Silas raised an eyebrow. Fair enough.
Under the light cast by Ampharos's tail, the three stones in Brock's hand were clearly visible.
One of them was an Everstone, whose market value remained consistently stable and in fact had an upward trend.
Although production existed, demand kept rising as more wealthy Trainers preferred to keep adorable unevolved Pokémon by their side.
This created a strong and steady demand for Everstones.
More importantly, when a partner Pokémon aged and eventually passed away, most people chose to bury its belongings together Poké Balls included, and Everstones were often part of that.
It would be absurd to ask a dying Pokémon to "extract" its held item before passing on.
The other two were partially formed Hard Stones, one of the standard type-enhancing items.
Type-enhancing items could form due to environmental influence or even during a Pokémon's growth process.
However, fully formed items with actual effects required a long period of natural "maturation."
Most Pokémon would only produce one such item in their entire lifetime.
Research suggested that both the formation time and final quality of these items were related to the Pokémon's strength.
So finding semi-formed held items on wild Advance-level Pokémon or above was not unusual.
Well—"not unusual" was relative. The probability was about 1 in 2,000.
Finding two such items from a group of over a dozen Graveler and a single Golem could only mean Brock was extremely lucky.
Not to mention the additional Everstone.
As for Silas's own bounty hunter career over the years, better not ask. The answer was simple: the universe had no mercy for unlucky people.
Probability meant nothing in the face of extreme luck or misfortune.
These semi-formed Hard Stones did not provide percentage-based stat boosts, but they were excellent training materials for Rock- and some Ground-type Pokémon.
"You want them?" Silas asked Brock.
"No need. You take them," Brock said casually, tossing all three stones over.
As the eldest son of the Pewter Gym family, he genuinely didn't care about such items.
To put it simply, if you went to his family's mountain and picked any Rock-type Pokémon, most of them would already be carrying items like these.
If he wanted them, he could get them anytime.
More importantly, most of the work in the battle had been done by Silas. Brock considered himself to have mostly been watching from the sidelines.
Silas happily stowed the three stones into his bag.
This trip with Brock was a huge profit.
Not bad at all for just calling him over to deal with that Ninetales earlier.
"Does Pewter not have a method for letting other Pokémon help produce semi-formed items?" Silas asked casually.
As far as he knew, such methods did exist.
Brock shook his head.
"There are, but they aren't worth it. The cost is too high."
"Oh?"
Silas tilted his head.
Brock continued while walking:
"You can think of it as each Pokémon having its own unique properties. If you want another Pokémon to 'assist' in forming such an item, the requirements are strict.
First, it usually requires at least Elite-level strength.
At that point, most semi-formed items aren't valuable enough to justify the effort, unless it's something rare like a Dragon Fang.
Second, the assisting Elite-level Pokémon can't be just any Pokémon. Ideally, it should be the same species, or at least closely related with similar traits. For example, even something like limb structure similarity for Graveler. Otherwise, the final effect might only reach around 9% completion."
Silas rolled his eyes.
"Then you might as well just catch those Graveler directly."
"Exactly," Brock shrugged. "That's why even for our Gym, this is only used as a training resource."
The reason they didn't capture them was simple: cost.
Rock-type Pokémon weren't free to maintain. If you wanted them to produce items, you couldn't just "feed them dirt", it would take far too long.
If you wanted faster results, there was only one method: money.
The more you invested, the faster the output—even weaker Pokémon could produce results.
Not expensive either. Roughly the price of two or three Hard Stones.
Trade two or three for one, it was still a profit.
No matter how you looked at it, unless those Graveler had pseudo-Elite-level potential, capturing them was not worth it.
And both Silas and Brock could tell they didn't.
If they had that potential, they would already be the leader of their colony.
Not middle-ranking members still stuck there in adulthood.
Marking them for future collection was also pointless.
In a place like this, it would be nearly impossible to relocate them later and other Trainers wouldn't be stupid enough to leave valuable materials behind anyway.
While they spoke, a group of Diglett led by a Dugtrio charged toward them aggressively.
"I say, should we just let Blaziken handle lighting instead? Ampharos's light is too bright," Brock said helplessly.
Normally, wild Pokémon wouldn't attack Trainers this frequently.
They usually tolerated humans passing through.
But Ampharos glowing its tail in the middle of a pitch-black cave was a different story entirely.
It was like suddenly turning on a floodlight at 3 a.m. while someone was deep asleep.
Even the most tolerant creatures would want an explanation.
"Let's just deal with them first," Silas said, glancing at their numbers and strength.
He only sent out Escavalier.
It was another one-sided battle.
The Diglett and Dugtrio stood no chance against Golem and Escavalier, falling one after another.
"Let me handle the loot this time," Brock said, stepping forward again.
Silas quickly stopped him and went to check the bodies first.
Diglett and Dugtrio could potentially drop Soft Sand, a Ground-type enhancing item, useful for Pokémon like Hippowdon that utilized Sandstorm strategies.
Five minutes later, Silas stood up with a dark expression.
As usual.
Nothing.
"Don't worry. The probability is just low," Brock comforted him.
