Chapter 70: Fragrant Path Hall!

The next morning,

Waking from a nightmare of being strangled by a fighter, Ash felt a sense of suffocation,

He unexpectedly discovered he was actually being strangled.

But the one strangling him wasn't a hairy-legged old thick leg, but a pair of straight, slender legs wrapped in black silk, round and beautiful,

The nightmare turned into a beautiful dream—open-eyed abalone strike!

He pushed aside the black-silk legs pressing on his face, Ash puzzledly pulled out his head, sat up and glanced at Serena.

He then realized it wasn't that Serena had a bad sleeping pose,

but that he had somehow ended up on the other side of the bed, so Serena, who wanted to hug something while sleeping, mistook him for a pillow and wrapped her legs around him.

Thinking about it was terrifying,

Fortunately, in this life he has a super genuine newcomer's physique,

Otherwise, in his previous life, after one night he'd probably be a stiff corpse.

Ash's such a large movement naturally woke Serena,

She rubbed her eyes sleepily, her beautiful blond hair messy and disheveled, the polite, gentle girl's face showing confusion.

"How did you end up over there?"

Ash was silent for a moment, then "Maybe… I wanted seafood?"

Serena was even more confused, "What does that have to do with eating seafood?"

Although Serena had a somewhat married-woman aura, she still took in his words: "I'll go buy some later, but for breakfast it's not suitable to eat fishy stuff. How about we eat at noon?"

"Yeah, that works." Ash gave an annoyed smile,

…

After breakfast,

Including Nana, the group of five headed to Fragrant Path Hall.

Fragrant Path Hall is a temple built on the mountainside, surrounded entirely by huge hard rocks; just the outside environment already fits the hall's theme—rock.

Entering the hall's corridor, one could also see exhibits of variously shaped rocks.

On the way, Clemont worriedly said, "Ash, are you really going to take on the three-star difficulty?"

Clemont naturally knew of Ash's strength, but the strong ones were ultimately Ash's former partners.

Clemont knew that Ash had only caught three Pokemon less than a month ago, and raising to three-star strength in a month was unheard of before.

Furthermore, three-star level often comes with the Pokemon's final evolution; fighting a second-stage against a third-stage, the huge gap in base stats would make the difficulty skyrocket.

"Don't worry, Clemont, it's fine."

"I know."

Ash naturally understood Clemont's worry,

but he knew even better the strength of his Pokemon, after experiencing the high-intensity battles at the Battle Castle a few days prior, plus some subsequent training,

Now his most diligent Croakhead Frog has reached level 33, Rocket Bird level 30, and Shiny Galarian level 29.

Taking on three-star difficulty is a natural progression; the only thing to note is that the opponent might be a high-tier three-star, possibly featuring a final evolution.

"That's great to know!"

Seeing Ash nod, they thought he'd changed his mind, and Clemont, Serena, and Yurie all let out a sigh of relief.

The group walked down the long corridor,

Before them lay a huge open space, as if the mountain had been hollowed out, a climbing environment about 100 meters high coming into view.

At the top of the climbing area was a huge battle arena.

Ash's group arrived relatively early, and a battle was still ongoing above.

Spotting the battle, they were eager,

Ash decided to take on the rock climb, and the moment his gaze fell on the physically inept Clemont,

bad memories from the past flashed through his mind,

In an instant, Clemont bolted, running all the way to the cable car, got in, shut the door, and took off.

"You go, Road!"

Watching Clemont ride the cable car to the summit, the group finally snapped out of their initial bewilderment.

"This..."

"Ah, Pigeon Pigeon is so cunning, so cunning, so cunning!"

"Should I say they're worthy of being siblings?"

Yurie first stomped her foot in anger, then promptly ran toward the cable car without missing a beat, heading up the mountain.

"Alright, Nana and Serena, you do as you like; I'm setting off."

Ash climbed up the rock face, using each protrusion to ascend.

Nana watched coldly as Ash climbed, while Serena was a little worried.

By the cable car, when the staff turned to look at Ash, they were completely dumbfounded.

"Hey hey, safety rope, safety rope!"

After so many years of work, he'd seen plenty of climbers, but he'd never seen anyone attempt rock climbing without a safety rope!

More importantly, Ash's climbing speed...

In just over ten seconds he'd reached twenty meters up—"Are you rock climbing? This is practically walking on flat ground."

"A cow sitting on a rocket—awesome to the heavens!"

Just a moment's daze, and by the time the staff came to, Ash's figure had completely vanished into the rock wall.

"Hey, where'd he go?!"

The staff were shocked, thinking Ash had fallen, and hurried over.

When he approached, not only was Ash nowhere to be found on the ground, but even Nana and Serena's figures were missing, truly baffling.

