Hell Difficulty Begins

Cain attached the Spell Tag to Gastly's body and felt the temperature around him drop a few degrees, occasionally feeling gusts of cold wind.

"Take a break today and adjust your condition," Yan said.

The decision puzzled everyone, and they didn't know what Leader Yan was planning. However, they had no reason to refuse, and Fantina was the happiest of all.

Fantina took Morty to explore Ecruteak City, famous for its tea ceremony, classical dance, and flower arrangement culture.

Raikou left on his own, seizing the rare opportunity to report to his elders about his situation. Hopefully, he could find a way to break open the stone pavilion and the bronze cauldron.

Cain took out his long-unused bicycle and headed for Thunder Town.

Seeing the four of them leave, Yan shook his head, "These four young people are truly gifted. I originally estimated they would only reach the fourth floor in two months, but they've made it in half a month. It seems I need to increase the difficulty."

Yan walked towards the Brass Tower and made adjustments to the fourth floor's tactics.

Cain arrived at the Thunder Town Pokémon Breeding Center, finding a busy Dazao.

"Cain, how come you're here? I heard you're an apprentice at Master Yan's Ecruteak Gym," Dazao greeted Cain warmly.

Cain nodded, visiting just to see how Dazao's breeding of the Ariados was going.

"You have a promising future. Would you like to visit the breeding ranch? We've already selected the first-phase female Ariados and male Beedrill, and now we're letting them develop their relationship," Dazao said with a sense of accomplishment.

After hearing this, Cain wanted to curse him as "old-fashioned." At this rate, it would take three years to breed the first batch of third-generation Ariados. They were seriously letting the two Pokémon develop their relationship when they could be using "Pokémon Aphrodisiac." Dazao had no business acumen. No wonder his Pokémon Breeding Center was still in a small place like Thunder Town.

"No need, I just came to have a look. I heard you bought a Venipede for 40,000?"

"Yeah, I'm nurturing it very carefully, imitating the humid environment of the Unova region and more..."

Dazao was about to go on and on.

"It won't be long before they're worth 10,000 each," Cain interrupted him, exasperated.

"10,000? No way."

"Don't you watch the news? In Unova's Castelia City, there was an incident where Venipede suddenly swarmed the streets. Pokémon trainers are being gathered to catch them. In less than half a month, these Venipede will flood the black markets, and their prices will plummet."

After saying this, Cain left. There was no need to stay any longer, and some things were not appropriate to say given his current status.

How would it look if a seven-year-old child offered an "aphrodisiac"?

Honest merchants like Dazao, who lacked a ruthless business sense, made limited profits.

After hearing Cain's words, Dazao felt a sudden sense of defeat, feeling like he had wasted most of his life. He couldn't see things as thoroughly as a novice youngster.

Back in Ecruteak City, Cain bought ten iron darts at the market and surprisingly became the first to return to the gym.

Arriving at the training field alone, Gastly was fairly familiar with the moves Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb. Now it just depended on how refined the moves were. Ditto's ability to train with Gastly was also steadily improving in all aspects.

Cain took out the iron darts and lined them up, "Gastly your task is to condense the power of Shadow Ball onto these darts and shoot them out."

Gastly concentrated the power of Shadow Ball onto the darts one by one and flung them out. Due to the weight of the darts, they could only fly about seven or eight meters each time with the force of Shadow Ball.

This was already quite impressive. If it weren't for the Spell Tag increasing the power of its Ghost-type moves, the darts could only fly five or six meters at most.

After throwing a row of darts, Cain picked them up, and Gastly continued the process, repeating the action over and over again.

Yan noticed Cain's special training and gradually became curious. This level of training had already exceeded the scope of his own teachings. Could there be a mastermind behind Cain?

To test Cain's attitude, Yan approached him, "Cain, who taught you this training method?"

"It was my own idea."

Yan was surprised by Cain's response, "Where did you get the inspiration from?"

"Sharp objects hurt more when they stab," Cain casually replied.

Yan laughed, although Cain's statement was simple, who could have thought of applying it to battles?

"You're quite an imaginative kid. No wonder you've passed the first three levels of the Brass Tower so quickly. You indeed have exceptional talent, but it's a shame..."

Yan mumbled to himself, nodding and shaking his head from time to time. He lamented that a prodigy like Cain could have had a great future, but without strong financial support, even with high talent, he could only reach the height of a Pokémon League Ranger.

Cain understood this point even better than Yan, so he had a clear plan for his life, with financial stability being of utmost importance.

After dinner, today's self-study session was canceled. Cain returned to his room and continued practicing with the dagger turned Ditto, still at a distance of eight meters. This training became more challenging as it progressed, and Cain had already prepared for a long training session.

The other three had no idea when they would be back. They were so carefree!

Fortunately, it didn't affect the next day's training.

On the second day after their victory of the third floor, following Morty's suggestion, they decided to train their Pokemon induvidually every morning and challenge the tower in the afternoon. This arrangement suited Cain perfectly, so there were no objections.

In the afternoon, the four of them finally reached the fourth floor of the Brass Tower.

Upon seeing the tower guardian Pokémon, Morty was the first to express his disapproval: a Gengar leading twenty Haunters.

The gap in strength was too wide. Gengar was already fully evolved, while on their side, only Morty's Spiritomb couldn't evolve any further. Then there was Cain's Gastly, Raikou's Duskull, and Fantina's Drifloon, none of which had evolved yet.

The opposing Haunters were of a higher level than their own Pokémon, not to mention they had a numerical advantage. Was the fourth floor a dividing line, and the hellish difficulty began here?

"First let's see their tactics," Cain said.

"True, there's no point in being discouraged. Spiritomb, use Snarl," Morty initiated the attack.

"Duskull, use Dark Pulse."

"Drifloon, use Hex." Fantina's Drifloon had just learned Hex and wanted to show off its skills.

Gastly's Shadow Ball was thrown, and Cain carefully observed the shape of the Shadow Ball. Nothing had changed yet, which was normal for training for just one day.

Although their attacks were strong, they were all neutralized by the Haunter. Then, five Haunters surrounded each of their four Pokémon.

This encirclement was not like Duskull's. Each Pokémon had to deal with ten Shadow Punches from five Haunters, and Gengar was hovering in mid-air, ready to provide support if it noticed any gaps.

This tactic was entirely different from the previous three levels. Their Pokémon's abilities were insufficient, and they couldn't even get a chance to act under the combined attacks of the five Haunters.