"Brother Spinarak, wipe your tears. I did say earlier that an ordinary, low-level wild Omanyte is only worth about two or three thousand on the market, making it a guaranteed money sink."
Miles's lips suddenly curled into an incredibly alluring smirk.
His voice, sounding like a siren capable of manipulating greedy souls, pierced through the screen. "But I never said that the Omanyte you bought for five thousand was that kind of ordinary trash!"
"Is... is it really that awesome?!" Brother Spinarak's crying stopped abruptly, his eyes widening.
"Let me teach you something."
Miles sat up straight, laying out his impeccable logic to build up the Omanyte's true value.
"Everyone, look at its spiral shell. There are deep growth rings on the surface, which are biologically known as 'water absorption lines.' Every time a wild Omanyte goes through an incredibly difficult molting phase, it leaves behind a dark, calcified deposit!"
Miles pointed at the magnified close-up of the Omanyte on the screen, his voice brimming with passion.
"Count carefully! This Omanyte's shell has over thirty rough, calcified segments!"
"What does that mean? It means that it has been fighting under the cruel, deep-sea law of the jungle for at least ten to twenty years!"
"A conservative estimate puts its true level absolutely above Level 35!"
"It might even be approaching the terrifying Level 40 threshold!"
As soon as he said this, the veteran players in the chat exploded.
[Viewer "Veteran Breeder Old Wang": My god! Above Level 35?! A wild Omanyte can reach that level?! That's absolutely an Overlord-level existence in the coastal regions!]
[Viewer "Wild Electabuzz": So what if it's high level? Didn't the streamer explain before that if a wild Pokémon's level is too high, it suffers from malnutrition and its potential has already been drained? High-level wild Pokémon are dead ends!]
Miles ignored the chat's doubts, continuing to double down on the stakes.
"I did say that ordinary high-level wild Pokémon are dead ends. But what if it's an [Overlord] level existence?!"
"Although this Omanyte isn't an absolute Overlord, look at its thick, rock-like coloration and the sturdy suckers that maintain their resilience even in a near-death state."
"Its IVs are absolutely top-tier B-grade, a one-in-a-hundred find among wild Pokémon!"
"And the most important core feature is—"
Miles took a deep breath and dropped his ultimate trump card.
"Judging from the faint grayish-white traces of elemental resonance radiating from its shell, I'm willing to bet my entire career on this."
"During its brutal battles in the wild, it must have awakened its deep genetic memory and mastered one of the most difficult Rock-type moves to control—[Ancient Power]!"
"A high-level, top-tier IV, veteran wild Pokémon that has mastered an ancient, mysterious move!"
Miles extended his right hand, spreading his five fingers, and then flipped his palm forcefully in front of the camera.
"In the eyes of wealthy bosses who love collecting high-level, battle-ready Pokémon, this kind of merchandise doesn't need any training."
"Once it's cured, it can immediately be sent to fight in advanced tournaments!"
"Conservatively speaking, the starting price is... six figures in cash!"
Boom!
Six figures starting price!
That astronomical number was like a syringe filled with the purest adrenaline, plunging ruthlessly into Brother Spinarak's main artery.
Brother Spinarak—who had just been the picture of despair, feeling like the sky was falling and unwilling to even pay emergency medical fees—suddenly had his eyes bulge larger than brass bells, completely bloodshot.
He gasped loudly, the fat on his face trembling violently with extreme greed and ecstasy.
"At least six figures in cash?! Master Miles! You're my own grandfather! Swear to the heavens you aren't lying to me?!"
"My reputation in the appraisal section isn't something I'd ruin over a measly few hundred thousand," Miles scoffed, his tone as cold as iron.
"But the prerequisite is that it has to be alive! If it dies, it's just a smelly rock, completely worthless."
"Not only will you get nothing, but you'll also have to pay a fifty-thousand fine to the authorities!"
"Save it! I have to save it! I'll bankrupt myself to save it! It's not a fucking Omanyte right now, it's my long-lost father!"
He snatched up a cheap bottle of mineral water from the floor, brutally tearing the cap off with his teeth, and anxiously sprinkled half the bottle evenly over the Omanyte's shriveling blue tentacles.
Immediately after, looking like a suicide squad member protecting the imperial seal on a battlefield, he hugged the heavy, murky glass tank tightly to his chest and leaped up from the damp concrete floor of his basement.
"Master, whatever you do, don't disconnect! I'm going to get a taxi right now!"
"If the driver doesn't floor the gas pedal, I'll point a knife at him to make him drive!"
Accompanied by violently shaking camera footage and a loud Clang! as the basement's iron door was kicked open, Brother Spinarak charged out of the dark room, sprinting madly down the quiet midnight streets.
