After transferring the massive sitting stone into his spatial ring, Feng Che leisurely browsed the underground market rings for a few more rotations. Finding no other hidden relics that triggered Mewtwo's sensory arrays, and noting that the corridors were rapidly filling with a dense influx of late-night brokers, he shifted his alignment and headed straight for the primary auction block.
Right at the VIP gateway, he interlocked trajectories with Clemont, who was keeping a frantic lookout for him.
"Feng Che, over here! Step lively, the baseline auction matrix locks down in less than three minutes," Clemont called out, gesturing urgently.
The young mechanic guided Feng Che into a sprawling, private luxury suite heavily stocked with rare, high-grade berries. The focal wall of the room was dominated by a high-definition tactical display screen, rendering real-time, multi-angle diagnostic profiles of the items crossing the auction blocks.
Dead-center of the terminal was a specialized bidding remote. It was an exceptionally streamlined, high-efficiency system setup.
"This is my private laboratory gallery, Feng Che. The moment a commodity matches your tracking parameters, simply input your financial bid on the console panel."
"Here is the itemized inventory checklist for tonight's liquidation circuit."
Clemont handed over a synchronized tablet. Feng Che idly swiped through the data pages until his eyes locked onto a profile displaying a standard Larvitar.
On the digital catalog sheet, its baseline biological aptitude rating was officially marked as a common Yellow Tier.
So this is the exact specimen that fell victim to the appraisal scam, Feng Che reasoned, his mind instantly mapping the history behind this anomaly.
The original rogue scout who unearthed this Larvitar had initially brought it to an independent League clerk for registration. The moment the technician's diagnostic arrays registered a pristine, deep-blue genetic ceiling, greed completely gridlocked his ethics. The clerk intentionally falsified the official certificate, downgrading the entry to a common Yellow Tier to keep its market value depressed, intending to quietly buy it out through a dummy corporation.
Unfortunately for the scammer, the seller was fully aware that this specific Larvitar had suffered a premature hatching sequence, leaving its infant framework remarkably frail, so they accepted the low evaluation metrics without logging a single administrative challenge.
To further complicate the timeline, the crooked appraiser met with a fatal operational accident a mere forty-eight hours before the grand circuit, leaving absolute zero documentation regarding the infant's true genetic code.
As a result, this masterpiece of a pseudo-legendary was listed as common salvage, destined to be blindly dumped on the market.
In the historical timeline, the collector who eventually stumbled into this lot only discovered its true blue pedigree after running an exhaustive, high-tier laboratory audit. Completely losing his analytical discipline, the buyer bragged about his massive market multiplier across the open channels, which immediately invited the hostility of local syndicates who violently stripped the asset from his hands.
Feng Che maintained a completely level, expressionless face as he reviewed the profile. Looking at the final pages of the checklist, he noted that the ultimate crown jewel slated for tonight's liquidation was a pristine Charizardite Y.
Right at that inflection point, the ambient lighting across the Grand Auction house dimmed into a deep violet hue.
A masked, sharply tailored auctioneer strode onto the primary stage.
"Greetings, distinguished syndicates, elite collectors, and shadow-brokers! Welcome to the Lumiose Central Auction. Tonight, our network will showcase an exceptional harvest of restricted assets sourced from every major global track."
"Let us initialize the circuit with our vanguard lot—a certified Green-Aptitude Lillipup!"
The normal-type canine puppy materialized on the screen, its coat a rich, primary coffee-brown accented by a light-tan facial mask. A distinct, small tuft of blue fur crested its throat lining.
The infant had clearly just cleared its hatching vats, its large, expressive eyes still struggle to fully separate their lids under the spotlights.
"This specimen commands a verified Green lineage, and because it sits at the absolute dawn of its development phase, proper metabolic conditioning and high-density tutoring could comfortably push its ceiling into the Light-Blue threshold."
"We open the bidding ledger at a baseline of 200,000 League credits, with minimum incremental queries locked at 10,000 credits."
"Consider the long-term investment matrix, gentlemen. Navigating a partner into a Blue-tier standard is an exceptional stroke of operational fortune."
"At that threshold, the market liquidation value of a fully matured asset comfortably commands an eight-figure baseline. Do not allow your competitors to lock down this leverage."
The auctioneer's theatrical cadence fluidly activated the crowd's buying desperation.
Behind his podium, the digital display arrays began updating at high velocity as the initial 200,000 credit metric scaled upward.
250,000...
300,000...
350,000...
Ultimately, the infant Lillipup was secured at a premium price of 500,000 League credits by the syndicate occupying Suite 23.
"The biological profile of that Lillipup was remarkably clean, but the pricing index is far too steep," Clemont sighed regretfully, his eyes lingering on the closed screen. "500,000 credits... that requires my workshop to clear several high-volume consumer appliance engineering patents to balance the books."
