Soon, the Pokémon had eaten and drunk their fill.
"Why have you come to this forest?" the special Pokémon asked.
"Chaka chaka~" We came to look for ingredients.
Goody-two-shoes Charcadet explained the reason to it.
"I see," the Pokémon nodded in understanding. "In that case, as payment for eating your food, let me take you somewhere."
With that, it picked a direction and leaped toward it.
Seeing this, the two Charcadet quickly packed up their things, climbed onto the backs of the Oinkologne, and chased after the Pokémon.
"Urs urs~"
The Ursaring also wanted to follow, but suddenly, a thick mist spread through the forest. In the blink of an eye, the Charcadet and the others vanished. The Ursaring was so angry it stomped its feet in place.
The Charcadet and their companions ran behind the Pokémon for a long time. Eventually, a rocky tunnel appeared before them.
"Follow me."
The Pokémon looked back at the Charcadet and the others, stopping for a moment to wait for them.
They walked straight through the tunnel, and soon a glimmer of light appeared in their vision. As they drew closer, the Charcadet realized the light was coming from the tunnel's exit.
Stepping outside, they found themselves in a valley filled with vast stretches of bean pods. The pods were already ripe; some had even burst open from over-ripeness, spilling beans onto the ground to rot in the soil.
The Pokémon spoke to the two Charcadet and the two Oinkologne, "These are special beans called Rolling Beans. They have grown here for a long time. You may harvest them as you wish."
"Chaka~" Does this place have an owner?
Goody-two-shoes Charcadet asked.
Hearing this, a flash of tenderness crossed the Pokémon's eyes. It replied kindly, "Rest assured, this location is hidden. No Pokémon has discovered it before; I found it by chance as well."
"Chaka~"
"Honk honk~"
The two Charcadet and the two Oinkologne breathed a sigh of relief and cheered excitedly. They immediately rushed into the valley and began harvesting the bean pods.
Because the weather was quite dry and the pods were overripe, harvesting was not easy. They would burst open with the slightest touch. After harvesting for a while, the four Pokémon looked troubled.
At that moment, the Pokémon spoke in a gentle voice, "Let me help you."
As it spoke, a purple glow emanated from its eyes. In an instant, all the beans were controlled by a mysterious force, floating into the air and drifting toward the Pokémon. This way, they didn't even need to be peeled.
"Come here," the Pokémon called to the Charcadet and Oinkologne.
The four Pokémon quickly ran to its side.
"Open your backpack," it said.
"Chaka chaka~"
Goody-two-shoes Charcadet stepped forward, took off the backpack, and opened it.
Under the Pokémon's control, the beans turned into a torrent, clattering as they poured into the backpack.
The backpack was filled quickly, but nearly half of the beans remained. The four Pokémon scratched their heads in frustration.
What should they do?
The Pokémon said with a hint of a smile in its voice, "I will place the beans in the tunnel ahead. You can come back for them next time."
"Chaka chaka~"
"Honk honk, honk honk~"
The four Pokémon jumped and skipped with excitement and thanked the Pokémon.
Once the beans were harvested, the group exited the tunnel together.
"We shall part ways here," the Pokémon said. "I hope next time I will have the honor of eating food made with Rolling Beans."
"Chaka chaka~"
"Honk honk, honk honk~"
The four Pokémon extended their invitation once more.
"Very well, I will certainly go if I have the chance."
After saying this, the Pokémon leaped and disappeared from before the four of them.
"Chaka~" Goodbye!
"Honk honk~" Goodbye!
The four Pokémon shouted.
After a long time, Goody-two-shoes Charcadet saw that it was getting late. It pulled its gaze back from the distance and spoke to its three companions.
"Chaka chaka~" Let's go home.
"Chaka~"
"Honk honk~"
"Honk honk~"
Crybaby Charcadet and the two Oinkologne nodded in agreement.
Thus, the two Charcadet rode the two Oinkologne toward home as the sun began to set.
However, as they walked, they suddenly realized they seemed to be lost.
