Watching Brother Spinarak's manic, lottery-winning ecstasy, Miles frowned slightly.
On the other side of the screen, the guy—whose ID was "High-Protein Spinarak" and who had just been crying out of fear of going to jail—was now hugging the glass tank filled with murky seawater.
He kissed and gnawed at the glass, incoherently muttering nonsense like "I'm rich!" and "Ancient mythical beasts are legal now!"
The sheer adrenaline rush of such massive emotional whiplash made it look like he was going to pass out right then and there.
Yet, in stark contrast to Brother Spinarak's wild joy and the live chat flooded with congratulations, Miles's deep eyes gradually clouded with an icy, heavy solemnity.
To a layman, the creature at the bottom of the tank was just an Omanyte with a thick, spiral, grayish-blue shell and a few protruding blue tentacles.
Although he looked a bit sluggish, his shell was completely intact.
His tentacles twitched occasionally and unconsciously in the water, and he even blew tiny bubbles.
He didn't seem to be in any real danger, perhaps just suffering from a bit of water pressure acclimatization after changing environments.
However, under the full power of Miles's [Pokémon Insight Eye], the true data panel of this ancient creature painted a shocking, hellish picture of decay and death!
[Target: Omanyte (Spiral Pokémon / Ancient Revived Species)]
[Level: Lv. 37 (A wild veteran nearing the threshold of evolution!)]
[Type: Rock / Water]
[Gender: Male]
[Base Stats: C+ (355 - A rock-solid defensive fortress)]
[IVs: B-Rank (101 - An outstanding specimen among wild individuals!)]
[Ability: Shell Armor (Protected by a hard shell, opponents' attacks cannot land critical hits)]
[Nature: Relaxed (+Defense, -Speed; remains unfazed even if a mountain collapses before him)]
[Moves: Bind, Withdraw, Rollout, Water Gun, Mud Shot, Brine, and Ancient Power!]
[Current Fatal Status: Extremely severe internal injuries / On the verge of organ failure / Extreme exhaustion / Severe dehydration]
But what really made Miles's heart sink was the faintly flickering, fractured white text at the very bottom of the data panel!
[Fate Entry: Remnant Candle (White) - This rare creature with an ancient bloodline suffered terrifying high-pressure crushing in the deep sea, or a fatal heavy blow from an Apex Pokémon! Although his hard shell preserved his body, his internal organs have been completely shattered. At this moment, his flame of life is like a candle in the wind, on the verge of extinguishing. Without the intervention of top-tier medical treatment, he will completely turn into a lifeless fossil tonight!]
Reading the system's deep analysis, Miles gasped inwardly.
A Level 37 wild Omanyte!
In wild coastal waters lacking human scientific resources, this was definitely a local overlord.
Not only was he battle-hardened, but he had even mastered the incredibly mysterious and powerful ancient Rock-type move—Ancient Power!
How could such a naturally aggressive and tyrannical seabed predator be easily caught in an ordinary fishing net?
And why was he so docile in this cramped glass tank, not showing the slightest feral urge to break his cage and attack humans?
It wasn't because of a good temper.
It was because his fading life force couldn't even muster a fraction of the energy needed to use a move.
"Ahem... Brother Spinarak, calm down for a second and wipe that grin off your face," Miles stated plainly.
He tapped his finger heavily on the solid wood desk twice.
The dull thud carried a piercing, cold authority through the microphone, abruptly cutting off Brother Spinarak's grating laughter.
"Huh? Master Miles? What's wrong?" High-Protein Spinarak stopped kissing the glass and leaned closely into the camera, his eyes gleaming with greed and expectation.
"Could it be... Master, did you see at a glance that my ancient mythical beast is hiding some incredibly awesome, god-tier bloodline? I knew I, High-Protein Spinarak, was blessed!"
"I haven't seen an awesome bloodline yet, but there is an incredibly fatal crisis," Miles replied, leaning forward slightly.
His abyss-black eyes stared right into the camera.
Instead of just spouting the system's data, he adopted the seasoned, professional tone of a medical examiner.
"Brother Spinarak, I don't care how happy you are right now, but you'd better perk up your ears and listen to what I'm about to say. I'm not joking around."
"If you do nothing and just leave him to rot in that tank... this treasure you spent five thousand bucks on absolutely will not survive past midnight!"
Boom!
Miles's words dropped like a death sentence, crashing into the lively stream like a ten-thousand-ton iceberg.
