Chapter 254: Ancient-Method Fragrance

The next morning, early.

Baimu leaned against his pillow, stroking the single-headed dragon's head with one hand while scrolling through a Pokémon blog with the other.

But what he was following wasn't the Contest — it was any trace of Lugia.

The diver who had previously been spotted swimming underwater with Lugia claimed to live near Battle Town. Plenty of trainers interested in legendary Pokémon had rushed over after hearing the news, yet none of them had even managed to find a similar stretch of sea.

The other party seemed to realize his behavior had gotten him into trouble, deleted that video, and hadn't updated his blog in quite a while either; the most recent clip was footage of him playing with a Swampert.

By carefully studying the diver's videos, Baimu noticed that although the backgrounds were lush and green, a rusted deck would occasionally come into view.

At that point, he had pretty much guessed where this person was located —

The abandoned ship near Water Route 108.

Ash and his group had been there before and met a young man who had accidentally lost his Pokémon while fleeing, and the Pokémon that young man had lost happened to be a Swampert.

The Pokémon shown in his past videos — Marill, Spinarak, Wooper, and the like — all confirmed that man's "identity."

Of course, all of this was purely guesswork.

Whether it was really the case still required an on-site look; there were only so many Pokémon in total, so coincidence was entirely possible.

"If I really do find it… what's the probability I can successfully communicate with Lugia? What's the probability it's actually that Lugia? What's the probability it won't punch me when it hears I'm from Ecruteak?"

Baimu felt that Ecruteak must be a particularly painful place for Lugia — otherwise it definitely wouldn't have just left like that.

In any case, he definitely had to go take a look. Whether or not he ultimately managed to strike up a conversation with Lugia, he first needed to confirm it really was somewhere near Water Route 108.

But before setting out —

He planned to first make one batch of fragrance following the memories he had obtained in his dream.

Fragrance, like Glow-Recipe food and other things that gave Pokémon a boost, might not show dramatic effects right away, but as long as one kept using it consistently, the results would accumulate little by little and eventually become visible.

For instance, the Awakening & Dehumidifying Fragrance from his memories — if he had a bottle of that before entering the Contest, he absolutely wouldn't have been so nervous right before taking the stage.

For the single-headed dragon, it was also an extremely good thing. As a Dragon-type Pokémon, it might still be relatively calm now, but after evolving, the burden brought by its massive power would inevitably make its temper relatively irritable.

The Awakening & Dehumidifying Fragrance would help it stay calm.

It had to be said, for Baimu this stuff had come at just the right time — once the single-headed dragon evolved, it would be ready to be put to use.

"Get up!"

He abruptly threw off the blanket.

The single-headed dragon beside him suddenly raised its head, looking slightly dazed, a string of clear drool still hanging from the corner of its mouth — the picture of being half-asleep.

But upon seeing it was just its trainer getting up to use the bathroom, the head it had lifted immediately drooped back down, thudding heavily onto the pillow and bouncing twice.

——

Before walking out of the hotel.

Baimu put on a baseball cap and deliberately scanned his surroundings, confirming no one was staking him out before striding off with long steps to somewhere else.

It wasn't that he was being conceited — there really were a lot of people looking for him.

Yesterday's Contest, after a night of fermenting, showed no signs of dying down; on the contrary, with the Contest organizers' recommendation, it had only grown more and more heated.

To be honest, Baimu and Mawile's performance was certainly outstanding, but it was far from deserving this level of popularity.

One could only say the Lucky Scale had once again exerted its power, bringing him a terrifying reputation — though correspondingly, he had to keep a low profile whenever he went out.

At least until he left Kanaz City.

And as the preeminent metropolis of Hoenn, one of its great merits was that all kinds of goods were relatively convenient to buy — as long as one was willing to look, normal merchandise that couldn't be purchased was rare.

Baimu wandered around a large shopping mall, and before long discovered a shop that specialized in selling all sorts of fragrance raw materials; inside, they even provided various tools and instruments for conveniently making handmade fragrance.

The fragrance shop was packed with people, mostly women, but upon seeing him come in they didn't think much of it — they glanced over casually and then looked away.

Baimu secretly relaxed and began picking out various raw materials.