The four Pokémon stood confused in the forest, unsure of which direction to take. This forest was simply too large.
"Chaka chaka~"
Crybaby Charcadet felt scared, its mouth twitching as it prepared to shed little pearls.
"Whoosh~"
Suddenly, a dark shadow flashed over their heads.
"Chaka chaka~" It's Komala!
Crybaby Charcadet shouted loudly after holding back its tears.
"Chaka chaka~" Komala must be going home too, let's follow it!
Goody-two-shoes Charcadet said cleverly.
"Honk honk~"
"Honk honk~"
The two Oinkologne's eyes lit up.
Although the Komala had flashed past while being held by something and was now out of sight, the two Oinkologne had their proud noses!
Sure enough, after a vigorous sniffing session, the two Oinkologne easily found the scent left by Komala. They sprinted along the scent trail and soon reached the edge of the forest, spotting the lush grasslands of the Nebel Plateau in the distance.
By the time they arrived home, the sky had turned slightly dark, and the other Pokémon had already started eating dinner.
From afar, Goody-two-shoes Charcadet used its outstanding vision to see Ange standing on the wall, looking out anxiously. Upon seeing them, Ange's face showed a mixture of happiness and relief.
He jumped down from the wall and quickly walked to the four Pokémon, saying with deep concern, "Why are you so late today? I was worried to death."
Although the words carried a slight tone of reproach, for some reason, the hearts of the four Pokémon felt warm, as if they had been filled with something.
"Come on, let's go home and eat. Are you hungry?"
Ange picked up the two Charcadet from the backs of the two Oinkologne.
"Chaka chaka~"
"Honk honk, honk honk~"
The four Pokémon described their experiences of the day to Ange as they walked.
"Is that so? You even invited a Sawsbuck to come home for dinner? Of course, that's no problem. Deerling will definitely be happy if it finds out."
Under the vague descriptions of the four Pokémon, Ange mistook the mysterious Pokémon they encountered for a Sawsbuck.
The four Pokémon had never seen a Sawsbuck either and felt that Deerling did look a bit like that Pokémon. So, when Ange said it was a Sawsbuck, they believed it was a Sawsbuck.
And so, a misunderstanding was born.
After dinner, the four exhausted Pokémon yawned and went to the employee dormitory to sleep, leaving the backpack full of Rolling Beans for Ange.
Originally, Ange hadn't expected them to bring back anything extraordinary. But when he opened the package and saw the bag packed to the brim with beans, he was stunned.
"Are these Rolling Beans?"
He grabbed a handful of beans to observe them in his palm. He saw green beans, each one plump and radiating a luster. They were indeed the rarely seen Rolling Beans.
And Rolling Beans were one of the important raw materials needed for the Bean Paste recipe rewarded by the system.
Bean Paste was a special recipe; ordinary beans could not be used as raw materials. It had to be made with special Rolling Beans.
However, Rolling Beans were not sold on the market. It was said that Rolling Beans only grew in the wild and were hard to come by. If you heard that Rolling Beans were being sold on the market, there was a 99.9% chance they were fakes.
Previously, he had been worrying about where to find Rolling Beans to make Bean Paste. He hadn't expected to find them so easily!
With this many Rolling Beans, it would be enough for him to make plenty of Bean Paste.
Ange had thought about growing Rolling Beans himself, but like the Riverside Herbs, the System Store did not sell Rolling Beans seeds. It only had a Rolling Bean Cultivation Guide.
After buying and looking through it, he found that the reason Rolling Beans could not be cultivated artificially was that they needed Pokémon to use Grassy Terrain to nurture them.
But Pokémon that could learn Grassy Terrain were very rare. Using them to grow beans seemed a bit unrealistic.
Now that he had the seeds for Rolling Beans, Ange had the idea of planting them, though Grassy Terrain was indeed a headache.
He remembered that Gogoat could learn Grassy Terrain. He would go ask tomorrow to see if any of them knew it.
With so many Gogoat on the plateau, there couldn't possibly be none who knew it, right?
