Chapter 24: with translation of chapter title

First is the Croaking Bubble Frog that fights the hardest, is the bravest, and has the highest efficiency when battle begins.

For an entire afternoon, immersed in a high-pressure environment,

The Croaking Bubble Frog's level rose all the way from 8 to 13, and its skills also saw a breakthrough,

A flash of electric light, a smoke screen, and a shadow clone.

Learning these three skills all at once, all thanks to Clemont's invention, which created such a high-pressure battle environment,

Combatants must constantly guard against sneak attacks from the shadows.

Thanks to mastering these three moves, in the latter half of battle the Croaking Bubble Frog rarely gets hit by enemy attacks.

Ash was very happy,

because these three skills remain very useful even in high-level matches.

Furthermore, the Croaking Bubble Frog's use of acrobatics can now keep its success rate around seventy to eighty percent.

Thus, the Croaking Bubble Frog's special training is basically nearing its end,

All that remains is to continue improving acrobatic proficiency while raising its level to 15.

……

Next is the Shiny Lurantis,

its level rose from 12 to 14,

in terms of skills it learned Hold and Magic Sparkle!

Hold allows the Shiny Lurantis to become invulnerable for a certain period,

while Magic Sparkle perfectly matches the Shiny Lurantis's held item Fairy Feather, making up for its lack of Fairy-type moves,

What's more, this is a powerful area-of-effect attack with a power of 80!

With these two skills, the Shiny Lurantis no longer needs to worry about its moves in the short term.

However,

Unlike the Croaking Bubble Frog, which needs to evolve into Frogadier to learn Sword Dance,

the Shiny Lurantis can learn power-up skills at this stage,

plus, its level is already 14, just one level shy of the target level Ash set before his special training.

Ash plans to have the Shiny Lurantis first master a meditation technique that simultaneously boosts special attack and special defense tomorrow.

Then comes raising its level.

……

Last is the Little Arrow Sparrow,

its level rose from 15 to 16, only one step away from the evolution level of 17,

it learned the move Spark,

likely inspired by the Fire Fox, it mastered this technique.

But no matter what,

once the Little Arrow Sparrow evolves into the Fire Arrow Sparrow, it will be able to learn Flame Thrower,

now that it has mastered Spark, it can lay the groundwork early, improving its fine control over fire,

by then, not only will the difficulty of learning Flame Thrower decrease, but its power will also be greater than if it learned Flame Thrower directly.

Unfortunately, the Little Arrow Sparrow's three evolutionary stages cannot learn meditation or trickery to boost special attack,

plus, its final evolution, the Fierce Arrow Eagle, has slightly higher physical attack than special attack, and can learn Sword Dance to boost attack power.

Thus… compared to special attack, the Little Arrow Sparrow's ultimate destiny is more suited to the physical attack path.

Suitable as it may be, it does not deter Ash's resolve to mold the Little Arrow Sparrow into a dual-blade wielder,

Reality, after all, is not a game,

in reality, effort has no limit; with enough effort, dual-wielding can indeed be mastered.

Just like Dan Emperor's strongest Charizard!

Even though special attack is that strong, he still develops physical attack, learning Thunder Punch.

Not only because he wants to expand his means against opponents and increase the coverage of his skills,

but because in reality effort has no limit; with sufficient effort, a single Pokémon can become all-around strong.

Cynthia, Dan Emperor's main Pokémon are all level 100, but even at level 100, Cynthia's ace Garchomp and Dan Emperor's ace Charizard are vastly stronger than other Pokémon of the same level.

The fundamental reason,

is that the effort invested in Pokémon training differs.

The Fierce Arrow Eagle's dual attack stats are very close; neglecting either would be a serious waste.

Therefore, Ash set the Little Arrow Sparrow's development direction to focus on physical attack while not neglecting special attack.

Although the Little Arrow Sparrow's move pool cannot support directly boosting special attack,

Ash, however, also has a method to increase the Little Arrow Sparrow's firepower.

