CH19 (633), A Stint Around The Harbor Area

I decided to start with the harbor quartet, or rather with three of them since the Night Market would have to wait until tomorrow. Since I had read that the Sailor's Club only really got going after 5 p.m., I decided to visit the Harbor Market and the Berry Market first. My first stop was the Berry Market at the entrance of the Lilycove Harbor. It was already 9 a.m., so the market had been "open" for an hour and yet there were a lot of people, both man and woman, young and old, strolling between the many berry stands.

The area the berry market took up was not small, and I suspected going around the whole place and checking out all the berry stands was going to take me more than two hours since I was obviously not planning to rush things. I had long known that there were thousands of berry strains in the world, though most had either similar effects or no "true" special effects at all aside from being nutritious as well as energy-rich. Well, being rich in a certain type of energy could be considered special in itself, I guess, but that seemed less impressive than being able to cure status conditions and other such effects.

Over the years I had gathered close to 450 kinds of berries, among which around 75 belonged to the 100ish canon berries. Still, I believed that one could never have enough berries, so I was intent on exploring this market and expanding my pool of berries. Besides, I was sure that some of them could prove useful in surprising ways.

Anyway, I brought out Chibi Mothra/Butterfree and we began to stroll through the stalls. I occasionally bought some berries for Mothra to snack on, and whenever I came upon a berry that I did not have in my possession yet, I bought it. I managed to buy a dozen of two berry strains I did not have yet within the first 20 minutes, and it was not long after that, that I stumbled upon a berry that I had been particularly interested in for some time.

It was a Hyplan Berry, which was pretty much the counterpart to the Chilan Berry, with the effect of temporarily boosting the power of normal-type energy. So while the Chilan Berry temporarily raised one's resistance/defense against normal energy, the Hyplan Berry temporarily raised the potency/power of one's normal energy. Obviously, the Chilan Berry was not the only berry that had a counterpart. All 18 resistance-boosting berries had a potency-increasing counterpart.

However, the growth requirements between the two sets were different, with the canon set being easier to grow, so the Hyplan Berry and its fellows were quite a bit rarer than their canon counterparts, which were already uncommon. I already had the full canon set, but I had only managed to gather 13 kinds of the mirror set so far, with the Hyplan Berry being the 14th one. I had to admit that I probably could have gotten the full set if I had been willing to invest a pretty high if not exorbitant price, but I chose to take it slow and acquire them naturally, which pretty much meant whenever I stumbled upon them while I was out.

The only exceptions to that had been the Tekama Berry, Nasip Berry, Holdo Berry, and Chokle Berry which I needed for some important supplements for my Pokemon. The Tekama Berry was the counterpart to the Payapa Berry, with the effect of temporarily boosting the potency of psychic-type energy. The Nasip Berry was the counterpart to the Kasib Berry, with the effect of temporarily boosting the potency of ghost-type energy. The Holdo Berry was the counterpart to the Passho Berry, with the effect of temporarily boosting the potency of water-type energy. The Chokle Berry was the counterpart to the Chople Berry, with the effect of temporarily boosting the potency of fighting-type energy.

I only bought them when I truly needed them for my Pokemon, though now that I had a rather ample supply of them, I was going to use the Tekama Berry and Chokle Berry to create some supplements to help with my own psionic and aura training. I was not far from reaching the limit of the Second Class and I wanted to use those supplements to speed up the process as well as help with advancing to Tier 3 First Class as both a Psychic and Aura User.

Anyway, I asked for my usual dozen and ended up nearly buying out the seller's whole supply of Hyplan berries, which was a grand total of 15 berries, leaving him with only 3. I had to pay a bit extra since the man initially wanted to limit my purchase to half a dozen, but he quickly changed his tune when I offered to buy them at an extra 20%.

I continued my stroll around the market and by the time I finished circling the whole berry market, nearly 3 hours had passed. Still, it was a fruitful stroll since I managed to buy a total of 16 "new" berry strains, among them the Hyplan Berry, and the Desert Berry, which was beneficial to ground types, were the most useful.

Since it was close to noon, I briefly found a secluded corner to enter Utopia to hand out everyone's lunch. I accompanied them for lunch but I did not eat much aside from a symbolic bite since I was planning to visit one or two of the touted restaurants of the Harbor Market. Once everyone had eaten, I left Utopia, this time alone, and made my way to the Harbor Market.

