Chapter 74

After flying through the city, Jax finally made it back to the Count's estate. While he was conversing with Zennon, the Emperor's soldiers stopped by and already dropped off the promised goods. Sneaking onto the patio connected to his room, Jax thought he was in the clear.

"AHHH!"

Sitting on his bed were two girls, one platinum-blonde and the other pink haired, just silently staring at him.

"H-hi, girls. Um. I'm kind of tired so I would appreciate it if you left. I want to go to bed early tonight…"

The girls just stayed silent and scanned him up and down. Not being able to handle the awkward silence, the boy stammered on about what he had just been through. After taking an hour explaining the day's events, only then did the two girls heave a sigh of relief. Wanting to give the two their personal space, Evelyn left the room so her two friends could talk in peace.

"I-I know it wasn't your fault but still…! How could you do something so dangerous!? Fighting with the Emperor!? Even if that Charizard was your father's, you didn't know it at the time! How could you just go off with him!?"

Knowing that he was in the wrong, Jax just held back his complaints and let himself be scolded by the angry Ally.

"Hmph! Look at you. You don't even know how worried I was!"

"Mhm? You were worried about me? Hehe. I know I shouldn't laugh but I thought you didn't care about me anymore. I mean, you've been kind of ignoring me since yesterday…"

"And who's fault is that!? Honestly, I just don't get you. You act nice to me and then go and hang out with a different girl. Then, you k-kiss me on the forehead! AGH! Make up your mind already! Do you like me or not!"

"Huh? A different girl? You mean Evelyn?"

"NO! Evie told me how you brought a girl to this very estate last year!"

Finally connecting the dots, Jax had an epiphany! 'Metsys!' The two of them agreed that she couldn't come out or talk to Jax out loud while other people were around so he had honestly forgotten about her over the weekend. 'Whoops.'

Explaining the same cover story he had told his mother, Jax promised Ally that the girl Evelyn saw was no longer a problem. After regaining her memory, the girl left to go find her family; at least, that was the excuse he could come up with on the spot. Knowing that the truth would one day find out, Jax just left it for his future self to deal with. Irresponsible? He's a kid! He can be irresponsible if he wants to be!

With the fireworks show concluding the Empire's hundredth birthday, Ally got her payback on Jax's teasing yesterday. Standing up on her tiptoes, Ally pecked Jax on the cheek before running off towards her room with a completely red face. Chuckling at the girl who ran off, Jax wondered where the shy one he met two years ago had disappeared off to.

As morning came, all three kids left Count Freiders' estate early in the morning so that they could make it to class on time. With nothing to learn, Jax continued doing the quests that the system, Metsys provided him.

One of the hidden functions that Metsys had forcibly unlocked was the Quest function! Reminding him of Earth's games' RPG quests, Jax could ask around the whole city for anything the residents needed and a corresponding quest would be generated on his quest log. Gathering Skarmory feathers was one such quest that he was completing for the city's blacksmith. The resident generated quests usually had rewards that were determined by the quest giver but system generated quest didn't give out any rewards. Instead, Jax received Store Points, or SP for short, that he could use in another unlocked hidden function, the Store!

Jax didn't know how it worked but the Store had items from all over the pokemon world (Games, anime, manga) and even items from Earth! The only downside was that the items from Earth cost an astronomical sum of points! Even after a full year of completing system quests, Jax had only gathered 1000 SP! The cheapest Earth item was a simple pencil that costed 20 SP! Buying just fifty of those would empty out his hard-earned points!

'Let's see, I currently have five system generated quests: Craft your first ball (of any kind) (1 SP), Catch five different pokemons (5 SP), Beat a gym (10 SP), Completely map out Thora Forest, Yulti Mountains, Ryul Woods, and the Great Beyond (20 SP), and Survive a fight with a level 100 Pokemon (50 SP). Sheesh, why is each subsequent quest harder than the last. The first two are easy to complete so I'll knock those out of the way first. The problem are the last three. New quests aren't generated until I complete all the old ones. Mhm.'

With his current lineup, beating a gym wasn't a huge problem. Not only were his pokemons' levels significantly high, they all had great stats and move pools. Plus, now that they all had perfect EVs, he could breeze through most gyms. The only issue was that to even challenge a gym, he would need to be 10 years old and have a sponsor. With Headmaster Leon away from the academy, he would need to find a new sponsor.

As for mapping out the four areas around Arklight City, with his minimap, the quest was already 80 percent done. The only issue? Exploring the rest of the Great Beyond. None of his pokemons were at the elite rank (LVL 90) yet so if he decided to push his luck and unluckily ran into a strong pokemon, he could only pray that Zennon was close by. 'Guess I'll have to put this mission on hold for now.

Jax didn't even think about the last quest. The strongest pokemon he had ever seen so far was Zennon and he was only at level 94! With each cut off point reached, a pokemon experienced qualitative change besides just an increase in level. A level 100 pokemon could easily take on 10 level 99 pokemon and not even break a sweat! 'Let's just do the easy quests first.'