Morning light filtered through the balcony window of the small inn, painting the room in gold and sea-blue hues. The sound of waves blended with the hum of early city traffic — delivery drones, chatter from the market, the occasional cry of a passing Wingull.
Cyrus sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by the equipment cases from The King Company. Charcadet sat beside him, its armor faintly glowing as it watched with a curious tilt of the head. Ditto had taken the shape of a small notepad, though it occasionally wobbled with boredom.
"Alright," Cyrus murmured, flipping open the first case. "Let's see what Mom and Dad packed for me this time."
Inside lay the Energy Meter, a sleek device shaped like a glove, with crystalline lines running along the knuckles. He slid it on carefully, feeling it hum to life as it synced with his wrist display.
Power levels calibrated… environmental scan active.
The fingertips glowed faintly. When he moved his hand, a thin trail of light followed, reading fluctuations in the air.
He aimed toward the open window. A faint shimmer of energy appeared — sunlight, humidity, residual static from the inn's solar panels.
"Efficient," he said softly. "And sensitive."
Next came the Elemental Calibration Tool — a small cube no larger than a Pokéball, its surface etched with rotating symbols. When activated, it emitted a soft ring of colored light that shifted depending on nearby elemental activity.
Charcadet leaned in, and the ring blazed orange and red.
Cyrus grinned. "Guess it's working."
Ditto, amused, morphed into a smaller version of the cube, its surface wiggling with fake runes. "Dit-dit!"
"Nice try," Cyrus said with a chuckle.
He turned next to the Environmental Tracker — a thin, slate-like panel with fold-out sensors. It could map air quality, soil content, and local radiation or elemental saturation. Perfect for studying the Alolan ecosystem's strange energy balance.
And finally, the Data Relay Patch — a small chip meant for his PokéDex, expanding its range and allowing him to send encrypted logs back to both Aethern and The King Company.
Once everything was synced, he stepped out onto the inn's sun-warmed balcony. The world below was already alive. Markets opened, vendors shouted, and the smell of roasting breadfruit and sugar-drink syrup drifted through the air.
"Let's test these out," Cyrus said, slinging his pack over his shoulder.
The morning passed in a quiet rhythm of discovery. He moved through Hau'oli's narrow streets, the Energy Meter mapping invisible fields around every power source — from streetlamps to wild Magnemite that orbited a bakery sign. The Calibration Cube flickered constantly, reacting to the mixture of elements in the coastal air. It was fascinating — fire and water energies overlapping in a perfect, natural balance.
By midday, he found himself beyond the main plazas, following a path that curved inland toward a low forest ridge. The hum of the city faded behind him, replaced by the rustle of palms and the chirp of distant Pokémon.
He stopped by a clearing where the soil turned deep brown and the air thickened with humidity. The tracker's readings shifted wildly — unusually high plant energy levels.
"Now this… is interesting."
A shadow moved across the clearing, long and shifting. Charcadet tensed, flames rising slightly along its shoulders.
Then, with a heavy thoom, something stepped into view.
At first, Cyrus thought it was a tree — a massive trunk of green and brown. But then the "tree" tilted, its long neck swaying overhead, sunlight glinting off yellow scales between the leaves.
An Alolan Exeggutor.
It towered above the clearing, its neck stretching upward like a living pillar. Its heads — four of them — murmured and laughed softly to each other, their coconut shells gleaming in the light. When it moved, the earth itself seemed to tremble.
Cyrus slowly raised his Energy Meter, scanning.
Energy reading: high solar concentration. Photosynthetic overdrive detected. Structural height: approximately 35 meters.
"That's… way bigger than it looks on the holodata," he whispered.
The Exeggutor bent its neck slightly, one of the heads lowering curiously toward him. It let out a low, musical sound — somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.
Charcadet froze, caught between awe and defense. Ditto, on Cyrus's shoulder, trembled slightly before turning into a pair of binoculars to get a better look.
Cyrus extended a hand calmly. "We're not here to fight. Just observing."
He logged the readings, noting that the creature's internal energy flow was remarkably stable — like a perfect fusion of sunlight and psychic current. A living antenna for the island's environment.
When the Exeggutor finally lumbered away, its tail of leaves sweeping the path clear, Cyrus exhaled in quiet disbelief.
"So that's what they meant by 'regional adaptation,'" he said. "The scale's completely different."
He continued deeper into the wild outskirts — along a stream where Wishiwashi darted in shining schools, and through grass where Cutiefly flitted like floating pollen. Every corner revealed life balanced perfectly between chaos and beauty.
By late afternoon, the forest opened to a cliffside view of the sea. The horizon shimmered in colors that shifted with the light — blue, gold, and violet all at once.
Cyrus set his pack down, sitting on a flat stone. Charcadet climbed up beside him, resting its helmeted head on his arm. Ditto returned to normal shape, stretching with a soft "blorp."
He looked over the readings displayed across his wristband — the complex dance of energy that Alola produced naturally. No artificial interference. Just balance.
"This is what Aethern wanted to understand," he said quietly. "How a place can sustain such power without losing itself."
He leaned back, feeling the wind rise from the ocean. The call of wild Pokémon echoed faintly from the forest below — not threatening, just alive.
Tomorrow, he'd send his first full report. But tonight, he'd stay here a little longer — surrounded by data, sunlight, and the sound of the living world breathing.
Charcadet's flame flickered in rhythm with the waves. Ditto pulsed once, warm and calm.
And Cyrus Rie King — explorer, scientist, and heir to a legacy of innovation — smiled at the realization that discovery wasn't just about what you could measure.
It was about what you could feel.