Choices and Pokemon Items

Tetsuya thought for a while and decided to put the Fire Stone away for now.

After all, he was in no hurry to make a final decision right this moment.

Whether he kept the Fire Stone to help his future main team grow stronger faster and slowly saved up to buy a Pokemon Egg,

or sold the Fire Stone to choose a sufficiently good Pokemon, then slowly saved money to cultivate it and realize its potential,

the difference was not particularly significant.

For now, Tetsuya's top priority was still to improve Pidgeotto's strength as much as possible, at least until it evolved into Pidgeot.

He had happened to make some extra profit today, which he could invest in Pidgeotto's training.

Once Pidgeotto evolved into Pidgeot, Tetsuya would have enough confidence to complete more difficult C-rank Missions and perhaps even challenge B-rank Missions.

Raising his next Pokemon would no longer leave him so strapped for cash. He could decide what to do with the Fire Stone then; in any case, he would not have to worry about being unable to sell it.

Tetsuya packed away the Fire Stone and placed it in the inner pocket of his clothes, close to his body.

He would not dare leave something this valuable in the safe at home. Who knew whether some Petty Thief might break in?

Not to Mention Wild Pokemon. Pokemon like Meowth were exceptionally good at stealing things.

Next, Tetsuya turned on his Pokemon Computer, intending to spend this Period Of Time before bed slacking off—no, studying the experience shared by Trainers on the Forum.

After all, some outstanding Trainers uploaded their battle videos to the Forum for younger Trainers to learn from. Naturally, it was a paid service, and prices varied according to the Trainer's rank.

However, only Trainers who had reached Quasi-Elite Four Level—meaning they possessed at least three Quasi-Elite Four Pokemon—were permitted by the Forum to offer such a service.

He would set the videos aside for now and watch them later.

Tetsuya opened the Forum. A glaringly obvious post had been pinned to the homepage by an Administrator—"Rare Item Auction House, Requirements Negotiable."

The section was full of Trainers selling off their gains, most of them offering Held Items.

Only a very small number were selling Evolution Stones, and after checking their pictures, Tetsuya found that none appeared to be of better quality than his Fire Stone.

Tetsuya habitually browsed to see whether anything new had been listed for sale. Before long, his eyes lit up.

"Sharp Beak for sale. No trades. DM me your offer. Clowns, get lost." It was a post selling a Flying-type Pokemon Item.

Tetsuya clearly remembered that this post had not been there a few days ago. He checked the posting date and found that it had been posted just yesterday. It seemed it had not been sold yet.

Then he looked at the boost effect: 6%. Tetsuya frowned slightly. No wonder.

Items that boosted the power of moves of a particular type, such as Charcoal and Miracle Seed, generally provided boosts ranging from 5% to 20%. Their prices varied enormously depending on the effect.

Research had shown that most items could increase move power by 10% or more, and these were known as Normal Items. Only a very small portion boosted it by less than 10%, and these were known as Defective Items.

A Defective Item like this Sharp Beak, with a 6% boost, could not be said to be nonexistent. It could only be called exceedingly rare. In a sense, it was an oddity; in all his sixteen years, Tetsuya had only ever seen this one.

But oddities were good. Tetsuya's brow relaxed. At any rate, an item like this would not lose value. At worst, it would simply be harder to resell after buying it.

With this item, Pidgeotto could become just a little stronger. Any amount of improvement was still improvement, and he could always sell it later.

If its effect were any better, the price would be completely different. He would only be able to treat it like the other items in that post—something to admire from afar but never possess.

After all, Tetsuya did not have that much money set aside to buy this sort of item.

He looked at the offers below, which were all around 1.8 million, and nodded slightly.

That matched Tetsuya's expectations. Although no other items with the same effect had appeared before, items with an 8% effect had been sold, usually for just under 3 million.

It might sound exaggerated, but Normal Items with a 10% effect normally cost more than 8 million. When supplies were scarce, even 10 million might not be enough to buy one.

For powerful type-specific items such as Dragon Fang and Twisted Spoon, the price at the same effect would Still Need To double.

As for why a difference of only one or two percentage points could make Normal Items cost more than twice as much as Defective Items, that too was because of research findings.

Research data showed that Normal Items could effectively raise a move's power by an entire tier, while Defective Items could only increase its raw power.

What did that mean? To put it simply in numbers, suppose there were two items of the same type, one providing an 8% boost and the other a 10% boost. If a move had a power of 60, the former should raise it to 64.8, while the latter should raise it to 66. The difference did not seem large.

But during actual testing, although the data against objects—targets—showed no discrepancies, problems emerged once combat drills began.

Taking move-cancellation experiments as an example, controlled trials were carried out under precise conditions: no Held Item versus no Held Item, no Held Item versus an 8% boost item, no Held Item versus a 10% boost item, and an 8% boost item versus a 10% boost item.

The results were complete cancellation, complete cancellation, the holder of the 10% boost item dealing a small amount of damage to the other side, and the holder of the 10% boost item dealing a small amount of damage to the other side.

When an item with a 12% boost was used against no Held Item and against an 8% boost item, the results were also that the move enhanced by the 12% item dealt damage.

But in the move-cancellation experiment between a 12% boost item and a 10% boost item, the former only had a tiny bit of energy left over, causing virtually no damage.

It was baffling.

In the end, after Research Scholars analyzed and broke down the energy involved, they discovered that Normal Items did not merely enhance destructive power; they also increased the power tier of the move itself.

Put more plainly, Normal Items altered energy on another level. This meant that while their boosts appeared no different from those of Defective Items in raw data, in actual combat they could "destroy" the opponent's move.

There were differences between Normal Items as well, but they were not significant unless their boost effects differed by a large margin.

The above content came from a paper by A Researcher at Pallet Town Oak Laboratory—"On the Differences Between Normal Items and Defective Items in Move Amplification."

There were many other related studies, but Tetsuya knew the conclusions without understanding the underlying principles.

In any case, his rough understanding was that Normal Items were more than twice as effective as Defective Items, far exceeding what the data suggested, so naturally they cost more than twice as much.

After all, Tetsuya did not study energy science. He did not understand it very well.

Getting back to the point, Tetsuya sent the seller an offer.

Tetsuya planned to spend 2 million on the beak and keep another 400,000 on hand. Although its effect was barely noticeable in battles against Trainers,

it would still make things much easier when Pidgeotto fought Wild Pokemon, which would help him complete missions and accumulate funds.

However, the seller's swift reply immediately darkened Tetsuya's face.

"Get lost~"

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