Alex went back to the training room where his Pokémon was and sat on a chair silently, keeping in mind to not disturb them.

Thanks to meeting Maria, he was in a jovial mood. Because, for the first time, he met someone who really understands him, or at least that's how he feels. For the first time, he is not in a relationship only for physical intimacy. ​​

Physical intimacy is important in a healthy relationship, but it is no longer the only reason he is with Maria. Though it's definitely a good bonus.

While thinking about such stuff, he went to the shop page of Team Rocket again like every day and started browsing.

Many items and Pokémon are offered here every day, but Alex rarely finds anything that he needs.

But for the slim possibility of a strong trainer desperate for money selling valuable items, he always keeps an eye on the shop.

He saw an item that instantly piqued his interest, but it was too expensive.

2x Leaves with Psychic-energy for a week from a Champion-rank Exeggutor with SS-rank talent: 7.5 million Pokédollars / TR Points

Even though this item was very good, it shouldn't cost more than 6 million. But because items with such quality are quite rare, they can also be sold for such a high price.

Alex looked at his account and started pondering about it.

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158,000 TR Points

7,525,000 Pokédollars

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After a few seconds, he arrived at a decision and pressed the buy button to order the item.

'This bastard is lucky that I earn money so quickly, and money is not so important to me. Or he would only find someone else after several months,' thought Alex when he transferred 7.5 million Pokédollars.

Although Alex's heart bled when he bought this item, he hoped that this item can bring Gardevoir to the Shallow Diamond rank.

--------------

158,000 TR Points

25,000 Pokédollars

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When Alex looked at the money he had left, he couldn't help but grab his head.

Alex felt that he was spending his money faster and faster, and no matter how much he earned, he never had enough money.

Although Alex was sure that almost any Elite trainer would die of envy if they see Alex's expenses, he was not satisfied with his earning.

Unfortunately, he had to start selling Silver Pokémon again to finance his 35,000 Pokédollars of daily expenses.

When he thought about spending every day almost 5 times the money a normal person would earn a month in this world, he could not do anything but smile.

'Really, a luxury problem,' thought Alex as he mused about how he makes so much money now.

After considering the pros and cons, he couldn't help but come to the dead end. Unfortunately, he has to start again with the slower money-making method.

It is one thing if Silver Pokémon sales increase by 500% in a city one time. But if this keeps on happening regularly now, many people will search for the reason.

Alex has to prevent that in any case so that he can earn money again with the slow method, and the increase in the market is almost inconspicuous.

'If I really need money, I can go to a new region and farm every city there once.' Alex started smiling when he thought of the word 'farming.'

'Hmm, unfortunately, that would take a lot of time. I don't need so much money right now that I have to waste my time for it.'

After a bit of thought, Alex had calculated how long it would take per region.

In Hoenn, it took Alex almost two days to get there with a ship and another 3 days to buy and sell the Silver Pokémon in every big city in the region.

5 days per region is the absolute minimum if Alex does nothing else.

During these 5 days, he cannot train his Pokémon for 3 days and only light training for 2 days while he is on the ship. (During these three days in Hoenn, Alex hardly slept and was on the move the whole time)

Time is money.

After about 30 minutes, Alex received a transfer request. He looked excitedly at the case that appeared on the table after accepting the transfer.

He opened the case and saw two large leaves that gave off a purple color.

Since he had started to train his Psychic talent, he could realize how dense Psychic-energy was in these leaves.

'Hmm... Two pieces are a bit fewer, but it's not like there is anything I can do about it,' thought Alex as he gave Gardevoir the two leaves.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the amount was so less that Gardevoir could directly absorb Psychic-energy from both leaves.

Welp, if one wants to look at the positive side, leaves have a higher quality of Psychic-energy despite the low quantity.

Alex watched the Gardevoir eagerly, which took more than 1 hour before she stopped meditating.

It seemed that Gardevoir really took her time to absorb these items.

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Pokémon: Gardevoir

LV: 44

Type: Psychic/Fairy

Ability: Telepathy (Hidden Ability)

Gender: Female

Potential: Deep Gold

Move:

- Growl, Confusion, Double Team, Teleport [E], Disarming Voice, Lucky Chant, Magical Leaf, Heal Pulse, Draining Kiss, Psychic [E], Imprison, Future Sight

- (Innate Talent) Disable [E], (Innate Talent) Calm Mind [E], (Innate Talent) Dazzling Gleam [E]

- (TM) Protect, (TM) Shadow Ball, (TM) Will-O-Wisp, (TM) Thunderbolt, (TM) Thunder Wave, (TM) Helping Hand, (TM) Focus Blast

-----------------------------------------------

Gardevoir had already become LV 44 early in the morning, so nothing had actually changed after this item.

