She remembered the market area Xatu had mentioned, grabbed the equally confused Squirtle beside her, and started searching the noisy market for a cheaper appraisal stall.
Before long, she spotted a run-down little stall tucked away in a corner. The owner was a Sudowoodo wearing reading glasses, moving at a leisurely pace.
A crooked wooden sign stood beside the stall: [Appraisal - 5 silver coins/item.]
That price seemed pretty cheap, right?
Yancy's spirits lifted, and she immediately pulled Squirtle over.
The cloaked stall owner also appeared right beside her, just watching in silence, as if enjoying a show.
And so, a journey of absolute disaster officially began.
Yancy gritted her teeth and first picked what looked most like a mushroom to hand over.
Sudowoodo slowly took it, squinting through its reading glasses as it examined it for a long time, brushing over it with branch-like hands as the mushroom flashed with a faint light.
System notification: [Obtained 'Paralysis Spore Mushroom (D-rank item)']
[Effect: High probability of entering paralysis state after consumption.]
[Value: Almost zero (Who would want to eat this?)]
Yancy stared at the mushroom in her hand with its weird color, still faintly trembling, her face going pale.
5 silver coins for a poisonous mushroom?!
The chat immediately flooded with ruthless mockery:
[Hahaha poison mushroom!]
[Streamer, try it! It's delicious~]
[5 silver coins down the drain lol]
The cloaked figure beside her covered where their mouth would be, letting out a muffled snicker.
Yancy refused to accept defeat and handed over the broken bone club.
Sudowoodo began its leisurely appraisal again.
System notification: [Obtained 'Decayed Bone Fragment (D-rank item)']
[Effect: Ground-type Pokémon carrying this will have slightly increased attack power (extremely fragile).]
[Value: 5 silver coins]
Looking at the notification, Yancy's eye twitched.
Attack boost?
Sounds... not terrible?
But what was with this "extremely fragile" description?
And she didn't even have a Ground-type on her team!
Five silver coins, barely breaking even?
But somehow... something felt wrong.
Didn't this mean the item was basically useless?
For the third one, she chose a colorful shell.
The appraisal began, faint light flashing.
System notification: [Obtained 'Faded Colored Shell (D-rank item)']
[Effect: Water-type Pokémon carrying this will have slightly increased special defense (fragile).]
[Value: 6 silver coins]
Yancy froze.
Wait. Fragile again?
At least it was a Water-type item...
Squirtle could use it, but with this tiny improvement and the fragile property, 6 silver coins value...
Yeah, enough said.
Yancy touched her forehead, feeling her face flush red.
Out of the 20 silver coins, 15 had been spent, traded for a poison mushroom, a nearly crumbling bone, and a shell ready to shatter. Only 5 coins remained in her pouch. The words "absolute disaster" didn't even begin to cover it.
Looking at the remaining 6 silver coins in her pouch and the last few unappraised items, her heart sank.
Her gaze swept across and finally stopped on what looked like the cheapest, murkiest glass bead.
Honestly, this thing looked worthless.
But what if? What if it was another piece of amber?
With that thought, she gritted her teeth and handed the murky glass bead to Sudowoodo.
The last of her silver coins was deducted.
Sudowoodo remained unhurried, the murky glass bead looking completely dull in its hands.
Faint light flashed.
System notification: [Obtained 'Dim Glass Bead (E-rank trash)']
[Description: A cheap glass bead with murky interior, no shine, found everywhere. Except for taking up backpack space, it's completely useless. Value: 0]
E-rank! Trash! Value 0!
Yancy turned to stone.
She felt blood rush to her head, her vision darkening.
15 silver coins!
The 15 silver coins she'd earned through hard dungeon runs! Just like that, turned into a pile of junk and outright garbage!
Well, strictly speaking, it was all garbage!
After that round of appraisals, her backpack now contained a poison mushroom, a broken bone, a brittle shell, and a worthless piece of glass...
The chat had gone wild with laughter:
[Hahahaha cursed luck!]
[15 silver to 6 silver, the loss of all losses!]
[Entertainment value maxed out! Kairos gets it!]
[Streamer's face is black as coal!]
