Chapter 39

"Dad, I have something to tell you."

"You should scold me however you want for leaving the family alone all these years." Flint's face carried a bit of guilt, and his voice was very low.

"Jiro loves red miso, Saburo prefers white miso, and Xiao Mei likes mixed miso, and also..." Brock counted on his fingers, carefully instructing on the trivial matters of the family, his tone as serious as if he were explaining some important task.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute..." Flint hurriedly took out the small notebook he carried with him. "I'll write it down, so I don't forget it again later."

At the entrance of the Pewter Gym, the father and son were huddled together, but it was the son who was nagging the father, the scene being a bit funny for a moment, making it hard to tell who was the elder.

Huo La stood not far away, watching this particularly warm scene of "fatherly kindness and filial piety," not stepping forward to disturb, just waiting quietly.

Yesterday evening, Brock suddenly knocked on his room door at the Pokémon Center. After entering, he was silent for a long time before softly spitting out two words: "Thank you."

Hearing this thank you, Huo La knew that Brock not only recognized his father Flint but probably had also decided to travel with himself—after all, if his mind hadn't been made up, Brock wouldn't have come to thank him specifically.

Especially later when Brock took out that Moon Stone from his backpack, Huo La was completely certain.

And precisely because of this, there was this reluctant farewell between father and son this morning.

Taking advantage of this gap, Huo La finally remembered the prompt the system popped up yesterday.

He was too tired to sleep after sending Brock away last night, and only now did he have the time to study that newly unlocked "Badge Display Interface."

He focused and opened the system panel, only to see a new icon next to the two icons that originally only had "Tasks" and "Pokémon Attributes." Strangely, this icon was not in the style of the dark gray badge, but rather the emblem of Team Rocket, revealing an indescribable strangeness.

Huo La frowned, temporarily suppressing the doubt in his heart, and clicked into the new interface.

After the interface finished loading, the one ranked at the very top was the dark gray badge he obtained yesterday, and there was a line of small text marked below the badge—【Permanent +5% proficiency for Rock-type Pokémon skills】.

"Permanent +5% proficiency for Rock-type skills..." Huo La stared at that line of small text, his eyes full of surprise.

Don't underestimate this 5% bonus—if two Pokémon have identical types and skills, this subtle difference in proficiency during battle is often the last straw that breaks the balance of victory.

However, compared to this little surprise, Huo La was more concerned about a key question, and immediately asked in his heart: "System, if the Rock-type skill proficiency has already been practiced to 100%, can this 5% still stack? Can it break through to 105%?"

"System is searching, please wait, Host... Search complete." The cold mechanical sound rang out at the right time, without a hint of emotion. "If skill proficiency has reached 100%, it cannot be directly increased to 105%... it will be reflected in the form of +5, +10."

"Oh, then there's nothing special about that..."

Before Huo La's voice fell, the system's voice came again, interrupting his train of thought: "... but when the Pokémon releases the corresponding skill, there will be a chance to trigger a double damage effect. The closer the total proficiency value is to 200%, the higher the trigger probability."

"What?!" Huo La opened his eyes wide abruptly, a stormy sea churning in his heart.

Double damage! This is almost equivalent to the effect of type advantage.

If you already have the advantage of type countering during battle, and then trigger this double damage—wouldn't that directly become quadruple damage? I'm afraid that with one skill, the opponent's Pokémon would be taken away directly.

Huo La hadn't fully recovered from the shock of double damage when Brock had finished instructing his father and walked quickly to his side.

He steadied his mind, looked at Brock, and asked with a smile: "Brother Brock, is everything settled?"

"Well, almost." Brock turned his head to look at his father who was still muttering to his notebook at the Gym entrance, and scratched his head a bit embarrassedly. "Although I still feel a bit uneasy, with Jiro helping to manage the Gym, there shouldn't be any trouble."

Huo La followed his gaze to look at Flint, then withdrew his gaze and went straight to the point: "I plan to go to Cerulean City to challenge the Gym next, striving to get the Cascade Badge. Brother Brock, what are your plans?"

"Me? Naturally, I'm going with you!" Brock's eyes lit up, his tone carrying a bit of expectation, and also a bit of self-mockery. "Speaking of which, it's shameful; I've stayed in Pewter City for so many years, and I haven't even been to Moonview Mountain outside the city. Compared to you who travel everywhere, I'm simply a 'travel newbie'."

Hearing this, Huo La's heart moved, and he immediately suggested: "Since that's the case, let's take the passage through Moonview Mountain. We can get directly to Cerulean City by going through the cave, and it can save a lot of road."

There were originally two roads to Cerulean City: one was a flat highway, and the other was a mountain path that required crossing the Moonview Mountain cave.

In fact, long before challenging the Pewter Gym, Huo La had calculated walking through the cave. He had originally thought about taking the opportunity to try his luck in Moonview Mountain to see if he could find a Moon Stone.

Later, Flint let Brock pass a Moon Stone to him, so he temporarily dismissed this idea.

But now hearing Brock say he had never left Pewter City, he felt that walking through Moonview Mountain was a good choice—it could take a shortcut, and also let Brock see the scenery outside.

More importantly, quite a few Zubat lived in Moonview Mountain—according to the original trajectory, this would be the first Pokémon Brock captured on his travel road. This fate, Huo La also wanted to leave to him.

"Moonview Mountain cave..." Brock pondered slightly, then his eyes lit up, and he nodded vigorously. "Okay! Let's go that way! I heard people say before that there are not only many Rock-type Pokémon in the cave, but even Clefairy appear. If I could see them with my own eyes, that would be great."

Huo La nodded and agreed with a smile.

But he secretly sighed in his heart: It's more than just "having" Clefairy; that place is simply a small gathering place for Clefairy.

If it followed the original plot, what Brock would encounter would be more than just ordinary Clefairy—he would also run into the scene of Clefairy collectively using Moon Stones to evolve into Clefable, which is rare in a hundred years.

"Sigh..." Huo La secretly pondered in his heart, "Anyway, Brock is already traveling with me now, should I specifically wait for a while and let him see that evolution with his own eyes?"

Once this thought popped up, it couldn't be suppressed anymore—after all, such a wonder couldn't be encountered just casually. It was only the fate of Ash, that biological son of Arceus, who could encounter strange and rare things that happen once in a hundred or even a thousand years wherever he went.

Just as Huo La was thinking this, Brock had already taken a step and walked toward Moonview Mountain, without any intention of stopping.