After leaving the department store and flying back to the villa on Pelipper, Reiji made lunch for his Pokémon.
Once they'd eaten, everyone moved straight into their afternoon training according to the usual schedule.
He rarely needed to supervise their training anymore.
That was exactly why he'd picked these Pokémon as his main team—true mains didn't need someone staring over their shoulder.
If it were Butterfree, the moment he turned his back it would quietly slack off.
So he'd never really raised Butterfree as a core battler.
Given the choice between grinding through training and basking in the sun with a cup of honey water, Butterfree would pick the second every time.
Reiji didn't push it too hard because of that.
A quick sweep of the yard told him everything he needed to know: the main team were all training steadily in the courtyard.
His eye for picking mains really wasn't bad—none of them needed supervision and none of them slacked.
If anyone could be called lazy, it was only Rhyhorn, that big lug.
If he didn't watch Rhyhorn, the big guy would immediately start coasting.
Just like Butterfree, Rhyhorn loved food and play.
Reiji usually had Poliwhirl and Kingler keep an eye on him; sometimes Rhyhorn would refuse to accept their nagging and start a fight with them instead.
But Rhyhorn couldn't beat Poliwhirl and Kingler, not in raw power and not in tenacity.
Sometimes Poliwhirl and Kingler would even call in backup.
Then that Dummy would waddle over to complain to Reiji, insisting Poliwhirl and Kingler were bullying him.
Reiji's response was always the same: too bad, you're just weak.
If you were stronger than them, they wouldn't be able to bully you in the first place, would they?
And with that bit of "comfort," Rhyhorn would be talked back into training.
His food dish was stacked over by the wall—whenever he was hungry, he could eat as much as he wanted.
If he wanted to change the flavor, he could just use Ice Fang and Fire Fang to give himself a grilled or frozen side to go with it.
There was also something even more tempting to Dummy: Salt Cake, Rock Gems, and Ground Gems.
Every so often Reiji would toss a few of those into the pile of ores and let Rhyhorn sniff them out himself.
In his mind, if he wanted to push Rhyhorn up to Champion level someday, he'd definitely need the energy from Rock Gems and Ground Gems.
Still, Rhyhorn's digestion could never compare to Gastly's, who could freely evolve and devolve on command.
Reiji had no idea how long it would take Rhyhorn to fully digest a single gem.
Based on what he'd just calculated for Gastly's energy consumption, Champion level alone would require at least fifty million Pokédollars' worth of gems—and that was the conservative estimate.
If he wanted to keep pushing Gastly's potential even higher after that, he was looking at a floor of a hundred million.
For now, he'd focus on finishing the math for Gastly's energy costs.
With these thirty stones, he refused to believe he couldn't break the curse of ".99".
Reiji shut himself in the storeroom again with Gastly and began the final sprint.
His heart was pounding, and the nervous edge in him bled straight into Gastly.
Gastly didn't understand why its Trainer was so tense, but it could feel the anxiety surrounding each evolution and devolution, and it became cautious as well.
The evolutions came slowly. The devolutions were calm.
Back and forth they went in that dim storeroom, evolving and devolving a full twenty-one times.
On Reiji's side, the numbers on the panel kept flickering and climbing.
The first time, Gastly's potential went up by a fraction of a point and one Poison Gem's worth of energy was drained dry.
Then another tiny increase, and another gem turned to inert glass.
Potential climbed another fraction, and this time it took two whole gems to feed it.
By the time twenty-one gems had been turned into trash, Gastly's potential had reached:
[Gastly (Shiny)]
[Type: Ghost + Poison]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 79.69%]
[Level: 7.31%]
[Ability: …]
He'd been stuck at this number for what felt like forever.
At this point, every 0.1 increase in potential cost him three full gems.
He had nine gems left. He could only keep throwing them in.
There was no backing out now; his sunk cost was way too high. He'd already poured more than fifty million into this—he had to see where Gastly's limit really was.
Those last nine gems all went to Gastly.
Reiji was almost certain they wouldn't be enough for a clean breakthrough; he just hoped Gastly's potential could at least get infinitely close to 80%.
To his surprise, Gastly didn't burn through all nine gems in a single evolution.
It took three evolutions in total, spreading the consumption out, and when everything was finally digested, Gastly's potential had become:
[Gastly (Shiny)]
[Type: Ghost + Poison]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 79.98%]
[Level: 5.01%]
[Ability: …]
"You've got to be kidding me."
Reiji felt like he was about to snap.
Nine gems hadn't bought him that last ".99"—they'd given him ".98."
It reminded him of those obnoxious infomercial chants from his previous life.
Not one thousand, not nine-nine-nine, but only ninety-nine-eight! Only ninety-nine-eight and you can take it home today!
