Chapter 686: The Chubby Fluffy Eevee

Since the Bear Cub's cultivation speed was truly a bit "too fast," by the time Luo Mu brought it back to the original area after it had recovered some mobility, Peipei and the others had only just finished preparing.

"Teacher, I plan to use these two for the battle!" Peipei was the first to rush before Luo Mu, excitedly pulling out two red-and-white balls.

"Oh?"

Luo Mu's gaze fell upon those two red-and-white balls, his eyebrows arching as a premonition already formed in his heart.

"Then release them for me to see."

"Hehe!" Peipei grinned broadly, holding both hands to press the release buttons in the center of the Poké Balls simultaneously.

The red-and-white Poké Balls popped open with a "Boom," two beams of red light tracing elegant arcs through the air before finally coalescing into two towering figures.

One was the Past Paradox Dragon, deep crimson from head to toe and robustly built.

The other was the Future Paradox Dragon, covered entirely in metal and radiating a futuristic technological aura.

—Koraidon and Miraidon!

In a few days, Professors Sada and Turo, their vacation ended, would have to take them back beneath the Great Crater of Paldea, so Peipei seized this opportunity to bring them out for one last stroll.

Watching this kid's foolishly happy expression now that he had gradually shed his gloomy style, Luo Mu let out a deep sigh.

This was the advantage of having good parents; despite them being legendary Pokémon, this fool had directly brought two of them. If placed in any other league, they could probably rampage through the League Conference, forcing even Darkrai-users like Tobias to step aside.

It could be said he had directly reached the destination that most trainers could never arrive at in their entire lives.

Although Luo Mu wouldn't mind seeing Peipei act as the big boss with Koraidon and Miraidon to broaden Wuli and Danyu's horizons.

But while accepting Koraidon's charging "full-force licking attack," Luo Mu crossed his arms.

"The use of Pokémon not raised by oneself is prohibited!"

—The enthusiastic big doggy Koraidon and the aloof big kitty Miraidon suffered the misery of being permanently banned.

In the end, Peipei could only give up on his idea of using Koraidon and Miraidon to crush weaker opponents with tears in his eyes but no voice to cry out, joining the five-person rock-paper-scissors queue with a guilty look on his face.

Luo Mu's grouping method was very simple: everyone played rock-paper-scissors against each other, with the first two winners forming a pair, and the next two winners forming another; if three winners emerged in the first round, they would replay.

—As for the last person to lose, since there were only five students present, naturally, they would fight a match against Luo Mu, the teacher.

Only heaven knew how turbulent the emotional fluctuations were in expressionless Mudan's heart upon learning this news.

She wasn't like that idiot Peipei, nor was she like Hearing Nimo or Wuli, those brain-dead fans of Luo Mu who considered battling him a blessing from the Goddess of Luck.

Her mind was focused on only one thing.

—Absolutely cannot expose the fact that she and her dear Eevee family had been shut-ins for this entire month.

The probability of exposure was greatest when matched against Luo Mu for battle.

Therefore, losing in rock-paper-scissors was ab-so-lute-ly not al-low-ed!

As for Pipa, who had persisted in training throughout the holiday and even practiced bare-handed sparring with her Fighting-type Pokémon daily, she now stared wide-eyed at Mudan, who was nearly igniting in a literal physical sense.

Danyu, on the other hand, didn't care who she battled; if forced to say, she was similar to Wuli, quite looking forward to fighting Luo Mu.

—And then there was Peipei; this kid had spent the entire month solely enjoying long-overdue familial love and family reunion moments, so he truly hadn't persisted in any training.

He himself knew clearly that without counting Koraidon and Miraidon, he had most likely remained stationary in his progress.

Even worse, the prolonged lack of battle and training had likely caused his and his Pokémon's conditions to decline somewhat.

He truly did not want to be publicly executed by Luo Mu!

Thus, two students ignited with fighting spirit, two filled with anticipation, and one indifferent to victory or defeat, embarked on a chaotic rock-paper-scissors contest.

The final result was quite dramatic.

In the first round, Wuli, whose mind was entirely filled with the desire to battle Luo Mu, stared blankly at his scissors gesture while everyone else uniformly showed paper.

He could only become the first winner with a face full of reluctance.

In the second round, Peipei, Mudan, and Danyu all played rock against Pipa's scissors, resulting in a win for the trio, so this round was voided.

In the third round, Pipa won alone with scissors.

