“You actually saw a rat?” Jun Shutong also looked surprised.
“People used to speculate that if the end of the world really came, the two creatures that would definitely still be alive on Earth would be rats and cockroaches,” Lu Li replied calmly.
“It’s different.” Jun Shutong shook her head and explained, “As far as I know, demon beasts don’t just prey on humans. They won’t spare other animals either, and rats are no exception.”
“Rats are better at hiding than humans, and their vitality is stronger too. They should be pretty hard to wipe out,” Lu Li disagreed.
Jun Shutong sighed. “I actually hope rats could overrun the place. That way, those demon beasts would be able to fill their stomachs.”
“Then you might as well hope cockroaches could also overrun the place. Those demon beasts probably won’t spare cockroaches either,” Lu Li joked along with her.
The two chatted as they made their way toward the sixth floor.
By the time they returned to the sixth floor, An Kang and the others had already pushed all the nutritional supplements collected from the second floor into Lu Li’s place.
“Why does our Second Leader need so many nutritional supplements? That’s a huge amount to go through,” a young man muttered in confusion.
“I heard the Second Leader is researching demon beasts.”
“Researching demon beasts requires this many nutritional supplements?”
“He’s not just researching demon beasts. He’s also trying to tame them.”
“What?”
An Kang, who had just put something down, looked at the speaker in astonishment.
Huang Jiafei glanced furtively around. After confirming that no one was paying attention to them, he pulled An Kang closer and lowered his voice.
“I’m telling you guys, don’t spread this around. Supervisor Lei told us about it.”
“Our Second Leader became a leader because of demon beasts. He’s studied demon beasts very deeply, and he even keeps a fish demon beast.”
“So when you say he’s taming demon beasts…” An Kang hurriedly asked.
“That’s basically what’s going on. Don’t think the Second Leader’s research is useless. Our camp only has what it has today thanks to his research.” Thinking of this, Huang Jiafei couldn’t help but put in a few good words for Lu Li.
After hearing Huang Jiafei’s explanation, An Kang pushed up his glasses, looking thoughtful.
“Like a scholar in the camp?”
He had previously wondered why Lu Li, the camp’s Second Leader, seemed to have so little presence.
Now it appeared that Lu Li had devoted all his attention to researching demon beasts.
When they heard that Lu Li was even keeping a demon beast in captivity, those who had personally experienced how terrifying demon beasts were couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
“All right, once everything’s in place, hurry up and leave. There might be a demon beast living in this room. If it suddenly gives us a hit, we might end up going straight to meet our great-grandmothers,” Old Xu urged.
The others immediately came to their senses upon hearing this. No one dared linger, and they quickly followed Old Xu out of the room.
After returning home and seeing the empty room, Lu Li was rather speechless. He had originally wanted to thank everyone for their help.
“Why did they leave so quickly?” Lu Li muttered inwardly.
Jun Shutong patted Lu Li on the shoulder and said, “All right, they’re already gone, so forget it.”
“If anything happens, remember to come find me. Remember, you’re not alone.”
After saying that, Jun Shutong left as well. After all, she still had plenty of things to take care of.
Lu Li watched Jun Shutong’s departing figure, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly.
Once again, he experienced the benefits of strength in numbers.
“Maybe having a few more people in the camp isn’t such a bad thing after all,” Lu Li thought.
After returning to his room, Lu Li eagerly began feeding Feebas.
With this batch of nutritional supplements, they should be able to support Feebas’s high-intensity training for a few more days.
Lu Li took out the Poké Ball and murmured softly, “Let’s set a small goal. We’ll try to learn Tackle within half a month.”
The Poké Ball trembled slightly.
Lu Li was even more satisfied when he saw this.
He realized that he was becoming more and more like a Trainer from the anime, even though his Starter Pokémon was only a Feebas.
Just as Lu Li was filled with emotion, the entire shopping mall suddenly trembled slightly again.
Lu Li calmly found a chair and sat down, completely unconcerned that the mall building might collapse.
These small tremors had been happening constantly over the past few days. At first, he had indeed been rather worried, but after it happened so many times, he had instead grown calm about it.
These tremors weren’t caused by Rattata gnawing on load-bearing walls. They were small earthquakes.
Lu Li had always found it rather strange, because this place was inland, and there hadn’t been any major earthquakes here in nearly a century.
But ever since three days ago, small tremors had been occurring constantly.
Lu Li suspected that some Ground-type Pokémon might have hollowed out the ground beneath the city, but if that were the case, there should definitely have been large-scale collapses.
Strangely enough, although the small tremors continued without stopping, the buildings, mountains, rivers, and forests on the surface had suffered no damage whatsoever.
This was actually very unscientific. Because of this, a geography professor in the camp spent all day muttering things like, “Geography is dead.”
At first, Lu Li had also gone to ask the professor about it, but the professor’s answer had been very straightforward.
Geography could no longer explain these frequent minor tremors. At least, geography as it currently existed couldn’t explain them.
Meanwhile.
Deep beneath Terran Star.
A massive dark-red beast, its body seemingly clad in heavy armor, had its eyes closed as it breathed slowly. Every breath it took would trigger a peculiar fluctuation of energy.
This energy fluctuation spread from the planet’s crust throughout the entire planet before finally being absorbed by the atmosphere.
It was transforming this planet.
Or rather, it was becoming one of the gods transforming this planet.
Under the constant washing of these energy fluctuations, the entire land was continuously being transformed, and some ores were also undergoing extremely subtle changes.
Those subtle changes were more like a form of evolution—an evolution in which ordinary matter was transforming into something extraordinary.
Above the atmosphere.
A long green dragon over a thousand meters in length, its skin gleaming like emerald, also had its eyes tightly shut. Every breath it took was exceptionally heavy.
And as its breathing rose and fell, the entire planet seemed to breathe along with it, constantly “blowing” the “garbage” in the sky away.
Deep within the ocean…
…
The night of the seventeenth day after Pokémon descended.
“Everyone, the Earthquakes are becoming more and more frequent. People in the camp are panicking now. Even though I’ve tried to reassure them, everyone is still worried that the mall might collapse.”
“The topic of today’s meeting is whether or not we should relocate.”
After Jun Shutong finished speaking, she looked around at everyone in the meeting room.
Finally, Jun Shutong’s gaze settled on an elderly man.
It was an old professor, a highly authoritative senior figure in the field of geography in the country.
When Pokémon descended, he had been shopping in the mall with his wife. The disaster had struck without warning, catching everyone completely off guard.
Fortunately, he had survived, and his wife was safe as well.
The old professor took off his reading glasses and stood up, speaking unhurriedly, “To be honest, if they remain nothing more than minor earthquakes like these, the mall won’t be in any danger in the short term. Of course, that’s assuming there were no corners cut during its construction and that it was built according to federal standards.”
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