Pokémon: Master System.

Chapter 112 The Underground Black Market (1)

Xia Yu brought the Pokémon back into the house and looked at Long Yanning, who was sitting at the dining table with a flushed face. His face lit up with surprise and delight: "Teacher Long, you're awake."

"Hmm." Compared to usual, Long Yanning seemed a little awkward and uncomfortable at this moment. She looked at Xia Yu, silently lowered her head, and seemed a little shy, completely unable to put on the airs of a teacher.

"Here, have some porridge." Xia Yu quickly brought out the dishes from the warming cabinet and also served a bowl of porridge to Teacher Long. Watching Xia Yu busying herself, Long Yan Ning felt a little strange. This was the first time in a long time that someone had taken care of her after she got drunk.

Long Yanning calmed herself down slightly and looked at Xia Yu with a stern face: "What are you doing here?"

"I originally wanted to ask you for help with something, but when I called you, I found out you were drunk, so I came to check on you," Xia Yu said.

"I'm asking how you got in," Long Yanning asked Xia Yu.

"The Kommo-o-Tai opened the door for me."

The two turned their gaze to the Kommo-o in the living room. Noticing their gaze, the Kommo-o proudly raised its head and gave a thumbs up, as if to say that it didn't need praise.

Long Yanning was somewhat speechless. Normally, the Staff-Tailed Scaled Dragon was quite wary; how could it have let just any man into the house today? Thinking of this, Long Yanning remembered her private clothing, and her face flushed again.

"Teacher Long, please eat something first to fill your stomach." Xia Yu didn't notice anything unusual and thought that Teacher Long had just woken up and her face was flushed, so he urged Long Yanning to eat more.

As Long Yanning drank the warm porridge and ate the home-cooked dishes, she had a strange feeling. This feeling of being taken care of made her feel a little strange and uncomfortable, but also somewhat enjoyable.

Her gaze unconsciously fell on Xia Yu, and as she looked at his handsome profile, she was inexplicably lost in thought. Actually, Xia Yu was a pretty good person, but he had been a bit arrogant lately and hadn't been training hard enough. He had even skipped class this morning. Thinking of this, Long Yan Ning suddenly remembered that Xia Yu had gone on a date with Su Mu Zi at noon, and slowly asked, "Didn't you go on a date with Su Mu Zi at noon?"

"?" Xia Yu couldn't help but ask, "Who told you this nonsense?"

“I watched you all leave together,” Long Yanning said calmly.

"That was her mother inviting me to dinner." Xia Yu was both amused and exasperated. It was just a visit, how did it turn into a date? "Teacher Long, you're too nosy."

"Xiao Wanyu invited you to dinner?" Long Yanning had some doubts in her eyes, but seeing Xia Yu's expression, she didn't think he was lying, so she believed what Xia Yu said. Looking at Xia Yu, she unconsciously asked the question that had been on her mind: "You've been dating Su Muzi recently."

"Pfft. Cough cough." Xia Yu spat out the porridge in her mouth and quickly wiped it clean with a tissue: "Which bastard did you listen to spreading rumors about? It must be Shen Zijun."

Long Yanning blushed, and seeing Xia Yu's reaction, she didn't dare to say that she had guessed: "What others say doesn't come from nowhere. Weren't you two being all lovey-dovey together yesterday?"

"That was a misunderstanding," Xia Yu quickly explained, clarifying the whole story.

Hearing Xia Yu's explanation, Long Yanning believed Xia Yu and breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, she remembered that Xia Yu had said she needed to talk to her: "You said you needed to talk to me, what is it?"

"I wanted to go to the underground black market in the capital, but I felt it wasn't safe to go alone, so I wanted to ask you to come with me. But when I called you, I found out you were drunk."

"Why do you want to go to the underground black market? That place isn't very interesting," Long Yanning asked, frowning. The underground black market in the capital has indeed produced many good items, but that's only possible with extremely good luck. 99.99% of the items there are defective or counterfeit, and the good stuff has long been picked over. Finding a bargain there is incredibly difficult; only one or two lucky people find a real bargain each year. Xia Yu's idea of ​​trying his luck is undoubtedly wishful thinking. Long Yanning shook her head: "If you're hoping to find a bargain, you'd be better off spending more time training your Pokémon."

"I'm just going for a stroll and a look around." Xia Yu naturally couldn't explain that he had a system: "Teacher Long, are you free tomorrow?"

"Do you really want to go?" Long Yanning asked Xia Yu with a frown.

"Yes." Xia Yu nodded without hesitation.

"Let's do it now then." Perhaps because Xia Yu had taken care of her today, Long Yanning didn't want to owe him a favor, so she said "now" without hesitation: "Let me take a shower first."

