"Roy, you've probably noticed by now that my family is in the medicine business."
Kiyomi continued her explanation, pointing towards the rows of herbs drying in the courtyard and then towards the main hall.
"My grandmother, my mother, and I—our family has done this for generations. I am the fourth generation of Pharmacists in Pine Algae Town."
She paused for a moment, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes.
"But our family has a rule."
"To officially graduate as a Pharmacist, one must independently complete a unique special medicine. This medicine is called 'Spore Amplifier,' specifically for Pokemon, and it can significantly boost a Pokemon's physical attributes and skill power in a short time."
Delia's eyes lit up upon hearing this.
"Spore Amplifier? That sounds amazing."
Kiyomi nodded, but her expression turned troubled.
"Yes, I've long since memorized the recipe, and I can find all the other ingredients. But the most crucial catalyst, I've never been able to obtain."
She sighed and continued.
"That catalyst requires a special kind of spore. Only a Parasect can produce it."
"And not just any ordinary Parasect."
Kiyomi's tone became serious.
"It must be personally raised by the Pharmacist from its time as a Paras, fed bit by bit with special herbal feed. Only after it evolves into Parasect will mushrooms with special medicinal properties grow on its back. Only the spores produced by those mushrooms can serve as the catalyst."
Misty, who had been listening for a while, tilted her head.
"Then why don't you just raise one?"
Kiyomi gave a bitter smile.
"I have already raised one."
She pointed toward the hillside outside the courtyard.
"I have a Paras that I've raised since it was small. I fed it herbal feed that I prepared myself, never once did I Slack Off."
"But..."
Kiyomi's voice lowered.
"My Paras is just too timid."
"If it encounters a wild Pokemon even slightly larger than itself, it curls into a ball and plays dead. Sometimes, if I even walk toward it a bit too quickly, it gets scared and scurries all over the place."
Kiyomi sounded increasingly helpless, spreading her hands.
"I can't train it, let alone battle. It has no courage to fight at all, and its experience grows slower than a snail's crawl. At this rate, I don't even know when it will evolve, let alone produce spores."
She looked up at Roy, her eyes full of expectation.
"According to family rules, if I don't complete the graduation assessment this year, I'll have to wait another three years."
"So..."
Kiyomi took a deep breath and looked at Roy solemnly.
"Roy, since you could catch a Dratini, I think you must be a very powerful Breeder."
"Can you help me?"
"Help me train my Paras. At least make it a bit braver, so it dares to fight and can accumulate experience to evolve."
Roy didn't answer immediately after hearing Kiyomi's words.
He lowered his head in thought.
Kiyomi had helped Dratini with emergency treatment without a second thought and even applied herbs. Now her grandmother was in the main hall preparing medicine for Dratini; he had to acknowledge this favor.
Moreover... the mission requirements also involved helping Kiyomi, so it worked out perfectly.
Roy looked up into Kiyomi's sparkling eyes and nodded.
"Alright."
"I will help you train Paras."
Kiyomi was stunned for a moment.
Then a huge smile bloomed on her delicate face, her eyes curving into crescent moons.
"Really? That's wonderful!"
She almost jumped for joy, clasping her hands together and thanking Roy several times.
At that moment, Misty, who had been standing by, stepped forward.
She stuffed the remaining half-skewer of cold mushrooms into Delia's hand, brushed the crumbs off her hands, and then crossed her arms, looking at Kiyomi with a smug expression.
"Miss Kiyomi, you've definitely found the right person."
Misty's tone carried a hint of pride, her chin slightly raised.
"This guy Roy, when it comes to training Pokemon, he really has a knack for it."
She held up a finger and wagged it in front of Kiyomi.
"He has already obtained six badges!"
"Six!"
Misty emphasized the number, her expression more smug than if she were the Gym Leader herself.
"To qualify for the Indigo League, you need eight badges; he's only two short now. He fought every Gym battle along the way one by one with his Pokemon. Sometimes watching him battle from the side, I think this guy gets terrifyingly serious."
Delia listened from the side and chuckled softly.
"Misty, you usually bicker with Roy quite a bit. Why are you praising him all of a sudden?"
