Day twenty-two of the journey, at night.
At the port on Sunburst Island, the passenger ship docked. Reiji had already packed everything by the time the passenger ship docked. Naoki stood beside him.
The two of them mounted their Flying-type Pokémon. Reiji rode Pelipper, while Naoki rode Flygon. They took off from the balcony of their sea-view room and left the passenger ship that had been sailing for two and a half days.
They never did things the normal way. They'd boarded with scalped tickets, so of course they weren't going to disembark the normal way either.
On Sunburst Island, the passenger pier, the harbor, and the town were basically connected. After leaving the ship, they landed near the port and walked straight into town.
They only wanted a place to rest. After being rocked around at sea for three days, Reiji had slept fine the first night when exhaustion hit hard, but the last two nights had been rough. Tonight, they just wanted a proper sleep. Tomorrow, they'd stroll around the island and see whether the legend of the Crystal Onix was actually true.
The moment they entered town, they saw glasswork everywhere. People said this island produced high-quality crystal. If that Crystal Onix really did eat nothing but crystal, then maybe it could mutate into something like that.
But if the Crystal Onix had changed its diet, then it would be locked into crystal forever. Switch it to other ores, and the "crystal" body would fade and it would revert to its original form.
That was the downside. An Onix that could only eat crystal wasn't scared of water, but it would be vulnerable to heat. The weakness was obvious if you thought about how glass expands and contracts.
If a Crystal Onix got roasted by flames and then hit cold water right after, it could shatter into pieces. Its body was crystal now—no longer rock. A special mutation like that always came with trade-offs.
Thinking it through, Reiji decided he wasn't ready to try catching that Crystal Onix yet.
Food aside, that crystal body also wasn't as practical as the original rock body.
A normal rock body didn't care about fire. It wouldn't warp from heat. This mutation basically swapped "weak to water" for "weak to fire."
And even if it wasn't weak to water anymore, Onix still had five weaknesses. Its resistances didn't compare to something like Swampert, which only had one weakness—Grass.
He'd check tomorrow and decide. The biggest problem was how annoying it would be to raise, and there was no way he could afford an Onix that lived on crystal.
"Boss, I found us a place to stay. I booked two rooms…"
Reiji had been looking at glass crafts while Naoki was already handling the logistics. "Where?"
Reiji followed Naoki to the inn, planning to rest for the night. Tomorrow he'd get up early, head into the forest with Naoki, and help him scout for Pokémon.
But Naoki was impatient. He wanted his strength back as soon as possible. The moment they arrived, he rushed right back out toward the beach, eager to refill his team.
Reiji went into his room and got to work. Before resting, he pulled the curtains shut and searched the room from top to bottom. Once he was sure nobody could spy in from outside, he released Gengar and had it spit out all the backpacks.
He planned to break through Gengar's Champion-tier potential here. Before Gengar tried devolving again, he also sent Spinarak outside the door. Darkrai went out too, keeping watch. If anyone tried peeking, Darkrai would put them to sleep on the spot.
Thankfully, this world wasn't like his old one. Back then, hotels were full of pinhole cameras. Getting watched was practically normal.
If technology kept advancing, this world would get there too. And once it did, he wouldn't dare attempt Gastly's evolution inside a room so casually.
"Gengar, eat all of this before you devolve," Reiji said, pulling out a pile of toxins and venom sacs—at least three to four kilos in total—and feeding it all to Gengar.
He also took out Poison-type Pokéblocks, Poison Gems, Life Pokéblocks, and Psychic-type Pokéblocks.
These were the last training resources he had left for boosting Gastly's potential. The loot pile hadn't included any Ghost Gems, but it had plenty of Poison Gems.
Whether he could cross into Champion-tier potential this time depended on those Poison Gems. He didn't even know if he had enough.
"Geh-heh-heh," Gengar swallowed the whole mess, then licked the corner of its mouth like it wanted more. The batch was huge and mixed, and the taste wasn't great, but it forced it down anyway.
"Alright. Devolve and let's see," Reiji said.
White light burst out. Gengar devolved into Haunter.
Devolving was way easier than evolving. Reiji immediately opened Haunter's status screen and saw its potential was still Champion tier.
"Devolve again," Reiji said. He wanted to know whether the potential would hold even as Gastly.
"Geh-heh-heh." Haunter obediently flashed with white light again and devolved into Gastly.
Reiji opened the status screen again. He glanced at Gastly's potential and saw it was still 79.99%. He wasn't even surprised anymore.
He closed the screen, then dumped every Poison Gem he'd looted from those forty-plus backpacks in front of Gastly. "Eat as many as you can."
The purity on these gems was terrible. There were more than twenty in total, but only four or five were above 50%. The rest were all over the place—40%, 30%, even 20%.
Even at 300,000 Pokédollars per gem, that pile was still close to six million.
"Geh-heh-heh." Gastly went into feeding mode again. In no time, it swallowed over twenty Poison Gems.
"And these too, Gastly." Reiji picked up the Poison-type Pokéblocks. There were tons of them, all high-quality. Gastly could eat as much as it wanted.
"Geh-heh-heh—eat, eat, eat!" Gastly chugged down several boxes before finally signaling it was full.
"If you're full, then evolve already. What are you waiting for?" Reiji stared at Gastly's swollen, overstuffed face. It still hadn't evolved to burn off what it ate—so what was it waiting for?
