The creation of the custom Poké Balls had consumed all of Ace's money, but the high cost yielded great rewards.
This was evident when Ace tried using them in battle; the Pokémon inside the balls would almost always get the upper hand.
The only Pokémon that didn't have a custom Poké Ball was Genesect.
It wasn't that Ace didn't want to make one for it, but he genuinely had no money left. Furthermore, Genesect's development path hadn't been determined yet, so Ace didn't know where to start.
Ace went into the lab and looked at the cultivation pod he received from completing the main quest. Genesect was currently floating inside, fast asleep.
"The second modification is complete. The last step is to get the knight's sword 'Moment,' made of Caesar metal, melt it down, and add it to Genesect's body. Only then will Genesect be in its true complete form."
Ace stroked the glass wall of the cultivation pod, feeling a sense of emotion. For him, Genesect's path to becoming stronger was a pay-to-win path.
The resources he had spent on Genesect could already be considered enormous.
Ace was also a little excited, wondering how powerful Genesect would be when it reached its complete form.
A cold hunter that could reflect most attacks and evolve indefinitely by devouring its prey!
It would be like an assassin in a game with a permanent invulnerability shield. With high burst damage and taking no damage, it would probably make most people cry.
He raised his hand and looked at the time. Ace knew that in about two days, Genesect would adapt to the second modification and come out of the cultivation pod.
His special training for Genesect could also be put on the agenda.
Leaving the lab, Ace returned to the living room and sat down on the sofa to relax.
A mechanical arm extended and retrieved a bottle of Moomoo Milk from the refrigerator. Ace took it and drank it in one go.
After giving the empty bottle to Rotom, Ace closed his eyes. After a while, he opened the system's mission interface.
A virtual screen appeared, and a new main quest was displayed.
"Main Quest (Sovereign of the Sky) Part 1: The fated battle between Groudon and Kyogre will unfold in the Hoenn region. As the owner of Rayquaza, you must intervene and stop the battle between Groudon and Kyogre. Quest Reward: 5,000 gold, plus quest points based on your performance. Failure Penalty: None."
"Main Quest (The Mastermind Behind the Scenes) Part 2: You are the true mastermind behind this fated battle. Challenge your own limits and see how far you can go on this path of being the mastermind. Quest Reward: Determined by your final decision, an [Eminent Mastermind] title, and title fusion will be unlocked. Failure Penalty: Hostility from the Alliance, permanent and irreversible."
Ace rubbed his temples. It was another two-part main quest.
The last one was a derivative of the two main quests that appeared after he had greatly disrupted the original plot.
Now, he had to choose between two paths!
One was to follow the plot and receive rewards that were even less than those of a side quest.
The other was to let Ace play to his strengths, completely deviating from the original plot, and making himself a true eminent mastermind.
Ace hesitated for a moment and clicked on the introduction to the Eminent Mastermind title.
"Eminent Mastermind (Five Stars): When this title is worn, your body strength increases by 10, your nerve reaction speed by 30%, and your charm by 20.
Title Skill: [Mastermind's Presence]: When this skill is used on any unit, there is a 0.0001% chance of them becoming your subordinate or of inspiring your existing subordinates to follow you even more devotedly. After each use, there is a natural cooldown of one year."
"Title Fusion: Titles are divided into one to nine stars. You can sacrifice two existing titles to increase the star level of your main title."
After reading the introduction, Ace was green with envy.
There was nothing he could do. The Elite Trainer title he currently wore was only a three-star title, and its attributes couldn't compare to a five-star title.
It was basically a no-brainer. With such generous rewards, Ace would definitely choose the second quest.
However, the Alliance's hostility as a failure penalty was a bit of a blow to Ace.
First, the issue with his current land could be resolved, but the berry business would be interfered with, and Ace's assets would shrink drastically.
As for completely falling out, that wouldn't happen, as there was still profit to be made; it was just a matter of making more or less money.
Besides, Ace had already foreseen that the berry business would eventually decline. Even if the berry business was affected, Ace had another path.
Once the production of Great Balls could be ramped up, with their high capture rate and the lack of a high-end market, this huge piece of cake would make the Alliance, no matter how much they hated Ace, come to him with a smile and say some nice words to get the sales rights for the Great Balls.
Thinking about this, Ace suddenly realized that the penalty for the second quest wasn't too high. As long as he got the mass production of Great Balls going, he could ignore the penalty.
More importantly, that was a penalty for failing the quest. What if he succeeded?
Thinking of this, Ace's mind became active.
Based on the information he had, Ace began to deduce.
After more than three hours of deduction, Ace concluded that if nothing changed, his success rate would be as high as 60%!
Don't underestimate the 60%. No one had a 100% guarantee; there were too many variables. If the probability was more than 50%, he could take a chance!
"Hmm, it's still not stable enough."
Ace stroked his chin and said seriously, "I'll get the Great Ball mass production line up and running as soon as possible. That way, with a fallback, I'll have enough confidence to face the Alliance's hostility, whether I'm exposed during the quest or not."
With that in mind, Ace looked at the system with a smile and said softly, "System..."
"Poké Ball mass production line, priced at 500,000 gold."
The system directly gave him a solution, but the price was a bit too much for Ace to accept.
"So, are there any quests for me to do?"
Ace looked at the quest interface, which only had one main quest and a few daily quests with very little gold as a reward. No quests meant no gold, and no gold meant he couldn't buy anything.
So, he could only hope that the system would release some quests so he could save up some gold.
"..."
A long string of ellipses appeared in front of Ace, but he didn't care at all.
"Side Quest (Border Island): Find Border Island. Quest Reward: 20,000 gold, plus quest points based on your performance."
"Side Quest (Capture Mew): Capture Mew. Quest Reward: 2,000,000 gold, plus quest points based on your performance."
Ace: ...
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