"This..."
Clemont looked at Feng Che with a look of hesitation, scratching his head. He clearly wanted to host Feng Che properly and show him the best of Kalosian hospitality.
"Don't sweat it, Clemont," Feng Che replied smoothly, waving his hand with an easy smile. "I've been meaning to check out the layout of the local black market anyway. Go ahead and fix that sub-routine grid for your dad; I'll browse the perimeter stalls and meet you at the Grand Auction gallery later."
Before Clemont could voice another technical objection, Feng Che turned on his heel and dissolved seamlessly into the flowing crowd.
At this hours of the day, the Lumiose underground market ring hadn't quite hit its peak operational volume. A considerable density of merchant stalls lined the cobblestone pathways, though the brokers behind the counters were mostly yawning, idly wiping their displays. The true, chaotic wave of high-end syndicates and rogue collectors wouldn't saturate these tunnels until the sun completely dipped below the horizon.
Feng Che systematically audited the structural blueprint of the market as he strolled. The entire underground ecosystem was cleanly partitioned into three primary trading quadrants: the Pokémon Trade Ring, the Elemental Resource Wing, and the Tactical Item Gallery.
The massive Grand Auction house loomed like a monolithic crown jewel dead-center of the entire matrix.
In terms of material scale, this market ring was exceptional—easily doubling the geometric footprint of Saffron City's underground tracks. The floor was meticulously laid with weathered blue fire-bricks, proving that a highly disciplined syndicate family was actively financing the infrastructure. Even the wild alpha specimens slated for liquidation were housed in reinforced, custom-insulated steel cages, each fitted with clean sand-baths to regulate waste and preserve their health profiles.
However, a brief glance through his Team Rocket diagnostic visor confirmed that the available Pokémon inventory consisted entirely of local Unova imports. The tracking sensors registered nothing but basic red and orange genetic aptitude tiers. Losing all technical interest in the livestock, Feng Che pivoted his vector toward the Tactical Item Gallery.
The item quadrant was gargantuan, further divided into specialized sub-sectors for Pokémon Hold Items, restricted Mega Stone Arrays, and High-Purity Restorative Serums.
Driven by a desire to analyze the localized mineral catalysts, Feng Che stepped directly into the Mega Stone Dedicated Zone.
Here, raw, unrefined ore deposits were piled high like small mountains across the individual booths.
A massive, shouting crowd of rogue trainers had completely encircled a premium stall near the center line. Their faces were flushed a heavy crimson and their eyes were stretched wide with absolute, manic focus—their posture meticulously mirroring that of high-stakes gamblers watching a dealer slice into a blind stone.
"Excadrill, crack the crust! Metal Claw!"
The merchant barked the order, and his Excadrill snapped its razor-sharp steel talons forward, delivering a high-torque concussive blow straight down the center axis of a heavy grey boulder.
CRACK!
The unrefined mineral shell shattered into multiple fragments, spilling thick dust across the counter to reveal the glossy edge of a weathered stone within.
"Swell!"
"Spike the margins! Show me color!"
The psychological tension of the crowd spiked instantly.
Responding to the data, a Panpour stationed parallel to the counter unhinged its jaws, projecting a precise, pressurized stream of water to cleanly wash away the residual gray soot.
The water-monkey boasted a distinct, aqua-blue tuft of fur cresting its skull, structurally resembling a miniature, spraying fountain. Its large, fan-like ears twitched as it worked. The creature's primary chassis was cleanly bifurcated by a wavy, liquid-like line across its torso—its upper chest shaded in rich aqua-blue while its lower limbs retained a muted, sandy-tan hue. The terminal end of its slender tail flared into a plush, cloud-like puff of water-blue fleece.
As the liquid cleared, a brilliant, glowing crimson Fire Stone rolled onto the velvet cloth.
"A premium, mid-tier Fire Stone catalyst! Your station risked a mere ten thousand credits to claim a raw mineral lottery, and my ore just handed you a massive market multiplier! You've cleared the bank, friend!"
The merchant was a weathered, silver-haired elder with a deeply lined face. The buyer who had secured the stone was a middle-aged, balding man commanding a noticeably round, heavy frame.
The overweight buyer accepted the glowing Fire Stone with a frantic, trembling grip, his eyes burning with theatrical ecstasy.
The elder chuckled softly, drawing a long, traditional iron tobacco pipe from his robes. He stuffed a handful of loose tobacco leaf into the bowl, prompting a companion Pansear to snap its fingers, discharging a precise spark of fire to ignite the blend.
The old merchant brought the stem to his lips, exhaling a slow, rhythmic plume of gray smoke into the damp air.
"My house strictly liquidates ten blind ore lots per day. Nine remain on the counter. Who claims the next contract?"
The exact millisecond the words cleared his lips, the surrounding wall of gamblers erupted into a deafening roar.
"Mine! Secure my ledger! I'm buying the block!"
"Back off, you gutter-scout! That lot belongs to my house!"
"Shove your credits elsewhere! Step away from the counter!"
The crowd deteriorated into a chaotic, shoving match, their arguments turning thoroughly heated. Yet, beneath the visor of his cloak, Feng Che's sensory arrays captured a subtle, blink-and-miss-it smirk of absolute mockery crossing the old merchant's face.
A textbook, low-tier confidence ring, Feng Che calculated smoothly. The balding man who just 'won' the Fire Stone is an engineered shill working directly on the elder's ledger to spike the crowd's buying desperation.
Right as Feng Che prepared to spin on his heel to exit the fraudulent sector, Mewtwo's authoritative voice violently cut through his mental channels, locking his stance.
"Feng Che, abort your retreat. Scan the perimeter immediately. There is a legendary relic anchored within this coordinate grid."