"Let's not go today. Teacher Long, you're still hungover, and it's not good for you to take a shower right after eating," Xia Yu reminded him.

"Go wash the dishes first, I'll be done showering soon."

"..."

…………

Half an hour later, at 10 p.m., Xia Yu and Long Yanning took a taxi to the entrance of the underground black market. For safety reasons, Long Yanning did not drive.

The two stood in front of the entrance, and even though they were wearing masks and baseball caps that covered their faces, their height immediately attracted everyone's attention.

The underground black market in Beijing, though called an underground black market, has gradually become legal in recent years. It is now equivalent to a large-scale comprehensive trading market, but everyone is used to calling it an underground black market, hence the name.

The underground black market is a mixed bag, with legitimate businesses with storefronts and street vendors whose origins seem questionable. The people there are all sorts of people, from those like Xia Yu and his companion who wear masks to conceal their identities, to those who show their true faces without any attempt to hide them—as long as you don't cause trouble, it's fine.

"Let's go shopping."

Speaking of this underground black market, it's quite strange. During the day, the shops with storefronts are doing booming business, but at night, it's the street vendors who set up stalls that are doing booming business, selling all sorts of strange and unusual things.

The shops here are basically open 24 hours a day. Xia Yu, who was visiting for the first time, was full of curiosity and scanned the stalls along the road one by one.

"You're even embarrassed to bring out D-rank items? Throat Spray is a good match for Noivern, but it's still trash at only D-rank. Besides, Noibat hasn't learned the Sonic Blast move yet."

"An E-rank Special Attack gem that increases Special Attack by 5% is priced so high; it's practically a rip-off."

Sure enough, the props sold by these vendors were all leftovers after the previous ones had been picked over; there wasn't anything good to be had.

Let's keep going.

Long Yanning walked in front, with Xia Yu following behind, continuing forward. As the crowd grew denser, Xia Yu and Long Yanning were forced to stand closer and closer until they were almost pressed together by the throng.

The crowd was already crowded and hot, and the two of them were only wearing thin t-shirts, which were already soaked with sweat. Long Yan Ning could clearly feel Xia Yu's heartbeat as they were pressed together. Her ears gradually turned red, and she could only pretend to be nonchalant and continue to walk forward with the tide.

Xia Yu also felt himself close to Teacher Long, and smelled the faint fragrance emanating from Long Yan Ning's body. In addition, the aftereffects of recently inheriting Xia Luo's Douyin account made Xia Yu, who was a passionate 18-year-old youth, feel distracted.

Long Yanning turned her head and gave Xia Yu a murderous look.

…………

Chapter 113 The Underground Black Market (2)

The two finally managed to squeeze into a store, finally escaping the awkward atmosphere. Long Yanning calmly straightened her wrinkled clothes, and both of them tacitly avoided mentioning what had just happened.

To cover up his embarrassment, Xia Yu could only pretend to look at the items in the store.

This is a luxuriously decorated shop with three floors: the first floor is the props floor, the second floor is the Pokémon egg floor, and the third floor is the Pokémon floor.

The display cases on the first floor were filled with various props. Compared to the small vendors outside, those who can open physical stores naturally have some skills. The props in the store's display cases were of significantly higher quality, and the prices were also higher.

At the same time, Xia Yu's gaze was immediately drawn to the most prominent prop that the shopkeeper had placed in the center.

"S-grade Light Stone, priced at **"

】

. "

Looking at the string of 9s, Xia Yu knew that the shop owner was clearly not planning to sell it at this price. The markup was too high. It was obviously meant to be placed here as a store's prized possession. Of course, if a rich person really took a fancy to it and wanted to buy it, they wouldn't lose money even if they sold it.

Xia Yu wasn't interested in such expensive props. After wandering around the display case twice and not finding anything good, he went straight up to the second floor.

Compared to the first floor, there are far more Pokémon eggs on the second floor. Thousands of Pokémon eggs are scattered together without any labels, and can only be identified by the patterns on the eggshells.

"All the Pokémon eggs here are top-quality. You can pick one for 10,000 yuan." The waiter working the night shift next to him introduced to Xia Yu with his expertise: "Pick any you like. If you see one you like, just pay and take it. Some people have picked out the starter Pokémon from here and made hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan. This egg gambling depends on luck and a good eye."

Xia Yu used the system to check, and almost all of them were Bug-type Pokémon such as Caterpie, Weedle, Wurmple, and Vermouth. Rattata and Pidgey were very rare, and their stats were basically hovering between Common, Rare, and Elite.

However, the advantage here is the abundance of Pokémon eggs. With thousands of Pokémon eggs, there's bound to be some good ones, so Xia Yu wasn't in a hurry to pick them out one by one.