However, less than ten seconds into his mad dash...
Beep—!
A crisp system notification rang out. The side of the screen displaying Brother Spinarak's feed instantly went pitch black.
A line of cold, white text popped up in the center of the screen: [Connection Terminated].
The tens of thousands of viewers in the stream, who had been watching with boiling blood, were instantly dumbfounded.
[Viewer "Midnight Patrolling Noctowl": Holy crap?! Why did the screen go black?! Where is he?!]
[Viewer "Frontline Melon Eater": RIP! Did Brother Spinarak run too fast and trip, smashing the tank?! Did those ninety grand just get written off on the spot?!]
[Viewer "Sherlock on the Keyboard": Don't panic. Looking at the speed of the disconnection, he probably ran so hard that he accidentally tapped the disconnect button on his phone screen.]
[Viewer "Wild Electabuzz": I'm dying of anxiety! I'm not even sleeping tonight, I'm just counting on watching this ancient mythical beast enter the emergency room! And it just disconnected?!]
Watching the screen fill with anxious comments, Miles leaned back calmly into his wide gaming chair.
He picked up his thermos, unhurriedly blew on the few dried berries floating on top, and took a sip of warm water to clear his throat.
"Don't worry, chat. Sherlock is right; he just pressed the wrong button in his frantic rush," Miles said, his tone unhurried and carrying the relaxed air of someone in total control.
"It'll take him a few minutes to get from his basement to the main road to hail a cab anyway."
"He's holding that massive water tank with both hands right now, so he doesn't have a free hand to request another connection."
"Let's just wait for him in the stream for a bit. Once he gets in a taxi, he'll definitely call back immediately."
[Viewer "Curious Trainer": But Master, didn't you keep saying before that the vast majority of high-level Pokémon surviving in the wild have had their potential drained due to chronic malnutrition and accumulated hidden injuries? That they were dead ends you wouldn't take even if paid? Why are you giving this near-death, Level 35-plus wild Omanyte such a massive six-figure starting price today? Isn't that a contradiction?]
Right then, an eye-catching comment appeared in the chat.
As the question was thrown out, the anticipation in the entire stream instantly peaked.
"Everyone, you only know half the story."
Seeing the comment, Miles put away his smile, his gaze becoming as rigorous and profound as a university professor's.
"When I said high-level wild Pokémon were dead ends, I was referring to the 'survivors' at the middle and lower tiers of nature's food chain."
"They sleep in the wind and eat in the dew every day, starving one meal and full the next. They might even have to pay the price of severe injuries just to snatch a slightly moldy Berry."
"That kind of long-term, harsh environment truly will cause their genetic potential to be severely overdrawn during their growth."
"Even if they manage to grind their levels up, they are strong on the outside but hollow on the inside."
"However! The laws of nature are cruel, but they are also extremely fair."
"Built upon countless dry bones are special existences that permanently occupy the pinnacle of the pyramid!"
"We usually call them—[Wild Overlords]!"
Miles gestured in the air, his voice swelling with fascinating passion.
"What is a Wild Overlord?.... It is an uncrowned king that has established absolute dominance over a vast territory, relying on terrifying innate combat power or some heaven-defying fortune!"
"They never worry about food or drink. The best sun-drenched Berries are theirs, the purest water sources are theirs, and even natural treasures capable of cleansing marrow and reshaping bones are theirs to enjoy exclusively!"
"For monsters of this caliber, every slaughter in the wild isn't to eke out a living; it's to temper their flawless combat instincts and bodily resilience!"
"They don't need humanity's so-called scientific Pokéblocks at all; nature's survival of the fittest is their ultimate Breeder!"
"The higher the level of a fully matured Overlord-tier Pokémon, the more terrifyingly its value explodes!"
"Because that represents a perfect killing machine capable of dominating the entire field without needing any secondary human intervention!"
"Master Miles is right." As soon as Miles finished, someone in the chat immediately chimed in.
[Viewer "Market Insider": You guys don't know, but just a few years ago in the European underground black market, a Level 50 wild Overlord Ursaring appeared. It was immediately snapped up on the spot by the CEO of a multinational conglomerate for the astronomical price of 150 million!]
Gasp—!
One hundred and fifty million!
That astronomical figure made the tens of thousands of viewers in the stream collectively suck in a breath of cold air.
[Viewer "Veteran Breeder Old Wang": Exactly! I've also heard about the Ursaring auction the Master mentioned! That kind of Overlord aura, crawling out from a pile of corpses, is something greenhouse pets can never imitate, even if they become Elite Four members!]
