Where the Hell Did This Come From?! (Double Chapter)

Faced with the dazzling light flashing before his eyes, Lance instinctively took a step back, trying to dodge to the side.

Yet the golden glow instantly vanished into his chest without causing him any harm. On the contrary, he felt an unprecedented power begin to surge through his body.

The Dragon Force he had just completely exhausted... was rapidly recovering!

In less than a few seconds, his Dragon Force had fully returned to its usual peak state.

But this power did not seem to stop there. It continued to grow and break through limits. Lance felt every cell in his body wildly leap with energy as a warm current continuously coursed through him.

He froze on the spot. Ever since gaining Dragon-Taming Power, he had never felt it so abundant and powerful.

The next moment, Lance suddenly turned around and looked out the window.

Originally, Dragon-Taming Power allowed him to vaguely sense nearby Dragon-type Pokémon. The effect was not particularly strong, but it had certainly been helpful when searching for Dragon-type Pokémon in the wild.

But now, that feeling had completely changed!

He merely glanced in that direction and could clearly sense a Gible in a forest several hundred meters away!

Moreover, the Gible's appearance, aura, and current movements directly surfaced in his mind.

It had its head lowered, seemingly picking something up from the ground.

Lance blinked and looked in another direction. Another Axew appeared before his eyes from hundreds of meters away, climbing up a cliff.

Faced with this situation, Lance finally realized what had happened.

His Dragon-Taming Power had reached an unprecedented height...

And all of this had been caused by... that stone on the table?

Was he... hallucinating?

For a moment, Lance felt dazed. Yet the Dragon-Taming Power within him continued to pulse, reminding him that all of this was real.

"Where did this stone... come from?"

He could not help looking up at Luo Chen behind the counter.

"Ah, you mean this?"

Luo Chen reached out, picked up the stone, and weighed it in his hand.

"Gengar picked this up. He gave it to me earlier today."

Of course, he would not outright say that it was Arceus's Dragon-type Plate fragment.

Still, what he had said was not a lie.

Gengar really had picked it up...

Hearing this, Lance could not help turning to look at the White Gengar, who was still hugging its drink and grinning foolishly. Feeling the power inside him, he fell silent for a moment.

Could a worthless stone picked up off the ground really improve his Dragon-Taming Power this much?

Then Cynthia's ability to read ancient writing... and the matter of teleporting between two places... were probably real as well.

His gaze sharpened.

"...Boss, to be honest, I came here for clues about Team Rocket. Please point me in the right direction."

Lance looked at Luo Chen, his tone considerably more respectful than before.

"Ah, you want to know about Team Rocket?"

At this point, Luo Chen had already figured it out.

Honestly, when he first saw that the visitor was Lance, he had been rather surprised.

Why would Cynthia, the Sinnoh Champion, introduce this thoroughly Kanto-born man to him?

Now, though, everything made sense.

After all, Lance was the chief law enforcement officer of the Kanto region. Clues about Team Rocket would naturally be extremely appealing to him.

He even seemed to have infiltrated Team Rocket as an undercover agent in the special manga.

Cynthia must have seen Team Rocket-related plotlines in the game and used that as an excuse to send Lance over.

Strictly speaking, though, there was nothing wrong with Cynthia doing that...

After all, Team Rocket did have quite a lot of presence in Ultimate Emerald.

There would even be the time-traveling Team Rainbow Rocket storyline later on. That one was truly something else.

How could Team Rainbow Rocket not count as Team Rocket?

He wondered what Lance would think when he eventually saw Team Rainbow Rocket, with legendary Pokémon everywhere and villainous organizations gathered together...

Come to think of it, he could just tell Lance everything about Team Rocket right now.

But if he did that, who would make up for the internet time, Internet Café Points, and Emotion Points he still lacked?

With that thought, Luo Chen continued.

"There's a game in our internet café that does contain quite a bit about Team Rocket, but you'll have to explore it yourself."

"Later on, we may also release games centered around Team Rocket..."

"But for now, you'll have to wait until Gengar finishes play... uh, finishes streaming."

