It's not unheard of for a Pokemon that speaks human language to appear—there's one right next to us, Team Rocket's Meowth.
But besides Meowth, Gastly is the second Pokemon Ash and his friends have encountered that can speak human language.
And as soon as it spoke, it was shocking—this Gastly actually knew Ash has Aura Power?
Never mind how Gastly detected Aura Power within Ash, the mere fact that it knows about Aura Power is already quite surprising. After all, even Misty and Brock didn't know what Aura Power was initially.
"Is this the culprit behind hypnotizing Brock?" Misty asked weakly from behind Ash.
After hearing that Gastly could talk, Misty was already extremely surprised, let alone the fact that it knew Ash had Aura Power.
Combined with Brock's bizarre behavior earlier, Gastly seemed incredibly strange no matter how you looked at it.
"That's right, it's him. My Aura Power sensed his presence just now, and there's a force on him linking to Brock and James. He must have used Hypnosis or similar skills," Ash said confidently, nodding.
Hypnosis doesn't just put people to sleep; there's a higher-level skill that can make the sleeping person follow commands.
This Gastly obviously knows that skill, which is how it can control James and Brock.
"After arriving here, I vaguely heard a beautiful woman calling to me. Was that Gastly's doing?" Brock said with a slightly gloomy expression.
That unhappy look wasn't just because he almost fell off a cliff, but because he was tricked. The beautiful lady was actually fake, which was really infuriating!
"Me too, me too! When I saw that girl, my whole mind was drawn to her. I was wondering how it was so strange, and it was you causing it!" James nodded vigorously too.
"Tsk tsk, I only did it to make the legend of this region spread further, not really intending for you to jump off the cliff," Gastly explained nonchalantly, his gaze still fixed on Ash.
"Young man, how about this: let's each take a step back. You return to your place, and I'll stop causing trouble. How does that sound?"
For a moment, everyone's eyes were on Ash. They didn't expect that this seemingly mighty Gastly would actually be willing to negotiate with Ash, possibly even a bit intimidated.
For Gastly to be so respectful to Ash, it's either a very polite Gastly—which we can rule out—or Ash's powers surpass Gastly's imagination, making it appear so deferential.
Now, it seems likely to be the latter... Once this thought appeared in everyone's minds, they couldn't help but show peculiar expressions. Was this possible—a human, instilling fear in an apparently mighty Gastly, and compelling it to ceasefire and back down?
"You're just going to let it slide after what you did to my friends?" Ash didn't agree to Gastly's proposal but asked back instead.
"Hey, your friend didn't come out of it hurt, right? How about this: I'll offer you a bit of compensation; how about this thing?" Gastly said, opening its mouth wide and spitting out something resembling a charm.
"This is a Spell Tag, one of the items you humans frequently talk about carrying. But it's different from those in your human world—I've nurtured this within me for a thousand years!"
"A typical Spell Tag can increase Ghost Type damage by 20%; this one... can increase it by 35%! In your human world, it would be an invaluable treasure. Using it as compensation doesn't sound like a bad deal, does it?"
Upon hearing this, Brock and Misty looked extremely shocked, whereas Jessie and the others remained indifferent.
Because they didn't understand just how precious this item really was.
Is a 35% increase a lot?
"Ash, take it. This thing outside can't be bought even with money. Even the Celestial King Champion would go crazy for this item, especially Trainers using Ghost Type Pokemon," Brock quietly advised Ash, urging him to accept the item.
If they can acquire this item on this trip, despite the scares, it would absolutely be 'worth the price.'
Swapping a little fright for such an item, why not make such trades as often as you can!
Misty also quietly said, "If you have no concept of its value, Ash, you can think of it as being worth a billion."
Ash: !!!
Originally Ash had no real concept of it; all this talk of rarity, public frenzy—who understands that sort of thing!
But if you say it's worth a billion, now that's different. Now I understand—it's indeed an invaluable item!
A billion in money, if not spent recklessly, is enough to fund his travels for a lifetime!
"Hey, hey! Are you discriminating against us? We also got shocked over here, and you're just compensating the kid, nothing for us? Isn't that a bit too much?" Jessie's spicy tone rang out, showing a face full of displeasure.
If we're talking about victims, there's one on their side too!
That charm may look ugly, but from Gastly's description, it should be an invaluable treasure. Why only give it to Ash and not to them? Is it discrimination?!