[Glass bead: Surprise? Your boy's genuine trash!]
Yancy numbly controlled Larvesta to pick up the pile of junk from the ground and stuff it back in her backpack. She felt absolutely awful.
"Right now I just want to find a corner to crouch in and sulk..."
Squirtle looked at her with concern, seemingly at a loss for words.
The cloak floating behind her was already laughing and spinning in the air.
Just as Yancy was drowning in despair, about to close the game to cool off, her gaze unconsciously swept across her backpack grid, crammed full with various junk.
In the corner, there was something equally drab and unremarkable, even forgotten by her, squeezed among a pile of question marks. It was a dirty-looking linen pouch tied with rough hemp rope.
When had she picked this up?
It seemed to have been randomly found in some grass in the F1 area. Because it was so unremarkable, she'd even missed showing it to the mysterious stall owner earlier when displaying her unappraised items!
Yancy numbly controlled Larvesta to select and pull this grimy cloth bag from under the pile of junk, handing it to Sudowoodo, who was about to close up shop.
She was too drained to even look at what mocking comments the chat was spamming now.
Sudowoodo took the dirty cloth bag, and the eyes behind the reading glasses seemed to flash with a glimmer of surprise, different from before.
It slowly untied the hemp rope at the bag's opening, and a deep blue faint light immediately emerged from the gap.
Sudowoodo used its branch-like fingers to extremely carefully reach into the bag, extracting a small cluster of silver powder sparkling with countless fine star particles.
"Oh? A good item..."
Its movements became more serious than ever, and a more complex runic light than in previous appraisals enveloped that cluster of powder and the cloth bag.
The system notification box popped up. This time the border was no longer ordinary white or blue, but brilliant gold!
[Obtained 'Stardust Embers (A-rank material)']
[Obtained 'Space Fiber Bag (B-rank container)']
[Stardust Embers (A-rank material) Description: The legendary essence remaining after stars fall, containing incredible cosmic power. It is a supreme treasure for forging top-tier space equipment, enhancing the power of Psychic/Fairy-type legendary Pokémon, or performing certain ancient rituals.]
[Value: Currently immeasurable.]
[Space Fiber Bag (B-rank container)]
[Description: A magical bag woven from special space fibers. The interior space is far larger than the exterior volume (current capacity: 10 slots). Value: Extremely high.]
A-rank?! Immeasurable?!
Yancy's brain buzzed. On screen, Larvesta held the unremarkable cloth bag and the sparkling stardust inside, the entire bug frozen in shock.
A second ago she'd been wallowing in a trash heap, and now she'd just pulled something this good?
The chat went dead silent for a second, then began scrolling like crazy.
[??]
[A-rank material??]
[Holy crap!!]
[Stardust Embers! Space bag! Streamer, are you cheating?!]
[Kairos!! Is this drop rate even legal??]
[Everyone who laughed at the streamer earlier, come out and take your beating hh]
[Next the streamer will demonstrate how to turn five coins into one million]
At that moment, even the cloak floating behind stopped laughing, the figure hovering in the void, staring at the bag of sparkling stardust, clearly very interested in this item.
Yancy controlled Larvesta on screen, a smile creeping across her face.
"Who just said I went bankrupt!"
Now that she'd appraised these two items, she'd not only broken even but made a massive profit.
But the question was, how much were these two items actually worth? Why couldn't she see their value now?
And just then, the mysterious cloaked stall owner who'd been floating beside her watching the show suddenly moved.
It was no longer hovering in mid-air but floated directly in front of Larvesta.
A "hand" covered by the worn cloak, seemingly made of rough tree branches, extended out, pointing directly at the Stardust Embers Yancy was holding.
Along with it came a system notification:
[The mysterious stall owner has sent you a trade request]
A voice sounded, carrying some surprise, the tone rising slightly at the end, showing hints of amusement.
"Oh my, I didn't expect your luck to be quite good. It seems I misjudged earlier... Wait, I don't think you even took this item out before?"
Under the cloak, two gazes seemingly filled with amusement swept across the bag of sparkling stardust, then paused on the brand new space fiber bag.
"In that case... I won't lowball you."