Speaking of using Rolling Beans to make the Bean Paste from the advanced recipe, Ange thought of another high-level recipe: Qingtuan.
The raw material for making Qingtuan was something called Verdant Grass. But he had searched through all the information and could not find what species of grass Verdant Grass was.
It was truly frustrating.
Just then, Diancie walked over.
"Ange, a mission has arrived. Do you want to accept it?"
Ange said without hesitation, "Accept it!"
"Got it!"
Following Diancie's words, Ange received a system notification. He opened the mission list and saw several new missions listed.
[Ingredient Collection Mission 1: Collect Rolling Bean seeds—Completed, reward pending.]
[Ingredient Collection Mission 2: Capture a female Combee—Pending.]
[Ingredient Collection Mission 3: Collect Woof-Woof Grain seeds—Pending.]
[Ingredient Collection Mission 4: Collect Sticky Mushroom spores—Pending.]
[Ingredient Collection Mission 5: Collect a certain amount of Hard-Hard Ore—Pending.]
[Ingredient Cultivation Mission 1: Successfully grow Rolling Beans—Pending.]
[Ingredient Cultivation Mission 2: Cultivate a female Combee into a Vespiquen—Pending.]
[Ingredient Cultivation Mission 3: Successfully grow Woof-Woof Grain—Pending.]
[Ingredient Cultivation Mission 4: Successfully grow Sticky Mushrooms—Pending.]
Seeing this string of missions, Ange was dumbfounded. So many at once?
One look and he knew these were serial missions.
Furthermore, whether it was Woof-Woof Grain or Sticky Mushrooms, they were like Rolling Beans—not ordinary ingredients and not sold on the market. The only way to obtain them normally was to collect them from the wild.
Everyone knew that anything that only grew in the wild couldn't have high yields. Whether it was Rolling Beans, Woof-Woof Grain, or Sticky Mushrooms, they could only be collected by adventurers in the wild, but finding them depended entirely on luck. Therefore, even if adventurers collected them, they would only sell them secretly through their own channels or use them for themselves. It was impossible to find them for sale on the market.
So Ange had a massive headache. Where was he going to find Woof-Woof Grain seeds and Sticky Mushroom spores!
And then there was Combee.
Combee were very special Pokémon. Most members of the colony were male, and usually only the queen was female. In other words, female Combee were very, very rare.
Where would he find one?
This system was really making things difficult for him all of a sudden.
And that Hard-Hard Ore—damn it, that was actually one of the ingredient collection missions!
Although most Rock-type Pokémon did indeed feed on ore...
Fortunately, the system wasn't crazy enough to issue a cultivation mission for him to grow Hard-Hard Ore.
System missions had no time limit, so he would take it slow. There was no rush.
Besides the Rolling Beans, Ange also saw a Miracle Seed and a Sun Stone in the backpack that the Charcadet and Oinkologne had found in the forest.
The Miracle Seed could be held by a Pokémon.
The Sun Stone could allow Gloom to evolve into Bellossom, but his only employee was an Oddish and hadn't become a Gloom yet.
However, he could let Helioptile use it first. The Sun Stone could let it evolve into Heliolisk.
He would go discuss it with Helioptile later! Thinking this, Ange put both items away.
When the time came, he took his apprentices to the training room for special cooking training and Aura training, while Metagross went alone to the employee dormitory.
In the classroom where it had previously given livestock farming lessons to Croconaw, Buneary, and the others, quite a few Pokémon had gathered. Croconaw, Lairon, Drilbur, two Farfetch'd, two Charcadet, and Espathra were all present.
Seeing Metagross enter the room, the Pokémon stood up simultaneously and shouted to it, "Hello, Teacher!"
This was something they had learned from television. The time spent watching TV wasn't wasted.
Metagross signaled for everyone to sit down and then began teaching according to the lesson plan it had prepared.
By the time Ange's group finished their cultivation, Metagross's class had also ended, and the Pokémon went back to sleep.
