Chapter 3: Team Member Examination

The Quicksand Team is a second-rate force.

It can't be compared at all to super-large criminal organizations like Team Rocket, which span several regions.

Therefore, its method of recruiting new members isn't as thoroughly prepared as Team Rocket's, and even seems somewhat rough.

The danger also greatly exceeds Team Rocket's examination.

"Your mission is very simple. Deep in the mine there are scattered jade deposits. Find a jade stone of any shape, bring it out and hand it to me. The time limit is until the sun rises tomorrow morning."

A tall, burly man with a rough appearance held a piece of Bai Yu in his hand, shouting at the mob of ruffians before him. Beside him, what looked like a short-legged, long-nosed elephant clad in heavy armor—a Donphan—let out a low roar.

Not far away.

Several bottomless abandoned pits exuded a cold, claustrophobic air, and the unpleasant smell of dust stung everyone's nostrils.

"Abandoned mine pits again—people are going to die, right?"

"Of course people will die in places nobody maintains regularly. What are you thinking? Didn't two die just last year?"

"The jade deposits deep inside… what if we can't find any?"

"Can I just dig one up outside?"

"You'd better worry first about whether you can come out alive. I heard there are Pokémon inside that'll attack you!"

"No way…"

Baimu, standing among the crowd, listened to the noisy chatter around him and couldn't help touching the iron ingot hidden on his chest.

This thing was no trouble to get hold of in Pyrite Town. With his status as a peripheral member of the Quicksand Team, he just had to say the word at the smelting plant and he'd get one easily.

He was mainly curious about what exactly this thing would do later on.

In yesterday's second simulation, the fixed talent hadn't changed. On the chosen-talent side, "Hot-Blooded Youth" was gone, replaced by 【Never Abandon (won't abandon Pokémon)】.

Having once suffered a huge loss from 【Peach Blossom Luck】, he'd have to be brain-dead to walk that road again, so he switched to 【Clumsy Hands (Pokémon health management is rough)】.

Rough health management can be gradually improved over the course of a journey—most trainers start from zero—but going through another romance that only holds him back is more than he can handle.

In the anime, from the Champion down to the Elite Four, and then to the Gym Trainers, among those of the younger generation, how many of them are in relationships?

Only Kukui didn't marry until he was older, and only then did he date and get married.

That alone says plenty.

The classic Pewter City shorts-wearing boy who starts with a Rattata emerged as the times demanded. His progress was just as rough as the bug-catcher's, and getting through the gyms relied entirely on luck and hot-bloodedness. The difference was that he caught a lot of duplicate Pokémon…

For example, catching multiple Rattata, Pidgey, and the like.

You could say he was picking strong individuals, but the shorts-wearing boy let each of them battle, spreading his attention evenly across training and fights, so his overall strength never improved much, making progress extremely difficult.

Therefore, even without the drag of a romance, when he barely reached the sixth gym he had to stop, enduring the torment of eight battles and eight losses.

Even in pixel style, Baimu could tell the shorts-wearing boy's mentality had completely shattered, so much so that by the time the tournament began he was still stuck at the sixth gym.

Still not having seen the gates of the Indigo Conference left Baimu rather speechless. He chose "Lv. 30 or below Pokémon gain one level" and "Move: Struggle," then went to sleep.

Then he greeted the next day full of energy.

A full member of the Quicksand Team isn't just about getting a Pokémon for free—the benefits are also much higher than those of peripheral members. Although his freedom is further restricted, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Best to fight for it.

"Baimu, aren't you nervous at all?"

A colleague's words interrupted his thoughts.

Baimu turned his head, glanced at the other's strange outfit that looked like a mountaineer's, and said, "Carrying all that, you won't be able to move easily."

"I think it's fine…" The man jumped a couple of times, looking very relaxed.

It's fine for now, that's all.

Baimu touched the mining cap on his head. To move easily, he wasn't carrying much—just a mining cap, a dust mask, a manganese-steel pickaxe, and some essentials like water and compressed food.

The Quicksand Team's entry examination has never been much of a secret. They like to set up artificial obstacles, like releasing a few Pokémon inside to attack participants, or setting traps and the like.

Therefore, agile movement is very important.

While waiting.

A commotion came from not far away.

"A dead-broke loser like you wants to pass the exam? You're killing me, hahaha—"

The piercing mockery made Baimu frown.

He exchanged glances with the colleagues he knew around him, and they all walked together toward where the noise was coming from.

Where there are people, there is the world. An organization like the Quicksand Team, which gains status through force, is even more so—internal disputes have never been in short supply.

Poor people with no backing like Baimu are countless within the Quicksand Team; on the opposite side are those with a bit of money and a bit of background. Each side has its own little clique, viewing the other with hostility and mutual contempt.

At times like this, the importance of sticking together for warmth becomes apparent.

The group approached the source of the noise and suddenly saw a bunch of fellows whose appearance was relatively clean and whose bearing differed from the surrounding thugs.

