Hoenn was as well.' I thought interested. 'Appraise' I used the ability of the system to check each of the members of the Treecko species I saw but none of them stood out to me. 'I'll wait until I either find an irresistible pokemon or I get properly settled supply wise before I try and expand my team.' I decided before having Gaia challenge the nearby pokemon to a "friendly" spar.-

She was quickly getting better at controlling the level of damage she did to her vic-cough- opponents. At the end of our three hours Gaia barely managed to hit level ten as it was getting harder and harder to get a decent challenge out of the weak nearby pokemon. That was actually an interesting take on exp as it actually had nothing to do with the level of her opponent nor was is some set amount but rather whether or not she got a decent challenge out of it. She didn't even have an exp bar so I assume that her level is based on how good at combat she and her opponents were.-

[Congratulation on completing a quest! You received Barefoot adaptation , Legal I.D , 1x random skill ticket]

The moment Gaia hit level ten I got this notification and celebrated for all of about two seconds before screaming and falling to the ground. As I was quickly finding out rapid adaptation is FUCKING PAINFUL! Imagine getting stung by a yellow jacket and then multiply it by three and spread it all over the bottom of your feet including your toes , that was what I felt as the system gave me my "rewards".-

Thankfully it ended in only a minute as otherwise I am pretty sure I would have suffocated to death. I like any reasonable person had screamed out my entire air supply and was locked into a silent scream afterwards until the pain ended. Gasping down as much air as I possibly could with Gaia watching on concerned I angrily pulled off my tattered socks to make sure it was worth the suffering I just endured. There at the bottom of my feet was a layer of thick dark callus not unlike hard leather.-

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

It was on every part of my feet that could possibly touch the ground including the pads of my toes and was solid to the touch. Standing up I stored away my socks in my bag and looked at Gaia "I'm fine it was just a temporary thing I promise." I said reassuringly in my broken common. I was quickly getting better at the language after totally dropping english for it when I spoke. I still had to stop myself from switching back when I spoke but was otherwise using it exclusively. Walking around a bit I marveled at how much easier it had become now that every step didn't hurt.-

Now that I had the right feet for the job it was now time to head up the mountain in search of metal. What neither I nor anyone else in this world realized though was that the moment my rewards were given every database in the world suddenly had a new entry that only contained the barest minimum amount of information in it to be legal. Not even the digital pokemon guarding these secure servers were aware that a change had happened. Maybe in the future would someone would get suspicious but for now all seemed normal.-

"Let's head up the mountain Gaia , maybe we'll find some stronger opponents for you." I said and her eyes lit up "Larvitar!" she said excitedly. After leaving the forest I briefly stopped by our cave to feed the smoldering fire so it was still alive when we returned in about three hours when the sun started to drop. The mountain was steep and treacherous but thanks to Gaia's digging ability she made us a sloping path going up at an angle. It was just wide enough that you didn't need to cling to the mountain wall to walk it.-

This was because Gaia was rather wide and so made her path to fit her which fit me perfectly. I learned something both irritating and interesting in the process of her making this path. Gaia as it turned out was a metal tooth which is to say she LOVED to eat metal. I learned this because after we eventually found a vein of iron she proceeded to eat it with reckless abandon like a child given free rein over their Halloween candy. I was unfortunately only able to save a few impure fist sized pieces of the stuff from the deeper part of the vein that she ripped out with her claws.-

We didn't find any pokemon up here however which upset Gaia a bit as she enjoyed growing stronger. Speaking of when she hit level ten she learned the move screech which was basically an upgraded version of the move leer that she already had in that it lowered defensive stats. How it did that was beyond me but it did so it was useful. Interestingly that whole forgetting a move thing from the games was totally bullshit in reality as she could still use all five of her moves without an issue.-

As we traveled further up the mountain and Gaia was digging out a path she actually punched a hole into a cave system in the process. To say I was excited at the idea would be an understatement as an unexplored cave basically guaranteed good stuff as every treasure within was totally undisturbed by people. I of course had Gaia fully open us up an entrance which prompted a new quest to drop.

[Quest conditions established!

Description: Thanks to your relentless drive to improve yourself and explore you have discovered an entirely unexplored cave system , explore it!

Objectives: Explore the cave to the best of your ability , find treasure(optional) , find the secret of the caves(optional)

Rewards: 3x random item ticket , 1x exp ticket(optional) , 1x ability ticket(Optional)]