Pokemon: Bounty Hunter

The starter Pokémon are primarily Water, Fire, and Grass types, with different species depending on the region.

For Kanto, the three starters are Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur.

Each of these Pokémon has three evolutionary stages and tremendous potential.

Additionally, the League assigns specialized personnel to evaluate their general aptitude. The starter Pokémon given to the League's elite families are all Pokémon with outstanding potential and mild temperaments. With proper training, reaching Pseudo-Elite level isn't a difficult feat.

On the black market, starter Pokémon aren't as expensive as pseudo-legendary eggs. After all, not every individual Pokémon has exceptional talent.

Even so, a starter Pokémon egg on the market costs at least 20 million Pokédollars, an absolutely staggering amount.

To put things into perspective, as of yesterday, Silas had only earned a little over 4.5 million Pokédollars in the past four years—including all his previous expenses.

Even buying this villa only cost him 800,000 Pokédollars. The rest of his earnings had been invested in raising his Pidgeotto.

Yet, despite spending over a year training it, Pidgeotto had only recently stepped into the Advanced rank—a slow progression largely due to Silas's financial struggles in laying a solid foundation for it.

Silas fell into deep thought, reminiscing about the past.

His first Pokémon wasn't his current Pidgeotto—it was actually a Rattata.

When Silas had first entered society, the only money he had was the League scholarship he had received—a mere 10,000 Pokédollars.

While this amount was enough to support his living expenses and even help him find a job, it was nowhere near enough to become a Pokémon Trainer.

To put it bluntly, this amount was as good as nothing.

Even in the black market, the cheapest Pokémon egg available was that of a Caterpie, costing at least 50,000 Pokédollars.

And that price was despite the fact that most Caterpie hatchlings couldn't even evolve—essentially making their combat power nearly zero.

A wild-caught Caterpie stored in a Poké Ball, on the other hand, only cost 10,000 Pokédollars.

However, such wild Caterpie had zero potential for evolution.

If a Caterpie had the ability to evolve into Metapod, it wouldn't be sold so cheaply in the first place—because, given the short growth cycle of Bug-type Pokémon, it would have evolved already.

Silas refused to accept such a helpless fate.

In this world, only by becoming a Pokémon Trainer could he have the slightest chance of changing his destiny.

And he had a cheat ability—his Zero interface.

So, Silas took a huge risk—he ventured alone into Viridian Forest, betting everything on this one opportunity.

If he could find just one Pokémon egg, regardless of its potential, he was confident that Zero would help him navigate the difficulties of the early stages.

By sheer luck, after experiencing multiple disasters—being chased by Weedle, getting wrapped in silk by Caterpie, and barely escaping countless dangers—Silas actually managed to find an abandoned egg left behind by a Raticate.

Though the egg's potential was only average, and the Pokémon couldn't evolve into Raticate, it was still a Pokémon—and that was all that mattered.

After returning to Viridian City, the egg hatched into a Rattata.

Even though Silas couldn't afford to follow the ideal training plan Zero had provided, he still did his best to take care of the young Pokémon.

Once Rattata passed its infancy stage, Silas registered as a bounty hunter to start earning money naming his Bounty Hunter group "Mercenary" as a small tribute to his past life.

Though the income was meager and the work was difficult, after two years of adventuring, Silas and Rattata gradually managed to save up a bit of money.

But fate was cruel.

During one particular adventure, Silas and Rattata encountered a large flock of Spearow.

In the ensuing battle, although Silas survived, his level 18 Rattata was ultimately unable to escape the savage Spearow swarm.

Silas was devastated.

But once a Pokémon dies, it cannot be revived—unless one finds Ho-Oh. And that was nothing more than a fantasy.

So, Silas had no choice but to head to the black market, relying on his own knowledge and the abilities of Zero to select a Pokémon with outstanding potential and start over.

As the name suggests, the black market is a marketplace that exists in the shadows, not officially recognized by the Pokémon League.

After all, League regulations strictly prohibit the Illegal buying and selling of Pokémon and Pokémon eggs.

However, in this world, as long as the profits are high enough, people are willing to take risks—and thus, the black market was born.

Over time, the black market expanded in both number and scale, eventually becoming an unspoken part of the underground economy.

While the League did not support its existence, it tacitly allowed it—because, for those at the bottom of society, the black market was one of the few hopes they had left.

Silas walked through the black market, his body hidden beneath a black cloak—just like everyone else around him.

Approaching a stall selling Caterpie, Weedle, and Pidgey eggs, Silas looked at the similarly cloaked vendor and asked,

"How much for a Pidgey egg?"

Hearing Silas's slightly youthful voice, the vendor wasn't surprised—after all, there were far too many people like him.

Without much emotion, the vendor simply replied, "Standard black market price: 250,000 Pokédollars."

Silas wasn't surprised, nor did he feel like the vendor was scamming him.

Just as the vendor had said, the pricing for common Pokémon eggs was standardized across the entire black market. He had asked only to confirm the amount once more.

Why Choose Pidgey?

Although Pidgey isn't known for its strength, its gentle temperament makes it unsuitable for fierce battles.

However, it has the same number of evolutions as the Starter Pokémon, and its final evolution, Pidgeot, isn't just visually impressive—it is also a powerful Pokémon.

If most Pidgey weren't born with poor potential, evolving into Pidgeotto would already be extremely rare, let alone reaching Pidgeot.

Had Pidgey been a more naturally gifted Pokémon, its eggs would have been worth far more.

Silas pretended to casually pick up a Pokémon egg and placed it into his bag.

Then, he took out a pre-prepared anonymous savings card and handed it to the vendor—completing the transaction.

Without hesitation, Silas turned and walked away.

The vendor wasn't bothered—after verifying that the funds were accurate, he simply waited for his next customer.

Even though he had noticed that Silas appeared casual, in reality, Silas had carefully examined every Pidgey egg before making his choice.

However, the vendor didn't believe that a Pokémon egg from a flock of Pidgeotto he had exterminated would have any notable potential.

After all, in this world, there were no devices capable of scanning the potential of an unhatched Pokémon egg.

Even the most skilled Pokémon talent evaluators could only make rough estimates based on a Pokémon's early development, fur, and lineage.

And in the vendor's eyes, Silas was clearly just another poor commoner.

But what the vendor couldn't have imagined was that Silas possessed something not of this world—Zero.

Silas's heart pounded violently, but since he was still in the black market, he had to force himself to remain calm.

Suppressing his excitement, he walked back to his rented apartment—his pace just slightly quicker than normal.

Once inside, Silas could no longer hold back his emotions.

He immediately took out the Pokémon egg, his heart pounding wildly as he called out in his mind:

"Zero! Show me this Pokémon egg's stats!"

A blue screen appeared before him, and Silas's eyes locked onto a single line—Potential.

And what was written there was—

Elite!

A Elite-tier Pokémon!

Silas almost screamed out loud.

To put things into perspective—

During his two years of adventuring, the strongest wild Pokémon he had ever encountered had only reached Advanced-tier potential.

He hadn't even seen a single pseudo-Elite-tier Pokémon, let alone a true one.

Silas never could have imagined that his desperate trip to the black market would lead him to such an earth-shattering discovery.

Originally, he had planned to spend most of his savings to buy a slightly better Pokémon egg—perhaps a Sandshrew egg.

A Sandshrew with Advance-tier potential would have been able to evolve into Sandslash, which was a decent Pokémon.

With some money left for training, Silas had been confident in his ability to raise it well.

But who could have guessed—

The very first egg he picked up in the black market turned out to have Elite Level Potential!

At first, Silas couldn't believe his eyes.

He even wondered if Zero had malfunctioned.