These ruffians were shoving a rather thin, frail-looking youth, laughing and jeering. From time to time they glanced at the other thugs watching nearby, and when they saw that no one dared meet their eyes, they turned back smugly.

"Ooh ooh ooh! The head honcho of the poor bastards is here. What, you here to back up your dead-broke losers? You got the strength for that?"

The leader of the ruffians saw them coming, shoved his hands in his pockets, and swaggered over with extreme arrogance, his target being Baimu—the tallest and most composed among them.

Unfortunately, he was nearly a head shorter than the latter, so he had to crane his neck to meet his gaze, his face full of provocation.

The gang of ruffians also laughed wickedly as they let go of the frail youth, planting themselves in front of Baimu and the others.

The two sides glared at each other, looking ready to start fighting at the slightest provocation.

"Whether I have the strength or not, you'll find out during the exam." Baimu pulled the frail youth behind him, his gaze sweeping over the others as he slightly raised his hand.

The ruffians were startled and involuntarily took half a step back.

Seeing his companions so cowardly, the leader couldn't help but flare up with anger. He sneered, "You think you can fight? So what if you can? Coming out into the world, you need power, you need backing. You little punk! Just you wait!"

Having said that.

He led his group off to the other side.

The person beside All Baimu, who had been tense, immediately breathed a sigh of relief and began comforting the frail youth.

"Don't be nervous. They aren't powerful enough to interfere with the assessment yet. Just relax."

An older person stepped forward and spoke, trying to dispel some of the hidden concerns among the crowd.

The troublemaker was named Shibata; his uncle counted as mid-level in the Quicksand Team — a squad leader-level figure. Although he still had to let his nephew take part in the dangerous assessment, to these barefoot nobodies, he was already a remarkable existence.

In this assessment, presumably some conveniences would be arranged for Shibata as well.

As for whether they would make a move against them, that was a question mark.

The Quicksand Team was short on people, so when the lower ranks fought among themselves, the mid- and upper-levels set a limit that could not be crossed — for example, no deaths, no crippling that would affect labor capacity, and so on.

The reason these hard-boned underlings dared to stand up to Shibata and his ilk was, in part, that they didn't believe the other side would take their lives — they trusted the Quicksand Team's cadres to maintain the balance between both sides.

It had never gone wrong before. As long as they stuck together and fought as a group, someone would step in to mediate, and even Shibata's uncle hadn't dared do anything to them.

However.

What about the possibility of secretly making a move on them during the assessment?

Knowing full well that they'd be called to account once the deed came to light, would they still strike at the fresh blood the Quicksand Team had to replenish?

Expecting small-time hoodlums to have any sense of the big picture, thinking a laugh could wipe away old grudges — that would be the most laughable thing of all. They had their own special way of thinking.

A thief who steals for a thousand days is already on edge; guarding against thieves for a thousand days is even more unbearable.

A way had to be found to settle this once and for all…

Easy to say. The assessment was already no walk in the park; where would he find the spare strength to set traps for Shibata?

All Baimu had quite a headache.

The conflict between the two sides had been irreconcilable even before his transmigration, completely cutting off any thought of keeping a low profile.

There was no choice.

Shibata and his lot had been throwing their weight around among the peripheral underlings for ages, bullying goodness knows how many people, branding those who kept their heads down as spineless — until they ran into All Baimu and his group, who knew how to stick together.

Their tougher backbones had, no doubt, made Shibata and his crew eat humble pie.

The two sides had also had several group brawls, each time defused by All Baimu through force.

As a result, Shibata and his lot had always regarded them as a thorn in their side, coming to cause trouble every few days.

Today was no exception.

In the end, the upper echelons' laissez-faire, quasi-gu-raising style of management was the root of the trouble.

A bunch of illiterates with little wit, many of whom had never even attended school, ran rampant on the strength of their shallow family backgrounds, doing whatever they pleased.

In Huang Tie Town, where the law's grip was weak and order depended entirely on the team's internal rough justice, scenes like this were commonplace.

The environment shaped Shibata's thinking. Ever since he tasted the sweetness of bullying others without paying any "price," and his various rotten behaviors were rarely checked, "fawning on superiors and bullying those below" became the basic logic in his heart.

Fortunately, All Baimu's constitution was decent.

The human body in the Pokémon world was fascinating — it could be so weak as to be bedridden for years, or so strong as to shatter stone with fists and snap wood with legs, single-handedly fighting — and even using moves against — many Fighting-type Pokémon.

He was working toward that latter direction, and now had already far surpassed his peers.

Such a superior physical talent made him quite delighted.

"Assessment begins! The first batch heading into the cave, come over for inspection. If you're carrying any jade stones, hand them over yourselves! Don't blame me for not warning you if Donphan smells them!"

The examiner's bellows and Donphan's lowing rose and fell one after another.