During this time, Xia Yu also saw several Lord-level and Overlord-level Pokémon, as well as a Gym Leader-level Pokémon. Finally, at the very end, Xia Yu discovered a Pokémon egg with near-Elite Four-level potential inside.

Snow swallowing insects.

In the game, Sylveon is one of the four Pokémon with the lowest base stats. The four Pokémon are Sunseed, Wishiwashi, Sylveon, and Sylveon.

Sunflower is truly rubbish, but its evolved form, Sunflower, is barely acceptable. In particular, the Sunflower with the Solar Power ability is somewhat useful, as its Special Attack is high and its output is not weak. However, overall, Sunflower is a really bad Pokémon, being slow and fragile.

Secondly, there's Wishiwashi, which shouldn't actually be on this list. With the Fishy ability, Wishiwashi's base stats can skyrocket to 620, which is higher than pseudo-legendary Pokémon.

Finally, the Bug-type Pokémon Sorcerer and Snowbeard made the list together.

Although Scuttlebug is weak, its final form, Orb, is quite good. It is one of the few Bug-type Pokémon that is relatively tanky and has considerable strength. It also has the extremely powerful move, Sticky Web.

Finally, there's this Snowbeam. Before evolving, Snowbeam is very weak, but its evolved form, Frostwolf, is quite powerful. Its ability, Ice Scale Powder, is one of the top abilities. However, its typing is too weak. As a Bug and Ice type, it is four times weak to Fire and four times weak to Rock, making it easy to be KO'd.

However, Snowflake has one advantage: it is one of the few Pokémon that evolves based on friendship, which is quite valuable in reality and can save a lot of resources.

Xia Yu didn't really care about these things. He didn't choose this Pokémon for himself; it was for his father. After all, as the Bug-type Gym Leader, his father needed some near-Elite Four level Pokémon to keep things in order.

After Xia Yu spent 10,000 yuan to buy the Pokémon egg, he went upstairs. The third floor had hatched Pokémon and adult Pokémon. Many of the Pokémon were obviously newly hatched and were all kept in cages. The Pokémon here were quite expensive.

Xia Yu glanced around but quickly lost interest, heading straight downstairs with the chosen Pokémon egg. Firstly, there weren't any Pokémon with Champion-level potential or higher. Secondly, most of the Pokémon sold here harbored hatred towards humans, and changing that hatred would take a long time, which was exactly what Xia Yu lacked.

After Xia Yu went downstairs, Long Yanning frowned slightly as she looked at the Pokémon in Xia Yu's arms. It was practically impossible to find a Pokémon egg with good stats in a store like this, and she didn't understand why Xia Yu wanted to buy one. Although the egg's pattern was somewhat unique, it didn't look like a Dragon-type Pokémon egg.

"You bought it?" Long Yanning asked.

"Yes. I plan to buy a Snow Swallower's egg and send it home to my dad," Xia Yu replied.

Hearing that Xia Yu planned to send the elf egg back to his hometown, Long Yanning stopped asking questions.

"Let's go and browse other stores."

…………

Xia Yu and Long Yanning continued to stroll through the vast underground black market. Along the way, Xia Yu discovered three near-Elite Four level Pokémon and one Elite Four level Cotton Ball.

Cottonball is a very special Pokémon. It is not particularly strong in terms of either offense or defense, but it has always been one of the most popular Pokémon in double battles.

Its evolved form, Whimsicott, is one of the strongest support Pokémon. This is because it possesses the top-tier ability Prankster, and is currently the only Grass-type Pokémon with Prankster. In addition, its wide move pool allows it to firmly hold its position as a T0-level support Pokémon.

The cotton ball in front of me happens to have the Prankster ability. Although its potential is only at the Champion level, with this ability, its combat power will far exceed that of a Champion. This is especially true in doubles, where it will definitely produce a result greater than the sum of its parts.

However, in reality, Cotton Ball also has a drawback: it needs Sun Stones to evolve, and these are not easy to obtain.

"Hey, hey!" Xia Yu was thinking about the cotton balls when he was suddenly woken up by the vendor in front of him: "Brother, want to buy some?"

"Buy it, here you go, five thousand yuan." Xia Yu paid cleanly and neatly. How could he not want a cotton ball with the Mischievous Heart trait and Heavenly King-level aptitude for five thousand yuan?

Although he couldn't subdue this cotton ball for the time being, he could give it away. Looking at this cotton ball with the Heavenly King-level aptitude, Xia Yu felt that this Dragon Master quest was making him very uncomfortable.

Although the rewards are quite substantial, the task is also quite difficult and has many limitations.