Chapter One Hundred: The Auction and the Tree Fruit

In this way, Zhao Fang spent two agonizing days aboard the cruise ship before at last catching sight of the harbor of Slateport City, and he let out a long breath of relief, his seasickness making him miserable.

During that time, Zhao Fang’s Pokémon had also gotten some exercise, though they had not made any great strides. Two days was simply too short a span, and all Zhao Fang could hope was that they would quickly grasp the results he wanted from their training. What concerned him most, however, was WeChat. The manager sent to him by Devon Corporation said that its user base had now gradually stabilized, and it had not caused much of a stir among Hoenn Pokédex trainers. Of course, Zhao Fang thought, that was probably also due to the lack of publicity.

He did not mind very much. In fact, he felt a little secretly pleased. He had always been very confident in WeChat. Before, he had even worried that launching it so quickly might make Devon Corporation notice its potential, but now it seemed they had not paid it much attention, merely treating it as one of Steven’s hobbies and operating it that way.

This gave Zhao Fang plenty of time to strengthen himself. He planned that once his own strength had grown considerably, he would promote WeChat in his own way. Of course, the simplest method would still be to have Steven and Cynthia lend their names to it. With those two Champions endorsing it, WeChat’s explosive rise would be inevitable.

But Zhao Fang also knew that he did not yet have the ability or the connections to ask the two Champions for such a favor, so he steadied his heart and continued with his training plan.

“At last, I’m off...” Zhao Fang said shakily as he stood on solid ground, letting out a long breath. “If I hadn’t come ashore when I did, I think I’d have been vomiting bile by now...”

Then Zhao Fang looked to the left side of the dock. In the distance, he could faintly make out a few dark specks. Of course he knew what that place was: the shipwreck ruins. In the game, one could find tools for exploration there and trade them for certain evolution items.

He had originally wanted to go exploring as well, but he did not currently have a Pokémon that knew Surf or Fly, so making the round trip there would be far too troublesome. In the end, he gave up on the idea.

Slateport City was a seaside city, and what drew Zhao Fang’s eye most here were naturally the various fair-skinned, lovely young ladies on the beach... no, the Pokémon. He even saw some little brats dragging a Goldeen onto the sand. Luckily there happened to be a bucket nearby, or else that Goldeen might have been baked to death.

Though he was quite interested in the place, what he needed to do first was look into the auction, so he went straight to the Pokémon Center in Slateport City, healed his Pokémon, and then went out to ask passersby about it.

The answer he received satisfied him greatly. The auction would be held tomorrow night, and it was a large-scale auction organized by the League. All the items up for bidding were guaranteed by the League, so a considerable number of people had already gathered in Slateport City, including many trainers.

Zhao Fang felt that with so many people gathered here, the League would surely have to upgrade its security measures. He only wondered what kind of lineup they would send to protect the auction and the guests.

At the moment, only a few of the auction items had been revealed. Among them, the presumed centerpiece was a Dratini egg that could hatch into a Dragonair. It was an item put up by an ancient breeding family, and Zhao Fang had no interest in it.

Although his goal was to become the Dragon-type Champion, he knew very well that a precious item like a Dratini egg was far beyond what he could afford. Worrying over something he could not buy would only add to his troubles, so he merely took a look at the other items.

A Water Stone, a sapphire necklace known as the Heart of the Ocean, and even recipes for food for Fire-type Pokémon had all appeared in the League’s auction hall.

Zhao Fang curled his lip. None of those things were what he wanted, so it seemed he would have to go to the auction in person tomorrow night and observe the scene. Still, he felt he would probably be nothing more than a spectator, and whether the stone Gengar wanted could be found was also a question.

After confirming that the auction would be held tomorrow, Zhao Fang went to Slateport City’s outdoor market, where he saw many things not available in Rustboro City. Seafood was relatively abundant there, and there were also flower stalls, though the prices were astonishingly high. A bouquet of flowers called Mermaid’s Tears was being offered by the vendor at the outrageous price of ten thousand League dollars.

They were beautiful enough, but of no use at all. According to the vendor, taking this bouquet while fishing would increase the chance of catching a Milotic. Zhao Fang dismissed the claim with scorn.

Did wild Milotic exist? Yes, they did. But those capable of evolving independently from Feebas were usually extremely powerful. To think one could catch a Milotic with nothing more than a bouquet of flowers was as absurd as hooking a Kyogre with a fishing rod...

Wait. Zhao Fang suddenly remembered that in the later anime, someone really had used a fishing rod to catch a Kyogre.

He had no interest in flowers, but he was very interested in berries. At one berry stall, he saw some extremely rare, high-grade berries. Naturally, the prices were correspondingly high as well. The most expensive of them all was a berry called a Kelpsy Berry, priced at two thousand one hundred League dollars apiece.

Then, right after that, Zhao Fang saw something astonishing.

He stared blankly at the berry. After hesitating for a long while, he picked it up to look more closely, and a guess formed in his mind. Yet this discovery left him somewhat dazed. This berry should not have appeared here.

“What kind of berry is this?” Zhao Fang asked the vendor.

“That one?” The vendor shrugged. “I don’t know either. It ought to be something usable for making Energy Poffins, though. If you want to buy it, I can let it go for five hundred League dollars each.”

He did not seem to care much. In fact, among the pile of berries at his stall were quite a few meant for fooling customers. Some were actually unique fruits, while others were fruits found in the wild whose uses had not yet been identified.

Of course he remembered that berry. Its shape was highly distinctive, but after taking one to be appraised, he found it had no real use at all, so he had simply mixed it in with the pile of fruit and put it up for sale.

A gleam flashed in Zhao Fang’s eyes, but he still pretended to be disgusted and said it was too expensive and that he did not intend to buy it. As expected, the vendor dropped the price to two hundred, but refused to go any lower. Zhao Fang did not hesitate and picked up the berry along with two other fruits.

Under the vendor’s look of astonishment at the sight of such a fool, Zhao Fang left cheerfully.

His main target was that berry. The other two oddly shaped fruits were merely to dispel suspicion.

He truly had not expected to see that berry on the streets of Slateport City, and after buying it and holding it in his hand, Zhao Fang saw what he had wanted to see.

Silver Vine Berry.