After bidding farewell to the Hualan Gym, Qianye and his group walked on the street. The moist and slightly salty sea breeze caressed their cheeks, and the fresh air moistened their lungs.
"The number of bandages and various medicines consumed is a bit high, and the Poké Balls... well, let's prepare a few more."
Flipping through his backpack and counting the missing supplies, Qianye walked on the way to the item store in Hualan City as planned. But for some reason, the streets were particularly lively today, with a large crowd of people, mostly women, pouring into the streets. The surging flow of people made the boy walking against the flow feel as if he was facing a group of wild Kentaro.
The direction they were heading seemed to be... the pier?
Confused, Qianye stopped a middle-aged man who was at the end of the team. The man's sweat dripped from his chin like rain, soaking his vest. He seemed to have jogged all the way from a long distance, but he was exhausted and could only take a slow rest.
"Um, what are you guys in such a hurry to see?"
Hearing Qianye's question, the man's face showed surprise, "You haven't heard? That Daigo is coming to our Hualan City today."
Daigo... This name sounds so familiar, I feel like I've heard of it somewhere before. Wait?!
"The Daigo you are talking about, is he the one from the Hoenn region..."
Thinking of a certain possibility, Qianye's breathing suddenly became rapid. If it was that person, visiting Hualan City would indeed be a big event.
"Who else could it be except him? After my daughter heard the news, she cried and asked me to go to the scene to take a photo. She really didn't consider my old bones at all." The middle-aged man complained.
Tsuki Daigo, former champion of the Hoenn region league, the son of Dewen Company. He is a man who combines strength, financial resources, and looks. He is a man who can make females admire him to the point of madness and males jealous to the point of madness. He is simply the ultimate promax version of Xiao Mao.
It was no wonder that the people of Hualan City were so enthusiastic when such a star among stars appeared here. Even Qianye himself wanted to change his original plan and go take a look at the legendary figure.
After all, he was the league champion! He was the strongest Pokémon trainer in the entire region. Although he has now stepped down, there are rumors that the former champion gave the position to another strong trainer because he was not very interested in handling championship affairs.
"Thank you, uncle. I'll take a photo for you if I have the chance."
After straightening the backpack behind him, Qianye turned around and strode towards the dock.
At this moment at the Cerulean City dock, the roaring sound of the whistle drifted towards the port along with the sea breeze. It was the roar from a rugged steel behemoth.
The Santiano, a world-famous luxury cruise ship, is 170 meters long, with a total tonnage of nearly 5,000 tons and can carry up to 3,000 passengers. Today, this famous ship once again brought guests from afar to Kanto.
The long ladder was lowered, and a handsome man with silver hair, wearing a black tuxedo and a red tie fluttering on his chest, slowly walked down the ship, followed by a large number of accompanying staff and guards.
As he appeared, the crowd that was isolated by the fence burst into screams, and many women became crazy about him as soon as they saw his handsome face:
"Wooooooooooo doll! My husband is so handsome!"
"What do you mean your husband? He's obviously my husband!"
"What did you say...Aren't you a man?"
The riots were difficult to quell for a while. The police officers responsible for maintaining law and order had a hard time fighting against the people who tried to break in. The continuous sound of shutter clicks echoed throughout the port amid the flashes.
Mixed in the crowded crowd, Qianye tiptoed and raised his head. Without looking specifically, his sight immediately caught the silver-haired young man who was smiling and waving at the crowd.
He looked even younger than the image I had seen on TV before. However, even though he didn't say a word, his every move gave people a sense of being the master.
Is this the demeanor of a league champion?
Qianye couldn't help but sigh: "This is how training should be done."
Kokodora on the right shoulder seemed unconvinced. His azure eyes stared directly at Daigo above him, his eyes burning with fighting spirit and ambition:
"K-K-K-K!"
Humph, he can take his place!
Hmm? Feeling a pair of sharp gazes, Daigo stopped where he was, and scanned the crowd, and soon found the silver-white beast lying on a black-haired boy.
"Mr. Daigo, what's wrong?" The entourage around him saw Daigo suddenly stop and asked hurriedly.
"It's okay, I just saw something very interesting." Daigo raised his lips slightly and said without stopping, "Let's go on. We can't let our friends from the Kanto Alliance wait too long."
…
The top floor of Hualan Building has been completely booked by the alliance, and well-trained police officers are guarding every corner of the floor. Those present today are all big shots, and no accidents will be tolerated.
In the spacious conference room, all those who could sit on the main seats were extraordinary people, including the four kings of the Kanto League, and even the workaholic, who spent 300 days out of 365 fighting crime and the remaining 65 days on his way to fight crime, and the Dragon Envoy Du, who was also the Dragon King and the champion of the Kanto League, appeared here.
Although the people in the remaining seats were not as important as the Four Heavenly Kings, they were also senior administrative clerks of the Kanto Alliance. The silent atmosphere was so clear that even the sound of a pin drop could be clearly heard. Everyone was silent and focused their eyes on the closed door.
With a dull sound, the door was pushed open from the outside, and a head of iconic silver-gray short hair first entered everyone's field of vision, followed by a hearty and confident chuckle:
"Mikoli is unable to leave due to alliance matters, so I will be the representative of the Hoenn region for this meeting for the time being."
Upon hearing this, an alliance clerk quickly replied: "The Hoenn Alliance has already informed us of this matter in advance. Please take a seat, Mr. Daigo and everyone in the Hoenn region."
As a result, the vacant seats were filled one after another, and the meeting was officially declared started.
The person who read out the meeting charter was an old man with gray hair on his temples. He was a veteran of the Kanto Alliance. Although he had reached the age where he should retire and enjoy his old age, he still insisted on participating in handling various affairs of the alliance.
