When Shiba returned to the manor, he walked straight through the spacious, brightly lit hall, ignoring the respectful greetings of the servants.
His mind was already completely occupied by the cold, heavy bamboo scroll in his arms.
Bang.
The door slammed shut behind him, shutting out the world.
He took a deep breath and slowly unrolled the bamboo scroll on his desk—the scroll that carried the long-lost inheritance of his family.
The bamboo slats rasped softly against one another, "sha, sha," like ancient murmurs drifting from a thousand years ago.
A faint fragrance of aged dust and special wood rose to meet him.
The writing on it was not the modern common tongue of the League, but a far older and more intricate dragon-tribe script, each stroke carrying a mysterious rhythm.
To an ordinary Trainer, this might as well have been gibberish.
But Shiba was different.
As the eldest son of the Kudo family, a top Dragon-type clan, he had been steeped in orthodox draconic lore since childhood. These obscure runes were already etched into the depths of his soul.
Without hesitation, he released Dratini from its Poké Ball.
"Mi!"
The little one coiled affectionately around his arm, rubbing its smooth head against his wrist.
Shiba's gaze softened. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and gently set Dratini in front of him.
"Let's begin, Dratini."
He closed his eyes, formed an ancient hand seal, and sent his psychic power flowing along the route described in the scroll for the "Dragon Soul Resonance" secret art.
At first, his probing mental power was like a tiny trickle, cautiously extending toward Dratini's sea of consciousness, clumsy and heavy.
It felt as though an invisible wall was blocking the deepest level of communication between human and Pokémon.
Shiba didn't grow discouraged.
He sank his focus deeper and began to rouse the power slumbering in the depths of his blood.
That inborn talent.
The power to command dragons, passed down generation after generation in the Kudo bloodline!
Buzz!
A burning heat surged up from his core and rushed through his entire body in an instant.
If someone could have seen inside him at that moment, they would have found his very blood faintly glowing as a domineering, ancient aura awoke.
The mental power that had been like a thin stream swelled, under the blessing of this bloodline power, into a raging tidal wave!
The unseen barrier shattered on impact!
A golden bridge of pure spiritual energy smashed through the boundary between reality and consciousness, instantly spanning the gap between his mind and Dratini's.
Shiba's mind roared.
In that instant, the entire world seemed to change.
He "saw" the world through Dratini's eyes—pure and simple, filled with childlike admiration and dependence on him.
He also "felt" Dratini's emotions: complete, unconditional trust and closeness.
"Raaah!"
A clear, soaring dragon cry, brimming with joy and power, did not travel through air and ears, but exploded directly in the depths of Shiba's soul.
This dragon cry was the herald of a successful resonance!
At the same time, an immense, mysterious ancient force from the very root of his bloodline surged wildly through the spiritual bridge into Dratini's body.
Dratini's body trembled violently. Every cell inside it seemed to be cheering, leaping with excitement.
Vmmm—!
Brilliant white light burst from Dratini without warning.
The light was holy and blazing. It swept away every shadow in the room in an instant, painting everything pure white.
Within the radiance, Dratini's silhouette stretched and lengthened, growing larger as a wave of energy many times stronger than before climbed higher and higher.
Evolution light!
[Ding! Your Dratini's level has risen to Lv. 16!]
[Ding! Your Dratini's level has risen to Lv. 17!]
[Ding! Your Dratini's level has risen to Lv. 18!]
…
A string of crisp system chimes echoed in Shiba's mind one after another, weaving into the sweetest of melodies.
He couldn't stop the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
[Ding! Your Dratini's level has risen to Lv. 20!]
Only when its level finally settled at Lv. 20 did the raging tide of energy slowly calm.
Just then—
Bang!
The door was slammed open with tremendous force.
His father, Kudo Kaito, burst into the room like a disturbed lion, face full of barely restrained shock and urgency.
This Elite-tier powerhouse, who stood at the very summit of the League and had weathered countless storms, had been dealing with family affairs in his study when an energy fluctuation so intense it made even his heart quiver suddenly erupted from his son's room.
He'd thought something had gone wrong with Shiba and had rushed over at once, shaken to his core.
Yet the scene before him made him freeze in place.
His gaze locked on the center of the room.