It used that branch-like hand to lightly pat the B-rank space bag.
"This bag is also a good item. Keep it."
Then, another hand extended from under the cloak's shadow.
In its palm was, remarkably, the jar of flames that had been on the stall.
Yancy's eyes immediately lit up.
"Here, give me that bit of stardust, and I'll trade you this. How about it?"
"Didn't you want it pretty badly earlier? I think what you've got here is interesting. Trade with me, sound good?"
Hearing this, Yancy thought briefly.
What she'd just appraised was an A-rank material, supposedly immeasurably valuable, but this jar of special flames seemed to be something even Larvesta's instincts recognized as good.
If she traded like this, would she be getting a good deal or getting ripped off?
She glanced at the chat to see everyone's opinions.
The chat had already exploded:
[Just trade, it's all free stuff anyway]
[Streamer, accept quickly! When we saw that fire earlier, the screen had a notification, it's gotta be even better]
[I think maybe don't trade, this thing doesn't even show a price, probably worth more than that fire...]
Chat opinions were split, but more people were telling Yancy to trade.
Yancy thought about it and quickly made her decision.
Stardust Embers was good, but as a newbie who'd just left the starter village, she didn't even know what this thing was for, much less how to use it.
This jar of flames was different. It was something she'd genuinely wanted, and the other party seemed to mean no harm. They'd only observed before, and now they were offering these terms on their own, even letting her keep the space bag.
Most importantly, those flames were clearly attracting Larvesta. It had to be something perfectly suited for her.
"Okay, deal!" Yancy barely hesitated and controlled Larvesta to make the choice.
Larvesta carefully followed the prompts and chose to hand over the space bag containing the Stardust Embers.
The mysterious stall owner swiftly took the small bag, extracted the stardust directly, then returned the bag to Yancy.
At the same time, the jar of orange mysterious flames was lifted by a gentle force, floating lightly toward Yancy and landing in front of her.
The cloaked figure who'd obtained the Stardust Embers seemed very pleased. Yancy even faintly heard an extremely soft, somewhat cheerful laugh from under the cloak. The worn cloak even seemed to tremble from this delight.
Its gaze fell on Squirtle, casually sweeping across Squirtle, who'd been standing beside Larvesta, watching its companion with worried little eyes.
The figure under the cloak seemed to pause, as if seeing something interesting again.
Then, very casually, it beckoned toward Squirtle.
An extremely thin, almost completely transparent pale purple mist, as if pulled by an invisible force, was suddenly extracted from Squirtle's body!
That mist carried a faint trace of cold, coiling around the mysterious stall owner's branch-like fingertips.
Immediately, the stall owner's fingertips lit up with a pale golden glow, and that wisp of pale purple mist, like ice melting under sunlight, instantly dissolved and vanished without a trace.
Squirtle's whole body shuddered violently, and the previously barely noticeable weariness in its eyes instantly cleared.
"I... what just happened to me?"
"I feel... so much better now..."
Yancy watched this scene and immediately understood.
That mist was...
She immediately thought of the strange purple mist that had filled the air when the altar appeared in the passage they'd accidentally opened in the Silk Thread Forest!
Squirtle had felt a bit off at the time. She'd thought the matter had passed, but there'd been a lingering effect?
Had this kind of mist been hidden in Squirtle's body all along?
No wonder she'd felt Squirtle seemed off since arriving at the guild.
At that moment, fear surged through Yancy. If Squirtle hadn't gotten this problem fixed, what if it had been infected by the mist later and become like those Pokémon in the dungeon? Wouldn't that have been terrible?
"Alright, it's fine now. Just some residual miasma."
The voice under the cloak sounded again, but wasn't as cheerful.
"Remember, that place deep in the Silk Thread Forest..." It shook its head, the wide cloak swaying gently along with it. "Isn't suitable for you to go to."
"Next time..." It paused and added, "Don't go wandering in there again picking up trash. There's nothing you want there."
Picking up trash?
Yancy froze, but suddenly realized the other party was actually right, and she couldn't argue with it.
She'd been looking here and there in the forest, picking up whatever spawned on the ground. That really was picking up trash.
Wait, that's not the point!