Chapter One Hundred and Eight: The Volunteer

Amu took a short nap in the evening. Although the "Moon Path" does not offer the same endurance as the "Night Path," his required sleep duration had already been significantly reduced.

While Amu slept, Gengar was not idle. It lurked in the shadows, making its way to the neighboring graveyard. In such an ideal habitat, Ghost-type Pokémon were naturally already in residence. Using its social skills, Gengar quickly grew familiar with them, inquiring whether there had been any strange occurrences in the cemetery or the adjacent orphanage.

Amu opened his eyes at six in the morning sharp. While this might be considered insufficient sleep for an ordinary person, it was plenty for him. During his travels, Amu had often used the time saved from sleeping to study.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw a clump of long hair dangling from the aged ceiling, nearly brushing against his face. The source of the hair was slowly turning its head, revealing a fierce eye peeking through the strands.

"Don't tell me you spent the whole night doing something so boring," Amu said, rolling his eyes.

The "hair" retracted into a shadow, and Gengar emerged, saying, "Of course not, Gastly!" Seeing Amu’s skeptical look, Gengar added, "I... at least discovered that the headmistress is a Ghost-type trainer!"

Amu looked surprised, but immediately realized the truth. No wonder she had no interest in having him work as a "volunteer" after learning he was a Ghost-type trainer. At first, Amu had assumed the old headmistress held some prejudice against the type or simply didn't want to frighten the children. Now, it seemed she could provide Ghost-type Pokémon herself. This also explained how she managed to run an orphanage right next to a graveyard. Usually, Ghost-type Pokémon are prone to mischief, and if the density of such Pokémon were too high, the area would inevitably become "haunted." But since the headmistress was a trainer herself, she could ensure they didn't come to the orphanage to "have fun."

However, that was all the information Gengar had gathered; there was absolutely nothing related to any "treasure."

After getting up, Amu washed up—thankfully, the old house still had running water. It had electricity, too, though the wiring in most areas was broken.

"Ah! Mr. Amu, you're up so early... did you not rest well last night? I’m so sorry..." Lala looked quite embarrassed when she saw Amu. Unlike her appearance the night before, she now wore her hair in a convenient single bun, and a Blissey followed beside her.

"No, I’m used to sleeping less and rising early. And I imagine if this orphanage follows the same routine as the one I grew up in, the children should be waking up soon, right?" Amu added, "Also... just call me Amu."

In this humble orphanage, the number of children in care was higher than Amu had imagined—there were over thirty of them! The formal staff consisted only of the old headmistress and Lala. Because of this, the headmistress was already up early, preparing breakfast for more than thirty people. To make matters worse, there were no children over the age of six, as all school-aged children had already left; one couldn't rely on older kids to watch the younger ones.

Lala suggested that simply sending out Clefable to play with the children would suffice, but Amu naturally jumped in to help, quickly becoming "Brother Amu" to the children. From guiding everyone through their morning wash to mediating petty squabbles, "Brother Amu" handled it all with ease. By eight o'clock, all the children were seated at the dining table.

Just then, a knock sounded at the door.

"Ah! That must be Nana... she’s a volunteer who has been helping out at home lately," Lala explained to Amu while going to open the door.

"Nana?" Amu muttered.

Entering from outside was a beautiful girl with long, straight black hair. She looked expressionless, offering only a cold nod in response to Lala’s greeting. The headmistress and Lala seemed accustomed to this.

"Have you eaten breakfast? If not, we can eat together," Lala asked.

"No need," Nana replied, walking off to sit by herself and read a book. She barely glanced at Amu, not lingering on him at all. The children seemed somewhat afraid of her and didn't dare to disturb her.

After everyone had finished a simple breakfast, Nana took out a Poké Ball and released an Abra. It was a rare sight—well, in Saffron City, Psychic-type trainers weren't exactly rare. However, Abra itself was quite uncommon.

The Alakazam evolutionary line was the "trademark" of Psychic-type Pokémon. While their base stat totals might not seem exceptionally high, they were, much like the Ghost-type Gengar, not only efficiently distributed but also possessed extremely powerful combat styles. An Alakazam has a base stat total of 500, matching Gengar, but its Special Attack and Speed are even higher. More importantly, outside of using specific moves, an Alakazam can wield [Psychic] as a basic attack, and its astounding processing power allows it to predict an opponent's every move.

Its true combat ability cannot be captured by "theoretical combat power." Even a Kadabra, which has not yet evolved into an Alakazam, excels at using psychic waves to greatly disrupt opponents. Thus, even though Alakazam is difficult to evolve, a Kadabra with a base stat total of 400 is still a formidable fighter.

As for the unevolved Abra, it is known for its immense mental power and frail body. With a base stat total of only 310, its Special Attack and Speed are as high as 105 and 90—many Pokémon with base stats over 500 don't even have such high offensive stats, and a speed of 90 is quite respectable. To compare, the Nidoking, with a base stat total of 505, has Attack and Speed stats of only 102 and 85, slightly inferior to Abra!

At the same time, the stats allocated to Abra's "body" are, predictably, scarce. This forces Abra to sleep 18 hours a day to prevent its physical form from being exhausted by its mental output. Precisely because of this, its frail body can be fully controlled by its psychic power, allowing it to merge into space. Abra possesses the ability to use [Teleport] instantly without needing to prepare a move. This makes the already rare Alakazam line even harder to capture in the wild—even while sleeping, an Abra will instinctively [Teleport] away at the slightest disturbance.

However, wild Abras sleep for such long periods that they cannot balance their bodies and minds well. As they grow, the only move they naturally awaken is [Teleport], making their development very slow. Once they evolve into Kadabra in the wild, it is even rarer for them to see eye-to-eye with human trainers—the smarter a Pokémon is, the more this holds true. Those that can be caught after a single battle are usually the "denser" ones.

A captured Abra, if trained to learn other moves systematically, should evolve quickly. Theoretically, it only needs to reach a level of growth equivalent to level 16. Although not all Pokémon evolve exactly at their theoretical growth point, it usually doesn't happen much later. Consequently, trainers with Kadabra are rare, those with Alakazam are even rarer, and Abra... even rarer still!

Amu took a few extra looks at the rare Abra, suspecting it had been caught only recently. He then released his own Clefable. As soon as Clefable appeared, it reached out to pick its nose, but under Amu’s steady gaze, it slowly withdrew its hand, only to instinctively scratch its own backside instead.

Amu: "..."