In the fourth round, Mudan and Danyu played paper, which happened to defeat Peipei, who stood frozen in place still holding his rock gesture.

Pipa versus Wuli, Mudan versus Danyu, Peipei versus Luo Mu.

"Alright, the results are settled like this."

Luo Mu clapped his hands with a beaming smile, his malicious gaze sending a shiver through Peipei's entire body.

At this moment, the only comfort for Peipei was that he and Luo Mu would be battling last.

The first battle was between Pipa and Wuli, as the earlier winners.

Both sides could be considered "hard-working" competitors, but Wuli might hold a higher advantage in terms of talent.

At the same time, as a trainer, Pipa's longer accumulation of time could allow her to make up for some of the talent gap with Wuli.

Under the collision of various conditions, the two sides ultimately staged a splendid 2-versus-2 Pokémon battle.

Wuli sent out his ace, Dipplin, along with his core strength, an Incineroar that had evolved from a Litten he encountered in the Terarium after enrolling at Blueberry Academy.

On Pipa's side, her first pick was undoubtedly her starter partner, an Annihilape they had trained and grown up with together.

But Pipa's second choice surprised Luo Mu somewhat.

It wasn't an Ursaluna, which held a type advantage against Incineroar, could learn Fighting-type moves, and wouldn't fall behind in terms of size.

—Instead, it was another "starter," Blaziken.

The battle between Annihilape and Dipplin was quite spectacular; Annihilape calmly dealt with the biting and besieging of the snake-worms thanks to rich combat experience, then endured the combined burst of "Random Beam" with its solid physique and willpower, finally leveraging the characteristics of "Anger Fist" while covered in wounds to secure the victory.

Watching this, the Bear Cub's eyes were full of admiration.

From the first match alone, one could see the gap in combat experience between Pipa and Wuli.

But alas, this kid Wuli was truly a freak of talent combined with a hard worker, something evident just from the completeness of his Pokémon training.

In the second match, Incineroar versus Blaziken, theoretically the strength difference between the two sides wasn't large, yet Blaziken possessed an absolute type advantage.

However, the actual situation was that the Incineroar withstood the pressure, fighting fiercely against Blaziken for a long time, before finally using a hidden trump card, the Flying-type move "Acrobatics," to catch Blaziken off guard and achieve a mutual knockout.

Although the two battles weren't continuous, nor did they include double battles where Incineroar excelled more to show off its prowess.

But Luo Mu could still see that during the time Uli had returned to Blueberry Academy after he gave his advice, he had done his utmost to compensate for Incineroar's weaknesses.

At the very least, it had become much more flexible in its move combinations.

The first battle ultimately ended with Pipa achieving one win and one draw, defeating Uli by a narrow margin.

In the second battle between Peony and Danya, Luo Mu saw at a glance just how well Peony and her Eevee family had been living.

—Have you ever seen a Sylveon or a Flareon with bulging fat on their bellies?

At least now, Luo Mu had seen it with his own eyes.

For the Fire-type Flareon, it was understandable; accumulating high heat normally made it easy to gain weight.

Just look at the big-bellied Charizard next door, the plump Emboar, and even the Moltres that Luo Mu had witnessed personally; weren't they all like this?

But no matter how you looked at it, a fat Sylveon was simply indefensible.

The Sylveon's originally agile, ethereal, and fairy-like posture had become distorted; heaven only knew how collapsed Luo Mu's expression had been at the time.

As expected, realizing it was truly difficult to hide the fact that she had slacked off for a month, Peony didn't even bother struggling with her Tera Orb and suffered a humiliating zero-to-two defeat.

After the battle ended, Luo Mu stared for a long time at Peony, who was no longer making sharp-tongued remarks but instead looked extremely guilty, before finally leaving her with one heartless sentence.

"After returning to the academy, physical training starts tomorrow; not only do your Eevees need to lose weight, but you, as a Trainer, must lead by example. I will have Professor Professor Huangbo, who is stationed at the school, keep an eye on you."

"Be prepared."

"No—!"

Hearing Luo Mu's cold and heartless words, Peony stood frozen in place as if struck by lightning.

Make her, an indoor girl, get up at six o'clock every morning to run?

Six o'clock in the morning was her bedtime!

Gulp! It would be better to just kill me and be done with it!

However, Luo Mu's mind was made up, and he believed most people would support his decision.

A chaotic existence like a fat Sylveon was better off never appearing again.

After the judgment on Peony concluded, it was time for the battle between Luo Mu and Penny.

