Three days later, in the middle of his elective "Pokémon Battling Studies" class, Luke got a ping from the system.
[Ding — Quest "I'm Really Not a Million-View Streamer" complete!]
[Objective: Publish a video with over one million views.]
[Reward: 1000 BP, 1x Random Skill (Lv3), 1x Random Purple Item]
"So the Minimize team video already broke a million," Luke muttered. "At this rate, a hundred thousand subs on the stream can't be far off."
His subscriber count had been stuck at ninety thousand for a while now, but with the video still spreading, showing his face on stream finally felt within reach.
Out on the field, students were paired off in amateurish Pokémon battles — this elective was worth four credits, and despite being a finance major, Luke had ended up with a handful of Pokémon-related courses on his schedule. "Pokémon Battling Studies" was basically gym class with extra steps; everyone just went through the motions.
Gastly, on the other hand, was taking it far too seriously. It had already ground Daniel's Slowpoke face-first into the dirt five or six times.
Across the field, Daniel's voice cracked with panic. "Slowpoke! Wake up, buddy, wake up!"
"It's just Hypnosis," Luke said, unbothered. "Not a coma. Why are you screaming like that?"
"...Oh. It's just asleep?" Daniel scratched his head sheepishly.
Bob, standing nearby, clicked his tongue. "That's wild, man. You caught this thing barely a week ago and it's already this good?"
"If I told you I genuinely haven't trained it at all," Luke said, "would you even believe me?"
"Yeah, right. It's basically stronger than half the Battling Department."
The truth was, Luke had been too buried in stream prep to touch Gastly's training at all. Every bit of this — including the new Hypnosis it had just picked up, taking its dirty-tricks arsenal even further — had come from Gastly teaching itself.
"I swear I'm just dead weight around here," Luke muttered. "Would anything even change if I wasn't around?"
He recalled Gastly to its ball, wandered to the edge of the field, and pulled up the system.
[Remaining BP: 1570]
[Ding — "Pokémon Breeding Studies" branch unlocked: Energy Cube Craft Lv3!]
[Energy Cube Craft Lv3: Craft high-quality Pokéblock. Full knowledge of Berry types and properties. Pokéblock success rate +60%. (Luke's secret recipe — cheap, filling, and dangerously addictive.)]
[Random Purple Item: Fire Stone]
[Fire Stone: Dense with Fire-type energy. Sharpens a Pokémon's sense of flame and boosts the power of Fire-type moves. (Not that I'd mention this is single-use.)]
Luke stared at the rewards, torn. "The skill's fine, Pokéblock prices have always been solid. But this fire stone... I could really use the cash from selling this."
The system hadn't said the items couldn't be sold. But Luke was, in every practical sense, an anonymous seller — and anonymous sellers who drew the wrong kind of attention tended to regret it. After a long moment, he sighed.
"Fine. Gastly's already got Will-O-Wisp down anyway — might as well let it have this."
Gastly could absorb raw elemental energy, and a stone this concentrated would only sharpen its handle on Will-O-Wisp further.
"...Why do I feel like I just took another step toward becoming a Trainer."
"No. Don't jinx it."
"Besides — I genuinely cannot afford to be a Trainer."
A week into this new world, and Luke had gotten a much clearer picture of what "Trainer" actually meant. If there was one word that summed it up better than "dangerous," it was "pay-to-win."
Nobody raised a pseudo-legendary without dropping millions. Nobody kept an Elite-caliber Pokémon fed and trained without tens of millions more. Strength, more or less, scaled directly with how much money you were willing to burn. Even with the system on his side, Luke wasn't sure he could actually afford to field a top-tier team.
Curious, he'd asked in the group chat what the others spent monthly on their own Pokémon.
[Luke: Hey Red, how much does your team run you a month?]
[Red: ...Snorlax alone is around 2 million.]
[Blue: 2 million's not even that bad.]
[Yellow: Aaaah Σ(°△°|||)︴ my whole allowance is 2,000!]
[Blue: You've got a Raticate and a Butterfree, of course yours is cheap.]
[Yellow: (○｀3′○)]
[Luke: 2 million for the whole team?]
[Red: No. 2 million a month. Just for the Snorlax.]
Luke closed the chat right there. Is that even a real number? Staying in a group chat with actual millionaires was doing nothing good for his blood pressure.
Red set his phone down. "Why'd he ask out of nowhere?"
Blue shrugged. "Probably trying to figure out what it'd cost to raise a Gengar."
"How much did old Agatha's Gengar run her, again?" Red asked.
"Fifty million. Nothing crazy."
"Fair."
After class, Luke headed back to his apartment. Along with feeding Gastly the fire stone, he wanted to look into his new skill.
[Energy Cube Craft Lv3: Craft high-quality Pokéblock. Full knowledge of Berry types and properties. Success rate +60%]
Pokéblock existed to give Pokémon concentrated nutrition — some Trainers swore by them exclusively. A Petaya Berry block boosted Special Attack, a Salac Berry block boosted Speed, and because the process squeezed so much more out of each Berry, the finished product never came cheap. Pokéblock quality ran on a four-tier scale: low, medium, high, perfect.
"High-quality's got to be at least ten grand on the market," Luke muttered. "...Maybe I buy a bunch of Berries, whip up a batch, and flip them?"
He caught himself and smacked his own forehead.
"Have some standards," he scolded himself. "That margin's not even worth what you'd make walking the street corner at night."
"—Pfft. Like I'm the type who sells himself for a living."
In the end, purely to improve Gastly's diet, Luke bought a machine — a home Berry blender, ten thousand dollars, ordered online. That left him with about five thousand to his name.
"Hisssss." He winced just thinking about the bank balance.
That night, a Machamp from the local delivery service hauled the blender up six flights of stairs, terrifying the landlord in the process.
"Sign here, boss," the delivery guy said.
Luke stared at the machine — waist-high, easily — and his mouth twitched. "You're sure this is the home version?"
"Low-spec model," the guy said with a grin. "Yeah, this tracks."
The more compact the unit, the pricier it got — an iron law of the market. Ten grand only bought you the industrial-looking antique currently blocking half his living room. The racket it made once it fired up was loud enough that the landlord genuinely thought Luke had started renovating.
Half an hour later, Luke stared down at the crystal-clear block sitting in front of him and swallowed.
[Energy Cube Craft Lv3 check: 68! Production successful!]
[Oran Berry Pokéblock (High Quality): A basic block that restores a Pokémon's stamina. (Taste the rainbow — literally, results may vary.)]
Oran Berry flavor was a gamble every time — sour, sweet, bitter, astringent, all at once, in whatever proportion luck decided — but the recovery effect never disappointed. Gastly's long red tongue shot out, curled the block up, and pulled it in with practiced ease. Its eyes narrowed instantly.
"Hisssss — Gengar!"
Gastly: (´▽`〃)
The expression alone — dreamy, lovestruck — made Luke curious enough to try a bite himself. Sweet and sour bloomed across his tongue immediately, and for one disorienting second he swore he saw a golden wheat field stretch out in front of him, a girl in a straw hat turning shyly toward him—
—only for her face to melt into Gastly's grinning ghost mug.
"—The hell?!"
"Hiss-Gengar! Hiss-Gengar!" Gastly looped happily around his head.
"Alright, alright, get off me. I'll make another batch."
Gastly: (`▽)