The Pokémon Egg Breeding Base in Magic City.
This was the cradle of life built with the full weight of the Xia Nation's resources, and a holy land in the hearts of Trainers worldwide.
The base was located in an independent ecological zone on the outskirts of the city, its perimeter guarded with extreme rigor—guards every few steps, posts every few meters. Ordinary people did not even qualify to get close. Inside, however, was a different world altogether. The air was filled with a unique fragrance, a blend of nutrient solution and rare plants, while the faint hum of the climate-control systems formed the only background sound.
A network of corridors forged from special alloys stretched out like a spiderweb, linking one breeding sector to another. On both sides of the corridors, reinforced transparent glass walls revealed row upon row of incubators, within which tens of thousands of Pokémon Eggs slumbered quietly, each one shedding a life aura of varying intensity.
Shiba and Yuko walked along one of the core corridors not open to the public, their steps relaxed and unhurried.
That ease came from the status they had been born into. The dragon-tamer Kudo family and the ice-wielding Takai family: those two names alone were passes sufficient to step into almost any restricted zone in the Xia Nation.
"The security system here is probably tighter than the League's central bank vault."
Yuko could not help but murmur in admiration as she watched powerful Elite-tier Pokémon patrol past.
Shiba's gaze, on the other hand, swept over the eggs one by one. From the moment he entered this place, his Prophecy System had been in a constant low-frequency thrum. In his field of vision, countless white and blue halos crisscrossed, representing the Elite-tier and Gym-tier potential of these Pokémon Eggs.
Good—but not enough.
Just as Shiba was about to take Yuko deeper into the facility, a nauseating voice, dripping with flattery and grease, suddenly floated toward them from the corner ahead.
"Misako-neesan, c'mon, have a heart, okay? My dad went out of his way to prepare a generous gift just for you. Just let me go in and take a peek at that special breeding sector…"
Shiba's brows furrowed on instinct.
He knew that voice all too well.
At the rest area by the corner, Kaoru was clinging shamelessly to a woman in a white researcher's lab coat. She looked to be in her thirties, still charmingly attractive. The nameplate on her chest read: "Senior Researcher – Kaga Misako."
Right now, a professional, slightly forced smile sat on her face. She looked a bit troubled by the pestering, yet in the depths of her eyes there was a flicker of barely concealed temptation.
Clearly, that "generous gift" Kaoru mentioned had already begun to shake her resolve.
A wave of instinctive disgust rose in Shiba's chest, and he was about to ignore them and simply take a detour.
He had no desire to let this kind of clown sully his and Yuko's eyes.
However, at the very instant he turned away, everything changed.
Buzz—!
His Prophecy System exploded without warning into a violent tremor unlike anything before.
This vibration was nothing like the gentle nudges he had felt in the past. It was a near-feral, tearing roar.
A pillar of crimson light far more dazzling and piercing than any he had ever seen before erupted from above Kaoru's head.
That light was gorgeous and eerie, carrying an intensity so scorching it felt as if it could burn destiny itself to ashes.
Shiba's pupils contracted to the size of needlepoints.
His body went taut in an instant, every scrap of his attention seized by this terrifying omen.
In the next second, a prophetic vision, crystal-clear and more real than reality, crashed into his mind like a collapsed dam's floodwaters.
[Prophecy Vision]
Light and shadow churned.
In the vision, the female researcher Misako, half-resisting and half-yielding, eventually failed to withstand temptation. Wearing a self-satisfied smirk, Kaoru followed behind her as she swiped her clearance card and opened a high-authority electronic door.
On the door, a metal plaque engraved with ornate seal script reflected several bold characters: "S-Class Special Breeding Sector."
At the deepest point of the room, amidst a cluster of purple-halo Pokémon Eggs radiating Gym-tier potential, one egg stood out from all the rest.
Its shell was a cold, steely silver-white. The surface wasn't smooth, but etched all over with fine lines like precision metal brushing, giving off a faint metallic sheen.
Most striking of all was the naturally formed, deeply carved cross pattern in the very center of the shell.
The moment Kaoru set foot in the room, his gaze was instantly and utterly ensnared by that egg.
Greed and wild ecstasy lit up his expression.
The vision jumped ahead, images flying past until they froze.
They stopped at the scene of Kaoru walking away from the base, having obtained the egg at an internal price far lower than its true market value, while at the exit an appraisal device displayed a line of text that would drive any Trainer insane:
[Shiny Beldum Egg]
[Potential: Elite Tier]!
Shiny.
Pseudo-legendary.
