"All right, everyone—are you full? If you are, then it's time to head back to your Trainers."
[Ding! Fearow learned Agility!!]
[Ding! Arbok learned Sludge Bomb!!]
[Ding! Sandslash learned Rock Tomb!!]
[Ding! Nidoqueen learned Icy Wind!!]
[Ding! Clefable learned Psychic!!]
[Ding! Poke Coin Pay payment received 3500 Poké Dollars]
[Ding! Poke Coin Pay payment received 33,000Poké Dollars]
[Ding! Poke Coin Pay payment received 5600 Poké Dollars]
[Ding! Poke Coin Pay payment received 6050 Poké Dollars]
[Ding! Poke Coin Pay payment received 22,000 Poké Dollars]
After helping these five Pokémon master their new moves, Ash recalled them into their Poké Balls and sent them back to their respective Trainers via the Poké Ball transfer device.
The shop's five active orders were instantly completed, and the funds previously held by the platform were immediately transferred into Ash's bank account.
Net profit from these five orders: 71,150 Poké Dollars.
As for the Pokémon food costs he had once worried about—those now seemed trivial. Eighteen different elemental food types, each stocked for three days, had only cost a little over 10,000 Poké Dollars.
Ash limited himself to taking orders twice a week, with a maximum of five orders each time. Each batch of five orders yielded a net profit ranging from 30,000 to 80,000 Poké Dollars. And in truth, the customer Pokémon never stayed with him for long—they barely consumed any food at all.
Most importantly, all of this food was stored in the system inventory, a space with no concept of time. There was absolutely no concern about expiration.
Rare-attribute foods like Dragon-, Fairy-, Steel-, Ghost-, and Psychic-type meals—three-day supplies purchased on the afternoon of August 8th, the shop's opening day—were still untouched in the inventory even now.
Especially Dragon-type food. The three-day supply was still exactly three days' worth—because not a single Dragon-type Pokémon had come in for orders recently.
Of course, Ash had no attribute bias. No matter the Pokémon's type, money was money.
All in all, thanks to the low cost and low consumption of Pokémon food, the profit margin of his skill-learning shop was even larger than Ash had initially anticipated.
From opening day until now—counting today's additional seventy-thousand-plus income—Ash had already accumulated over 600,000 Poké Dollars in net profit from the shop alone.
However, running a skill-learning shop wasn't entirely carefree.
For example, back when Ash was attending the Pokémon Summer Camp, he had spent a huge amount of time interacting with wild Pokémon in the forest, copying their moves.
Yet up to now, not a single one of those copied moves had been sold.
You could almost say that all that hard work during summer camp had ended up being completely pointless!!
…Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration.
It was true that most skills copied from ordinary wild Pokémon were fairly basic. But skills copied from "exceptions" like Gyarados and Nidoking had still sold over the past few days.
More importantly, Ash's time at the summer camp hadn't been wasted at all. Beyond copying moves, he had also trained his Viridian Power.
And at the end of the camp, it was precisely because he went to the final area to copy wild Pokémon moves that he encountered Mew, gained an enormous opportunity, and became Mew's contracted Aura intermediary.
Besides, among all the skills copied during summer camp, the basic move Tackle hadn't yet been marketed—purely because Ash wanted to keep a low profile.
The famous future strategy of
"Magikarp + Tackle = Gyarados"
had not officially been launched yet.
So Tackle's true economic value hadn't even begun to shine.
After the shop opened, most customers requested relatively rare or mid-to-high-tier moves. As a result, the large number of basic skills copied during summer camp simply hadn't been used.
The majority of skills being sold now were copied from Pokémon temporarily boarded by Trainers at Professor Oak's laboratory.
For a while, Ash worried that once those high-end skills ran out, he'd have nothing left to sell.
But that anxiety didn't last long.
Because every time he sold a skill—every time he used a move on a customer's Pokémon—he could copy multiple new skills from that Pokémon.
The shop kept running, yet the number of "Skill Discs" in Ash's system inventory only continued to increase, never decrease.
The number of Pokémon boarded at Professor Oak's lab was limited—those skills would eventually run out.
But the number of Pokémon owned by Trainers across the world?
Infinite.
Copy while selling. Sell while copying.
And since the shop itself had strict order limits, as long as the inventory was updated regularly, Ash would never run out of skills to sell.
Wool comes from the sheep.
Eggs come from the chicken.
Fight to sustain the fight.
In short—
Ash doesn't produce skills.
He's just a mover of skills.
"Ash, I've completed the five orders in the shop backend," Rotom reported in a voice that sounded very much like a professional accountant.
"I've also notified the shop's fan group to remind the Trainers to receive their Pokémon."
"These five orders generated 71,150 Poké Dollars in revenue. After subtracting the 5,400 Poké Dollars spent two days ago on three-day supplies of nine attribute foods—Water, Fire, Grass, Flying, and so on—the net profit is 65,750 Poké Dollars."
"Thanks for the hard work, Rotom."
"By the way, I ordered three portable generators for you this morning—wind-powered, water-powered, and solar-powered."
"That way, if you ever want electricity, you won't need to squeeze into power lines anymore."
"I saw a news article yesterday about a Rotom getting stuck inside a cable after causing a short circuit…"
Ash spoke with genuine concern.
"Thank you, Ash," Rotom said, deeply moved—its voice practically trembling with emotion.
"It's fine, Rotom. Even though you don't participate in battle training or fight for me, in my heart, you're just as important as Pichu and the others. You're one of my most important partners."
"Mm…"
"All right, Rotom. The shop has been operating smoothly for a full week now."
Ash reached out and tapped the big monitor Rotom was inhabiting.
"I think… it's time we officially start our get-rich plan."
"Ash, you mean…?"
"That's right."
"The plan I told you about before—"
'Magikarp + Tackle = Gyarados.'
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