The viewers, who had just been spamming celebrations for Brother Spinarak dodging a prison sentence, instantly froze.
The chat went eerily dead for three full seconds before erupting into a storm of doubt and shock far fiercer than before!
[Viewer "Late-Night No Drinking": Holy crap?! Won't survive the night?! Master, don't scare us! This Omanyte looks perfectly fine! He doesn't even have a scratch, he's literally just blowing bubbles!]
[Viewer "Keyboard Holmes": Bro got whiplash! He just pulled one leg out of the slammer, and now he has to plan a Pokémon funeral? RIP. But Master, you're looking through a screen without any machines. How can you be so sure he's going to die? Make it make sense!]
[Viewer "Outlaw John Doe ": Cap? Even though Master Miles is a god at reading IVs, diagnosing life-or-death just by looking at a stream is a bit too wild, right?]
[Viewer "Frontline Melon Eater": LMAO! Forgive me for laughing, but this plot twist gave me whiplash! Brother Spinarak's smile froze like he just swallowed a fly!]
[Viewer "Rational Breeder Apprentice": It's definitely hard to believe. Crustacean Pokémon have incredibly tenacious vitality. As long as their shells haven't suffered fatal fractures, normal illnesses won't drop them in a few hours. Did the streamer misjudge this time?]
Watching the stream fill with doubt, a highly confident sneer touched the corner of Miles's mouth.
He had anticipated this reaction.
As a streamer without any diagnostic equipment, simply reading off a system panel like a fortune teller wouldn't convince anyone—it would only expose his biggest cheat ability.
He needed to take the system's results and reverse-engineer a flawless chain of visual, logical evidence using his profound Pokémon knowledge!
"What? You think I'm fear-mongering? You think I'm talking out of my ass just because I don't have an X-ray machine?" Miles scoffed, his gaze sharp as a knife.
"Brother Spinarak, press your phone's camera right up against the glass! Focus on this Omanyte's eyes and tentacles! Zoom in all the way! Let all the 'experts' in the chat get a good look!"
Intimidated by Miles's commanding aura, Brother Spinarak didn't dare hesitate.
With trembling hands, he pressed his phone camera flush against the tank wall.
"Everyone, keep your eyes peeled!" Miles's voice rang out like a giant bell in the stream.
"First! You say he looks fine? Look at his pupils! A normal wild Omanyte's pupils are focused and alert."
"But look at him—his pupils are completely dilated and unfocused! The whites of his eyes are covered in extremely dense, dark red blood vessels!"
"In Pokémon pathology, this is a classic near-death symptom of nerve damage and severe hypoxia!"
As the camera zoomed in, tens of thousands of viewers clearly saw those hollow, vacant, bloodshot eyes.
An inexplicable chill instantly crept up their spines.
"Second! Look at his exposed blue tentacles!" Miles's analysis sliced through the confusion like a scalpel.
"As a dual Water and Rock-type Pokémon, his tentacles are his core organs for sensing water currents and hunting."
"A healthy tentacle's suction cups should be plump and full of muscular tension."
"But look at his tentacles now. They're draped limply over the sand at the bottom of the tank like soggy noodles. The edges are even shriveled and peeling due to severe dehydration!"
"Third, and the most fatal point that completely defies biological common sense!" Miles raised his voice sharply, bringing down the gavel on his final verdict.
"Just now, Brother Spinarak thought he struck it rich. He was jumping around hugging the tank, sloshing the water violently!"
"Let me ask you this: when a highly vigilant, stranded wild Pokémon encounters such intense external stimulation, what is its first reaction?!"
The moment the question was asked, veteran players in the stream immediately provided the answer.
[Viewer "Veteran Breeder Old Wang": Withdraw! This is a defensive instinct that absolutely no wild crustacean Pokémon can suppress!]
"Exactly! Old Wang is absolutely right!" Miles nodded heavily.
"Withdraw! But did any of you see him retract into his shell just now?! No!"
"He didn't pull back a single tentacle! It's not that he doesn't want to hide; it's that he physically can't!"
"Combining these three points, along with his perfectly intact, scratch-free hard shell... I can issue his final pathological diagnosis right now."
Miles's eyes carried a suffocating pressure.
"In the deep sea, he suffered a terrifying blunt-force impact. Perhaps it was a tail slap from a Wailord, or extremely terrifying deep-sea pressure!"
