Chapter 291: Suspicious Patch

What a shame.

Baimu had made the trip for nothing.

Even though he had long been mentally prepared, actually discovering he had come to the wrong place was still a little vexing.

So what now?

Was he really going to have to go to Kalos to find Hu Pa for help? At this stage the plot of "The Ultra Beast of the Light Wheel" probably hadn't even started — he had been keeping an eye on information online, and at this point it likely hadn't even begun "The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie."

If the plot hadn't started, there was no way to find Hu Pa — after all, there were simply no traces of the Valley of Creation on the internet.

He had no idea how to find Hu Pa through the Valley of Creation.

For now, Baimu could only continue monitoring online intelligence on Lugia while setting out once more on a journey through the Hoenn region.

But strictly speaking, this brief trip wasn't entirely fruitless — the young Silver was still in its growth phase, so it might not have had other things, but naturally shed feathers were as plentiful as one could want.

Seeing Baimu pick up its feathers, it had looked delighted and had plunged straight behind the waterfall to fetch a huge pile of them.

Even the elder Lugia shook loose two of its own and gave them to him.

"No need for that many, no need for that many— oof! This is—!"

Baimu hurriedly stopped the young Silver from diving back behind the waterfall to find more feathers for him, and as he reached out, a crystal-clear, teardrop-shaped gemstone tumbled out of the feather pile onto the ground.

"A Mystic Water?"

He looked at the young Silver, who peered at it curiously for a moment, then lost interest once it realized it was just a rock and pulled its head back.

The elder Lugia clearly recognized its worth, but magnanimously nudged Baimu's outstretched hand with its snout, indicating that this item was his to take as well.

"Then I'll accept it. Thank you."

Baimu reached out and stroked the elder Lugia's neck, then stroked the young Silver's neck as well.

In terms of feel, the former was obviously a touch rougher, while the latter was so slippery that running a hand along its feathers sent it zipping straight to the bottom in one go.

Bidding farewell to the mother and child Lugia.

Baimu walked out of the cave, where Aqua and the rest of the Aqua Team members had long been waiting; they waved to him from the shore.

"Did you get the information you wanted?"

"No."

He shook his head.

"I see… I'm sorry we couldn't be of much help this time." Aqua offered an apology, as if with a sigh.

After all, the main reason for this dive had been to deliver Baimu to meet the Lugia; asking them face-to-face why they had appeared in Hoenn had only been a secondary objective.

Who would have thought they'd run into an entirely different Lugia.

"You've already helped me a great deal, and if fate wills it, we'll definitely meet when we're meant to." Baimu gave Aqua a smile.

The die was cast; no matter how much he agonized over it, that Lugia wasn't going to suddenly appear before him.

——

The search for Lugia was, for now, put on hold.

Returning to the research lab in Mauville City.

Baimu posed a question to Professor Akihabara about whether Porygon2 still had room for further evolution.

Hearing this, the latter's expression turned a little uneasy.

"Um… there is, but… something actually went wrong in the middle."

"What do you mean?"

"It's hard for me to explain all at once, but in any case, Porygon2 is already an outstanding Pokémon! With it by your side, you absolutely won't lose to any trainer."

"I know that, but Professor, when you beat around the bush like this, it makes me very nervous."

"Eek!"

Professor Akihabara frantically ruffled his hair, and just as Baimu thought he had pushed too hard and upset him, the professor whispered, "I'll tell you, but you absolutely must not tell anyone else!"

"Deal!" Baimu nodded.

Then, under the professor's explanation, he was treated to a most outlandish story.

"Unit-00 vanished inside cyberspace — disappeared!?"

Unit-00 and Unit-01 were both Porygon that the professor had originally developed — the very two that had appeared in the anime.

"That's right."

Professor Akihabara nodded, his face a picture of anguish. "I tried sending Unit-01 to look for it, but in the end I still couldn't find it. Worried that Unit-01 might disappear too, I shelved the matter for the time being."

Yawen Bar

In the anime world, the birth of Porygon-Z came about through a certain stroke of luck. At the time, academic circles were abuzz with discussions about other-dimensional space; many experts and scholars were eager to know whether humans could travel to other dimensions and explore other worlds.

Professor Akihabara, wanting to ride that wave of popularity, wrote a program that would allow Porygon2 to live in other-dimensional space. Yet for some unknown reason, every time he finished developing a portion of the program and went to rest, he would come back to find the progress had advanced considerably beyond where he'd left off.

At first, he assumed it was a prank by one of his assistants or some friend; seeing nothing wrong with the program, he simply kept coding. Until one day, unable to contain himself any longer, he secretly spied — and discovered that the author was none other than Porygon2 Unit-00!

This discovery left Professor Akihabara both shocked and thrilled, with a touch of creeping dread — after all, the faculty of "creation" was widely regarded as a prerogative of humanity, and yet here was a Pokémon he had developed, busily writing its own evolution program.

How could he not be thrilled?

On top of that, Professor Akihabara was possessed of a certain adventurous spirit to begin with, so he simply pretended not to notice and tacitly allowed Unit-00 to keep writing the program, right up until the day the upgrade patch was complete.

At first, everything went smoothly. Porygon2 changed its form once more, and Professor Akihabara dubbed it Porygon-Z.

But who could have expected that Unit-00, the first to evolve into Porygon-Z, would rebel! It attacked Professor Akihabara, wrecked the lab, and fled into cyberspace, never to return.

To retrieve it, Professor Akihabara first dispatched Unit-01, which was still a Porygon2. Unfortunately, Unit-01 couldn't overpower Unit-00 in terms of aggression. After agonizing over it, the professor modified the upgrade patch that Unit-00 had helped create, causing Unit-01 to evolve alongside it and become a Porygon-Z as well.

The two Porygon-Z clashed fiercely in cyberspace. In the end, Unit-00 escaped, and Unit-01, unable to catch up and itself beginning to grow unstable, was brought back by Professor Akihabara.

Clearly, even with the subsequent modifications, the patch Unit-00 had produced was still problematic.

The professor therefore classified that upgrade patch as a 【Suspicious Patch】 and sealed it away, and to this day he has continued to work hard at restoring Unit-01 to normal.

Up until now.

"The vanished Unit Zero… another one of those stories that's terrifying the more you think about it."

All Baimu couldn't quite stand these scientists—when they went mad, they really went mad; they clearly knew something might be wrong and still gambled on it.

Yet afterward they never managed to fully resolve it…

Fortunately.

It probably had nothing to do with him.

All Baimu said goodbye to the Marine team and the Akihabara Professor, and very soon received the first batch of sponsorship fees—five million.

According to Aizumi, the sponsorship fee was calculated by quarter, meaning payment once every three months.

For a period of one year.

To All Baimu this seemed rather unbelievable—only one year? Was it because they had no confidence in him, or were they being too considerate? Shouldn't it normally start at three years?

God knows.

Anyway, for him the fact that the Pokémon now had food money was very worth celebrating; he finally didn't have to worry about being unable to afford raising a Druddigon, or even more pseudo-legendaries.

Once Druddigon evolved someday, All Baimu decided he would use the saved-up stat-selection clue reward.

Yesterday this little fellow had just happened to reach level forty while learning Dragon Rush, only ten levels short of the in-game level requirement.

With the emulator's help, that was only about a month away.

But honestly, if a different pseudo-legendary had been swapped in, it would probably have already fully evolved by now—one could only say, worthy of being the Pokémon with the longest evolution cycle.

"You've got to grow up faster! My little dinosaur!"

He lifted the fur on Druddigon's neck and puffed it out to both sides of its cheeks; the latter gave a muffled reply.

"Mo Nao!"