The reason why Giovanni, after turning Team Rocket into a powerful force that spread across Kanto and Johto, stopped expanding outward was twofold.
On one hand, the various regions rejected foreign forces with extreme hostility and defended their territory tooth and nail. If they were pressured too much, they could even go so far as to ally with the League itself in order to destroy that foreign intruder.
And if the reaction became even stronger, that could end up pushing an entire organization to the opposite side of Team Rocket.
On the other hand, Giovanni considered conquering territory inch by inch to be a process that was far too slow and costly, offering little efficiency in terms of time and resources.
He believed it would be better to wait until he possessed absolute strength and then carry out one grand integration in a single move, devouring all those forces at once. In that way, everything would be resolved in a single stroke.
Because even Giovanni was not certain whether, in his entire lifetime, he would be able to conquer such an immense territory if he did it in a conventional manner.
Furthermore, the League continued to search for new regions. Who knew how much more time would need to be invested in taking them one by one.
With that amount of time, it was more efficient to push his own strength to the limit.
At that moment, one of Giovanni's greatest obsessions, the search for Mew, could be said to have already been satisfied through Mewtwo.
And even now, Mewtwo was for Giovanni an existence even more suitable than the Mew he had pursued for so long.
"Luckily it's Kalos. If I had been sent to Unova or Sinnoh, I really wouldn't even know where to start...," Cain thought silently.
In any case, Cain's words still carried considerable weight within Team Flare, and in Kalos he still had several matters that he needed to settle.
Taking advantage of this period to resolve everything was perfect.
There were still three weeks of time available. That should be enough to handle everything.
Thinking this, Cain did not hesitate for even a second and immediately stood up to prepare his things.
During that week, although he had not fully clarified the mystery of the Unown, he had already understood a good portion of it.
And for some reason, although before those Unown still maintained a certain connection with him and responded to him to some extent when he called them, ever since the Unown shaped like a question mark and the one shaped like an exclamation mark had reunited, they had completely stopped responding to him. No matter what he tried, he received no response.
However, when it came to using their abilities, he encountered no obstacle.
Most importantly, the range of his Teleport had increased enormously. Not to the point of allowing him to reach Kalos directly, of course, but it greatly increased the speed of travel and avoided long, aimless flights.
After preparing everything, he flashed and disappeared directly from the room.
When he reappeared, he was already high in the sky. Without stopping for even an instant, he used Teleport once again and left the Hoenn region directly.
From this alone, one could already see how enormous the range of his Teleport had become: with barely two uses, he could completely leave Hoenn.
And that was only the most basic enhancement the Unown had brought him.
The ability to create that special barrier had also become far more powerful. Now, if Cain wanted to conceal himself, probably very few people would be able to notice his presence.
In reality, what surprised Cain the most was discovering a new ability.
At that moment, while blindly testing whether he had acquired anything new, he accidentally held a broken piece of furniture, and then saw with his own eyes how the furniture began to repair itself at a visible speed.
However, when it was roughly halfway restored, the process stopped. He did not know whether it was because the energy had been exhausted or because it could only reach that point.
Cain had not even been able to determine whether what the Unown had granted him was a restoration ability... or a form of time control.
Because either one could produce such an effect.
He had discovered that ability by accident and had not yet had time to study it carefully when Giovanni's call interrupted him.
And then he immediately departed for Kalos.
By the time he arrived in Kalos, it was already night, but Cain was not someone without connections in that region.
After all, he also had acquaintances there. It was nothing more than paying a visit to an old friend.
After notifying Lysandre in advance, Cain silently appeared inside Team Flare's base.
At that moment, all of Team Flare's high-ranking members were gathered there, waiting for the arrival of Cain, that deputy leader of Team Flare who had only appeared a few times, yet still firmly occupied the position of deputy leader, and whom their boss, Lysandre, admired extraordinarily.
He was also the person who had directly taken several hundred Mega Stones from Team Flare, which could in fact be considered treasures of incalculable value.
When he took them, they had not yet known the true value of those stones. Therefore, when the deputy leader sent people to collect them, although they found it strange, they did not stop it. Moreover, the stones were under Lysandre's custody, so they themselves could not even touch them.
In addition to that, the two people who had come at that time, both in terms of the aura they emitted and the strength they displayed, were terrifying. They even suspected that, if they had tried to stop them by force, they might not even have been able to defeat those two individuals.
After all, Team Flare was an underground organization mainly focused on technology, possessing a huge number of powerful scientific advancements.
If one spoke purely in terms of scientific level, the only organization capable of matching it was probably Team Rocket, which controlled two entire regions.
Moreover, most of Team Flare's high-ranking members were researchers. All of them had their own research projects, their own directions and objectives. If they were able to complete them, they would provide enormous assistance to Team Flare.
For example, among them, the combat suits researched by Xerosic allowed a trainer to obtain a certain level of combat ability for a limited time, in addition to helping better command their Pokémon and analyze the opponent's data in order to respond more effectively in battle. It was undoubtedly a very promising line of development.
(End of chapter)