The string of battles had not raised Swampert's or Metagross's levels. Aside from a paltry handful of training points and some skill proficiency, the only thing that gave Yong any comfort was Metagross grasping the rudiments of force domain power.
After reaching level 70, Pokémon leveled up extremely slowly through training and battles alone. At that point, the depth of their accumulated resources became decisive.
Yong had no such reserves, which was why he had gone to such lengths to accumulate contribution points, then spent every last one to obtain the Stone Plate, which would greatly benefit his partners.
Standing before the stone platform, Yong had already placed Dragosol into its recess, but he had no idea what to do next. While his thoughts wandered, Metagross finally arrived with Kofu.
Seeing Kofu panting, clearly having hurried over, Yong could not help laughing.
"You missed a lot of excitement, Kofu!"
"Thank you, Metagross!"
Kofu patted Metagross's leg and walked over to Yong. Only after seeing Dragosol sitting undamaged on the stone platform did he breathe a sigh of relief. He shook his head helplessly at the boy, his expression bitter.
"It looks like our arrival lit a candle in the darkness and livened this place up..."
Looking at the traces of battle left all around them, Kofu inwardly marveled.
"I ran into a group trying to stop me in the forest too... though it looks like things were worse here."
Without mentioning the familiar face he had encountered, Kofu asked another question.
"Do you know who they were? They targeted us as soon as we came in... they clearly weren't here with good intentions!"
Yong smiled. As Jupiter's figure came to mind, a trace of coldness crept into his voice.
"Just a clown lost in a dream!"
Kofu nodded without saying