"Bring Dugtrio out and have it look for more of this kind of liquid memory alloy."
Shiko gave the instruction to Himeko.
Himeko nodded.
Without another word, she released Dugtrio from its Poké Ball.
"Chi-chi!"
Under Himeko's prompting, Dugtrio finally forced itself to overcome its fear of Steelix's corpse. It shuffled over, leaned close to the puddle of liquid metal, and sniffed hard a few times.
"Chi-chi!"
Dugtrio cried out, then turned its head to look at Himeko and nodded, indicating it had memorized the scent.
"Thanks for the hard work!"
Himeko raised her Poké Ball and recalled Dugtrio.
Once they left this underground space, she would release Dugtrio again and have it search for those liquid alloys.
Seeing that Dugtrio had memorized the smell of the liquid alloy, Shiko began preparing to absorb the energy inside this puddle.
His sharp fingertips pierced into it.
Shiko immediately felt the liquid alloy gnawing nonstop along the surface of his skin.
That tingling, prickly sensation made his scalp go numb and goosebumps rise all over his body. It was extremely unpleasant.
Under the system's effect, Shiko began rapidly stripping away the Steel-type energy contained in the liquid alloy.
The speed was fast.
Thread after thread of pure energy could be seen with the naked eye surging swiftly into his body.
Himeko, watching from the side, had her eyes light up again and again.
Even though this wasn't the first time she had seen it…
Shiko's almost godlike method still shocked her.
Very quickly, the energy inside his body piled up crazily.
That prickly numbness eased by a lot.
But the more Shiko extracted energy from the memory alloy, the more clearly he could sense an intense resistance emotion coming from within that alloy.
It was as if this puddle of liquid alloy was alive, fiercely resisting his extraction.
Unfortunately for it—
In front of Shiko's system, that kind of resistance made no difference whether it existed or not.
Its only "use" was confirming for Shiko who the true owner of this memory alloy was.
Steel-type energy continued to be drawn in and accumulated, swelling again and again until it reached an extremely bloated critical point.
Finally, quantitative change triggered qualitative change.
The Steel Attribute Law inside Shiko's body was raised in one jump—improving to 23%, with an increase of 2%.
Feeling his strength rise once more, joy appeared on Shiko's face.
At this pace, as long as he absorbed enough of this liquid memory alloy, he could quickly reach the requirements to evolve into WarGreymon.
However, Shiko also knew this idea was most likely unrealistic.
This forced absorption just now had probably already been sensed by the original owner of this liquid metal.
If he wanted to repeat the trick next, the difficulty would be much higher.
Moreover, with a third-tier legendary's level of strength, it wasn't something Shiko could "pick a fight with" right now.
Forget his current Elite Four level—
Even if he stacked up one more tier and reached Champion level, it still wouldn't work.
Only after reaching an even higher level—Master-level—would there be the slightest possibility of contending with those third-tier legendaries.
If he evolved to WarGreymon first, then advanced to Champion level afterward…
Shiko felt that he should barely be able to clash head-on with a third-tier legendary.
Every single one of them possessed terrifying power, something ordinary Pokémon could never compare with.
But even though he was still far from those third-tier legendaries' crushing pressure—
Shiko knew that if he wanted to rapidly fill in the remainder of his Steel Attribute Law, he still had to "shear wool" from a third-tier legendary.
Since facing the other side one-on-one was not advisable…
Then he would simply switch methods.
A thought moved through Shiko's mind, and in an instant he came up with a viciously clever idea—diverting disaster onto someone else and reaping the profit while seated on the sidelines.
He shared this idea with Himeko.
"You're serious?!"
"You really want to target two third-tier legendaries?!"
Himeko took a long while to come back to herself.
She looked at Shiko with eyes full of shock and disbelief.
She never imagined Shiko had already analyzed the origin of this liquid memory alloy—belonging to some third-tier legendary.
Even less did she imagine that Shiko's next plan would directly scheme against two third-tier legendaries at once.
It was insane.
From ancient times to the present, nobody had ever dared do something this bold.
Taking a knife to a legendary?!
That was absolutely asking for death—tired of living and thinking their life was too long!
"Relax. I'm confident."
"If it really doesn't work, we just run."
Shiko smiled at Himeko as he spoke.
If he weren't urgently trying to complete the next stage, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to use such a risky method.
But risky as it was, based on Shiko's analysis, the feasibility of this method was extremely high.
As long as his luck wasn't bad, he could use this plan to directly fill his remaining Steel Attribute Law to 100%.
"Fine."
Himeko hesitated for a moment.
In the end, she looked at Shiko and nodded heavily.
...
A central base city in the middle region of the Great Axia Alliance.
The Great Radiance Game Arcade.
In the heart of the city stood a massive place—covering an enormous area, packed with people, bustling and lively.
No one would ever imagine that beneath this game arcade…
Was Team Dark's headquarters base.
At this moment, inside one room in the underground base—
Professor Shen, who had only just barely escaped from the underground base in Wintergreen Forest, knelt on the floor.
He looked haggard, his face deathly pale.
Facing the figure behind the desk, whose back was turned toward him, his whole body trembled violently like a shaking sieve.
(End of Chapter)
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