Chapter 38 The trouble of having no money

Cyan was in a good mood after successfully conquering the sableye.

Back at Tomioka's house, Cyan said goodbye to Tomioka. Tomorrow is the first day of school, so he had to go back today because there were still some things that needed to be dealt with.

Tomioka did not try to keep him, because Cyan's current course only required half a day, and if the teacher did not have any special requirements, the afternoon was the students' free time, and Cyan could come over then.

Cyan first went back to the dormitory and bought some daily necessities. He had been away for a week, so he didn't have time to clean up properly.

While Cyan was cleaning the dormitory, his last roommate, Hideoshi Kitano, finally came back.

"Hideoshi, long time no see!"

Cyan greeted Hideoshi with a smile.

Hideoshi was wearing a casual blue coat, holding a bag of potato chips in his hand, and walking slowly into the dormitory. At this time, he happened to see Cyan cleaning.

"Cyan, long time no see! You're not just coming back now, are you?"

Cyan replied, "Pretty much."

At this time, Hideoshi noticed Butterfree behind Cyan and asked, "Cyan, this Butterfree isn't your original Pokémon, is it? It's evolved twice already? That's fast—it really deserves to be a bug-type Pokémon!"

Cyan smiled and shook his head. "No, my first Pokémon is Ponyta, but it's still very young and is resting in the room."

"So that's how it is!" Hideoshi showed a look of realization. "You've already caught two Pokémon so soon after arriving. You're pretty amazing."

Cyan asked, "By the way, Hideoshi, what was your starting Pokémon?"

"For me, my initial Pokémon is Surskit." As he said that, he took out a red and white Poké Ball from his waist and released Surskit.

As soon as Surskit came out, it looked around curiously but soon stopped at Hideoshi's feet. Hideoshi picked it up and placed it on his shoulder.

Cyan smiled. "Surskit, huh? If you train it well, it'll become a great Pokémon."

Hideoshi waved his hand. "Come on, Cyan. Don't hype me up. My Surskit has average talent—it's not really worth training."

Upon hearing this, Surskit hung its head in disappointment.

Cyan frowned. "Hideoshi, that's a bit harsh to say."

Hideoshi, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned. "What's the problem? Facts are facts, and it's my Pokémon. I can say what I want."

Cyan, knowing Hideoshi's personality, figured continuing the conversation would be pointless, so he stopped talking. He didn't want Hideoshi to say something even more hurtful.

"Alright then, but I still hope you train Surskit well."

Hideoshi waved him off. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

He then opened his door and walked in.

Cyan looked at Hideoshi's closed door, shook his head, and went back to cleaning his room.

An hour later, Cyan was sitting on the sofa in the living room, resting and drinking some water.

Coincidentally, Khosuke opened the dormitory door and came back at that time.

"Khosuke, why are you back?"

Cyan was surprised. During the day, Khosuke was usually out helping teachers or doing odd jobs to earn money. Since today was the last day before school started, he figured Khosuke would be busy.

Khosuke smiled. "Hey, Cyan. I haven't seen you in the past few days. Where have you been?"

"I went out for something. School starts tomorrow, so I hurried back."

Khosuke said while heading to his room, "I see. I just left some documents here, so I came back to grab them."

Cyan stood up and asked, "By the way, do you know where Shoya went?"

"Shoya?" Khosuke emerged from his room with a stack of documents and said, "He's been at the Rookie Trainer Competition these past two days. If you're looking for him, that's where he'll be."

Khosuke hurriedly added, "Sorry, Cyan, I'm in a rush. The competition's near the department store, so if you head there, you should find him pretty easily. I've got to go."

"So, they're near the department store... That explains why I bumped into those three guys last time."

With school starting tomorrow, today was the last day of the competition. It made sense for Shoya to be there—after all, he loved battling.

"Butterfree, let's head over. Soon your abilities will be fully restored, and Ponyta will have passed the larval stage. It's time to start high-intensity training. This is also a good chance to buy some training items and gear."

Butterfree responded with enthusiasm.

…

After all the shopping, Cyan's wallet—never that full to begin with—became even lighter.

For example, a single meal of basic Fire energy cubes for Ponyta costs 500 poke dollars. Butterfree and sableye, being dual-type Pokémon, required energy cubes 80% more expensive than those for single-type Pokémon. And sableye's Ghost-type meant that Ghost, Psychic, and Dragon-type energy cubes were notoriously expensive—one meal for sableye costs 1,000 poke dollars! (Fairy-type hadn't been discovered yet.)

In the end, Cyan bought enough food for Butterfree and sableye to last a month, plus some training tools, totaling nearly 180,000 poke dollars.

As for Ponyta, the can of pseudo-energy blocks that Professor Oak had given him would last a month. Oak had even provided him with the recipe, so he could make more later.

According to Cyan's estimate, those pseudo-energy blocks were nearly as effective as mid-level Fire energy blocks on the market, but cost far less than buying regular ones—a great deal.

At the moment, Cyan had less than 100,000 poke dollars left!

"People always say it's expensive to train Pokémon, but I never realized just how costly it could be!"

Cyan finally understood why his father had never trained a fifth or sixth Pokémon. Sure, not finding highly qualified Pokémon was one reason, but the bigger reason was the cost.

He also realized why so many trainers recommend only training one Pokémon at first. The expense!

Of course, this advice didn't apply to people with money—like Gary, who was probably training dozens of Pokémon simultaneously.

Cyan felt immense pressure, especially knowing he had a perfect-level Pokémon egg yet to hatch. Once it did, he wouldn't have the funds to train it properly!

"Good thing it shows no signs of hatching yet—otherwise, I don't know what I'd do!"

Cyan checked the egg and saw it was still a long way from hatching. But if he wanted it to hatch sooner, there was a way. Ponyta's Flame Body ability could speed up the process.

Originally, Cyan had planned to wait until Ponyta matured a bit before using it to help hatch the egg, but now he thought it better to wait and make more money first.

Otherwise, after a month, he might not even have enough to train the Pokémon he already had, let alone one more.