"Where are they?"
"It seems that after entering the Secret Kingdom, Ethan came straight toward this place!"
At that moment, at the entrance of the cave, Samuel Silver slowly descended while riding on his Skarmory.
After landing, he saw an Aron emerge from underground and shout at him a couple of times.
"Did he really go into that cave...?"
Samuel murmured thoughtfully, a doubtful expression on his face.
...
Meanwhile, deep inside the cave.
"Zzzt!"
As soon as they arrived there, Meltan became extremely agitated, beginning to move back and forth with great excitement.
"Is there something here?" Ethan asked, observing the surroundings.
He discovered that the cave was completely empty, with absolutely nothing inside it.
However, just as he finished speaking, he suddenly saw an intense electric light burst out from Meltan's body, striking one of the cave's stone walls.
Boom, boom, boom!
Under Meltan's attack, the entire cave began to tremble, and fragments of rock started falling nonstop from the struck wall.
Clang!
At that instant, a metallic sound hitting the ground abruptly caught Ethan's attention.
"Is this... Meltan's nut?"
Suddenly, Ethan was completely stunned.
What had produced the metallic sound was a golden nut!
"A nut?"
"Could it be that Meltan has a hobby of collecting nuts?"
"Wait, no, something doesn't add up!"
"This nut... could it belong to another Meltan?"
Upon closer inspection, it could be seen that the nut was practically identical to the one Meltan wore on its head.
Although, thinking about it, don't all nuts look alike?
He remembered that in the anime, James had even used Meltan's nut to repair a car—and it fit perfectly!
But if this nut belonged to another Meltan... then where was that Meltan?
Why was there only a nut here and not Meltan's liquid, mercury-like body?
"Zzzt!"
While Ethan was lost in thought, Meltan had already quickly flown over to the nut, circling around it nonstop.
Then, under Meltan's control, the nut began to float and slowly integrated into its body.
Boom!
The very next instant, a dazzling silver light burst out from within Meltan.
Inside that light, one could vaguely see that Meltan's body seemed to have become a bit larger.
"Damn!"
"Don't tell me that... it evolved?"
Ethan jumped in shock, his eyes wide open, his face filled with pure ecstasy.
If Meltan successfully evolved into Melmetal, that would truly be an authentic Mythical Pokémon!
With a Mythical Pokémon on his team, Ethan felt he could walk the world with complete arrogance.
"Zzzt!"
Under Ethan's ecstatic gaze, the silver light slowly dissipated.
But...
The Melmetal Ethan had imagined did not appear.
Within the light was still Meltan, only now it was clearly larger than before.
A normal Meltan was about 0.2 meters tall. Ethan's Meltan was already more than twice that size, reaching about 0.5 meters. And after absorbing that nut, its height had reached approximately 0.7 meters.
"It really grew!"
Ethan's eyes were filled with amazement. He took out a ruler and carefully measured it—indeed, 0.7 meters!
"Wait... then did that nut really belong to another Meltan?"
"And by absorbing it, Meltan increased both its size and its strength. If Meltan could absorb a large number of nuts, could its strength continue to increase endlessly, and even evolve into Melmetal?"
"Could this be the method of evolution from Meltan to Melmetal?"
A flash crossed Ethan's mind, and his eyes slowly widened with understanding.
In the games, Meltan needed to consume 400 Meltan candies to evolve, but in the real world, things like candies obviously didn't exist.
So in reality, could these Meltan nuts replace the function of candies?
"But if in reality Meltan needs to fuse nuts to evolve into Melmetal, wouldn't that mean fusing with other Meltan?"
Ethan frowned. Could this really be a fusion-based evolution?
In fact, fusion-based evolution already existed among other Pokémon.
For example, Nosepass: when placed in a special magnetic field, it fuses with three other Nosepass and evolves into Probopass, reaching a height of 1.4 meters and gaining the Steel type.
So could Meltan have a similar evolutionary requirement?
"This nut was perhaps left behind after the death of another Meltan. After dying, all of its power condensed into the nut, allowing Meltan, by fusing with it, to increase both its size and its strength."
"Therefore, to evolve through fusion, Meltan doesn't necessarily need to fuse with other living Meltan; this type of nut, which concentrates all the energy of a deceased Meltan, could also work."
Ethan recalled the scene of Meltan absorbing the nut and began forming hypotheses in his mind.
"It's very possible!"
"If that's the case, I only need to collect enough nuts for Meltan to evolve into Melmetal. Moreover, Meltan seems to have a special perception toward these nuts, allowing it to find them faster."
"And I could also collect them through the Pokémon Researchers' Guild..."
Ethan's eyes grew brighter and brighter. As long as Meltan could evolve into Melmetal, he wouldn't hesitate to pay a high price to collect the nuts.
"Zzzt!"
After absorbing the nut, Meltan also seemed extremely happy, moving around enthusiastically.
"Meltan, how do you feel?" Ethan asked, setting aside his thoughts.
"Zzzt!"
Meltan nodded cheerfully. Suddenly, an intense electric light burst out from its entire body, and a powerful energy instantly spread outward, displaying its current strength.
"What a powerful fluctuation of electric energy! It seems that this time your power increase was enormous."
Hearing Ethan's praise, Meltan became even more excited. In the blink of an eye, its body transformed into a long spear that shot toward the wall. The spear pierced it as if it were paper, sinking in completely.
Then, Meltan displayed other moves, and without exception, all of them had improved tremendously. Its overall capabilities had strengthened in every aspect.
After showing most of its moves, Meltan's mercury-like body suddenly began to writhe, and before Ethan's astonished gaze, it split into two, turning into two identical Meltan on the spot!
(End of chapter)