"Geh… heh… wuwuwu…" The moment Gastly heard "evolve," it burst into a blinding light and became Haunter. Its face instantly deflated back to normal, and all the food it had just stuffed down vanished into the evolution.
As soon as the evolution finished, Haunter looked at the Poison-type Pokéblocks on the floor and stretched out its newly formed claws, grabbing more. Only after it ate its fill did it devolve again.
There were about a hundred boxes of Poison-type Pokéblocks on the floor—high-quality stuff. Haunter could eat as much as it wanted. Reiji didn't stop it. He had no shortage of these.
Those Poison-type premium Pokéblocks all came out of the forty-plus backpacks. And he still hadn't touched Riku's training resources.
Riku had over fifty Poison Gems, all above 50% purity. His Poison-type Pokéblocks numbered in the hundreds. Reiji had decided to test the waters first with the lower-quality gems. If those weren't enough, he'd start burning through Riku's stash.
"Spit out the empty gems. I want to see how many you actually consumed," Reiji said, clapping his hands and telling Gastly to cough up the Poison Gems it had swallowed.
"Geh-heh-heh." Gastly worked its big tongue around in its mouth and spit out four stones that had turned clear and transparent.
"Four?" Reiji frowned. It was probably the purity. These gems were just too low-grade.
And Gastly's potential hadn't moved. Still stuck at 79.99%.
Based on what he'd seen before, Naoki's Golem had been stuck at the Elite Four-tier bottleneck for ages. Gastly's Champion-tier wall wasn't going to be any kinder. If anything, it would be worse. That much was obvious.
"Keep going, Gastly." Reiji stopped micromanaging the Pokéblocks. Gastly only needed to keep eating, evolving, then devolving again.
That cycle repeated until the twenty-plus gems were completely burned up. After six rounds of evolve–devolve, all twenty-three Poison Gems were gone—and Gastly still hadn't reached Champion-tier potential.
It wasn't the first time he'd hit a wall. Reiji stayed calm and let Gastly eat Pokéblocks freely, then took out Riku's stash—over fifty Poison Gems, all with purity above 50%.
At 400,000 Pokédollars each, those fifty-five decent gems were worth at least 22 million.
He didn't know whether this batch would push Gastly over the line. If it didn't, he'd keep dumping money into it. He wasn't short on cash anymore. He'd smash through the wall no matter what.
"Keep going, Gastly. Eat these gems. You can have as many Pokéblocks as you want," Reiji said, setting the fifty-plus Poison Gems down in front of it to trigger another evolution chain.
Pokéblocks weren't the main course anymore. The real meal was the gems—400,000 Pokédollars a piece. Gastly was burning three of them every ten seconds.
In just over three minutes, Gastly had consumed all fifty-plus Poison Gems through repeated evolutions.
And finally, its potential climbed into Champion tier.
[Gastly (Shiny)]
[Type: Ghost + Poison]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 80%]
[Level: 7.53%]
[Ability: …]
"Hahaha… finally. Finally."
Gastly's potential had landed at exactly 80%. Not a fraction more. The system really did lock it in perfectly.
To reach this point, Gastly had burned through over 100 million Pokédollars worth of training resources—and all it did was push potential up to Champion tier. Its level hadn't budged.
Reiji didn't even count the Poison-type Pokéblocks, Life Pokéblocks, Psychic-type Pokéblocks, or the extra toxins and venom sacs. This was only the obvious spending.
Reiji had Gengar swallow all the backpacks again, then pushed the remaining Poison-type Pokéblocks across the floor.
"Gengar, keep these as snacks. When you run out, come find me."
"Geh-heh-heh." Gengar grabbed them and ate while stuffing more into its mouth.
"Eat slowly. I'm going to sleep," Reiji said, then added a warning. "And don't share Poison-type Pokéblocks with the others. Non–Poison types can't handle them. They'll get poisoned."
"Geh-heh-heh." Gengar nodded seriously.
Then it still flicked a single piece toward Spinarak on watch.
Spinarak accepted it and hung upside down from the ceiling, savoring the premium Poison-type Pokéblock as a midnight snack. One piece would keep it busy digesting for a long time.
The other Pokémon had already eaten dinner on the ship. They hadn't trained these past few days, so nobody needed a late-night meal. Once training started again, nighttime snacks would come back.
Reiji didn't bother Darkrai, Gengar, or Spinarak. They were his night watch. The rest slept inside their Poké Balls, playing around in dreams.
Reiji came out of the bathroom and dropped onto the bed. Naoki's situation could wait until morning.
Naoki, meanwhile, had already gone from the beach into the forest. Along the shore, he caught any Water-type Pokémon he saw.
Swimming in the sea, flying overhead, running on the sand—anything that moved got knocked out by Flygon, then scooped up with a Poké Ball.
After clearing the shoreline, Naoki pushed into the forest under the night sky. Grass-, Bug-, Poison-, and Flying-type Pokémon got the same treatment.
In a single night, he caught nearly four to five hundred Pokémon. Tomorrow he'd have Reiji look them over, hoping a few had talent worth keeping.
He finally returned to the inn a little after four in the morning.
That morning, Reiji was the one knocking on his door. He'd wondered why Naoki was sleeping in—only to find out Naoki had spent the entire night catching wild Pokémon.
(End of chapter)
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