Luo Chen glanced at Gengar.

It was waving at the screen. The comments were flooding by at a frantic pace, and the viewer count in the upper-right corner had already exceeded one hundred.

Good grief. At this rate, when the stream settled later, would Gengar's computer time for tomorrow directly exceed three hours?

Listening to Luo Chen's explanation, Lance's eyes flickered. In the end, he pulled over a chair and sat down.

"Then I'll wait."

Seeing this, Luo Chen went behind the counter, took a can from the Berry drink cabinet, and placed it before Lance.

"Have a drink while you wait. It's one of our special mixes, made from Berries."

Lance instinctively wanted to refuse, but recalling how that stone had enhanced his Dragon-Taming Power, he accepted the red can anyway.

When he twisted open the lid, a faint Berry fragrance wafted out, accompanied by a unique fresh scent.

After a brief hesitation, Lance cautiously took a sip.

It really tasted good—fresh and sweet, even downright delicious. At the very least, it was far better than the Pokémon League-brand instant coffee he drank while working overtime...

Lance could not help taking another large gulp.

But aside from tasting good, nothing particularly special seemed to happen...

Lance considered it and decided that was normal. He could not possibly expect a drink to improve him too, could he?

As he thought, his gaze swept toward Gengar in the distance.

"It really is streaming?"

Lance could not help asking again.

Luo Chen nodded.

"...What are the viewers watching?"

"Watching it drink."

"..."

Forget it. He should not even try to understand this.

Lance drained the drink in one go. Given the current situation, all he could do was wait for Gengar to finish streaming...

After waiting obediently for a while, however, he could not help growing bored.

Lance thought for a moment, took out his phone, scrolled through his gallery, and finally opened a video.

The video began playing. In a massive arena, applause and cheers were deafening. It was footage from an Elite Four exhibition match held within the Pokémon League last week.

This particular battle had been between him and Lorelei.

For the final round, he had sent out Dragonite, while Lorelei had used her ace, Lapras.

In the footage, the two Pokémon began clashing fiercely. During the first several turns, both sides were still probing each other. But during a brief gap between moves, Lapras suddenly acted.

It burst forth with entirely different speed, instantly dodging Dragonite's attack. In the blink of an eye, it arrived at Dragonite's side and fired a bone-chilling Ice Beam from its mouth!

The sudden shift caught even Dragonite off guard, and Lance was the same. He could only watch as Dragonite was struck by Ice Beam and frozen in place.

Though that hit did not directly defeat Dragonite, since his Dragonite's physique was exceptionally formidable. It soon shattered the ice and launched a counterattack.

Even so, after that unexpected turn, his side's rhythm had been completely disrupted. Throughout the rest of the battle, Lapras repeatedly used the same method to seize the initiative.

And the final outcome was obvious—he lost.

After watching the footage again, Lance's brows furrowed slightly.

In truth, this was not the first time he had reviewed it. He had previously watched the video over and over in slow motion.

The footage had been recorded by the official high-speed battle cameras, so through slow motion, he had indeed been able to see Lapras's movements clearly.

Before every sudden burst of high-speed movement, Lapras would touch the ground with its tail, cover the ground ahead in a layer of ice crystals, then send its body sliding rapidly across them.

Not only that, the ice beneath its path would quickly melt, generating greater propulsion. That was how it had achieved a speed that neither he nor Dragonite could react to.

Honestly, after understanding this technique of temporarily creating an icy surface with the ground, accelerating across it, and immediately removing it afterward, Lance had to admit that it was quite ingenious.

But the problem was that merely knowing how the opponent moved was meaningless. There was no slow motion in battle. He had to keep up with the opponent's tempo at normal speed before he could break this move.

As a Trainer—especially a top-tier Trainer like him—he had to be able to follow the rhythm of the battlefield with his eyes in order to make timely judgments at critical moments. Otherwise, just like in this battle, he would only hold his Pokémon back.

But human vision had limits. He had repeatedly tried rewatching the footage before, attempting to keep up with the pace, but he had failed every time.

With that thought, he drew a deep breath and pressed play again.