As the saying goes, favorable timing, terrain, and harmony,

in Pokémon battles, weather and terrain are also important factors that greatly influence battle outcomes,

plus, the Little Arrow Sparrow's level has already exceeded Ash's intended target,

Tomorrow Ash plans to have the Little Arrow Sparrow completely stop level grinding and instead learn as many skills as possible,

first attempting to master Sunny Day,

then, taking advantage of the flying unit's high fault tolerance, learn more team-supporting buff skills to assist allies.

……

Just like Ash's own Pokémon,

Serena's Lopunny and Fennekin had also improved in strength.

Having roughly sorted out today's gains and tomorrow's tasks,

The food in the pot already gave off a fragrant aroma.

After dinner,

The sky had already turned completely dark,

He took out a huge blanket from the backpack.

Turned off the light, the four lay on the blanket, looking up at the stars and chatting.

From left to right, in order: Ash, Serena, Yurie, Clemont,

During the chat, mostly the three were asking while Ash was speaking,

Ash tirelessly explained to the three those legendary stories that had happened to him,

plus some undisclosed secrets about the legendary beasts that the official records didn't contain.

This greatly satisfied the three's doubts and curiosity.

This process continued until Yurie fell asleep,

As Clemont gently picked up Yurie and placed her back into the tent.

The first heart-to-heart night talk of the four-person group drew to a close.

The night was deep; it was time to sleep.

Even in the Pokémon world, night represents danger, especially outdoors,

Most Pokémon active at night are highly aggressive; before sleeping, Ash recalled his hard-working Latias for the day,

and released the stronger Mewtwo to stand watch.

With Mewtwo present,

In this little patch of Kalos, as long as it's not a joint sneak attack by Yveltal and Xerneas,

there is almost no creature capable of harming Ash and his companions.

About an hour later,

Staying in the tent, tossing and turning, unable to sleep,

Serena, her mind full of the daytime kiss scene, couldn't help but throw off the blankets, put on her pajamas, and crawl out of the tent,

The Mewtwo floating above the clouds slowly opened its eyes,

It didn't know what was happening inside the tent, but as soon as someone stepped out, they would immediately enter its telekinetic field,

She slipped on her slippers,

Serena in her pajamas quietly walked to a spot about a hundred meters from the campsite,

onto a stone slab at least three meters wide, with an extremely smooth and flat surface.

She sat with her knees hugged, chin resting on her knees, gazing dreamily at the starry sky.

In the girl's mind, only the scene of her initiating the kiss that day played over, her face flushed red.

The girl, lost in fantasy and embarrassment, didn't notice.

In the grass behind her,

a black snake was silently approaching.

This black snake had a golden lower jaw, golden armor plating on its head and back, sharp red fangs in its mouth, and a tail shaped like a blade.

It was the arch-enemy of Furret, the Cutlery Snake!

Above the clouds, Mewtwo's gaze narrowed slightly, a faint purple light enveloping the Cutlery Snake's body,

Mewtwo had detected this Cutlery Snake long ago,

but since it had never threatened Ash and the others, it had ignored it,

now that it had foolishly set its sights on Serena, Mewtwo naturally intended to deal with it,

but just as Mewtwo was about to act,

Ash's tent moved, causing Mewtwo to halt its plan to send away the Cutlery Snake,

It suddenly recalled having seen before,

humans filming, that kind of thing called a drama,

right now it seemed like a good chance to boost the romance between the male and female leads, so it decided to just watch from the sidelines,

Ash, unaware of Mewtwo's little thoughts,

right now his mind was full of doubts,

What the heck?

Even his aura sensed that a juvenile Cutlery Snake was approaching Sis,

and Mewtwo hadn't noticed?

That guy...

Ash clenched his fists, wondering if he had previously let it stand watch, and it had been slacking off all along?

He silently noted it in his mind, and Ash hurried to the scene.