Cain entered the Pokémon Center, reserved a room, and locked himself inside with his Pokémon.
Previously, at the research base by Lake of Rage in Mahogany Town, Cain had acquired quite a few items, but due to his travels, he hadn't had time to go through them. Now, he could finally settle down and organize everything.
The most important thing is that the system managed to obtain fifteen percent of the vast amount of data from the research base.
"System, organize the data obtained earlier, extract all important information, and discard the disordered fragments into the data pile," Cain ordered mentally.
"Beep! Task set. Due to the large amount of data, the estimated analysis time is two days. Remaining time: 1 day, 23 hours, and 59 minutes."
Although the data acquired is vast, Cain hopes the system prioritized copying the most important data.
However, he still doesn't know the final result of the battle between Ariana and Pryce that day.
It's certain that Ariana was at a disadvantage, but as an executive of Team Rocket, she surely had a backup plan to escape, and Cain doesn't believe Pryce is the type to risk his life for the League.
Perhaps he would have for the League of old, but the current League, definitely not.
As one of the League's veterans, Pryce was assigned to a small place like Mahogany Town under the pretext of restricting Team Rocket, but everyone knew he'd actually been sidelined in the power struggle.
So, if Pryce obeyed blindly, that would be strange.
"Oh, right!" Cain suddenly remembered something.
He took a small glass vial out of his ring, containing a transparent green liquid.
This vial held half a test tube of green liquid that Cain had found on the fifth floor of the Lake of Rage base, just as he was about to leave, stuck between the cracks of a computer.
Since his escape, he hadn't thought about this item until he began analyzing the data with the system.
"System, analyze what this item is."
"Beep!..."
The system seemed to stall for a few seconds, possibly because it was in the middle of analyzing data, which kept its functions working at high capacity, causing a slight slowdown.
Object name: Evolution Elixir (possible)
Function: Accelerates the growth of Pokémon.
Usage: Unknown.
Note: This information is an estimation based on data fragments. Due to the volume of pending data analysis, please scan again once data decoding is complete.
Seeing the system's response, Cain fell into thought.
This half bottle of green liquid was probably the main result of Team Rocket's research at the Lake of Rage base, and it could accelerate the growth of Pokémon.
However, the specific effects were still unclear since the system's data had not yet been fully decoded.
To obtain detailed information, he would have to wait until the system's analysis was complete and then do a new review.
Cain had a vague recollection of this item, as in his past life, after leaving Judgment Island and entering Team Rocket's base in Mahogany Town, this item appeared on Team Rocket's exchange list.
The exchange cost was very high, but the effect was quite special: it could catalyze the evolution of some Pokémon that normally evolve slowly or accelerate the growth of others.
However, this item wasn't without side effects, and perhaps due to the League's surprise attack, the research was forced to stop, losing crucial data and leaving the project incomplete.
Pokémon that used this liquid showed accelerated growth, and even some Pokémon on the verge of evolution could evolve directly.
However, as a trade-off, the lifespan of Pokémon that used this catalyst was drastically reduced; for example, a Pokémon that normally lived a hundred years could see its lifespan cut to fifty, forty, or even thirty years.
The amount of life lost depended on the catalyst's effect, though in most cases, lifespan was reduced by half.
Initially, Team Rocket researched this catalyst to accelerate Pokémon growth and quickly turn lower-ranking members into effective fighting forces, which would narrow the gap with the League.
Also, some Pokémon, like Dragon-types or pseudo-legendaries, grow very slowly. With this catalyst, they could speed up their growth.
But the League caught wind of this development and knew that the potential impact of this drug could destabilize the current Pokémon world balance, so they launched an immediate attack. Although they couldn't acquire the drug, they ensured its destruction.
Luckily, the League acted before it was too late. The drug was still incomplete, with unremoved side effects and very high production costs.
Eventually, the League left it at that, as the high production cost made it unlikely to affect the global balance.
Later, Team Rocket deemed it not worthwhile to continue researching the catalyst and abandoned the project.
However, the fact that Team Rocket abandoned it didn't mean the main researchers did the same.
Professor Sebastian, the lead researcher of the "Evolution Elixir," didn't give up and continued his research to remove side effects and reduce costs at the Lake of Rage base.
This eventually led to the chaos of the Gyarados at Lake of Rage, but that's another story.
"So this half bottle of green liquid is the original prototype of the catalyst?" Cain murmured as he gently shook the vial in his hand.
This catalyst had major flaws, and Cain wouldn't use it on his own Pokémon, but that didn't stop it from being extremely valuable.
At this moment, he could exchange it with either Team Rocket or the League to obtain a large amount of resources.
However, for Cain, this item was problematic. If he brought it to light at this critical moment, it would be as if he were signing his own death sentence.
In that case, not only the League, but even within Team Rocket, they'd hunt him down and accuse him of treason, pursuing him until he was dead.
Cain returned the vial to the ring; if he wasn't planning to use it, it would be best to keep it hidden.
Besides the data obtained by the system and the vial with the drug, Cain's biggest haul was everything he took from the two mid-level League trainers who had attempted to capture him.
From both of their storage spaces, Cain acquired items worth close to a million.
But that wasn't the main thing. The main thing was their Pokémon: in total, there were ten Pokémon, most with yellow-rank potential, although some reached green-rank potential, and all were at a decent level, with the highest at level 37 and the lowest at level 29.
One could say Cain was quite lucky to defeat both, aided by the element of surprise in his attack.
(End of chapter)