"Haha, don't let it bother you, Clemont," Feng Che smiled, offering an absolute guarantee. "The moment my Unova flagship Day Care centers stabilize, I'll personally isolate a premium, Green-aptitude Lillipup from my master breeding pools and route it straight to your laboratory."
Following his assurance, a succession of mid-tier lots crossed the block, the arena filled with nothing but the continuous, booming shouts of the auctioneer.
Finally, the long-awaited iron container housing the targeted pseudo-legendary was wheeled onto the main platform.
The moment the security shutters slid open, the infant Larvitar went completely wild. It unhinged its jaws, violently slamming its stone teeth against the reinforced bars of its cage with an incredibly intense, raw, infant ferocity.
The small, bipedal reptilian predator possessed a thick, heavy hide composed of a deep, weathered grey-green mineral skin, its crown cresting into an elongated, blunt sensory horn.
Its irises burned a sharp, volatile crimson red. Its upper arms were short and compact, balanced over lower limbs that gripped the floor with a singular, massive toe plate. A heavy diamond of scarlet armor plating lined its ventral chest, flanked across its waist by four black, diamond-shaped respiratory vents. Its tapering, conical tail was ringed by heavy, interlocking mineral plates.
"Behold a certified Yellow-Aptitude Larvitar! While its baseline data sheet reflects a standard tier, let us not lose track of the core parameter—this is the undisputed sovereign pseudo-legendary of the Johto Region!"
"If its genetic lineage commanded a higher tier, this asset would easily command an unviable astronomical price tag."
"We open the ledger for this Johto titan at a flat 1,000,000 League credits, with bid increments fixed at 50,000."
As the auctioneer's gavel lifted, the digital scoreboard remained completely frozen. Absolute silence locked down the gallery.
Tsk... a gridlock. The crowd is entirely rejecting the lot, the auctioneer calculated, his pulse subtly spiking.
"Distinguished buyers, let me emphasize the mechanical trajectory—this infant will eventually evolve into a world-shaking Tyranitar!"
"A fully realized Tyranitar commands enough raw kinetic force to systematically consume an entire mountain range to reshape map data!" he supplemented frantically.
Responding to the structural hype, the digital display finally updated, shifting from 1,000,000 to 1,050,000 credits.
The initial shill has finally entered a query to prevent a total flop, Feng Che noted, his eyes tracking the digital countdown timer on his console.
Should I allow another factor to muddy the waters, or lock it down immediately?
Right as the terminal timer ticked down toward its absolute final second, Feng Che calmly pressed his thumb onto the input panel, authorizing a single 50,000 increment.
The main display smoothly refreshed to read 1,100,000 credits.
"A secondary buyer has entered the grid!"
"Witness the birth of a future Tyranitar, gentlemen! Who matches the challenge?"
Regardless of how aggressively the auctioneer spun his verbal hooks, the gallery remained completely unresponsive.
A Yellow-Aptitude Larvitar was undeniably a rare commodity, but the sheer volume of high-density mineral resources and financial capital required to successfully guide a defective pseudo-legendary through its massive evolutionary thresholds was a notorious fiscal black hole.
The syndicates sitting in the rooms were seasoned operators; every house had run the cost-benefit algorithms and verified the margins were unviable.
Down in the lower stalls, the lone competitor who had entered the 1,050,000 bid clutched his chest in absolute relief. He had merely thrown out a speculative query assuming a pseudo-legendary would naturally trigger a massive bidding war, almost bankrupting his own house over a data miscalculation.
Upon authorizing the immediate clearance of the 1,100,000 credit invoice through his bearer card, the ownership codes for the iron container were officially transferred to Feng Che's console.
Throughout the remainder of the Grand Auction, Feng Che remained completely passive, allowing the rest of the unrefined stones and relics—including the Charizardite Y—to pass through the blocks without entering a single additional query.
His fingers idly spun the cold, weighted steel structure of the ultra-ball housing his newly acquired blue predator.
"Clemont, I require your specialized technical intervention to bypass a minor logistical bottleneck."
"I must establish a secure, unmonitored transit vector to breach the Alolan Archipelago, but the standard regional travel registers lack a direct, legally compliant shipping lane."
"Naturally, my house will comfortably bankroll any administrative or operational invoice your network requires to execute this displacement." Feng Che stated, his gaze locking onto the young inventor.
Clemont's brow furrowed slightly as he ran the geographic data through his terminal. "The Alolan Sector... that archipelago occupies an exceptionally remote coordinate block, completely isolated from Kalosian maritime data."
"Our central commercial fleets maintain zero cargo lines routing into those waters. If your station requires a definitive entry vector to breach Alola, I will have to manually re-engineer a solution through my father's private channels."
Leveraging his status as the crown prince of the Lumiose underbelly, Clemont executed a rapid, encrypted data query across the lower networks. Within ten minutes, he isolated a highly disciplined, completely unlisted Smuggling Freighter scheduled to clear its departure blocks for Alola within the next forty-eight hours.