"Today we are going to discuss the increasing number of Pokémon hunters that are pouring into the Kanto region. They are either in groups or alone, but they all belong to the same organization - the Evolution Association. Mr. Daigo, I heard that this organization originated from your Hoenn region."
"Yes, Mr. Chairman." Daigo took out a document from his briefcase and said in an unusually serious tone:
"The Evolution Association is a non-governmental organization that has only become active in the Hoenn region in recent years. At the beginning, they only passively accepted new members and never carried out any dangerous activities, so we didn't pay too much attention to it at the beginning. But as more and more Pokémon hunters and other criminals are affiliated with the Evolution Association, we can no longer regard it as a pure and clean organization."
While Daigo was explaining, his assistant took the information from him and distributed stacks of information to each member present.
"Everyone, please see. Anyone who becomes a member of the Evolution Association can turn in the Pokémon they capture to the association and exchange them for equivalent points based on their rarity and racial potential. These points can be exchanged for various Evolution Stones, combat items, and other resources that the alliance strictly limits the number of transactions for ecological protection."
"We have conducted an in-depth investigation of this organization. It is only supported by a few unknown research institutes. In theory, it does not have the channels to raise so many precious resources, unless..."
"Cooperate with illegal underground organizations!" Long Shidu slammed his fist on the conference table and said what Daigo was going to say next.
Because in addition to his positions as the king and champion, he is also a senior investigator of the alliance and often deals with businessmen who have violated taboos. They are often blinded by greed and provide various support and assistance to the local evil organization Team Rocket. Adu has always hated these termites rooted in the system.
However, his colleague, the Ice King Kona, immediately expressed a different opinion: "But if, as you said, the Evolution Association is just an organization with a shallow foundation, how can it have the capital to cooperate with those underground organizations? Moreover, according to your information, this point exchange system is far less cost-effective than black market transactions. Those profit-seeking people will not choose such a loss-making transaction."
"Of course, these basic item transactions are basically used to attract civilian trainers to join. The real capital of the Evolution Association is this..." As if he had guessed that someone would raise this point, Daigo gestured to his assistant, who immediately and carefully placed a safe on the table.
Several password devices were disabled, and inside the opened safe, apart from the foam padding used for protection, there was only a small bottle containing a suspicious purple solution in front of everyone.
"What is this?" Participants from the Kanto Alliance leaned forward one after another. No one knew what power was contained in this small jar.
"This was brought out by our undercover agent in the Evolution Association. They called it the 'Miracle Virus'. Currently, only the Evolution Association can produce this thing, which means... it is a monopolized resource."
Glancing around the conference table and taking in everyone's expressions, Daigo continued, "Although it's called a virus, it's not lethal or contagious. It can only infect Pokémon by injecting it directly into their bodies... Well, it's ineffective against humans."
"As for its specific effects, I'll give you an example. Just a month ago, we injected a can of miracle virus into an iron dumbbell. Without any human intervention or provision of any precious resources, the iron dumbbell evolved into a Metagross within a week. Moreover, after testing, no physical risks or defects were detected in the evolved Metagross."
As soon as these words came out, everyone was shocked. The Metagross was known as a "quasi-god" because of its powerful racial potential, but cultivating it to its final form would consume a lot of cultivation resources and a long time. For a regular Metagross, its cultivation cycle could even take years.
What did they hear now? With just this little jar of stuff, they no longer had to invest money and resources, nor did they have to spend energy and wait. They could just let it move freely for a week and it would take shape? This was a "late bloomer" quasi-god. What if it was any other ordinary Pokémon?
"Is this...surely true?"
A clerk asked tremblingly, and his question attracted the attention of many participants to Daigo. They hoped that everything they had just heard was a fallacy of the experiment. However, Daigo mercilessly broke their fantasy:
"The Hoenn Alliance has conducted several experiments using the existing Miracle Virus, and the conclusions reached are basically the same."
Now it becomes clear that this kind of thing can really drive those Pokémon hunters crazy... This is even more true for underground organizations. With the help of the miracle virus, they can raise a complete Pokémon army in a short period of time, which will bring unprecedented threats to the alliance!
"I will urge my investigators to thoroughly investigate all illegal immigrants and catch these drug addicts as soon as possible. I will also send people to Team Rocket... No, I will personally monitor them and cut off all ties between the two organizations."
At this moment, A'du only felt that the cushion was covered with sharp thorns. He could not delay here for a moment. He wished he could teleport back to the alliance headquarters immediately to mobilize investigators to assign emergency tasks.
The rest of the people were not much better than him, and they discussed with their colleagues with sullen faces. Seeing this situation, the chairman knew that it would be difficult to continue the discussion in such an uneasy atmosphere. He coughed heavily and drew everyone's attention to himself:
"I know everyone is very anxious right now. This matter is indeed related to the survival of the Kanto and Hoenn alliances and even the entire world, but we must not be too impatient, so as not to make big mistakes in command and execution."
His words had an effect. Seeing that all the participants had calmed down, the old man was able to put another topic on the table:
"This is the letter of recommendation submitted by Junsha from Hualan City to the Alliance. Since you are all here, let's solve this matter at the same time..."
"In her letter, she recommended an outstanding rookie trainer from Pallet Town, who happened to be related to the topic we discussed earlier. The Pokémon hunter arrested by the Alliance before was subdued by this young man. He also killed two Pokémon hunters one after another, stopping their unfinished evil deeds. I think we need to absorb this young talent into the Alliance. What do you think?"
As the chairman spoke, he had the boy's information distributed to each participant's table. The next moment when the information was displayed in front of Daigo, he looked at the black-haired boy in the photo and the column of Pokémon he owned, and a smile of interest appeared on his face:
"So it's him. This is really fate..."