"This sheer physical force bypassed the external defense of his Shell Armor and shattered his internal organs directly, like a strike passing right through a mountain!"
"His exterior is perfect, but his insides have been reduced to mush! Right now, he isn't just suffering from extremely severe internal injuries; he's experiencing massive organ failure!"
"The only reason he's still alive is his ancient biology desperately clinging to its last breath!"
"Now, do any of you still think I'm just fear-mongering?!"
Silence.
The entire live stream of forty to fifty thousand concurrent viewers turned into voiceless statues after hearing Miles's textbook, perfectly logical, and flawless visual pathology deduction.
Without using a single machine, relying solely on subtle video feed details and wild Pokémon instincts, he had reverse-engineered such a horrifying truth of internal trauma!
What kind of god-tier eyesight was this?!
He was practically a walking human MRI machine!
It took a full ten seconds before the thoroughly convinced chat erupted like a tsunami!
[Viewer "Keyboard Holmes": I'm on my knees! Genuinely bowing to the Master! This logical reasoning is bulletproof! His attention to detail is terrifying! I can't believe I dared to question Master Miles. I really ought to slap myself!]
[Viewer "Late-Night No Drinking": Dilated pupils, limp suction cups, lost instincts... internal injuries passing right through the shell! Bro is cooking! A flawless execution!]
[Viewer "Med School Freshman": As a Pokémon med student, I can testify that the symptoms the Master described are definitely late-stage signs of organ failure! If they don't perform emergency surgery to open the shell, he absolutely won't survive for two hours!]
[Viewer "Frontline Melon Eater": Brother Spinarak! What the hell are you waiting for! Your treasure is about to become a corpse!]
[Viewer "League Police - Officer Barrett": Master Miles's keen eye is truly admirable! High-Protein Spinarak! I am issuing an official, severe warning! If you knowingly let a Pokémon die because you are too cheap to pay for its rescue when medical help is available, you will be fined the maximum penalty of 50,000 Pokédollars and permanently stripped of your Pokémon breeding qualifications! Take him to a center immediately!]
Seeing the screen flooded with cries of "Doctor", and especially Officer Barrett's severe ultimatum threatening a massive fine, the color instantly drained from High-Protein Spinarak's face.
His earlier joy over not going to jail vanished, replaced by the sheer terror of a 50,000-Pokédollar penalty.
"M-Master! Bro! I believe you! I really believe you!" Brother Spinarak was so anxious that tears started falling again.
He looked despairingly at the dying Omanyte in the tank, his voice thick with sobs.
"But... but bro! It's the middle of the night! The nearest Pokémon Center ER is over three kilometers away, and I can't even get a cab!"
"And... and emergency resuscitation fees are a bottomless pit!"
Brother Spinarak ruthlessly tugged at his hair, calculating his pathetic lower-class finances.
"You just said it yourself. There are plenty of artificially bred Omanytes now, so their value has plummeted to maybe two or three thousand bucks."
"I was already a huge sucker for dropping five grand on him. If I spend several thousand—or even over ten thousand—to save him, and by some miracle he lives, I wouldn't even make my medical fees back by selling him!"
"Master, Officer... I'm really not a cold-blooded person, but I'm just a broke loser flipping second-hand seafood. I have less than twenty grand left in my bank account."
"How the hell am I supposed to save him? Why don't... why don't we just leave him to his fate?"
This naked equation of life and money, laying bare the mercenary desperation of the lower class, instantly sparked massive controversy in the chat.
[Viewer "Overflowing Love Meowth": How can you be like this?! That's a living, breathing life! Are you just going to watch him die so you don't lose money?! Aren't you afraid he'll haunt your nightmares?!]
[Viewer "Tough Guys Also Cry": Damn it, I'm so sick of these profit-driven second-hand scalpers! If you don't have the funds, don't play the gray market flipping Pokémon!]
[Viewer "Rational Analyst": Sigh, don't judge others unless you've walked in their shoes. For an ordinary person, spending ten thousand to save an endangered animal only worth two thousand is a brutally realistic economic choice. You can't blame him.]
Watching the chat tear itself apart, Miles didn't join the moral crusade.
He understood small-time opportunists like High-Protein Spinarak all too well.
Talking to them about the pricelessness of life or moral bottom lines was like playing a lute to a cow.
If you wanted to motivate this kind of person to jump into action, the only leverage you had was offering them absolute, irresistible profit!
Upto 20 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/Vristikk