I didn't recover from my awe at the divine fragment in front of me for nearly five minutes as my mind raced with the implications of this information. Once I did recover though I pocketed the four grade 5 water stones and recalled Gaia back to her ball. Sparing one last look at the tooth I then swam back across the lake to where my torch was. An interesting thing I had noticed before I recalled her was that Gaia was fine despite the sheer amount of pure water type energy in the air though she looked a bit uncomfortable.-
'Nonmove based energy must not be detrimental to pokemon with conflicting types though it also isn't good for them either it seems.' I thought curiously as I swam across the lake. 'I wonder why that is exactly?' I thought totally unaware that it was a very hot topic in the scientific community of this world. I would latter learn this of course but at this time it was merely one of my many questions about this new world of mine. Once I reached the other shore of the lake I released Gaia again who looked unhappy about her stay in the ball however short.
I was sure that it wasn't uncomfortable within the ball so it was probably boring instead. The reason I could know this was that no pokemon would be ok with staying in a ball if it was uncomfortable for them. "Help me dig out some of these glowing crystals so I can see on the way back." I said and Gaia nodded before going to work on the crystals. In the end I got two foot long carrot-like spikes of glowing crystal that I had Gaia carefully create a hook at the top of.-
I carefully looped those hooks through the belt loops of my jeans at either side of my hips which didn't mess with my movement as I walked. "Hmm , I'll need to secure them better later but for now this works." I said as we left the cavern and the glow from my crystals allowed me to see ten feet away from me which was enough in my opinion. It was still fairly dark but I could deal with this level of shaded surroundings. We didn't get into any more fights on the way out but I did find a gold nugget about the size of my thumb that was hidden on the backside of a stone which was why we missed it previously.-
After about an hour of walking we finally left the caves and I immediately had Gaia collapse the entrance with rock slide. I didn't want to share my discovery with anyone else so leaving the entrance to the caves open was impossible for me. I even went so far as to have Gaia create a small rockslide that erased the path we made to the cave just to be extra sure it wouldn't be found on accident.-
We walked down the mountain carefully after that so as to not leave a trail which was harder than you think. I myself earned exhausted arm and shoulder muscles as well as several cuts on my palms for the effort. Using the little bit of daylight left Gaia and I washed up and drank some of the water from the glacier stream a bit from our base camp cave. I cleaned my palm injuries as well while we were there before heading to the base camp for the night. Once safe I immediately accepted my rewards from the quest.-
3 random item tickets , 1 exp ticket and 1 ability ticket ticket were all deposited in my bag as I had completed each of the objectives for the quest. First I grabbed the exp ticket and tore it in half but rather than send it to Gaia like before I chose to use it on my Aura skill. That was the best decision ever as immediately I had a rush of memories like I had been practicing the skill for an entire month and just remembered it. It was freaky how one second I was a total novice at the skill and the next I had a rough grasp over the fundamentals.-
In my status the skill was still labeled as a novice skill but I knew that I wasn't a complete amateur at it any more. I couldn't project my aura or read minds or anything yet but the primary ability to activate and sense ones own aura was possible if I meditated now. This alone came with the huge benefit that I healed faster than normal humans without aura skills. There was a downside to the skill however in the form of needing to consume a large amount of calories to replace whatever was spent.-
After familiarizing myself with my new level of proficiency in the skill I moved on to the ability ticket. Unlike the other tickets I've gotten so far that was black and white the ability ticket was a shiny rainbow color. I assumed this meant it was very valuable and immediately tore it in half. In the system menu a resplendent brightly glowing rainbow colored roulette wheel appeared with a variety of choices. Giving my agreement the wheel started to spin and pick up speed until it was a swirling rainbow circle that hurt my eyes to look at.-
After spinning for a minute the wheel started to slow down and eventually stopped and I learned the true meaning of "double edged sword". See what I got was [Improved body v1] which as I learned immediately afterwards meant that my ENTIRE body got the same rapid adaptation treatment as my feet did the day before. I have honestly never been in so much pain before that suicide started to look like a viable form of escape but I was sorely fucking tempted. I couldn't scream as all of my muscles locked up as my skin , hair and nails dried up and was pushed out by new stronger versions.-
After that was my muscles that tore and stitched themselves together throughout every inch of my body over and over again to grow denser and stronger. Once that was done came the by far worst part in my opinion as my bones disintegrated before reforming much stronger and sturdier like if I had broken them everywhere at once before regenerating. The pain was frankly unreal when that part happened as anyone who has ever broken a bone without adrenaline to numb it could attest.-
The final step was that my organs were basically reformatted into a slightly stronger and more perfect state that caused me to throw up all over the ground. This process took nearly fifteen minutes and if Gaia hadn't left to go hunt dinner she would definitely think I was dying during that time. Despite the pain ending I didn't return to my normal state of mind for at least another fifteen minutes. Gaia returned at that point and immediately dropped the Zigzagoon corpses she had in a panic to come check on me. "I-I'm fine , just give me a moment." I said quietly and she relaxed a little bit but still watched me worriedly.