Now that Gastly and even Spearow had crossed level 10, it was becoming increasingly important for Eric to start earning money. He's been buying basic pokemon food and berries as nutrition for his Pokemon, but after crossing the beginner level bottleneck, it was no longer optimal. A pokemon's growth phase is very important, and he needs to feed them with at least the basic Pokeblocks to not waste their potential. Especially Gastly's.
In the past 4 days, Eric had roughly made 12000P by selling berries he found in the forest.
His daily expenses were around 1500P.
And after buying supplies like potions and Pokéballs, he was left with just 3000P.
No where enough to buy even the most basic Pokeblocks.
Eric's main objective today as he entered Redwood forest was to look for better value resources than just berries. He can only carry 500 berries a day, and even the berry shop owner said she can't keep buying them as she had a surplus already.
He didn't go into the Beedrill territory today as they were on high alert. He can't defeat them all and take resources from their territory anyways.
Eric didn't realise how lucky he was that he didn't kill any pokemon and those he hurt managed to recover. Beedrills are vengeful. And this territory is much larger than he can imagine. The strongest Beedrills here are at the intermediate level!
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He kept walking in a different direction, and he reached the territory of another pokemon species. Butterfree!
Eric didn't attack them like he did with the Beedrill though. Butterfree were calm and peaceful Pokémon, they wouldn't attack him if he didn't attack them first. This was the opposite of Beedrill.
"Pii!"
Some of the baby Caterpie even came close to him to greet him, their eyes filled with curiosity.
Eric had always liked Caterpie ever since he watched the anime. Seeing them in real life brought him a lot of joy.
He then took out a few Oran berries and laid them out in front of the Caterpie
The Caterpie lit up instantly.
They gathered around, nibbling eagerly. Then they began circling him, brushing softly against his legs.
Even someone like Eric relaxed a little, looking at these Caterpie.
Soon, a Butterfree who was watching from afar came to Eric's Location
"Phree"
It nodded towards Eric as if to greet him, then flew away.
'is it telling me I am allowed to enter their territory?' Eric thought as he went further into the territory.
As Eric walked deeper into the territory, he was greeted with many curious Caterpie and Butterfree.
Only the Metapod ignored him.
Even Gastly was having fun playing with the Caterpie. Only Spearow looked a little irritated, so Eric returned him to his ball.
After a while, 2 Butterfree came up to him and gestured for him to follow them.
Eric didn't know what this was about but Gastly seemed excited after talking to them about something, so he followed them inside.
Soon they reached a big open space and Eric was taken aback by what he saw there.
It was a wide open field, divided into 10 battlefields that looked exactly like the fields used for official battles by the league. Multiple Butterfree were battling each other in these fields.
Eric did not know what to make of this. He then checked their levels. Most of them were above lvl 15. Many were even above lvl 20!
The Butterfree that led him here then went up to talk to a few other Butterfree.
Then it came back to Eric and led him to an empty battlefield.
"Is it asking me to join them?" Eric wondered, to which Gastly nodded enthusiastically.
This was very bizzare.
'Let's just see where this goes.'
Eric went and stood there with Gastly. A Butterfree flew and settled opposite to them, getting ready to fight. It was at lvl 15.
The fight was pretty easy for Gastly. He used Clear smog, which the Butterfree dodged. But then he caught it with hypnosis, and finished it off with Ghost Ball.
This wasn't over however, as another Butterfree took its place. This one was at Lvl 18 and had a yellow Potential.
Still, it wasn't a challenge for Gastly. He wrapped it up in 2 moves, not taking any damage in the fight.
The next Butterfree that came however, was a true challenge to Gastly. It was at lvl 20, and had a Deep Yellow potential.
Going from lvl 19 to 20 brings a qualitative change to a Pokemon.
As soon as the battle started, Gastly felt a telekinetic force around him
"Gastly, use ghost energy to block it!"
Gastly shrouded himself in Ghost type energy, but he couldn't block the attack completely, taking some damage.
"Attack back with Clear smog!"
As The clear smog comes near Butterfree, it released a wave of psychic energy to counter it. The Psychic energy dispersed the smog and reached Gastly.
"Dodge and use Disable!"
Butterfree had just used Psywave. This move was super effective against Gastly, so he needed to shut it down.
Butterfree feels something stopping her from using Psywave again. It then countered with stun spore.
But the move was too slow, Gastly easily dodged and fired a ghost ball, which Butterfree also dodged.
Eric then predicted what Butterfree will do next and asked Gastly to move down and use Confuse Ray.
Butterfree used confusion, but Gastly was already out of range. He then successfully hit her with Confuse Ray, making her dazed.
"Ghost Ball, now!"
Taking advantage of her dizziness, Gastly managed to hit her with Ghost Ball. He then tried to follow up with another, but Butterfree broke free from confusion faster than expected and dodged.
She also felt she could use Psywave again and attacked Gastly, hitting him partially.
Even a partial hit caused massive damage to Gastly, who staggered from pain.
Butterfree didn't let up and used Psywave again, but this time Gastly managed to dodge properly and countered with Clear smog, hitting her.
Both pokemon were now wounded, with Butterfree faring slightly better.
It wasn't looking great for Gastly.