Perhaps because of the price, the quality didn't look very good. He picked one up and smelled it, his face falling in disappointment.

In the dream's memory fragments, his sense of smell had been terrifyingly sharp — good and bad could be distinguished in an instant. But after returning to reality, even when he used his eyesight to pick out the superior items, his nose still couldn't give him the clear feedback it had in the dream.

The gap in his heart was somewhat large.

"Hello, may I help you with anything?" A staff member in the shop approached with a beaming smile.

Hearing this, Baimu picked up some of the not-very-good-quality raw materials from a few shelves and asked her whether she had any fresher stock.

The staff member listened in a daze, about to say these were all good goods, when a voice suddenly rang out from beside them.

"This customer will be attended to by me."

He looked over and saw that the speaker was an elegant, beautiful woman who, simply by standing there, had a fragrant breeze wrapped all around her. Upon seeing her, the staff member immediately lowered her head and withdrew.

From the whispered chatter of the surrounding customers, Baimu learned that the woman before him was the shop owner.

"Excuse me, sir, may I see the materials in your hand?" The female shop owner smiled broadly and held out her hand. After taking them, she examined them carefully for a moment, then held them under her nose and sniffed.

She smiled and said, "You have a good eye, sir — these really aren't fresh enough."

Hmm?

Hearing this, Baimu couldn't help feeling it was a little odd. Not-fresh-enough goods that you put on your shelves, and now you admit it in front of the customer?

What? Is this shop not planning to stay in business?

Sure enough, as the female shop owner's words came out, the expressions of the surrounding customers turned somewhat strange.

"But for ordinary people, this level is already sufficient — no matter how fresh, it can't affect the quality of the fragrance. May I ask what kind of fragrance you intend to make, sir, that you need materials of such high quality?" the female shop owner said unhurriedly.

Only after hearing this did the customers' expressions ease up.

Hearing this, Baimu gained a rough concept of how fragrance had developed over the years — in the past, fragrance had to guarantee fresh raw materials in order to maintain sufficiently good quality.

Did modern fragrance no longer need to be that fresh to produce a good fragrance?

Presumably they were using those instruments?

He glanced over at the instruments — the Fragrance Sister's memories had none at all — and said, "Just an ordinary Awakening & Dehumidifying Fragrance… Don't you have any especially fresh ones?"

"There are, yes." The female shop owner gave a look to a staff member beside her, and the latter immediately headed toward the warehouse.

The female shopkeeper continued, "But as far as I know, the Awakening and Dryness-Dispelling Essence doesn't require such fresh ingredients… Are you planning to make a purely handmade, old-method essence?"

"Old-method essence?"

Baimu looked at her and said, "I was indeed planning to make a purely handmade essence."

The female shopkeeper smiled and said, "It looks like you've only just stepped into the field of handmade essences. To be honest, please don't take offense, but there's actually no difference between a purely handmade old-method essence and one made with instruments.

"You don't need to be overly fixated on the purely handmade aspect. It's like all those multi-purpose special Poké Balls — they originally could only be handmade by Mr. Steel, but now the mass-produced machine-made ones are no different from the handmade ones, and the quality is even more stable."

"Mm-hmm."

Baimu nodded, very much agreeing with her, then said, "But I still need ingredients with a higher degree of freshness. Paying extra is no problem."

He couldn't use those instruments at all — he only knew how to make things purely by hand — and he was worried that Perfume-sister's products differed from modern ones, so he could only take high-quality raw materials back and slowly research them himself.

Seeing she couldn't persuade him, the female shopkeeper didn't press the matter. "Paying extra isn't necessary… I have ready-made Awakening and Dryness-Dispelling Essence here. Why don't you buy a bottle to take back and compare? I'm sure there won't be any difference."

"Point Guard Is Here"

"Alright, thank you."

Baimu nodded in agreement.

And as he left with the raw materials and finished product, a faint sigh seemed to drift from behind him.

"Sigh… another child deceived by those unscrupulous articles online. I hope he wakes up soon and stops wasting his time on such meaningless things."

"Yeah."

"He's pretty handsome too, the kids these days are better-looking than ever."

"Why do I feel like he looks a bit familiar?"

Baimu's footsteps quickened.