Looking at Penny, who was covered in sweat, Luo Mu lifted his chin.

"Me first or you first?"

"Who goes first doesn't really matter, does it?"

Having witnessed Peony's fate, Penny had already vaguely sensed his own future.

Every second now felt to him like being before an "execution," making his heart pound with nervousness.

From the very beginning, he had never thought he could defeat Luo Mu.

Even using Koraidon and Miraidon wouldn't work.

The facts were indeed so.

Luo Mu sent out his Bug and Fire-type Volcarona first, while Penny sent out his Grass and Fire-type Arboliva.

Penny believed that within his team, Arboliva, which maintained "vitality" for long periods and liked to run around on its feet, was the least likely to show signs of poor condition.

But when Arboliva actually faced Volcarona, Penny was instantly stunned.

—Volcarona was almost unilaterally suppressing the fully evolved Arboliva in terms of firepower.

Those fiercely burning flames made Penny nearly mistake that Victini was invisible and buffing Volcarona.

He was quite clear about the time when Volcarona had hatched.

How, after not seeing it for a while, had this little—well, a bug nearly reaching his waist wasn't exactly small anymore.

How, after not seeing it for a while, had Volcarona become so fierce?

Luo Mu did not explain to Penny why Volcarona had become stronger again, but instead coldly pointed out:

"Compared to before the break, Arboliva's strength has hardly changed at all."

Cold sweat instantly invaded Penny's back, but this was still okay; at least Luo Mu hadn't said the three words "has regressed."

After Arboliva fell, Penny hesitated repeatedly before finally sending out his own Ao Ao Jiaofu.

Since Ao Ao Jiaofu usually lay down, and had done so during this month of happy family reunion time as well, its figure hadn't developed horizontally like the Eevee family that had slacked off for a month, so it shouldn't attract Luo Mu's attention.

To deal with Ao Ao Jiaofu, Luo Mu directly sent out Feng Su Gou.

No matter what, Ao Ao Jiaofu was Penny's ace; Volcarona found it somewhat difficult to handle, whereas Feng Su Gou, an old opponent, was more suitable for the task.

But the result left Luo Mu slightly disappointed.

Although Penny hadn't gone backwards like Peony, his progress was completely invisible in both Ao Ao Jiaofu and Arboliva.

Unlike Pipa, Danya, and Uli, who had all improved significantly compared to his last impression of them.

Luo Mu could roughly guess that this kid had probably been busy enjoying long-overdue family time.

For such a reason, Luo Mu personally could not blame him for anything.

He just stared at Penny until the latter's legs were about to give way, then sighed and said in a deep voice: "The training intensity will increase from now on; work hard to adapt to it."

"You haven't forgotten what your goal is, have you?"

Upon hearing this, Penny's guilty expression immediately turned serious.

After a long silence, he honestly nodded his head.

Of course, he hadn't forgotten his goal.

It was to possess the strength to cross the Paldea Great Crater alone, also known as Area Zero, so he could meet his mom and dad whenever he wanted.

Although this goal lacked ambition, it was extremely important to Penny personally.

This was also the reason he had nodded so honestly.

With the strength test, which was one of the main objectives, concluded, the results, except for Peony, basically did not exceed Luo Mu's expectations by much.

Pipa, Danya, and Uli's progress was visible to the naked eye, proving that they had not slackened in their cultivation even during the break.

After praising them just for this, Luo Mu left them to explore the surrounding environment.

After all, since this was field training, the main points were contacting nature, gaining new experiences, and even encountering compatible Pokémon that suited them.

Luo Mu had no intention of making Mudan start training right now; having her help set up the tent and prepare the ingredients for their upcoming meal with Peper was enough of a reprieve for her.

—However, there was absolutely no room for negotiation regarding the daily morning training once they returned to the academy.

Time slowly passed, and soon, they had established a temporary base on the flat ground near the water source.

Although building a campsite by the water carried a risk of flooding, the ecosystem and weather here at Raging Falls were very stable, so such an incident was basically impossible.

By the time lunch was cooked, the trio of Carmine, Kieran, and Lian, who had been exploring the surrounding natural scenery, also returned to the camp.

However—Kieran and Carmine's expressions were clearly somewhat off.

When Luo Mu asked about this, the siblings exchanged a glance, then nervously recounted their recent discovery.

"Behind a small waterfall, we found a strange lid firmly sealed by four massive chains!"

(End of Chapter)