'Fck! Why is it so difficult to get into the Shallow Diamond rank? With this item, almost every Gold Psychic-type Pokémon would become Deep Gold,' Alex thought.

Gardevoir, who saw Alex look disappointed, knew that she had unfortunately not managed to jump on the SS-rank.

When Gardevoir showed a bitter expression, Shuppet immediately came out of Alex's shadow and hugged Gardevoir.

Gardevoir saw the adorable Shuppet, who hugged her to cheer her up and showed her usual smile again, and began to pet the head of Shuppet.

When Alex thought about it, he found himself thinking about the words Professor Wälhder had said after he had defeated Misty for the second time.

'What potential the Pokémon is born with seems to be really very important. Crobat, Gardevoir, and Scizor will cost me a lot to get them to the Shallow Diamond rank,' Alex thought with a sober expression.

Although Alex knew it would cost him a lot of money, he doesn't want to give up his family to get this important rank.

For Ditto, however, the single chance seems to be an item from a Full-Blood Legendary Pokémon because Ditto's born potential is really poor.

At least Gardevoir, Crobat, and Scizor were born with Deep Silver potential.

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[AN]: jo, The chapter is over here comes just unnecessary matters. I read a two commentaries that had really weird arguments after chapter 198.

I usually ignore such arguments, but this time I wanted to explain a few things.

After showing this today I want to tell you that I will ignore or delete arguments that write out of context and wrong information if they say complete trash.

I will show my answers to this argument here so that in the future people will not be surprised if I delete or ignore such a similar argument.

you could look at yourselves there argumet and give yourselves a opinion.

Reader :It'a quite petty, but the more we get to know about Maria the saltier I feel. It feels like she's getting a lot handed to her, Alex has to work his butt off to increase his Pokemon's Potential and she's out here catching Gold Pokemon as if it's easy, without Alex's special ability to back her up. I think it might be worse because he's always surrounded by these kind of people. Reaching elite rank is supposedly hard, but every relevant person his age group is doing it without a problem. He was a talented rookie for a while, but we've just seen another rookie competition where he wouldn't have stood a single chance. My point is; Hyping up charachters is great and you're mostly doing it in a realistic way (Misty / Steven / Wallace have way more recourses> so they can get stronger faster + they're talented vs. Alex having to rely on hard work and talent. ) but you have to let Alex actually achieve things. But someone that started out at the same time as him with the same resources as he shouldn't be keeping up this well for no other reason than that she's his love interest. Alex apparently reached elite level at a mind bogglingly pace. He exceeded what Giovanni predicted / expected Alex to reach elite level by like 5 months, a super talented trainer and a major accomplishment. And then we learn that Maria did it too almost 4 times over. Sorry for the rant, you're doing a great job with the story overall. Maria is just consistently one of my least favorite of the story, because she lessens all his accomplishments.

Alex02373: it took alex 4 months to reach elite rank. It took Maria almost 6 months even though the potential of her pokemon is similar to that of Alex. After the defeat of the rematch with Alex, she learned and started training like a madman. Even now in the honeymoon she wants trainers to make herself and her Pokemon stronger faster. I don't find it unrealistic considering that.

@alex02373 You established earlier in the story that gold Pokemon are rare to the point where Lisa sold blood and scales of a LUGIA for a gold butterfree. Then how can someone like Maria with no breeder connections or tons of cash randomly get 4 Gold Pokemon, This basically spits in the face of your own world building. You also wrote about the ridiculous training budget MC needs and how he exploits his system to get that cash which Maria clearly lacks yet she keeps up effortlessly🧐.

Alex02373: 3 deep silver Pokemon und arbok. I find your argument very inequitable considering how Maria got most of the Pokemon. I have the feeling that you want to win the argumanet more than address a fair point. At least your kind of answer seems like that.