There, Shiba sat cross-legged, joy written across his face.
In front of him, a Pokémon was wrapped in thick white light, its aura surging upward. Though the light hadn't yet faded, the purity of that Dragon-type energy was far beyond what Dratini had possessed moments before.
What made Kaito's pupils contract even more, however, was the bamboo scroll spread out on the floor in front of Shiba, exuding an ancient aura.
As head of the Kudo family, he recognized it at a glance.
This was the supreme secret art their records said had been lost for centuries!
The Elite-tier Trainer's breathing turned rough.
His lips trembled, and his eyes—normally deep and unfathomable—now churned with a storm of shock, ecstasy, and disbelief.
"This… this is… the ancient Dragon Soul Resonance!"
Kaito's voice quivered despite himself under the surge of emotion.
"You… you actually found it!"
He strode up to Shiba, so excited his steps even faltered a bit.
The same hand that had once crushed the claws of pseudo-legendary dragons clapped heavily onto Shiba's shoulder.
The force of it made Shiba's shoulder ache.
But he didn't mind. He could clearly feel the scorching warmth from his father's palm and the indescribable excitement contained within it.
In Kaito's eyes shone boundless pride and relief.
All those complicated emotions finally condensed into one thunderous, heartfelt exclamation.
"Good!"
"Good boy!"
He stared at his son's face and declared, enunciating each word:
"My son Kudo Shiba has the bearing of a Great Emperor!"
The bearing of a Great Emperor—
This was the highest praise a Trainer could receive, meaning they possessed the potential to reach that legendary final realm.
At Kaito's supreme affirmation, the long-restrained fighting spirit in Shiba's chest was instantly ignited, blazing up like a raging fire.
He soothed Dratini—whose glow had faded and whose aura had stabilized at Lv. 20—then reached into his storage space and took out the Aerodactyl Fossil he'd bought at the underground black market.
"Otou-san, there's also this."
His tone was calm, as if he were not holding a perfect fossil that would drive the entire archaeological world insane.
"I'll need to borrow the family's equipment to revive it."
Kaito tore his gaze away from the shock of Dragon Soul Resonance and focused on the fossil.
He reached out and took it.
The moment it touched his hand, his expression changed again.
The vast, savage, almost stone-breaking life force contained within made him once more reel at his son's heaven-defying fortune.
Father and son exchanged no more words. They simply left the room together in perfect tacit understanding.
They took the private elevator straight down, to the high-tech laboratory a hundred meters beneath the manor.
This was one of the true cores of the Kudo family's foundation.
Cold metal walls, countless precision instruments flickering with ghostly blue lights, and the air thick with the smell of nutrient solution and disinfectant.
Kaito personally operated the controls, carefully placing the Aerodactyl Fossil into the top-tier gene revival pod in the center of the lab—a machine worth more than a small city.
Bzzzz…
As the equipment powered up, the lab lights dimmed as if being drained. All energy was being funneled into the pod.
A searing brilliance, almost impossible to look at directly, burst from beneath the transparent cover.
On the pod's screens, complex data streams raced by as gene chains were analyzed, reassembled, and activated.
The entire process was astonishingly fast.
Barely ten-odd minutes passed.
Crack… crack…
From within the pod came the sound of rock breaking.
Then—
"SKREEEEH!"
A piercing screech, full of ancient ferocity, exploded outward!
The cry was so domineering it felt as if it might tear the air itself apart.
The harsh light faded.
Inside the pod floated an ancient overlord with a lean, powerful body, blade-like wings, and a rocky gray hide.
Its eyes snapped open.
They were amber, filled with raw violence and savagery.
The first thing it did upon opening them was to stare straight through the reinforced glass, locking unerringly onto Shiba.
The innate brutality in its gaze melted in an instant as it met Shiba's eyes.
In its place rose a sense of affection and closeness from the depths of its genes, crossing hundreds of millions of years.
The pod door opened.
With a low cry tinged with a hint of fawning, Aerodactyl flew over to Shiba and gently rubbed its seemingly rock-hard, yet unexpectedly gentle head against his cheek.
Like a hatchling seeking its parent.
In Shiba's mind, the system's notification arrived right on cue.
[Ding! Aerodactyl revival successful. Potential: Champion-tier!]
(End of Chapter)
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