After a brief moment of consideration, my first stop ended up being Victor's Grill. I was surprised to see that nearly all tables were occupied even though it was only 12:30 p.m. That made me look forward to the food even more since the food had to be good if people were willing to fill the place this early. Anyway, I quickly headed to one of the two empty tables and picked up the menu.

The first half of the menu listed dishes with regular finish, while the second half only listed dishes with Pokemon. Before I took the menu I had thought about ordering the whole menu, but now that I had looked through it, I decided against that since I was not sure I would be able to eat everything since the number of Pokemon dishes was not low. Unlike regular dishes, which I could eat a ton of before I was full, dishes made using Pokemon were much more filling, so the volume I could eat was correspondingly quite a bit lower as well.

In return, Pokemon dishes tended to taste quite a bit better than regular dishes, excluding Utopia-reared beef/fish, and they were also considerably more expensive than their regular counterparts. Not that the price had an impact on my choice. For me, it came down to how much I wanted to eat, and whether I thought that the difference in taste would be worth eating less. I decided to focus on the regular dishes this time around and promptly ordered all 14 "regular" items/dishes on the menu.

The waitress who took my order looked unsure whether I was serious or if she had misunderstood something and asked me if I really wanted the whole first half of the menu. When I said yes, she stared at me for a moment before she told me that I would have to pay for everything even if I ended up being unable to finish it all, before asking once more if I was sure. I assured her that I was planning to eat everything and that I could simply pack up the rest in case I couldn't.

The waitress told me that they did not offer a to-go service, but that they could probably make an exception if I was truly insisting on ordering so much. After I confirmed for the third time that I was certain about my choice/order, she nodded and noted down my order, before asking if I wanted to order drinks as well. I asked for a few bottles of lemonade, which she noted down before she told me that it might take a while to fulfill the whole order. She then left, and I proceeded to pull out my phone to surf the net while I waited for my food to arrive.

I once again checked out the reviews related to the Lilycove Harbor Market before looking at the news. 15 minutes later the waitress, Vivi, returned with 5 bottles of lemonade, and a glass full of ice cubes. She then told me that they would start bringing the food over as it was completed. Following that she briefly left before returning with a grilled fish salad.

I poured some lemonade into my glass and began eating the salad. The sauce went well with both the fish and the "green stuff", and by the time I was halfway through the salad, Vivi came back with a grilled fish sandwich. That one was followed up by another sandwich, this time with breaded grilled fish. Each time I was a bit more than halfway through the current dish, Vivi brought another one over, and I appreciated the well-timed service.

In the end, it took over an hour to receive/eat everything and at the end when I called over Vivi after cleaning up the last dish she just asked me "Where did all that food go?" full of disbelief. I knew my actions had attracted some attention from other guests, though I was sure that none stayed as long as I did, and I heard some of them say things like "How is he not the size of a Snorlax", or "Is he the reincarnation of a Munchlax", or "How is he still thin if he eats like that".

I ignored them and turned to Vivi who asked me if I wanted to pay cash or by card. When I told her that I was not done yet and that I wanted to order the grilled Magikarp as well as the Goldeen noodles, she looked gobsmacked and there was some disbelief among the other customers as well. Some louder than others and I even heard someone ask if they should call the police or an exorcist in case I was possessed.

I had to chuckle at that, at least until I saw/noticed that some people actually took it seriously, forcing me to assure them that everything was fine. I just told them that I was training my body which was why I was eating so much, though I had to lift a table with just one hand to convince them. My action certainly impressed some of the younger guests, and I heard a little boy say that he wanted to be like me when he grew up, which had his parents say "Please don't" at the same time which had me, and those that heard the exchange, laugh.

Anyway, once I had eaten both the grilled Magikarp and the Goldeen noodles, I briefly considered whether I should continue since I still had some room just to mess with everyone, but I eventually decided to stop here and asked Vivi for the bill. The bill ended up being 2995 Poke, of which the first 14 dishes and the 5 lemonades only made up around 350 Poke. I gave Vivi 3400 Poke, with the excess being her tip, and left the restaurant to explore the rest of the Harbor Market.

I avoided the fish market/area since Vivi recommended that I visit that place as early as possible, preferably close to the time the market opened at 4 a.m. but definitely before 7 a.m. I naturally had to heed her advice since she was a doubly local. Instead, I directed my attention to the stalls and shops selling other stuff, such as the pearl stall that had some white, pink, and blue pearls that grabbed my attention.

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