Bottom-tier trainers in the Pokémon world

There's no need to get entangled with Paras; eliminating the trainer will make things end much more cleanly.

This time, Sasami had no choice.

puff-

Sasuke stared wide-eyed, three tiny holes on his forehead from which dark red blood slowly flowed, and purple threads spread from the holes to his entire forehead.

thump!

He fell to the ground again, but this time he was truly dead.

When Paras saw that his trainer was dead, he staggered to his feet, his eyes blank.

Sasuke only used Paras as a tool, and Paras naturally had no feelings for him. He was just a simple trainer who had died and didn't know what to do.

After the paralyzing powder completely dissipated, Xia Yan approached Zuo Shang's corpse and found some money, a few empty Poké Balls, and Paras's Poké Ball on his body.

He put away Paras, put on the unicorn beetle, tugged at his hood, and quickly disappeared into the alley.

I didn't take what just happened too seriously.

That's how it is in the black market; if you flaunt your wealth, you might get targeted.

Therefore, many people choose not to hide their identities, as it is a way of demonstrating their strength. Some people also release their Pokémon outside, which is also a way of demonstrating their strength.

However, Xia Yan's unicorn beetle is still somewhat recognizable, and carrying it outside risks exposing his identity.

Walk out of the alley.

After buying the energy cubes and the book, there's only one thing left.

Heading towards the southern part of the black market.

The South District is the elf trading area, and the East District's book section is worlds apart in terms of liveliness.

The bustling flow of people, the cages placed in front of the various shops, all kinds of Pokémon, most of them rare Pokémon used to attract customers, and many of them even come from other regions.

For example, Mudkip, one of the starter Pokémon from the Hoenn region, and Graviton from the Sinnoh region.

It can be said that in the black market of Goldenrod City, the largest city in the Kanto region, you can buy Pokémon from any region as long as you have enough money.

Even Pokémon from regions not yet fully under the League's control can still be purchased.

The prerequisite is money.

As Xia Yan walked through the crowd, he couldn't help but sigh inwardly.

"Money can make the devil turn the millstone..."

However, Xia Yan also discovered a very strange phenomenon.

Many shops have cages outside where you can find a few Electric-type Pokémon.

Even at the stalls of the vendors who set up their stalls on the ground, there were quite a few Electric-type Pokémon.

Although they are all relatively common Electric-type Pokémon, when did Electric-type Pokémon become so abundant in Saffron City?

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Chapter Thirty-Six: Poisoning is the Key

We arrived at a store specializing in Poison-type Pokémon.

Don't overthink it, Xia Yan isn't here to buy Pokémon.

With the money he has left, it's impossible for him to buy a good Poison-type Pokémon, not to mention the large amount of resources needed to train it.

I saw a dark blue creature resembling a poison dart frog, with yellow eyes, orange expandable pouches on its cheeks, broad, flat teeth, and white stripes around its chest, standing there blankly in a cage by the door.

I don't know if it's because they've been trained to be dull, or it's due to their personality.

It's a Poison/Fighting-type Pokémon from the Sinnoh region, Croagunk!

The fact that this shop can obtain Pokémon from the Sinnoh region indicates that it has considerable backing.

My gaze lingered on him for a moment.

Frog is a good Pokémon, and its evolved form, Toxicroak, is an even more outstanding Pokémon. The combination of Poison and Fighting types gives it a significant advantage in terms of attributes, and it can also learn many Dark-type moves, giving it a wider range of offensive capabilities.

If properly trained, he could be a great zone defender and a surprise attacker.

Pity.

He can't afford it.

Silently recalling the information about the Poison Skull Frog and the Bad Frog, he stepped into the shop.

The shop assistants at the Pokémon Shop were much less enthusiastic. Sitting in their chairs, they glanced at Xia Yan without even getting up, and asked curtly, "What kind of Pokémon do you want?"

Xia Yan looked around at the various cages in the shop and said, "I want to buy a few poison sacs for Poison-type Pokémon."

"Huh?" The shop assistant sitting in the chair was taken aback.

He had seen many people buy Pokémon, but he rarely saw anyone coming to a Poison-type Pokémon shop to buy a Poison Sac.

However, when hunters are capturing wild Pokémon, they inevitably kill some Pokémon by mistake. In order to maximize their profits, they usually collect the Pokémon's body parts and sell them to people with different needs.

Among them, the poison sacs of poison-type Pokémon are the most valuable items found on these Pokémon.