Elite-tier potential.
Those three words crashed into Shiba's heart like three red-hot iron hammers.
For a moment, his breathing simply stopped.
Beldum.
Its final evolution was that Psychic/Steel-type king with terrifying computational and destructive power—Metagross.
Even an ordinary Metagross was already the pinnacle of the pseudo-legendary class, towering near the apex of the power pyramid.
A Shiny Metagross, with its silver-white body and blue cross, was a dual symbol of rarity and might. Its combat strength was so monstrous it could even surpass some regular Champion-tier Pokémon.
This was the kind of heaven-defying opportunity that could reshape a family's destiny.
Kaoru?
That deadweight who knew nothing but cashing in on family connections and taking crooked shortcuts?
What right did he have to possess it?
A chill cut straight up Shiba's spine, spreading through every limb and bone.
The way he looked at Kaoru now held no trace of human emotion—only the cold indifference of a predator appraising its destined prey.
Trash like this did not deserve such grace.
This opportunity was already marked—Shiba's to take.
He hesitated not an instant longer. He stepped forward and walked straight toward the pair.
His pace wasn't fast, but every step seemed to land squarely on some invisible drumbeat, radiating a pressure that brooked no refusal.
"Researcher Misako, is it?"
Shiba's voice was not loud—cool and flat—but it was like an icy awl, instantly piercing through Kaoru's greasy pestering.
Their conversation stopped dead.
Misako turned toward the voice. When she saw Shiba, she froze for a moment, struck by how extraordinary and faintly familiar this boy's bearing was.
But when her eyes slid to the girl at his side—Yuko, with her snow-cool aura and stunning beauty—her expression changed in an instant.
The cherished jewel of the Takai family.
Her heart lurched violently, and when she looked back at Shiba, a name forced itself to the front of her mind, draining the color from her cheeks.
"You are… Shiba-sama from the dragon-tamer Kudo family…?"
Her voice carried a tremor she herself did not notice.
"That's me."
Shiba gave a small nod, his gaze resting calmly on her face, as if his eyes could see straight through to the bottom of her heart.
"I heard there's a batch of special Pokémon Eggs here that aren't open to the public?"
His tone remained level, but Misako's heart gave a painful twist.
"My ojiisan is Kazuma."
Shiba continued at an unhurried pace, speaking that thunderous name.
"He's very interested in raising rare Pokémon. So I wanted to pick out an egg myself as a gift for him."
Boom.
The name "Kazuma" detonated in Misako's ears like a thunderclap from the ninth heaven.
The Dragon-type Champion of the Xia Nation.
One of the League's Elite Four.
A legendary existence standing at the very peak of the Trainer world.
A sheen of cold sweat instantly beaded on Misako's forehead, and in a heartbeat the back of her shirt was soaked through.
On one side stood the Li family of Magic City, a second-rate clan grown rich through commerce.
On the other side towered a top-class aristocratic house, a Champion lineage that had stood unshaken for centuries—the dragon-tamer Kudo family.
Which weighed heavier?
This was not a question that required any thinking at all.
If she dared offend Kazuma's beloved grandson for the sake of a few so-called "gifts" from the Li family, then losing her job tomorrow would be the least of her problems.
"Sh-Shiba-sama, you jest. What are you saying…?"
The stiff, professional smile vanished from Misako's face at once, replaced by a bright, almost abject enthusiasm.
"There's no such thing as 'not open to the public.' Some of the eggs just involve more complicated selection procedures. Please, this way—I will personally escort you and Takai-ojou-sama to the S-Class Breeding Sector to choose."
She stepped aside in one smooth motion and, in doing so, left Kaoru—whose face had gone an ugly shade of iron blue—utterly out in the cold, as if he were nothing more than empty air.
"You…!"
Kaoru shook with fury, jabbing a finger at Shiba, his lips trembling, yet unable to force out a single coherent word.
He had never imagined that a prize he had been just about to grasp would be so violently snatched away by Shiba intruding like this.
But Shiba did not spare him so much as a glance, not even from the corner of his eye.
To ignore was to show the highest level of contempt.
Under Kaoru's venomous stare, practically spitting flames, Shiba and Yuko followed behind the obsequiously deferential Misako and walked straight toward the S-Class Breeding Sector, the place where fortune itself was destined to appear.
In the end, standing before the egg with the cold silver-white shell and the mysterious cross pattern, Shiba signed his name on the electronic purchase contract at a reasonable, fully legitimate price.
The stroke of his pen fell; fate settled in place.
(End of Chapter)
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