"Dammit, you can't be serious. That's fifty-seven million Pokédollars gone, and all I've got left are nine hundred-something boxes of Life Energy Pokéblocks, another nine hundred-something Psychic-type Pokéblocks, and two Poison-type items…"
The heavens were toying with him.
He was so done.
Reiji lay flat on the cold floor of the storeroom, completely drained.
After a few minutes he forced himself back up and pulled out the last two Poison-type items, piling everything in front of Gastly.
"Gastly, this is the last time. Evolve one more time."
If he looked in a mirror right now, he'd probably see a pair of bloodshot eyes staring back at him.
His eyes were red, his heart was pounding, his fingers were shaking so hard he could barely hold the containers for the two items.
All he could do was gently set them on the ground and let Gastly lift them with his Psychic powers and swallow them on its own.
Gastly could tell something was very wrong with its Trainer.
But for this final evolution, it still obeyed his order without question.
When the evolution was done, Reiji opened Gastly's panel with trembling hands.
At first he kept his eyes squeezed shut.
He didn't dare look. He was honestly afraid his heart wouldn't be able to handle the result.
Only after taking several deep breaths did he look.
Gastly's level had fallen to three, and its potential hadn't budged at all.
He stared in silence, then let out a long, exhausted sigh.
Finally, he just toppled backward onto the icy floor. He understood where the problem lay.
Feeling the cold seeping into his back, Reiji slowly calmed down.
He had Gastly spit the two Poison-type items back into their containers, then reached out with a gloved hand to touch them.
[Toxic Orb: A held item that badly poisons the holder if it isn't already affected by a status condition (Strength: 11%)]
[Black Sludge: If held by a Poison-type Pokémon, restores 1/16 of its maximum HP at the end of each turn; if held by a non–Poison-type Pokémon, it loses 1/8 of its maximum HP at the end of each turn (Level: 10.23%)]
Seeing those values, he knew it wasn't that the gems had stopped working—it was that their energy just wasn't enough anymore.
Even draining twenty percent of the energy from both Poison-type items wasn't enough to nudge that last 0.1.
Under these conditions, he still had two ways to break through.
First, Gastly needed higher-level Ghost-type or Poison-type energy.
That instantly made him think of a Ghost-type Legendary: Giratina, the ruler of the Reverse World.
If it casually spared a bit of its power, Gastly would probably smash through Champion-level in one leap.
But that was a Legendary Pokémon—and not exactly a friendly one.
There was no way Reiji was taking power from something like that. Who knew what kind of backdoor might be hidden in that energy?
Giratina ruled over the Reverse World and commanded the power of antimatter.
Because of its violent temperament and its tendency to rampage and destroy, Arceus had sealed it away in that shattered realm.
Reiji knew all of that from the anime in his previous life.
Once you got involved with a Legendary like that, Gastly might not be able to withstand the power and lose control.
And he himself could very well end up corrupted by that strength, becoming a puppet dancing on Giratina's strings and working for it for the rest of his life for free.
He refused to bow to a Pokémon for power, even if that Pokémon was a Legendary.
He wouldn't touch Giratina's energy. Not at all.
There were things in this world you were better off never touching, never even testing yourself against.
People liked to believe they could stay in control, that they were above temptation, that they could handle any power without being ruled by it.
In reality, that was wishful thinking.
Most people couldn't even resist food, beauty, money, or power.
So why would anyone think they could resist a Legendary Pokémon whispering sweet promises in their ear, especially one whose entire existence revolved around dragging you into corruption?
Once a human got hold of something like that, they wouldn't stop at "enough."
They'd just want more—more strength, more thrill, more everything.
Reiji was just an ordinary person.
Sure, he was confident he could restrain himself from doing evil, but his willpower was still only average.
He wasn't some saint. He could keep himself from becoming a monster—as long as no one tried to drag him into the abyss.
But if Giratina appeared and started flaunting its power in front of him, coaxing and tempting him with the promise of ever-greater strength…
If he was being honest with himself, could he really say he'd never give in?
The answer was simple: he couldn't.
He would fall.
Eventually, he'd become something neither human nor Pokémon, nothing but a mindless puppet, controlled entirely by Giratina.
He had no intention of living out the rest of his life as a walking corpse.
So the path of "seek out higher-level energy and use it to break through" was off the table.
He needed to cut off that fantasy while he was still clear-headed.
He was not going to go looking for Giratina's power—unless Giratina walked up and stood right in front of him right now.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
"This storeroom is way too quiet. I can even hear my own heartbeat," Reiji muttered.
He lay sprawled on the cold floor, then slowly turned his head to actually look around the room.
It was the first time he'd really paid attention to the place.
And the moment he did, he realized something was very, very wrong.
Gastly was gone.
"Gastly? Gastly?"
"Nothing… nothing… still nothing…"
"Don't panic. Gastly probably just wandered off. It can pass through walls, remember."