“The stronger the toxicity, the better,” Xia Yan added.

"You seem to know a lot about these things."

As the shop assistant spoke, he took out a metal box containing a series of glass bottles.

Inside the glass bottle are poison sacs derived from various elves.

Different labels were affixed to the glass bottles, providing simple descriptions.

For example, the price of a poison sac is determined by which type of spirit it belongs to and what level of strength those spirits are.

Of course, there is no doubt that buying a poison sac directly will be much cheaper than buying a poison-type Pokémon directly.

"They're all here, take a look for yourself," the shop assistant waved his hand.

They didn't seem to care much about such a small business.

Xia Yan didn't mind and picked up the glass bottles one by one to look at them.

The strength of toxicity is easy to identify. It can be determined by the degree to which the toxins released from the venom sac diffuse within the glass bottle. In other words, by looking at the depth of color in the glass bottle, one can roughly judge its toxicity.

At last.

Xia Yan selected three of them, and the labels on them were:

Beedrill, senior;

Arbok, elite;

Ariados, Senior;

Based on various factors, the League categorizes elves' strength levels into Beginner, Qualified, Excellent, Senior, Elite, and so on.

Xia Yan's unicorn beetles can barely be considered to have outstanding strength. The senior and elite ones are far stronger than the unicorn beetles, and their venom sacs must also be much stronger than the unicorn beetles.

These are all materials that Xia Yan prepared to use to enhance the toxicity of the unicorn beetle.

The book that Watari introduced didn't describe things explicitly, but it did subtly mention many methods of Poison-type Pokémon devouring each other to increase their toxicity, which gave him a lot of inspiration.

The shop assistant glanced at the glass bottles Xia Yan had chosen and smiled, "You have good taste."

He then added, "The venom sacs of the senior-level Beedrill and Ariados are worth 5,000, and the venom sacs of the elite-level Arbok are worth 5,000, for a total of 10,000 League Coins."

Ten thousand...

So expensive.

Even though Xia Yan had been somewhat prepared, he was still somewhat surprised when he heard the price.

But thinking about it, it actually seems quite natural.

If it were a living, experienced Beedrill, Ariados, or an elite Arbok, any one of them would be worth far more than 10,000 League Coins.

This is already getting what you want most at the lowest possible cost.

Judging from the shop assistant's demeanor, there was clearly no room for bargaining; even a single Pokémon they sold was expensive, and 10,000 League Coins was a small amount.

"Swipe your card."

After paying and putting away the three glass bottles, Xia Yan left the shop and also left the black market of Golden City.

Overall, the trip to the black market went relatively smoothly.

I bought a high-level energy cube, the necessary books, and a decent spirit poison sac. Although I had to deal with a black market thug while being followed, I still gained his Paras, which was pretty good.

He didn't act rashly, firstly because it might expose his identity, and secondly because he felt that this Paras was still somewhat useful.

The ability to release spores silently, almost going unnoticed by the unicorn beetle, would be a great asset in the wild.

This trip has left my wallet a bit overburdened.

I finally earned 35,000 Alliance Coins, and then spent 33,000 of them all at once. Now I have to go back to living frugally.

However, for the time being, we shouldn't have to worry about the food that the unicorns need.

I took a taxi back to the club.

I greeted Anna at the front desk.

"Anna, I have something to do today. If anyone comes looking for me, please tell them I can't spar today," Natsuhiko said politely.

“Okay.” Anna gave him a strange look.

As a training and money-making fanatic, he actually has time to take a break.

However, she didn't think too much about it. Xia Yan was now an intermediate-level sparring partner, and the money he earned was far beyond what a beginner-level sparring partner could earn. Perhaps there really was something important going on.

He took the unicorn beetle back to his room.

They sat on the ground together with the weevil. In front of them were four glass bottles, three of which were bought on the black market that day, and the other was an Arbok venom sac that they had obtained from the Spearow's nest in the Woody Forest last time.

While Ekans is said to be non-toxic, that only means it lacks fangs that release venom. It doesn't mean it's non-toxic. Otherwise, as a Poison-type Pokémon, where would the venom in Ekans come from, given its ability to use so many Poison-type moves?

However, compared to the other four venom sacs, the venom sacs of this Arbok snake are definitely the least toxic.

"That should pretty much meet the requirements. Unicorn Beetle, are you ready?" Xia Yan looked at it with a serious expression.