At the edge of the Summit Arena,

Clemont was about to lie down to see how far Ash had climbed, but instead saw Ash charging up the summit like running, his jaw nearly dropping.

What's more shocking is that, with such a fast climbing speed and such high exercise intensity, Ash's breathing remained steady.

"Is this really a human?"

"Hey? Clemont, what are you doing lying here?"

He patted off the nonexistent dust on himself, and as Ash lowered his head, he saw Clemont lying on the ground, looking puzzled.

Just then,

Watching Ash successfully reach the summit, Nana brought the stunned Serena and appeared above using Instant Teleportation.

This made Ash can't help but praise,

"Psychic powers are really convenient; truly deserving of being the most versatile special ability."

He didn't even notice the astonished gazes of Clemont, Yurie, and Serena beside him, as if they were looking at a human-shaped Pokemon.

At this moment,

A battle had just ended,

Chakelo had a moment, turned his head to glance at Ash and the others,

Chakelo, not knowing what had happened, smiled and greeted everyone.

"Just wait, there's still one battle before it's your turn!"

Saying that, his gaze fell on the next challenger, a thin-faced youth wearing cheap clothes, with a fierce look and well-built muscles.

Like Ash, he too had chosen to come up by climbing.

"How many badges do you have?"

"One, but I want to challenge the three-star difficulty."

The thin-faced youth's financial situation was clearly not good, but that fierce gaze made Chakelo think highly of him involuntarily.

"I see..."

Chakelo sent out a level 30 Rock-type Nonsense Tree (Nonsense Tree), the youth sent out a level 28 Fighting-type Haoli, relying on type advantage they fought fiercely and narrowly defeated Nonsense Tree.

Next, Chakelo's second Pokemon was a level 32 Rock-Steel type that is four times weak to Fighting, Big Morning Nose, using its strong magnetic field control to levitate and fly, overcoming the type disadvantage to defeat Haoli.

The youth sent out a level 32 Fighting-Flying type Wrestling Eagle Person, after taking an electromagnetic cannon shot, he difficultly used a flying knee kick to take down Big Morning Nose.

Finally, he was taken out by a level 32 Steel-Rock type Kedora with a heavy impact strike!

The good news is that the last Pokemon Chakelo sent out is only at stage two.

The bad news is that the youth's final Pokemon is stage one, a level 30 Fighting-type Mischievous Panda.

Although Fighting is four times effective against Steel-Rock, Kedora easily took down the Mischievous Panda thanks to its excellent defense and the combo of Iron Wall Tackle.

The battle ended with the challenger's defeat.

After losing, the thin-faced youth clenched his fists tightly, leaving the words "I'll come back to challenge you" before departing.

This made Ash and his companions feel regretful,

In the earlier battle, aside from the final wave of Mischievous Panda versus Kedora, the challenger had been ahead throughout, but being taken down by Kedora's two consecutive hits was truly regrettable.

With the youth's defeat, it was now Ash's turn,

Serena's worried gaze turned to her beloved, "Ash..."

She really wanted to say, "Maybe we should still challenge the two-star level,"

But, out of concern for Ash's image, she didn't voice her thoughts, only hoping Ash would be careful.

Seeing the worry of Serena and the others,

Ash reached out and patted the back of the jade hand of the beautiful red-dressed, black-haired maiden with Fair Skin, slender and lovely, raising his thumb to reassure everyone.

"Leave it to me; I've never let you down before, right?!"

Smiling, he walked toward the trainer platform opposite Chakelo, Ash's expression remained normal, without the slightest nervousness or hesitation.

"I also have one badge, and I'm challenging the three-star level."

Upon saying that,

Clemont and the others were stunned, but still chose to believe Ash.

As for the youth who hadn't left yet, due to his difficult finances and lack of internet exposure, he didn't know Ash,

as he left, he couldn't help but shake his head inwardly, not optimistic about Ash's chances of victory.

On the field, Chakelo hesitated for a moment,

"I've already used these three; it's hard to fight again soon. Can I use the other three that are stronger, close to four-star?"

Although Latias could be sent out to heal,

but Ash's original idea was to become stronger through repeated challenges, so naturally he wouldn't refuse; he immediately nodded, "Sure!"

Having received the response, Chakelo nodded,

From the many Pokéballs placed on the table behind him, he took out three and released the first Pokémon.

Whoosh!

Red light burst forth, and a Pokémon resembling Aggron appeared on the field, with a blue body and sturdy physique.

Rock-type Hammer Dragon, with 165 explosive attack, a moment's carelessness could see it taken out in one hit,

Furthermore, its level reached a full 38!

The difficulty has increased more than just a bit compared to before; it's straight up super doubled!