#entercard

”Professor, Professor!”

”Ah yes, I’ll take a question from you there, Woobat?”

”How did you get the idea for Entercards?”

”An excellent question! I’ll have you know that one of my first ever students asked the same thing! Although I did manage to put him to sleep with my explanation, hehe…  I’ll try and cover the necessary details so I won’t accidentally do the same to you all. Ahem.”

”Now, the idea of using an item to be able to transport Pokemon from one location to another desired one is nothing new. Have any of you heard of a Teleport Gem? I see a few nods… Breloom, you’re from the Air Continent, would you care to explain?”

”Y-yes Professor… I heard it from the Tale of the Falling Star. The two heroes of the Continent used one to get from the Great Canyon to Sky Tower, right?”

“Precisely! Not many of you know this, but I come from the Air Continent myself, and that story was one of my favorites growing up. I was obsessed with this specific part, though, and I was very curious on how it worked. I’ll illustrate it on the board. A Teleport Gem, as the name implies, is a special gem that amplifies the Psychic-type move, Teleport. With the required materials, the main one being a Psychic Gem, a powerful psychic can put the energy used in the move into a physical item able to teleport not only the user, but other willing Pokemon in its short vicinity. This is something quite powerful, where a Legendary like Celebi can do on a regular basis.”

”Woah… that pattern looks like a Maganagate!”

”An astute observation, Metang. Indeed, the resulting pattern that emits from it resembles the patterns that come from opening a Magnagate, as I’m sure you’ve closely observed from me and my partner’s demonstrations. I had to get my paws on a Teleport Gem to study why it can allow one to bypass space through teleportation. I was fortunate enough to meet my partner in this pursuit at the time, as her family had the connections needed to convince a powerful Psychic to at least make a few. Doesn’t mean it was easy, though. Frankly it was quite a headache to get the Federation to… Ahem, I digress. 

“From the analyses we’ve done on the Teleport Gems, when they are used, they can manipulate ley lines through the sheer force of Psychic energy. It can even teleport you in and out of places where a regular badge would have no effect. Its major flaw is that the creation of one requires a Psychic type, and multiple powerful ones at that. Furthermore the gem itself is vulnerable to damage. Due to its fragile nature, it can only be used so many times before the gem becomes irreparably damaged due to the stress of the Psychic energy.  When we realized that, we wanted to find an alternative that can be much more viable for general use.”

”So you made Entercards as a way to traverse space without Psychic energy?”

“Correct, Lilligant. You see, Psychic-types are naturally more perceptive to the non-physical energies of the world and are able to manipulate it, and that in this specific case, ley lines and the Mysteriosity that flows through them. But the creation of Entercards doesn’t need a Psychic type, only needing you to know how to sense the ley lines. I’m standing right here as an example of that. I’m sure you all recall passing the Mysteriosity Perception Exam for this exact reason?”

”Hang on, Professor, isn’t the one of the Pokemon in charge in Paradise able to create Entercards as well?”

”He has shown an adequate amount of aptitude for Entercards, Palpitoad, but he’s a special case. Creating them is not his main priority and he has a whole settlement to manage. But back on the subject.

”Even when we knew the method of transport with Teleport Gems, there was so much we could do for our research in the Air Continent. The Mist Continent is currently the only Continent with pockets of Mysteriosity that are denser and more plentiful in number by area on average, which would be perfect ground for our observations and testing. We knew that manipulating ley lines without Psychic-type energy being the primary source would be a major hurdle to overcome.

”The first problem we had to solve was actually making the Entercards. Sure, a Teleport Gem could get you anywhere you want within its range with minimal risk, but that came at the cost of the gem itself having a finite use. We needed to find the right material to withstand manipulating such powerful energies. I have to admit, it was the hardest part of the process for us. What sort of material would be able to let something as powerful as ley lines be manipulated, and over and over again as needed without degradation to itself, and be physically workable into something portable like cards? We were stumped for nearly a year trying to find it.”

”That was until we decided to take a risk. There were rumors of a supposed ruin made entirely of gold that appeared wherever one just happened to be lucky to wander into one in a mystery dungeon, and I insisted we chased after it. We had to venture into a one that had immensely high amounts of Mysteriosity in the hope of finding such a place. It took several tries and a few close calls… but we found it. The Gilded Hall. Even though the structures in them looked like gold, it was a byproduct of Mysteriosity’s effect on the unusually present amounts of actual gold in these places. Although unusable as money, this fool’s gold as it were, it was the perfect material for our cards, and our progress significantly accelerated from there.”

”Gee, I always heard he did chase after rumors and hearsay with no evidence…”

“Heh! And it led us to one of the greatest discoveries in this corner of the world! Anyway, the first sets of cards we made were so much more basic than the ones that we create today, but without immense effort to read the ley lines, it was pretty much up to chance if you could even manipulate the right ones. Additionally, we found out the farther the destination, the more exponentially demanding the concentration required to pinpoint, and the more likely Mysteriosity will destabilize the Magnagate. Solving this was simpler by comparison to finding the materials, but getting the precise measurements and readings we needed meant that it took even longer. Iterating on our prototypes to find a fine tune the precision of manipulating the ley lines, making sure that it was a stable enough process without the Magnagate it created wouldn’t collapse on itself… So many things we had to solve…

”The Entercards had to be set in a specially made flat deck to keep them stable in one place without inducing physical strain on the cards themselves, and had to be put in a square of four in order to allow for the possibility of different combinations and redundancy. They’re more durable than a Teleport Gem, but should any one be damaged for any reason, it can be replaced while keeping the other ones intact. Thanks to some inspiration from Solrock and Lunatone, the runes and engravings resemble the sun and moon. Due to the nature of ley lines being cosmically tied to the planet, mimicking the celestial bodies and other astral phenomena using these symbols make it easier to manipulate them. Note the red color too, as that’s what the ley lines appear to be in a pure state, unaffected by Psychic energy.

“Additionally, the circular pattern and motions on the Teleport Gem when activated differs from one on an Entercard, and therefore differ on how they manipulate the ley lines. A Teleport Gem would force ley lines from different locations to collide for a blink of an eye, while the Magnagate would be tying them like a knot for a short time, at most. Although more useful for larger groups, the extended time of the Magnagate came at the cost of not perfectly keeping Mysteriosity levels under control. This is why Mystery Dungeons always appeared in the transition to the destination, no matter what distance the two points of travel were. That hurdle was somewhat solved, as we have Keldeo to thank for his further insight on making them usable for safe short distance travel, at least.

”Wtih all of the compromises and hard work that had to be made for transport like this possible, and the years of progress that have come since then, I’m hoping that all of you can contribute in furthering this field that we pioneered!”

”We will, Professor Umbreon!”

”Whew… where did the time fly…? Just asking me where I got the idea of our main body of work… And it looks like only three of you fell asleep! I’d say that’s a new personal record!”