Reader: I get where you're coming from, but I really can't see it. She should have way less resources than Alex realistically, and she doesn't have the advantage of his abilities. The last time we saw Arbok it was a Shallow Gold, Crobat was a Shallow Gold too at the time. Crobat just recently managed to reach Deep Gold with a steady supply of Lugia blood among other expensive items. How is Maria keeping up with that? Sandshrew jumped from Silver to Shallow Gold. We used to get a lot of Normal and Bronze Pokemon, but Silver has become the new standard. Even Lisa has been shown to have silver Pokemon and she's an executive. You said it took her two months more and this is exactly what I mean when I said her presence lowers the accomplishment, breaking into elite was hyped up to be hard. Misty with all her recourses only had 1 Pokemon in the elite rank, and two other Pokemon at level 38 and 34, and she started training earlier than Alex and Maria. You spend the earlier chapters establishing that breaking into the elite rank makes you a single rank below executive, the executive rank starts at level 45. All it took for her to reach this rank, almost 4 times over was 6 months, without Alex's recourses. Lisa as a executive didn't have the resources to boost her Mismagius into shallow gold tier, there's no way Maria got the amount of recourses from Team Rocket to bump Arbok to Deep Gold. Sorry if this comes across as whiny.

Alex02373:

Because you have addressed so many things at the same time, I will go into it one last time. Maybe you understand my point of view better that way.

"The last time we saw Arbok it was a Shallow Gold, Crobat was a Shallow Gold too at the time."

I don't know if you are deliberately not mentioning this to reinforce your argument, but I have already explained the difference between a Gold Born Pokemon and a Silver Born Pokemon in detail.

Arbok was a Shallow Gold Born Pokemon from the start and Crobat was a Deep Silver Born Pokemon. That makes a big difference.

"We used to get a lot of Normal and Bronze Pokemon, but Silver has become the new standard."

Yes why do you think that is

Wild Pokemon that have a high level must have at least an ok potential or they would never reach a high level.

Alex mainly only meets trainers who are one of the best trainers in the world.

Not normal trainers, not good trainers, but ridiculously talented trainers.

"Even Lisa has been shown to have silver Pokemon and she's an executive."

Wrong. I said that after she caught Lugia that she was promoted to executive.

After becoming Executive, she began to rapidly improve her Pokemon'S potential.

Before that she was just a relatively strong elite trainer. Lugia changed that.

"Misty with all her recourses only had 1 Pokemon in the elite rank, and two other Pokemon at level 38 and 34, and she started training earlier than Alex and Maria."

out of context. Misty was more than a year younger than Alex so comparing in between the two is unfair.

A 12 year old doesn't train his Pokemon in the wild or train like Alex all the time. I hope I don't have to explain this in more detail.

you could see it in Alex's rematch with Misty, MIsty quickly leveled after her defeat.

"You spend the earlier chapters establishing that breaking into the elite rank makes you a single rank below executive, the executive rank starts at level 45."

out of context. Why are almost all of your arguments so out of context.

From the beginning I explained that ranks are not determined by levels alone, especially the Team Rocket Executive rank needs more than level 45.

You know that Lisa couldn't become a Team Rocket Executive with a Pokemon over level 49 without Lugia, but makes it look like it's only time to become an Executive once you're level 45.

Team rocket member 20-25,

Team rocket elite member 25-20,

Team rocket captain lv 30-40,

Team rocket elite captain 40-50,

Team Rocket Executive PO LV 45-55

These should only be the levels ranges of the ranks as you can easily see because elite captain and executive overlap.

"Lisa as an executive didn't have the resources to boost her Mismagius into shallow gold tier, there's no way Maria got the amount of recourses from Team Rocket to bump Arbok to Deep Gold."

out of context. I've already explained the thing with Lisa. And to say it again Maria's arbok is a Shallow Gold born Pokemon and thus has much easier to reach the Deep Gold rank than Crobat, Scizor or Gardevoir and much eaiser as Mismagius.

I don't know if you accidentally put this out of context statement or something but I find it a bit strange that all your arguments were wrong or out of context.

As I wrote from my last comment: I have the feeling that you want to win the argumanet more than address a fair point.

no idea what that was all. i think it weard that all the info you used as an example is wrong or out of text and i'm not sure why you did that.

I think it's a shame.

Usually I ignore hate comments or delete it straight away but I'm not sure about this case.

Only this comment confused me whether these mistakes happened accidentally or on purpose.

Ok enough with that subject.

I'm sorry if my boring whining had bored you and thank you for your support.

even if I do such a rant once in a while, I am very satisfied and grateful with almost everyone's comments I get from you.

haha even if i'm sure that i have to listen to complaints like "your comment is longer than the chapter" in this chapter.

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