-124- Mastering Defensive Draws (Please Subscribe!)

After all three Pokémon entered meditation, Tong Si temporarily left the room.

The Heartflow Dojo had a Skill Pavilion dedicated to storing manuals for Psychic-type moves.

Unlike skill discs, skill manuals were more like books and instructional videos. They allowed a Trainer to study a move and then personally teach it to a Pokémon. Alternatively, the Pokémon could watch the instructional video repeatedly and work out how to use the move on its own.

Incidentally, when a skill disc and a skill manual were used together, the chances of a Pokémon learning the move increased dramatically.

Of course, Tong Si had the System to teach moves, so he had little need for either skill discs or skill manuals. The reason he had come to the Skill Pavilion was simply to see whether there was any way to improve Shuckle’s use of Psychic-type moves.

Although Shuckle could use Psychic-type moves, it did not possess the Psychic typing itself, so the effectiveness of those moves had always been rather poor.

After looking through the manuals, Tong Si discovered that most of them were purely instructional and contained almost no special tricks.

This left him somewhat troubled.

“What if I have Shuckle learn Guard Split and Power Trick while we’re at it?”

Tong Si pondered the idea. He had already spent two hundred thousand Alliance Coins, after all. He could not let the money go entirely to waste.

The Psychic energy in the Heartflow Dojo was especially abundant. If Shuckle learned new Psychic-type moves here, might it not achieve twice the result with half the effort?

With that thought in mind, Tong Si borrowed copies of Guard Split and Power Trick from the Skill Pavilion.

The two discs contained instructional videos for the respective moves.

Tong Si carried them back to the room.

The three Pokémon were still contemplating the Psychic energy. None of them had been slacking off.

Tong Si felt gratified.

Eevee’s transformation during this period had been visible to the naked eye. It had finally stopped fooling around and was willing to devote itself wholeheartedly to special training.

“Shuckle, let’s learn some new moves!”

Tong Si said to Shuckle.

This time, he did not use the System to teach it. Instead, he chose to have Shuckle learn from the discs.

He inserted the instructional discs into the player in the room. They contained detailed lessons specifically designed for teaching the moves.

Tong Si saw that the instructor was an Alakazam.

Beside it sat an elderly man who provided explanations.

Together, they explained every detail of Power Trick and Guard Split with extraordinary clarity.

Shuckle began to contemplate the lessons.

Since it already knew Power Split, learning Guard Split went relatively smoothly.

Power Trick, however, proved considerably more difficult.

“What’s going on? Could it be that Shuckle’s level is too low, and it still lacks the ability to learn Power Trick?”

Tong Si put forward a hypothesis.

Because Elekid and Eevee had both used the moves taught through the System with ease, Tong Si had never considered the factor of level.

In reality, Shuckle could not learn Power Split and Guard Split until it reached level thirty-five.

Power Trick, meanwhile, could not be learned until level fifty-five.

The gap was simply too large.

“If that’s really the case, then raising its level is the only path forward…”

Tong Si looked at Shuckle before him and fell into thought.

He had long researched several possible development paths for Shuckle, including a one-hit knockout strategy built around Power Trick, Gyro Ball, and Earthquake.

There was also a more troublesome strategy combining Power Trick, Power Split, and Guard Split.

But the most serious problem at present was that Shuckle’s level was too low. Because of that, none of these plans could be put into practice just yet.

“All right…”

Tong Si spread his hands and let out a breath.

It seemed he had simply been too impatient.

Shuckle’s development could not be rushed.

At any rate, he had reddish-brown energy cubes, and Shuckle now had a fifth development path available to it—

a Fighting-type route.

There was no need to hurry. Tong Si decided to take things slowly.

For the next two days, Tong Si remained at the Heartflow Dojo. He did not even attend his classes at school, skipping them outright.

The abundant Psychic energy in the dojo allowed both Elekid and Shuckle to improve in their use of Psychic-type moves.

Elekid’s Light Screen had become visibly thicker and sturdier.

Tong Si had Eevee attack the Light Screen Elekid created, but for a while, Eevee could not break through its defenses at all.

Clearly, Elekid’s Light Screen had advanced.

As for Shuckle, its use of Power Split had become smoother than before, leaving aside Rest for the moment.

At the same time, relying on its own insights and the dense Psychic energy around it, Shuckle had actually learned Guard Split at the Heartflow Dojo.

This had not been taught by Tong Si through the System. Shuckle had comprehended it entirely through its own understanding.

That showed Shuckle possessed at least some talent in the Psychic field.

After Shuckle learned Guard Split, Tong Si felt that the two hundred thousand Alliance Coins he had spent at the Heartflow Dojo had not been wasted after all.

Just that one move, Guard Split, had already made the entire investment worthwhile.

After all, exchanging Guard Split through the System would have cost more than a hundred thousand points.

In effect, Tong Si had obtained Guard Split for free at the Heartflow Dojo.

As for achieving unity between Trainer and Pokémon, that truly was not easy.

After spending two days at the Heartflow Dojo, Tong Si finally learned that the chief of the Four Heavenly Kings of Coastal Province had actually come from the dojo.

He had never heard of this before.

Still, Tong Si admired the Heartflow Dojo for never using the fact that it had produced a member of the Four Heavenly Kings as a gimmick to promote itself.

It was a noble quality indeed—to remain unstained despite emerging from the mire.

That said, Heartflow was truly difficult.

Tong Si had spent two days at the dojo and discovered that although the apprentices worked extremely hard, very few of them could genuinely enter a state of Heartflow.

He very much wanted to achieve that same unity between Trainer and Pokémon, but as he looked at the three Pokémon before him, he felt that it would be difficult for now.

When he returned to the breeding shop, the two Pokémon eggs in the hatching machine were finally about to hatch.

One was an Azurill egg. As soon as the old man learned that the Azurill had hatched, he hurried over to collect it.

The other was the child of the Barboach and a certain fish in the courtyard—a little Barboach.

When Tong Si carried the little Barboach to the backyard, the Pokémon there became extremely excited.

They had welcomed a new companion.

The most enthusiastic, naturally, were the two foolish fish.

“Caru! Caru!”

“Caru… Caru…”

The two Caru Monsters splashed about wildly, as though competing for custody of the child.

The Barboach also emerged from the pond.

As the hardest worker around, it tirelessly loosened the soil every day.

But upon seeing its child hatch, it could no longer concern itself with its work. It hurried over to care for its baby.

“Ludicolo!”

Seeing this, Ludicolo could not resist singing and dancing.

The look it directed at the four female Harp Monsters seemed rather impure.

…To be continued.