Before going to bed, Ange claimed the reward for [Ingredient Collection Mission 1]. He hadn't expected the reward for a mission issued after the seeds were obtained to still be valid.
[Congratulations Master for completing Ingredient Collection Mission 1: Collect Rolling Bean seeds. Reward obtained: Individual Value +2.]
Ange didn't think twice and added it to Munchlax's Attack. Munchlax's current data was as follows:
Munchlax (Eviolite)
Type: Normal
Ability: Thick Fat
Gender: Male
Level: 44
Moves: Tackle, Lick, Defense Curl, Recycle, Covet, Bite, Stockpile, Swallow, Body Slam, Fling, Amnesia, Take Down, Charm, Seed Bomb, Brick Break, Counter, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch
Individual Values
HP: 31
Attack: 29
Defense: 20
Special Attack: 31
Special Defense: 10
Speed: 31
As for the three daily mission rewards, they were very ordinary and not worth mentioning.
The next morning, when Ange took Munchlax, Drizzile, and Pawmi out for exercise, he saw Croconaw and Lairon performing combat training in pairs from a distance.
Several wooden stakes had been set up on the grass, and a Pokémon was taking turns jumping rapidly on the stakes with one leg, training its speed and balance.
Who else could it be but Espathra?
After watching silently for a while, Ange continued running with Munchlax and the others.
Next, Ange went to work at Munchlax Home. The two Charcadet rode the two Oinkologne out once more; they were going to bring back the remaining Rolling Beans.
At noon, Ange returned from Munchlax Home. He was about to go into the kitchen to help with cooking, but he was pushed out by his three apprentices: Munchlax, Drizzile, and Haunter. Today, the three of them were in charge of lunch.
Fine then, Ange was happy to take it easy. It was time for the old father to enjoy himself.
With nothing to do, Ange went to find the Gogoat.
The Gogoat were currently with the Skiddo, leisurely grazing. The fruit trees had been planted, and since they didn't have to work, they were naturally quite relaxed.
Seeing Ange arrive, they happily surrounded him.
Ange petted them one by one and then asked, "Do any of you know Grassy Terrain?"
The Gogoat looked at each other and then shook their heads.
"None of you know it?" Ange looked disappointed.
The Gogoat and Skiddo shook their heads again.
Ange sighed, "That's a real pity."
"Skii skii~"
At that moment, a Skiddo let out two cries.
"You know who does?" Ange asked in surprise.
"Skii skii~" The Skiddo nodded.
"Good baby, come tell me." Ange urged.
"Skii skii~"
The Skiddo cried twice more. After hearing it, Ange slapped his forehead. Right, how could he have forgotten Dolliv! One of the two Dolliv seemed to know Grassy Terrain!
Too much time had passed; if not for the Skiddo's reminder, he would have forgotten all about it.
The Skiddo told Ange that besides Dolliv, Floette also knew it.
Ange had really never noticed Floette. Mainly because when nothing was happening, he wouldn't use the Eye of Observation to look around randomly, as he didn't need everyone to fight.
He did want to see the data for Komala and Metagross, but unfortunately, he couldn't.
Ange was about to say goodbye to the Gogoat and Skiddo when he suddenly remembered something. He asked the Gogoat and Skiddo:
"If Dolliv and Floette are willing to teach you, would you be willing to learn Grassy Terrain?"
This was a great move!
The Gogoat and Skiddo looked at each other. Finally, the Gogoat leader stepped forward and nodded to Ange, indicating their willingness to learn.
They were idle anyway. Since Ange wanted them to learn, they would learn; it was a good way to pass the time.
Seeing this, Ange squinted his eyes happily.
"Good children. I'll go talk to Dolliv and Floette right now."
Afterward, Ange found Dolliv and Floette. Through the Eye of Observation, one of the Dolliv and the Floette indeed knew Grassy Terrain.
Ange told them his idea of using Grassy Terrain to cultivate Rolling Beans and also discussed his plan to have them teach Grassy Terrain to the Gogoat and Skiddo.
The two Pokémon readily agreed.