What kind of relic are we tracking? Feng Che inquired telepathically, his focus sharpening.
"The energetic frequency meticulously matches a pristine Soul Dew. Although the outer layers of these unrefined stones have been manually coated in a dense Lead-composite glaze designed explicitly to disrupt the telepathic tracking arrays of standard Psychic-type Pokémon... my sovereign framework doesn't operate under common limitations," Mewtwo stated with immense, uncompromised hubris.
Inside his mind, Feng Che could practically visualize the genetic deity proudly lifting its long tail with a haughty, superior smirk.
"You truly remain the absolute apex of the psychic lineage, Mewtwo. Provide the exact coordinates—which lot houses the drop?"
A Soul Dew was an exceptionally legendary relic—the definitive, irreplaceable emotional catalyst required to comfortably secure and stabilize the psychological frequencies of the psychic-dragon mythics, Latias and Latios. Furthermore, once a specimen from the Eon duo held a pristine Soul Dew, their internal engines could bypass standard requirements to trigger autonomous, unrestricted Mega Evolution mid-flight.
"The relic isn't sitting on the display counter. The elder is currently utilizing the unrefined housing block as a literal stool. It's resting directly beneath his rear."
Feng Che's gaze dropped instantly, bypassing the flashy counter to focus on the space beneath the merchant's robes. Sure enough, acting as a makeshift seat was a massive, pitch-black, irregular slab of weathered rock.
The stone was roughly the size of a heavy grinding millstone, its upper surface worn incredibly smooth and polished from years of the old man utilizing it as a personal chair.
The item isn't even logged within his active sales inventory; it's treated as garbage furniture. The moment the crowd triggers a structural distraction, we drop the credits and claim the seat, Feng Che calculated.
A massive wall of rogue trainers, clutching stacks of ten-thousand League bearer bills, violently surged toward the old man.
"Order across the line! Do not compress the space!" the elder shouted, his faux-mystic demeanor completely unraveling as the frantic crowd nearly knocked his crooked mountain beard straight off his face.
Before his console could process the transactions, one of the more aggressive gamblers forcefully shoved a ten-thousand-credit note directly into the old man's palm, blindly snatched an ore block from the display, and immediately bolted down the exit tunnel.
Seeing this aggressive maneuver clear without a security intervention, the surrounding crowd went wild. They began forcefully throwing currency stacks at the merchant's chest, blindly hoisting raw stones onto their shoulders, and scrambling into the tunnels like thieves.
"Hold! Halt your vectors! Those are my premium lots!" the elder shrieked.
A few low-tier rogue scouts attempted to exploit the absolute chaos, trying to lift unrefined stones without registering a payment. However, the companion Pansear wasn't blind; its tail flared as it unleashed a rapid succession of Ember sparks that scorched their knuckles, forcing them to drop the merchandise.
The Fire-monkey boasted a soft, flame-shaped tuft of scarlet fleece cresting its skull like a burning pompadour. Its large, expressive ears framed a rounded, light-tan facial mask, inside of which two bright, highly intelligent irises tracked the crowd. Its slender yellow torso supported elongated upper limbs tipped with heavy, agile hands.
A jagged, serrated pattern separated its golden chest from its brilliant, scarlet-red lower thighs. Extending from its flank was a long, thin whip-tail tipped with a stylized, drop-shaped dollop of crimson fleece that resembled a burning leaf.
By the time the violent buying frenzy finally decayed and the smoke cleared, the old merchant looked down, only to realize that during the absolute peak of the logistical chaos, the massive, irregular grinding stone he habitually utilized as his chair had been cleanly swept from the floor.
The old man stood frozen, his jaw dropping in a state of utter, bewildered disbelief.
"Those absolute, brain-dead sub-humans... they couldn't have actually assumed my old sitting stool was a premium unrefined Mega Stone matrix, could they?"
"I've never encountered a crowd so pathologically starved for a lottery. They literally stripped the chair right out from under my rear."
"I dragged that old rock out of a drainage ditch five years ago just to save my spine during long shifts. To think someone actually spent muscle torque to lug that garbage out of my booth... I'm almost feeling a trace of sentimental loss."
However, as his eyes counted the absolute mountain of high-denomination currency bills blanketing his display counter, his irritation dissolved into absolute corporate ecstasy.
Right across the aisle, the balding shill who had previously opened the Fire Stone caught his eye, flashing a subtle, knowing wink. The old merchant nodded, quickly ripping the fake grey beard from his jaw to reveal a remarkably smooth, young face.
The two actors smoothly blended into the trailing crowd, vanishing into the deep market sectors to count their unearned wealth.
The Unsealed Relic
Meanwhile, within a highly secure, telepathically sealed shadow alleyway three sectors removed from the commotion...
Feng Che stood perfectly still, his Eevee resting comfortably on his shoulder as he placed his hand atop the massive, grease-stained millstone he had psychokinetically extracted during the riot.
"Mewtwo, dissolve the outer mineral crust."
"Understood."
A dense, high-frequency ripple of violet telekinetic friction unraveled from Feng Che's chest. The intense spatial pressure locked onto the black rock, systematically vibrating the atomic bonds of the outer Lead-composite glaze until the dark, industrial shell began to crack and shed like brittle glass.
As the weathered debris cascaded onto the floor, a blinding, magnificent aura of pure, iridescent cosmic energy flooded the dark alleyway.
Resting at the center of the shattered stone was a flawless, teardrop-shaped crystal catalyst that glowed with a deep, liquid combination of sea-blue and rose-violet light. The ambient energy humming within its facets was so immense that Feng Che's Eevee let out a soft, mesmerized coo, its pupils expanding as its psychic receptors registered the divine weight of the artifact.
The Soul Dew was officially secured.