Reiji forced himself up from the freezing floor and headed toward the door, ready to leave the storeroom and search for Gastly outside.
But as soon as he put his hand on the doorknob, a thick tide of black liquid began to seep in from the tiny gap under the door.
It moved like something alive, slowly pouring into the room and creeping across the floor.
The instant he saw that black liquid oozing in, Reiji yanked his hand back and staggered away from the door.
He scanned the walls in a rush.
The only exit was that one door—not even a window—meaning he was trapped.
Meanwhile, the black liquid kept flowing under the door, spreading across the floor.
The air grew steadily colder, waves of chill crawling over his skin.
There was also a rank, unknown stench that made his stomach twist.
The liquid crept wider and wider, climbing up the door panel and spreading along the walls like it was searching for something.
Step, step—
As it neared his feet, Reiji instinctively took two steps back.
The sound of his footsteps drew the liquid's attention; suddenly it moved like sharks scenting blood, creeping toward him in a focused stream.
Only then did Reiji finally see what the liquid really was.
It was blood—black blood, coating the entire door and wall, with faint streaks of dark crimson flickering through it.
His mind was still clear enough to know there was no way there was real blood outside this storeroom door.
So there were only two possibilities.
He quickly retreated further, digging a small, cold knife out of his backpack.
Thank goodness that was still there.
That meant he could eliminate the first possibility.
This wasn't an illusion.
Anything strong enough to create a hallucination like that wouldn't know exactly what he had rattling around in his backpack, much less reproduce a specific knife.
With "illusion" ruled out, that left only one explanation.
He was inside a dream.
Only a dream of his own could concretely manifest a knife that belonged to him.
And if this was his own dream, there was nothing to be afraid of.
Reiji tightened his grip on the knife and drove it straight into his thigh.
Ssshhk—
The instant the blade went in, blood sprayed high into the air.
Pain exploded through him, sharp enough to make his vision white; he gritted his teeth so hard his jaw creaked.
It hurt like hell.
This definitely wasn't an illusion.
If it were, he'd have jolted awake from the pain already.
And if this were some kind of illusion affecting both him and Gastly, Gastly would have stopped him before he drove a knife into his own leg.
There was no reason only he would be trapped if they were both under the same spell.
Fooling Gastly's senses would be child's play for something strong enough to toy with him—pulling a Level 3 Gastly into an illusion alongside its Trainer would be trivial.
The reason only he'd been pulled in was simple: whatever had caused this had targeted him alone.
Gastly's mind was still pure and straightforward—eating, evolving, devolving.
It was probably right next to his real body right now, perfectly fine and maybe overstuffed from eating too much.
So this was a dream that only affected him, built entirely out of his own subconscious.
He'd never imagined a dream this vivid, though—down to the pain.
It felt uncomfortably close to the immersive VR games people used to brag about in his past life.
But none of that mattered.
What mattered was getting out of this nightmare as quickly as possible.
He didn't care who'd created it or why; he already had a very good guess.
After all, who had he been talking about just minutes before?
Creak—
Just as he raised the knife again, this time aiming for his heart, the storeroom door slowly swung open.
He was facing the door directly, but he couldn't see who—or what—had opened it.
Not that it mattered.
He only cared about waking up.
"I don't care who you are or what you want. You're not getting what you're after…"
Ssshhhkk—
As the door opened and the black blood crawled up his legs, he clenched the knife in both hands and drove it straight into his chest.
His head sagged forward.
His last words came out in a ragged mumble: "It really… hurts… damn…"
Just before Reiji closed his eyes, he glimpsed a dark silhouette stepping through the doorway and stopping in front of him.
What happened after, he never saw.
He'd already left the dream storeroom behind and woken up in the real one.
"Human? Left? Interesting…"
The shadow had intended to talk to him.
But instead of a living human, it watched Reiji's head dissolve into drifting motes of light, followed by the knife clattering from his chest and vanishing as well.
His lower body dissolved next.
Then everything he'd pulled from his backpack disappeared, followed by the backpack itself.
After that, the floor and walls crumbled from reality.
Finally, the entire storeroom itself vanished, and the shadow faded away with it.
…
"Hah… hah…"
"What the hell, and people say this isn't a horror movie. I almost died of fright. Cartoons really are nothing but lies…"
In the real world, Reiji shot upright from the floor, breathing hard.
He yanked up his shirt and checked his chest and thigh—no blood, no wound—then kept gulping air.
That had been terrifying.
He'd honestly thought he wasn't coming back, that he'd be trapped and die in that nightmare.
He quickly shouted, "Gastly! Gastly!"
"Gaaast, gaaast…"
Gastly floated in front of him, baffled.
A moment ago its Trainer had been napping on the floor; now he was gasping for breath, soaked in sweat, hair plastered to his skin, clothes drenched.
