With that settled, Nova's next move became simple. First, he needed to clear out every Alpha Ursaring near the crater, making sure these extremely aggressive individuals, with their hostility maxed out, would not get in the way of what came next.
If the plan to remove the Alphas went well, Nova could promise that attacks on the human exploration team from the wider Ursaring group would drop by more than half.
As for the remaining ordinary Ursaring, he still needed to figure out why they were gathering near the crater before deciding how to handle them properly.
If Nova's guess about food was correct, this group of ancient Ursaring might actually turn into the Layered Peaks Gym's first big success story here in the ancient Hisui Secret Realm.
After all, Pokemon from the ancient era tended to be sturdy and powerful, with impressive levels and raw strength. If they could find a source of Peat Blocks nearby, the Layered Peaks Gym's Trainers would have a steady supply of Ursaluna to work with.
As a dual Normal and Ground type, Ursaluna made an incredibly strong physical attacker in battle. The trouble was that people in this world still knew very little about ancient Pokemon, so very few Trainers actually used an Ursaluna in combat. Most of those who did were found among the top fighters of the major leagues, which only made ancient Pokemon feel even more out of reach for ordinary Trainers and everyday people.
Still, Nova believed that as the Layered Peaks Gym pushed deeper into the Hisui Secret Realm, with his own efforts added into the mix, this general lack of knowledge about ancient Pokemon would slowly start to fade.
With a rough plan in place, all that was left was to carry it out.
In truth, Elite Trainers like Mr. Vern and Aston still had their doubts about whether Nova's plan would actually work.
If their thinking had to be summed up in one line, it would go something like this: those red-eyed Ursaring really are unusual, but what makes you so sure that catching them will fix everything else too?
How could anyone be certain that the far more numerous ordinary Ursaring could really be handled separately from the red-eyed ones?
In short, why did a seventeen-year-old sound so confident that this approach would work?
Of course, Nova could not explain that he had already faced every kind of boss battle imaginable in a game from his past life.
He did not need to explain it either.
Gilbert had sent him here specifically to solve problems. He believed that once these problems were handled, the Elite Trainers of the Gym would slowly come to see Nova as a capable successor.
As Nova solved one problem after another, everyone at the Layered Peaks Gym, from the top down, would come to know him and, eventually, respect him as the Gym's next leader. Then Gilbert could finally step back and retire with an easy mind.
And so the mission to capture the Alpha Ursaring began at camp.
Even though every Trainer at camp held the rank of Superior, there was still a clear gap in their real strength.
The stronger ones, like Mr. Vern, who had worked as a professional Trainer for nearly forty years, were true veterans. He alone could take on a Alpha Ursaring by himself.
The weaker ones, like Aston, were still high-level Trainers, but they were young, and their Pokemon had not yet reached their full potential. Even three of them working together would struggle against a single enraged Alpha.
Aston himself was a bit better off than the rest, since his Archeops always seemed able to pull off a comeback, and his composure under pressure and quick thinking put him among the best of the younger Trainers. But sending any of the other average Trainers to face a Alpha Pokemon alone would basically be handing the Ursaring an easy meal.
To stay safe, Nova suggested that Mr. Vern split the fourteen Trainers currently at camp into four groups.
One group would rotate through rest and guard duty at camp, while the remaining three groups would each head out in a different direction to search the mountains.
Nova would take responsibility for the last remaining direction on his own.
Even so, aside from the group Mr. Vern led personally, Nova still felt uneasy about the other two groups.
It was not a matter of raw fighting power. Three or four Elite Trainers combined would still bring together at least twenty Pokemon around level forty or fifty. They might not win a one-on-one duel, but they would not lose a group fight either.
What they were truly missing was field exploration skill.
The Layered Peaks Gym's leaders, generation after generation, had always valued a Trainer's field skills, and Gilbert had put real effort into this himself. That was why the Gym's selection matches were set up as cross-country races meant to resemble real field combat.
The problem was that the Elite Trainers at the Gym mostly worked as Battle Masters day to day. Even with the Gym Leader's expectations in mind, these Trainers only occasionally went out into Uninhabited Areas to train. At most, they wandered around the Cengluan Mountain Range near the Gym. Very few of them had ever set foot in the Black Rock Desert or the Tamar Desert.
This meant their Pokemon could be excellent in formal Gym matches, and could even hold their own in unregulated field battles, but they had a real, widespread shortage of Pokemon suited for utility work.
Take this plan to capture the Alpha Ursaring, for example. Once Nova looked into each Trainer's Pokemon, he was surprised to find that aside from himself and Mr. Vern, who both had plenty of field experience along with Pokemon skilled at scouting, almost no one else here had a Pokemon built for searching!
No wonder the number of injuries at camp had nearly reached double digits in just a few days. Trying to map a path through an untouched secret realm without proper scouting support was really no different from relying on pure grit and sacrifice.
Fortunately, Nova's own side was well stocked when it came to scouting. He alone had three Pokemon that could work as scouts, each suited to a different kind of terrain.
Normally, Nova would use all three together to build a tight detection network, so nothing dangerous could sneak up on him unnoticed. But given the current situation, he could not afford that kind of luxury. Instead, he had to lend out two of his scouts to strengthen the teams heading in the other two directions.
The team heading north had the longest distance to cover and needed to cross a lake area, so Nova assigned his Water-type Pokemon, Swampert, Seele, to that group.
Seele could offer real protection in the water while the team crossed the lake, and as a fully evolved Swampert, her battle strength ranked among the best on Nova's team, giving that group a solid safety net.
The team heading east received support from Vibrava, Azir.
Nova figured there would be many caves in that direction, likely holding a few Ursaluna. Those were not his targets for now, so with Azir along, the team could use Supersonic to scan and detect what was hiding inside each cave. If they sensed an Ursaluna, they could simply avoid it and save themselves a lot of time.
The western search party was under Mr. Vern's direct leadership, so Nova had no worries about that group.
As for Nova himself, he took his one remaining scout, Growlithe, and set off to search the wide stretch of mountain forest to the south.