Misty's face reddened slightly at Delia's comment, but she immediately straightened her neck.
"I'm just telling the truth!"
She turned to glance at Roy, her eyes carrying a meaning known only to the two of them.
"This guy... is indeed very capable in certain aspects, I won't deny that."
As Misty spoke the latter half of the sentence, her voice grew noticeably quieter, and her tone changed slightly, as if she were talking about something only she knew.
Her recent restraint in bickering had changed after a certain night a while ago.
That day, Roy had trained for the entire day, his clothes soaked with sweat. When he returned to the camp, he looked truly exhausted.
Misty didn't know what had come over her at the time, but seeing him like that, she suddenly wanted to tease him.
While Delia was busy preparing dinner, she leaned in next to Roy and poked his sweat-dampened arm with her finger.
"Whoa, Roy, training that hard today?"
Her tone was clearly teasing, a mischievous smirk curling her lips.
"Don't turn into a small fry in front of this lady tonight."
Roy hadn't reacted at the time.
He just looked up at Misty, gave her a smile, and then went back to organizing his backpack.
That smile looked very gentle, but looking back now, Misty always felt like there was something hidden in it.
As a result, that night, she was the one who suffered.
Since then, Misty had temporarily become Roy's hype-machine.
She quickly banished those images from her mind and regained her spirited appearance.
"Anyway, Miss Kiyomi, leaving your Paras to Roy is the right move."
Misty patted Kiyomi's shoulder, her tone very certain.
"I can guarantee that before long, your Paras will be different."
Hearing Misty say this, Kiyomi's smile grew even brighter.
"Then I'll take you to find it right now!"
She turned and walked out of the courtyard, her steps light, her skirt swaying gently with her movements.
"My Paras usually hangs out on a patch of grass on that hillside; it doesn't dare wander too far. It should still be there at this time."
Roy and the other two followed Kiyomi up a narrow mountain path.
Low shrubs lined both sides of the road, and occasionally, a few wild Caterpie could be seen resting on leaves, while several Pidgey hopped between the branches.
After walking for about five minutes, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
It was a fairly large hillside lawn; the grass wasn't very tall, lush and green, and felt soft underfoot. A few gnarled old trees grew at the edge of the lawn, their shade casting a cool canopy over the grass.
But the lawn was empty.
Not a single Pokemon could be seen.
Kiyomi stood at the edge of the lawn, looked around, and then called out loudly.
"Paras..."
"Paras, come out, it's me, Kiyomi..."
Her voice echoed across the hillside, but there was still no movement on the grass.
Kiyomi called out a few more times.
Finally, there was a rustle in a cluster of low shrubs at the edge of the lawn.
A small head poked out from a gap in the bushes.
It was a Paras.
It was slightly larger than an average Paras, and the mushrooms on its back were darker in color, showing it had been raised on special feed for a long time.
But its round eyes were filled with wariness and nervousness.
It only poked its head out, its body still completely hidden within the bushes. Moreover, it wasn't looking at Kiyomi, but at the three strangers standing behind her: Roy, Misty, and Delia.
Seeing the strangers, Paras's head retracted halfway.
Kiyomi saw this and gave Roy a bitter smile.
"See, it's like this."
She pointed to the bushes where Paras was hiding, her tone full of helplessness.
"As long as it sees a stranger, it hides far away. I don't know how many times I've brought it out to meet people, but it just can't change this habit."
Delia stepped forward a couple of paces, crouched down, and gave Paras a gentle smile from a distance, even waving her hand.
As a result, when Paras saw Delia approaching, it pulled its entire head back into the bushes, leaving only a tiny tip of its mushroom visible.
Delia stood up somewhat awkwardly, brushing the grass clippings off her knees.
"It really is... very timid."
Misty, watching from the side, couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"This little guy is even more exaggerated than the timid Rattata I've seen."
Kiyomi sighed and was about to call Paras out again, but Roy raised his hand to stop her.
"Let me try."
Kiyomi was startled.
"But it even runs away when I get close sometimes—"
Before she could finish, Roy had already stepped forward.
