Journey to the Secret Realm

After the competition ended, the senior students threw themselves back into their academic classes.

Since Su Hao's father had informed the school in advance, Su Hao left after saying goodbye to Jiang Chengcheng and Li Hua.

Walking down the street, Su Hao, usually busy with training, battles, and cultivation, finally had some rare free time.

After thinking for a moment, Su Hao decided to visit the Spiral Secret Realm.

Now that Carbink had advanced to the Elite Level, Su Hao was qualified to enter the Spiral Secret Realm based on his own strength.

But Su Hao had spent seventeen years out in the world without ever taking a blade, all because he knew how to play it safe!

He rushed to the nearest Pokémon Center and contacted Uncle Qian by phone, saying that he needed to borrow Su Hao's father's Arcanine.

Very soon, the prepared Uncle Qian used the Gym's built-in teleportation device to send the Poké Ball containing Arcanine to the machine in front of Su Hao.

After releasing Arcanine from its Poké Ball, Su Hao confirmed things with Uncle Qian over the phone before hanging up.

Running his hand through Arcanine's flowing mane, Su Hao took an Energy Cube from his shoulder bag and fed it to Arcanine.

"I'm counting on you again today~."

"Woof!"

The forest within the Spiral Secret Realm was as tranquil as ever.

After entering the Secret Realm, Su Hao released Arcanine again and rode on its back.

Arcanine's running speed was extraordinary. It was said that it could cover ten thousand kilometers in a single day and night.

This time, he was not planning to visit the Scyther colony.

Before leaving Yang City, he wanted to explore the inside of that giant tower, which might have been the Dragon Spiral Tower.

With Arcanine's speed, a distance that would normally take him an entire day to cover on foot took only half an hour.

As they gradually approached the lake before the giant tower, Su Hao saw a stone bridge built across its surface for people to cross.

Under the pressure of Arcanine's Late Professional Level aura, no clueless Pokémon came out to Block their path.

After quickly crossing the stone bridge, the towering giant tower was fully revealed before Su Hao's eyes.

Time seemed to have deliberately passed over the giant tower. Though its exterior was covered in dust, the tower as a whole still stood firm.

Passing through the doorway that no longer had any doors, the structure inside the tower was fully revealed.

The tower's vast interior was shrouded in darkness. Only the faint sunlight filtering through the windows in its walls illuminated small corners.

Taking out the high-powered flashlight he had prepared long ago, Su Hao began exploring downward along the crisscrossing spiral staircases within the tower.

The tower was utterly silent. Only Su Hao and Arcanine's footsteps could be heard, along with the occasional Zubat or Woobat darting through the darkness.

In the darkness, humans seemed to lose all sense of time as they continued downward along the seemingly endless stairs, down and down.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, Su Hao, now far beyond any idea of how far he was from the entrance, could no longer hold himself back.

Carefully, he spread his Wave Power downward. Five meters, ten meters, thirty meters, one hundred meters.

Yet the extending Wave Power still failed to reach the limits of the tower.

Su Hao could only patiently continue downward.

As he kept descending, descending, descending, a faint ripple suddenly appeared in the space swept by Su Hao's Wave Power.

After that faint ripple, it was as if some kind of switch had been flipped. The giant tower began to shake, and mysterious fluctuations continuously emerged from the void.

"Buzzzzz------"

The mysterious fluctuations gradually resonated with the shaking giant tower, and then—.

A blinding white light shot straight toward Su Hao from the bottomless depths beneath the giant tower.

The white light was far too fast. Before Su Hao could react, darkness swallowed his vision.

"Prpr~"

A wet, warm tongue licked across his face. Su Hao, who was sleeping soundly on the ground, impatiently pushed away the dog's head pressing against his face.

Wait, the ground? A dog's head?

His sluggish thoughts slowly began turning, and Su Hao suddenly realized that he had been exploring the giant tower in the Spiral Secret Realm, hadn't he?

Opening his eyes, Su Hao could barely make things out through the light from the high-powered flashlight lying nearby, reflected off the tower wall.

Arcanine lay beside him, wagging its tail, concern visible in its brown eyes.

"Hiss—."

Su Hao wanted to get up, but the intense pain at the back of his head made it impossible for him to control himself for the moment.

Reaching up to touch the back of his head, he found a wound that had already scabbed over, proof that it had been bleeding not long ago.

After resting for a while and sorting through his chaotic thoughts, Su Hao stood up.

He remembered that he had been exploring the seemingly endless spiral staircase when mysterious ripples suddenly appeared somewhere in the space his Wave Power had swept through.

The giant tower had begun shaking at the same time, and the fluctuations had gradually Synchronize with the tower's tremors.

Then, a blinding white light had suddenly appeared from the bottomless depths beneath the tower and struck him directly before he could react.

Then his vision had gone dark, his consciousness had blanked out, and when he woke up, he was here.

Several guesses flashed through his mind, but there was too little evidence, so he had no choice but to give up.

Looking upward, Su Hao discovered that the passage leading out of the tower, which should have been far above him, was right over his head.

Unable to make sense of it, he sent out his Wave Power to connect with Arcanine and asked, "Arcanine, did you bring me up here?"

"Wooof~~" (I dunno. I just opened and closed my eyes, and suddenly I was here.)

Since Arcanine had not brought him up, then what exactly had happened?

Su Hao swung himself onto Arcanine's back and quickly left the giant tower.

The sky over the Secret Realm was now tinged with dusk. It was clearly already evening.

It had actually taken that long?! He was rather surprised, since he had entered the giant tower that morning.

But there was nothing he could do about things he could not understand. Looking at the darkening sky, Su Hao rode Arcanine swiftly toward the Secret Realm's exit.

After receiving a simple bandaging at the exit medical station, the female staff member beside him looked a little curious.

"Student, how did you get injured?"

She had been on duty at the entrance inspection station that morning. The strongest combat power in this Secret Realm was only at the Mid-Elite Level, so she naturally remembered Su Hao, who had entered with a Late Professional Level Arcanine.

As he sat there enjoying the bandaging, Su Hao looked up at the staff member when he heard her question.

He remembered her. She seemed to be the one in charge of inspections that morning?

After thinking for a moment, Su Hao understood why she was asking.

She was probably curious because he had entered a Secret Realm whose strongest Pokémon were only Mid-Elite Level while accompanied by a Late Professional Level Pokémon, yet had somehow still gotten injured.

"I fell by accident," Su Hao replied vaguely.

"Oh..."

Leaving the Secret Realm entrance, Su Hao returned home beneath the stars and moon.

Su Hao's father, who had been sitting on the sofa scrolling through short videos, saw Su Hao return injured and sprang up from the sofa in fright.

"What happened? What happened?! Didn't I send Arcanine to you?" Su Hao's father did not dare touch the injury on Su Hao's head. He could only hold his hand in front of it and ask anxiously.

"I fell by accident."

Su Hao told his father everything exactly as it had happened.

Resting his chin on his hand, Su Hao's father pondered. "What exactly was that white light?"

"No matter what, it's good that you came back safely. We'll go to the hospital again tomorrow."