There was no other way now. He could only train repeatedly until he could keep up.

To be honest, he did not have much hope this time either.

But very soon, Lance noticed something strange.

When Lapras in the footage suddenly burst forward again, his pupils contracted slightly.

Because this time, he saw Lapras's movements clearly!

Unlike before, when he could barely catch Lapras's afterimage, this time he could clearly see every instant it exerted force, every instant ice crystals formed on the ground, even the startup motion before Ice Beam fired. Every detail was perfectly visible!

It was almost... as if the video had been slowed down!

Lance froze briefly, then instinctively paused the video and checked the playback settings.

It was indeed at normal speed. He had not enabled slow motion.

He could not help rewinding and watching it again. The result was exactly the same as before.

What was going on? How had he suddenly managed to keep up?

Lance instinctively rubbed his eyes, lifted his head, and unconsciously glanced out the window, only to freeze again.

He realized that his eyes seemed to have changed somehow. Despite being dozens of meters away, he could clearly see several Pidgey on a distant tree pecking at one another's feathers before flying up from the canopy and scattering a shower of fallen leaves.

Their movements were just like what he had seen in the video, as though they had been paused and slowed down.

He could even see the frequency of their wingbeats...

What was happening?

Lance could not help closing his eyes and sensing himself carefully, yet he detected nothing unusual.

This improvement in his vision should have nothing to do with his strengthened Dragon-Taming Power.

Dragon-Taming Power had always acted directly on Dragon-type Pokémon. Being able to sense distant Dragon-type Pokémon was understandable, but Pidgey was not Dragon-type. It was Flying type...

Could it... be the effect of that drink?

Before Lance could investigate further, a ding suddenly sounded from the distance.

The stream on Gengar's screen had closed, turning black.

—Its computer time had ended.

Lance immediately withdrew his attention and hurried over to Gengar's side.

He saw a notification window suddenly pop up on the screen.

[Your computer time for this session has ended.]

[Computer time: 1 hour.]

[Session rating: B-]

[New fans gained: 157]

[Evaluation: Even though you were only drinking, they just loved watching you. Sometimes, being cute is the greatest competitive advantage... Or rather, nobody could dislike a White Gengar.]

[Obtained 6 Internet Café Points.]

[Obtained additional reward: Special item "Pickup Ability Capsule."]

[Item description: White Gengar limited edition. After consuming it, you will gain a special new Ability, "Pickup." It will not replace your original Ability.]

The next moment, a white capsule directly appeared before Gengar, quietly floating in the air.

Lance stared at the white capsule and was momentarily stunned.

The ability Cynthia had gained to understand ancient writing had probably also come from one of these so-called computer-time rewards.

But this Ability Capsule...

Honestly, he had already seen enough absurd things today.

But allowing a Pokémon to gain a new Ability...

Was something like that really possible?

And what exactly was the Pickup Ability...?

Could picking things up count as an Ability?

While Lance was still bewildered, Gengar seemed to understand something. It directly picked up the white capsule and swallowed it.

It did not appear to change at all. Everything seemed normal.

Lance sighed in relief.

See? How could something that absurd possibly happen?

Yet the next moment, he froze.

Because something suddenly appeared out of thin air in Gengar's hand.

Under the internet café's yellow lighting, it reflected a brilliant gleam. It had sharp edges and looked incredibly clean.

"Hehe, here!"

Gengar looked delighted. It turned to glance at Lance and directly handed the item to him.

When Lance took it and looked at it, the corner of his mouth twitched.

As a Dragon-type Elite Four member, he naturally recognized what it was.

—A Dragon Scale. It was a special Dragon-type resource that naturally shed from certain powerful Dragon-type Pokémon. It was exceedingly rare, the kind of treasure one could only hope to encounter. Even the Pokémon League's resource vault contained only a few...

The largest Dragon Scale he had ever used in his life had only been the size of a fingernail.

That single piece had cost him half a year's income!

But the one in his hand now...

Lance stared at the scale, which was even bigger than his thumb, and finally broke down.

—Where the hell did this thing even come from???