[Viewer "Wild Electabuzz": Holy crap! So the endpoint of wild Pokémon is such a terrifying existence?! Then is Brother Spinarak's Omanyte the Overlord of the sea?! Did he just spend five thousand to buy a stock with tens of millions of potential?!]
"No, you've misunderstood." Miles smiled and shook his head, ruthlessly bursting their bubble.
"Due to their species' traits, creatures like Omanyte hide inside their heavy shells the vast majority of the time."
"Their personalities lean towards defense and avoiding battle."
"This relatively mild and timid nature dooms them to almost never produce Overlord individuals with absolute dominance and a desire to attack."
"Brother Spinarak's Omanyte is just an individual that developed relatively well in the wild, with extremely thick bones, and had the good luck to survive to a high level."
"It's still 108,000 miles away from being a true [Overlord]."
"But!"
Miles paused sharply, his tone turning like a sharp blade.
"The reason it's still worth six figures even while critically injured and near death is that it awakened that incredibly rare ancient move that would drive countless Rock-type Trainers mad—[Ancient Power]!"
"Do you think [Ancient Power] is just like how games or low-level Pokédexes describe it, merely controlling a few broken rocks to smash people?"
Miles sneered, unveiling the true face of this ancient move. "Dead wrong! In real Pokémon combat, [Ancient Power] represents a brief genetic atavism!"
"When a Pokémon releases this move, its ancient cells resonate violently, forming a materialized energy halo on its body surface!"
"This power can not only remotely bombard targets by telekinetically controlling boulders weighing hundreds of pounds out of thin air..."
"...What's even more absurd is that the moment the move is released, the Pokémon's Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and even Speed will all experience an unreasonable, comprehensive, all-around boost!"
"That's equivalent to coming equipped with a super stimulant that has zero side effects!"
"High level, high defense, paired with the all-around buffing of [Ancient Power]—as long as this Omanyte can hold its ground on the battlefield, it is a mobile ancient artillery battery! Do you understand?!"
Miles's incredibly hardcore move breakdown left the countless players and breeder apprentices in the stream mesmerized and thoroughly satisfied.
[Viewer "Rational Analyst": Brilliant! That explains it perfectly! Buying a high-level, defensive Pokémon with self-buffing capabilities to act as a heavy tank for a team is absolutely worth the money! W Streamer! The Master's true worth is on full display today!]
[Viewer "League Police - Officer Barrett": Master Miles's theoretical literacy would absolutely be second to none even if he were placed in our department's expert advisory panel. I'm impressed!]
Just as the official authorities couldn't help but chime in with praise, the backstage connection request suddenly beeped wildly.
Ding!
[High-Protein Spinarak has requested to reconnect!]
"Speak of the devil," Miles smiled faintly and directly clicked to connect.
The moment the feed lit up, an incredibly noisy cacophony of roaring engines, howling wind, and a man's heavy panting instantly flooded the stream.
Brother Spinarak was huddled in the backseat of a speeding taxi, covered in sweat.
One arm was locked in a death grip around the water-filled glass tank, while the other held up his phone.
His entire body shook violently with the car's bumps.
"Master Miles! Bro! I'm in the car! I'm in a taxi right now!" Brother Spinarak roared at the screen at the top of his lungs.
The driver up front was clearly hot-tempered. He honked the horn furiously while turning around to curse.
"Hey, hey, hey! Buddy in the back! Hold that damn tank steady!"
"Water's splashing all over my leather seats! What kind of crazy pill did you take in the middle of the night?"
"You flagged me down on the main road saying your dad was dying and told me to rush to the downtown hospital, and you bring a freaking snail in a tank?!"
"What the hell do you know?!" Having thrown all caution to the wind for a six-figure payday, Brother Spinarak yelled at the driver with bloodshot eyes.
"It's not a fucking snail! It's my own father! It's my long-lost ancestor!"
"Stop talking nonsense and put the pedal to the metal! Just run through the red lights ahead! I'll cover all the tickets!"
"As long as you can get to the Pokémon Center Emergency Department before midnight, I'll give you an extra five hundred bucks in tips!"
Hearing "five hundred bucks in tips" and "I'll cover all the tickets," the driver's eyes instantly lit up.
"You got it, boss! Hold on tight! Even if the sky descends tonight, I'm still gonna save your dad!"
Accompanied by a deafening engine roar and the wild screech of tires burning rubber, the ordinary taxi was forcefully driven with the momentum of a Ferrari, transforming into a bolt of lightning streaking across the quiet streets.
This dark, humorous, and vividly urban spectacle almost made the tens of thousands of viewers in the stream die of laughter.
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