Solaceon Town was a place where people lived as they pleased.
From the moment Qingliu entered the town, he could feel its peaceful, leisurely atmosphere.
Small, fenced pastures dotted the area. In one, a middle-aged rancher wearing a cowboy hat and work clothes and holding a pitchfork was milking several Miltank alongside a young woman in cowgirl attire.
"I'm heading to the Pokémon Center first to get Snover and my other two Pokémon checked over and treated. What about you?" Candice asked beside him.
"I'll find somewhere to sell these Oran Berries, then buy some everyday necessities."
Qingliu pointed to the bark backpack on his back.
"Then we can go together."
"The Pokémon Center buys Berries too?"
"Yes, and their prices are a little higher than in a lot of other places. Of course, their standards are a little stricter too."
Qingliu was somewhat surprised, but then it occurred to him that a place like that must have an enormous demand for Berries. Buying some directly would certainly ease the pressure considerably.
As for the quality requirements for Oran Berries, Qingliu wasn't worried.
Even after spending a week trekking through the forest, he hadn't found any Oran Berries better than the plump, glossy ones on his back.
The Pokémon Center stood at the very heart of Solaceon Town, and Qingliu headed straight toward it with Candice leading the way.
Then Candice stopped in front of a building.
Qingliu looked up, taking in the entire structure.
It was an enormous gray stone tower with five floors. Each of the first four had an arched window, while the top floor was sealed shut, its window replaced by an intricately carved cross.
"What is this?"
"The Lost Tower. It's as well-known as the Pokémon Tower in the Kanto Region, Mt. Pyre in the Hoenn Region, and the Celestial Tower in the Unova Region. A great many Pokémon used to be buried here. As the sinister energy accumulated over time, it became a gathering place for Ghost-type Pokémon," Candice explained.
"So basically, it's a cemetery."
Qingliu immediately opened his panel and began scanning the Lost Tower.
[Lost Tower-exploration in progress] [Exploration progress: 0%...0%...0%...]
"Looks like it isn't an ancient building, but a more recent one."
Seeing that the progress never changed, Qingliu canceled the exploration with some regret.
"If it's a cemetery, why are there so many people here? Are they all here to bury Pokémon? Pokémon don't have such short lifespans, do they?"
Qingliu noticed more than a dozen people gathered at the foot of the Lost Tower, making quite a racket.
Candice shook her head. "It used to be a cemetery. Later, as more and more Ghost-type Pokémon gathered here, the town mayor decided to turn the Lost Tower into a trial ground to keep them from bothering the residents. Trainers passing through who fall within a certain age range can pay an admission fee to go inside and battle the Ghost-type Pokémon. They earn a corresponding reward for every floor they clear."
"..."
After hearing Candice's explanation, Qingliu couldn't help marveling at the town mayor's business sense.
Everyone knew that most Ghost-type Pokémon affected humans to some degree. With more and more of them gathering over time, something was bound to go wrong eventually.
But converting the cemetery into a battle venue not only brought in admission fees, it also used the battles to drain the Ghost-type Pokémon's stamina, leaving them with less energy to cause trouble in town. It killed two birds with one stone.
Still, if there were rewards, perhaps he could give it a try.
"By the way, is admission expensive?"
"No. If it were, fewer people would go."
Candice turned to Qingliu and lowered her voice. "Interested? With your and Agumon's strength, you do have a chance of clearing the first floor and making a run at the second."
Qingliu was a little surprised to hear that. "I can only clear the first floor?"
Candice nodded. "Don't think it's easy. Even the Pokémon on the first floor are around level 17, and their levels rise the higher you go. They say there are even Pokémon close to level 30 on the fifth floor.
"More importantly, they prefer ganging up on you and launching sneak attacks to fighting one-on-one. When I challenged it before, I could only hold out a little longer inside. I was still a long way from clearing the second floor."
Qingliu said nothing, simply gazing at the Lost Tower before him.
He wasn't going to assume that clearing all five floors would be easy. After all, someone who had come up with this way to turn a liability into a moneymaker wouldn't be foolish enough to run a business at a loss.
The fact that the mayor dared to offer prizes, and that the arrangement had lasted this long, already said plenty about its difficulty.
At that thought, Qingliu couldn't help asking, "Has anyone managed to clear it?"
"Of course, but they were all people pretending to be younger to scam some money. As for anyone who actually met the age requirements, there hadn't been a single one before. But now... I think there is."
"What do you mean?"
Candice raised her fair-skinned arm and pointed ahead.
Qingliu followed her finger with his gaze.
She was pointing right at the crowd in front of the Lost Tower.
Qingliu looked closely. A group of young trainers stood around, white camera flashes firing one after another as they took pictures.
In the middle of the crowd, a rather portly middle-aged man held a gift box and offered it to the girl beside him. She reached out to accept it.
The two completed the handover in front of the cameras.
"I never thought I'd run into her here. She's really amazing. With her strength, getting eight Badges and becoming the Lily of the Valley Conference Champion should be easy."
Even the usually energetic Candice seemed a little dejected at that moment.
The reason was obvious: she knew the girl and was well aware that the girl was stronger than her.
Qingliu had only intended to see what the girl looked like and gauge her age, then use Candice's assessment of her as "Lily of the Valley Conference Champion material" as a reference for his own strength.
But when his gaze landed on the girl's face, he was startled to discover just how familiar she looked.
Unlike the vague sense of familiarity he'd felt when he first met Candice, this girl looked unmistakably familiar at first glance.
Especially once he saw the long golden hair flowing down her back, the distinctive black teardrop-shaped hair ornaments, and that delicate little face that combined youthful innocence with the air of a mature woman, a name instantly sprang to mind.
Judging from Candice's age, he had placed himself roughly three or four years before the events of the Sinnoh storyline, and this girl's age more or less matched that timeline too.
Qingliu truly hadn't expected to meet her here.
The future Champion of the Sinnoh Region, one of the Pokémon League's strongest Masters Eight-Cynthia!
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