No one present knew exactly what sort of device Team Magma had built.
Although Team Magma's failure to obtain the Meteorite had prevented the device from starting up, it had still accumulated some magma energy during testing.
That concentrated energy had instead become the catalyst for Magmar's evolution.
This was another way human activity affected Pokémon ecology. Wild Magmortar were scarce, partly because individuals within their populations competed with one another.
Pokémon that evolved first would prevent the other Magmar in the same volcanic crater from coming into contact with such things, keeping their own standing in the group secure.
Another reason was that these concentrations of energy were difficult to produce and took a long time to form naturally.
Human technology accelerated their formation to some extent, helping these Pokémon evolve more easily.
Although that had not been Team Magma's intention, it had indeed happened.
A research expedition was not a vacation, after all. They had enjoyed themselves on the road, but once the work truly began, tedium and monotony were merely the most ordinary parts of their routine.
Cozmo stayed there for a few days, then left to continue his research after finding another Meteorite fragment.
Xin Mu and the others, however, had not finished their research. According to their plans, they would camp there for a while.
Compared with their survey in Gobi, the conditions here were actually fairly good. After all, Mount Chimney was not part of the Uninhabited Zone, and Lavaridge Town lay right below it.
If anything unusual happened, Corviknight's flight capabilities would let them get there in very little time.
But their goal was to investigate the ecology of Pokémon in volcanic regions, both by day and by night, so they spent most of their time eating and sleeping out in the open.