His pace was neither fast nor slow, and his expression was calm, showing no signs of nervousness or urgency.
Kiyomi opened her mouth to say something but ultimately swallowed it back.
Looking at Roy's back, a thought occurred to her that she herself found absurd.
She was Paras's Trainer and had raised it for several years before she could barely communicate with it smoothly.
But even so, Paras would still hide from her sometimes.
And this was the first time Roy had met Paras.
He hadn't even formally seen Paras's face; how could he possibly communicate with it?
While Kiyomi was thinking, Roy had already walked to a spot about five paces away from the bushes.
He stopped.
Then, he crouched down.
Roy closed his eyes.
The moment he closed his eyes, an invisible force centered on him and slowly spread outward.
Aura.
His Aura had now broken through to the intermediate level. He was now able to precisely transmit his own emotional fluctuations into the perception range of every living being around him.
It was a very gentle force.
Standing behind him, Kiyomi couldn't sense the specific form of the Aura, but she saw a scene that amazed her.
The Paras in the bushes didn't run.
Not only did it not run, but that small head slowly poked out from the bushes again.
Paras tilted its head, its two round eyes looking at Roy, who was crouching nearby.
Wary as it still was, much of that caution had vanished from its eyes.
Replacing it was more of a sense of confusion.
This human...
It didn't know him.
But the feeling radiating from him made Paras feel very comfortable.
It was like a lawn basking in the afternoon sun—warm and not at all frightening.
Roy slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze met Paras's in mid-air.
He didn't immediately stand up and walk over; instead, he remained crouched, raising one hand, palm up, and resting it on his knee.
The meaning of the gesture was simple.
I will not force you.
If you want to come over, come over.
If you don't, that's fine too.
Paras stared at Roy's palm for a long time.
Then, it began to move forward slowly.
Though its movements were slow, and it stopped every two steps, it was indeed moving toward Roy.
Standing behind him, Kiyomi's mouth dropped open into an 'O' shape.
She stared at the scene before her, her eyes nearly popping out of her head.
"This... how is this possible?"
Kiyomi's voice cracked.
She instinctively pinched her arm, and the pain made her gasp, confirming she wasn't dreaming.
"My Paras... when I first met it, it took me three whole days to get it to stop hiding from me! Three days!"
Kiyomi turned to look at Misty and Delia, her face full of disbelief.
"How long has it been for Roy? He hasn't even spoken a word!"
Misty and Delia glanced at each other, both looking quite calm.
Delia smiled, her tone very steady.
"You'll get used to it."
Misty waved her hand dismissively, as if it were a common occurrence.
"This is nothing. Along our journey, we often run into wild Pokemon that ignore everyone else but insist on crowding around Roy. I've even wondered if he's smeared something on himself that we can't smell but that Pokemon love."
Delia nodded.
Hearing this, Kiyomi turned back to look at Roy.
Her gaze fell on Roy's back, and an indescribable feeling surged in her heart.
Earlier, when her grandmother said this person could catch a Dratini and definitely wasn't simple...
...she had thought her grandmother was just indirectly saying he was strong.
But now she was seeing it with her own eyes.
Her Paras—the one that would hide even from her after years of raising it—had actually walked out voluntarily before a human it was meeting for the first time.
This wasn't a matter of strength.
It was something deeper.
Kiyomi looked at Roy's back, her heart skipping a beat.
Roy then took a small paper packet out of his pocket.
It was Delia's latest feed recipe.
The ingredients were exquisite, the proportions precise; even a picky top-tier gourmet like Dragonair had nodded in approval.
Seeing Roy take it out, Delia's smile deepened.
It was something she had made with her own hands, and Roy carried it with him and used it in such a situation.
Even though it was just a bag of feed, she felt a mysterious sweetness in her heart.
Paras's nose twitched.
The aroma wafted into its nostrils, and its eyes lit up significantly.
It looked at the delicacy in Roy's hand, then at Roy's face.
Roy placed the cube on the grass and then withdrew his hand.
Paras hesitated for a few seconds.
Then, finally unable to resist the temptation of that aroma, it ran over with small steps...