The Three Runaway Brothers!

Tong Si bought a small blackboard similar to the one outside the Elf Battle Club, and wrote on it: “Teaching ‘Thunderbolt’—Guaranteed Mastery!”

Eevee couldn’t help but add a drawing. Tong Si truly hadn’t expected that this little Eevee would be such a prodigy in art. It drew a self-portrait, then sketched an Elekid, along with a rough outline of Tong Si himself. At the end, it stamped its signature paw print onto the corner.

“Bui~”

Eevee signaled that the artwork was complete.

“Eevee, your drawing skills are genuinely impressive.” Tong Si patted its little head.

Eevee lifted its head and puffed out its chest with pride, as if saying: Go ahead, praise me more! If there’s some hand-crafted Alcremie ice cream as a reward, that would be perfect.

Tong Si couldn’t help but roll his eyes. This little thing could never stay serious for more than three seconds.

Then, Tong Si hung the small blackboard outside the nursery’s entrance.

“Tong Si!”

From a distance, Tong Si heard Song Xin calling. Their shops were not far apart, so they often ran into each other.

“Xin, it's you,” he replied, using the affectionate nickname he always called her, since she was a few years older than him.

“What have you hung up this time?” Song Xin approached, bringing with her a fresh, floral scent. She never used expensive perfumes but was surrounded by flowers all day, and their natural fragrance was all the more refreshing.

“Teaching Thunderbolt? Tong Si, you can teach elf skills now?” Song Xin read the board with some surprise.

Normally, if trainers wanted their elves to learn new skills, aside from leveling up naturally, they would buy skill discs and hope for the best. The luckiest trainers could teach their elves a skill with just one disc, while the less fortunate might burn through a dozen and still fail.

Apart from buying skill discs, there was another way: learning at a gym. Some gyms and powerful families possessed techniques passed down through generations. Becoming an apprentice at these gyms or a retainer of such families was a good way to learn new skills. But joining a gym or a prominent family was no easy feat; the requirements were strict and not everyone could make it.

Though Song Xin now ran a flower shop, she was a proper graduate of a prestigious university and knew these basics well.

“Of course I can, Xin. Do you have any electric-type elves? I guarantee yours will learn Thunderbolt within a week. As for the fee, just a ten-thousand credit deposit up front, and after your elf masters Thunderbolt, you’ll pay the remaining forty thousand. Since we’re friends, I’ll give you a thirty-one percent discount—how about it?”

One had to admit, Tong Si had quite the business sense. Usually, a Thunderbolt skill disc cost between twenty and thirty thousand credits, and even then, the success rate for learning the skill was only about thirty to forty-five percent—not even fifty-fifty. If you bought two discs, you'd be spending nearly fifty thousand credits, and the outcome was still uncertain.

Tong Si set his price at fifty thousand credits, but guaranteed success.

“You little rascal, trying to make a deal with your sister?” Song Xin shook her head with mock exasperation. “Too bad I don’t have any electric-types. Otherwise, I’d help your business out.”

After all, Tong Si was her flower shop’s very first customer. Business had been good lately, and she’d planned to treat him to breakfast as a thank you. She hadn’t expected that, before selling a single elf egg, Tong Si would already be launching a new project.

“That’s a shame, then,” Tong Si lamented the loss of a first customer.

“Come on, let’s have breakfast. My treat,” Song Xin insisted.

Though she couldn’t help his business, a meal was the least she could do to thank her lucky charm for the good fortune.

Tong Si didn’t refuse. While eating, they overheard people talking about the upcoming college entrance exams. After the exams, there would surely be a wave of students buying elf eggs. Though most families would purchase them in the city, and some would go directly to breeders like Grandpa Chu in the countryside, Tong Si was certain he’d have customers at his nursery as well.

After breakfast, Tong Si returned and began monitoring Elekid’s changes. Despite absorbing a large amount of electricity the day before, Elekid seemed perfectly normal.

He’d had two goals for visiting the power station: first, to test Elekid’s storage capacity for electricity; second, to see how long it could hold the energy.

From what he observed at the station, Elekid could currently hold enough power for two Thunderbolt attacks. Don’t underestimate two Thunderbolt’s worth of energy—each one was as powerful as a lightning strike, and Elekid could unleash two of them! On top of that, Elekid could multitask, firing both off simultaneously. In a battle, that could easily catch an opponent off guard.

But the length of energy storage was just as important. If Elekid ran out just before a battle, it would be a disaster.

A day passed quickly.

The next morning, the city fell silent as the college entrance exams began. Elekid’s stored electricity still hadn’t dissipated.

While in the courtyard, Tong Si unexpectedly discovered another wild elf.

A Sentret.

“I can’t believe these wild elves love my yard so much,” Tong Si mused. He had no intention of fixing the hole in the wall; only small elves like Rattata and Sentret could squeeze through, after all.

Using his scanning device, Tong Si checked their stats:

Rattata
Level: 2
Ability: Run Away
Quality: Common

Sentret
Level: 3
Ability: Run Away
Quality: Common

“All three have Run Away? Are they the Three Runaway Brothers?” he quipped.

When he approached, Rattata and Sentret darted through the hole in the wall, their escape speed truly impressive. Meanwhile, the Caterpie in the tree shut its eyes and stayed still, pretending to be nothing more than an ornament.

“Eevee, do you want to try a battle?” Tong Si decided his lazy Eevee shouldn’t be lounging around every day—it was time for a match.

“Bui~” Eevee shook its head and flopped to the ground, making it abundantly clear that it had no intention of fighting.

“Fine, you’re hopelessly lazy!” Tong Si sighed. But since Eevee didn’t want to battle, he wouldn’t force it—especially since he had Elekid as backup.

“Karp karp!”
“Karp karp...”

The two Magikarp splashed about energetically, making their presence known.

…(To be continued)