"Whew… okay, okay. I made it out…"
Hearing Gastly's familiar cry and seeing that big purple face right in front of him, Reiji finally relaxed enough to slump back down.
As for higher-level Ghost-type energy, he was never touching that.
Not in this lifetime.
Only now did he truly understand why so many people went mad chasing power.
Power was incredibly tempting—but the price was enormous, and he couldn't afford it.
Other Legendary or Mythical Pokémon with Ghost- or Poison-type energy weren't necessarily off-limits… in theory.
But why would they give that energy to him?
If they hadn't even reached Champion level themselves, what would they be giving away, exactly?
So that left his second plan: quantity into quality.
If ten Ghost Gems weren't enough, then twenty.
If twenty didn't do it, a hundred.
If a hundred still failed, then one thousand.
He refused to believe he couldn't push Gastly's potential to the top by force.
He refused to believe that even after eating ten thousand Ghost Gems, Gastly's progress would still be stuck at some ".99" wall.
For now, though, he was broke.
He needed a side job—badly.
Time to find a black market.
The big city on the eastern side of Mandarin Island was a nonstarter.
Elite Four Lorelei regularly gave lectures there.
Who would be insane enough to run a black market right under an Elite Four member's nose?
But on the opposite side of Mandarin Island, there was Trovitopolis.
That city had a Gym too, but compared to an Elite Four's deterrent power, an ordinary Gym Leader just didn't measure up.
Especially since the Trovita Gym Leader was a boy about Reiji's age—it was no wonder no one took him as seriously.
Once Reiji had decided where he was going next, he started packing up.
He burned every last empty box, glove, and wrapper on the floor.
The now-useless shards of spent gems went into the trash.
After that, he recalled Gastly to its Poké Ball, letting it digest the Pokéblocks slowly inside while it tried, bit by bit, to push its potential upward.
Right now, slogging it out was all they could do.
He finished cleaning the storeroom and shouldered his backpack, heading for the door.
As he left, he didn't notice the pair of blue eyes watching him.
Just as the door shut, a black silhouette slowly emerged from the shadows.
If Reiji had been there, he would have recognized it instantly.
This was the same Pokémon from his nightmare.
Its constantly rolling white "hair" covered most of its face, leaving only a pair of bright blue eyes exposed.
Around its neck was a jagged red collar, and from its shoulders hung a long, tattered black shroud.
Its hands ended in three sharp, clawed fingers.
Most of the time it floated without legs, but it could also extend two legs and stand upright if it wished.
This Pokémon didn't have a gender.
Some people thought of it as the male counterpart to Cresselia, since Cresselia was always female.
Its identity was obvious: Darkrai.
Darkrai moved on nights of the new moon.
It had the power to lure humans into deep sleep and drag them into dreams, though it bore no real malice.
Still, in the Pokémon world there was a rumor: on moonless nights, Darkrai would bring terrifying nightmares.
There had even been cases where an entire village experienced horrible dreams on a no-moon night, leading people to claim that the Pokémon in those nightmares was the "Nightmare Pokémon."
That was simply its natural power—an instinctive defense mechanism that caused humans or Pokémon to suffer nightmares.
Darkrai might be called the Nightmare Pokémon, but it wasn't evil by nature.
Its nightmares were just the result of its Bad Dreams ability.
If Darkrai lost control of that power, it would unconsciously damage the minds of sleeping humans and Pokémon and drain their strength.
"Gastly? Human? Interesting… interesting…"
Judging from the way Darkrai kept muttering Gastly's name, it was obvious what had drawn it here.
Something about Gastly had deviated so far from normal that it caught the attention of a Mythical Pokémon.
That "something" was clearly Reiji's insane evolution experiments.
Dozens of evolutions and devolutions per day turned Gastly into a roaring beacon of energy in the dark.
With that kind of signal, it was hard not to find them.
Reiji couldn't really blame Darkrai for tracking them down and spinning him a nightmare.
If Reiji saw this Pokémon in person, he'd definitely blurt out "What the hell!" on the spot.
Against Psychic-types, having one Darkrai on your side was enough—who needed anything else?
Unfortunately, a Nightmare Pokémon hiding in the shadows wasn't something a normal human like Reiji could notice.
And if he could see it, the shock might outweigh the joy.
Capture it?
People really needed to stop trying to catch every Legendary they saw.
They never stopped to ask if they were even remotely strong enough.
Wanting to capture a Legendary you couldn't even beat was basically a death wish.
So no, capturing Darkrai wasn't on the table.
The evolution research session ended without anyone realizing that, inside Reiji's backpack, the Silver Wing wrapped in cloth had begun to glow faintly the moment Darkrai appeared.
Reiji didn't notice.
Gastly didn't notice.
Darkrai didn't notice either.
…
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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