Silas snapped back immediately.
"Then why the hell did you get three drops?!"
He strongly protested against the unfairness of the world.
Unfortunately, the protest was rejected by reality.
In the battles that followed, whenever Silas handled the post-battle cleanup, there was consistently nothing to be found.
Whenever Brock took over, even if only a small group of Advance-level Pokémon were involved, he would always at least get one semi-formed item.
Silas's fists slowly clenched.
Even though Brock casually handed everything he found over to him, the feeling was still incredibly frustrating.
He even started to suspect that the reason Ash's journey always went so smoothly in the future was partly because Brock's "luck" played a role or maybe Ash himself was secretly an extreme lucky type too.
So in the end, everyone in the world was lucky except him?
Was his life basically a "only I suffer" scenario quest?
Brock, holding back laughter, tried to console him.
"Don't worry. You get used to it."
Silas gave him a resentful look.
He had gotten used to it, until Brock showed up and ruined it again.
Brock's brown skin even turned slightly red from suppressing laughter.
"Return, Ampharos. Go, Blaziken."
Silas, in frustration, switched the lighting source Pokémon.
Blaziken sighed internally. It really had no words for its Trainer anymore.
It casually ignited a small flame on its claw.
The previously bright cave immediately turned dim and gloomy.
Luckily, neither Silas nor Brock suffered from claustrophobia, or they would have lost it underground long ago.
Their pace slowed slightly.
The uneven ground, combined with jagged rock formations everywhere, meant one wrong step could hurt badly.
This was also why Silas preferred Ampharos for lighting.
Because of oxygen limitations, Blaziken couldn't maintain large flames, so its illumination range was limited.
However, the advantage was safety, no wild Pokémon would dare launch a surprise attack.
In Blaziken's Aura Sense, ambushes were basically a joke.
Ampharos's electromagnetic sensing, on the other hand, was not very effective against Ground- and Rock-type Pokémon.
"How far are we now?"
After repelling another wave of wild Pokémon, Brock looked at Silas, slightly exhausted.
Silas closed his eyes and mentally reconstructed their path.
"About one-thirtieth of the way. If things go smoothly, we'll be out in three days."
Only a little over an hour had passed.
"I thought it had already been half a day…" Brock muttered in disbelief, checking his watch.
In a pitch-black underground cave with no sunlight, it was easy to lose track of time.
Silas remained calm.
"There should be a rest point ahead. We can stop there later."
A "rest point" was basically a relatively open area connected to multiple tunnels, at least a dozen in some cases.
In the underground network of Mt. Mortar, such points were quite common, built through the efforts of past Trainers.
Of course, wild Pokémon occasionally damaged them, but they were still usable for temporary rest.
Just then.
Rumble.
A deep, growing vibration echoed from ahead.
The ground began to shake.
"Big one," both of them thought instantly, exchanging a glance.
"It's an Onix," Blaziken reported immediately, its eyes flashing with blue light as it identified the species.
The next moment, the rock wall ahead exploded outward.
A massive Onix burst into view.
Silas rubbed his nose.
This was exactly why Mt. Mortar's underground cave system had become so chaotic, these "big guys" constantly dug new tunnels everywhere.
See? Another passage had just been created.
Brock, meanwhile, examined it with interest.
"This Onix is in excellent condition."
Silas rolled his eyes.
Of course it was. It was at least pseudo–Elite level.
He had no idea why such a powerful Onix was here at all. Their luck, in a twisted way, was absurd.
"Onix are usually quite gentle. It shouldn't attack us—"
Brock was still speaking.
But the Onix clearly wasn't in a listening mood.
It raised its head, stared at the "small intruders," and charged.
"Seriously?" Silas widened his eyes.
He had deliberately suppressed Blaziken's Elite-level aura to avoid unnecessary fights—normally, even pseudo-Elite-level would retreat on sensing it.
But this Onix actually charged straight in.
"If this were a game, this thing would definitely have the Brave nature," Silas muttered.
"Focus. Aura Sphere."
He patted Blaziken's back.
Blaziken was already annoyed, it felt like it was being underestimated again.
It gathered a human-head-sized blue sphere of Aura energy in its claw.
With a flick the Aura Sphere shot forward and slammed directly into the charging Onix.
"ROOOAR—!"
The Onix's momentum stopped dead, and it crashed heavily to the ground.
Dust rained down from the cave ceiling.
A Rock-type not specialized in energy defense taking a super-effective Aura Sphere from a vastly stronger Blaziken was not a minor issue.
Silas didn't even understand why it had charged in the first place.
After checking the Onix, they confirmed it was fine, no external influence, no held items.
Neither of them was interested in capturing it, so they simply walked past and headed toward the rest area.
As they passed through the tunnel carved by the Onix, Silas suddenly paused.
"…Huh?"
"What is it?" Brock asked.
"It feels humid here."
Silas extended his hand, sensing the air carefully.
Brock stepped forward, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
"Yeah it is."
They exchanged a glance.
Without hesitation, they stepped into the tunnel.
The rest point could wait.
What lay ahead was clearly more interesting.
...
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