Chapter 49: Special Training Begins

Xia Yu's shiny Charmander is exceptionally unique. First of all, its coloration is special. Instead of the usual orange-red, its exterior is a striking golden hue, and its final evolutionary form, Charizard, is black in color—commonly known as the famous shiny black Charizard.

Secondly, its battle prowess is special. This Charmander possesses Solar Power, a top-tier Special Attack ability. While it continuously loses health under harsh sunlight, its Special Attack is significantly boosted. Yet, ironically, apart from Ember and Ancient Power, all the moves it has inherited and learned so far are physically oriented. This leaves Xia Yu rather conflicted about how best to train this Charmander.

Finally, its personality is special. This Charmander's temperament is completely different from other Pokémon. Noibat's personality is clingy and gentle, Grovyle's is serious and calm, while this Charmander's temperament can be described in two words: bully.

Even though it hatched only two days ago, this Charmander has already displayed an extremely high level of aggressiveness. It is bellicose—quite bellicose indeed—and frequently challenges Noibat. Furthermore, aside from its master Xia Yu, it absolutely refuses to obey anyone else's commands. This is actually quite rare, because starter Pokémon generally possess relatively gentle temperaments, making them the most suitable initial partners for beginners.

To find a Charmander as belligerent as this one is truly a rarity. Naturally, this personality also led Xia Yu to finally decide on raising this shiny Charmander along a dual-wielding path, focusing on both physical and special attacks simultaneously.

The surrounding students evidently noticed this shiny Charmander as well, their eyes revealing expressions of astonishment. Shiny Pokémon are exceedingly rare and precious no matter where they are found; the only question was what kind of potential this shiny Charmander possessed.

"Roar!" The Charmander let out a fierce snarl toward the surrounding people, its eyes flashing with a warning as it glared viciously at everyone.

A flash of surprise likewise crossed Long Yanling's eyes. A shiny Charmander—no wonder he planned to cultivate it as his ace.

"Your Charmander has quite a bad temper." Long Yanling clearly perceived that the Charmander's disposition was far from amiable, and she voiced a reminder.

Hearing Long Yanling speak, the Charmander turned its head to look over as well. Its eyes locked fiercely onto the Noibat at Long Yanling's side, a deep fighting spirit rising on its face. Relying on Xia Yu to hold it back, it wore an overtly provocative expression.

"It does have a bit of one." Xia Yu naturally knew this Charmander's disposition was less than friendly, but he did not consider this a bad thing at all. A fierce temperament is actually exceptionally well-suited for battles, as long as it obeys orders.

"Let me brief you on the specific curriculum. Under normal circumstances, the morning is dedicated to physical conditioning and battle training. You can train your Pokémon's physical fitness first, and once that reaches a suitable level, you can apply for battle training to gain practical combat experience. Within the secret realm, you can apply for sparring partners of various types at any time, provided no one else has applied before you; otherwise, you'll need to queue up."

"The afternoon is energy training, primarily training Pokémon in mastering energy and building resistance against various types of energy. You can similarly select different elemental energies for targeted training."

"Nighttime is free time, during which you can go home or battle with classmates."

"Monday through Friday are intensive training days within the secret realm. Every Saturday is a move training session—you must not miss that day, as you can learn special move techniques, though there is an extra fee. Every Sunday is the only rest day of the week, which you can arrange freely. Lastly, my name is Long Yanling—you should have heard of it. I am temporarily the head instructor of your intensive training class, as well as your physical conditioning instructor."

"Do you have any other questions?"

"No." Xia Yu shook his head.

"You may go and conduct physical training with your Pokémon now," Long Yanling said. "By the way, your Pokémon's strength is much weaker than the others'. You need to spend more time and energy on Pokémon training; diligence can make up for clumsiness. One last thing: whatever energy cubes you need, inform the staff in advance, and they will deliver them to you. Of course, you will have to pay for these yourself as well."

"Understood."

After speaking, Long Yanling paid no further attention to Xia Yu. There were thirty-one students in the intensive training class, so naturally she could not lavish all her attention on Xia Yu alone.

Xia Yu was quite content with this arrangement. If someone were constantly hovering over him, he would actually feel rather awkward. Besides, the training equipment within the training ground was vast and varied, and he needed a little time to figure things out.

"This is a flying weight vest, specially designed for flying-type Pokémon to train their aerial weight-bearing capacity. Put it on Noibat."

Xia Yu picked up a flying weight vest and fitted it onto Noibat. The manufacturing cost of this item was by no means cheap, built specifically to train a Pokémon's flight capabilities. Not only could it automatically adjust to fit the body size of various flying Pokémon, but the weight could also be adjusted at any time to meet different needs. Finally, if the flying Pokémon could no longer bear the weight, a weight-reduction system would trigger, shedding the burden to prevent accidents.

Xia Yu first adjusted the flying weight to 5 kg, which was already equivalent to about half of Noibat's own weight. The suddenly increased load immediately made Noibat's flight sluggish.

"Can you still hold on?"

Xia Yu observed Noibat's flight condition for a moment and found that although it was flying slowly, it was still relatively steady. He then proceeded to add another 5 kg of weight to Noibat, bringing the load on its body roughly equal to its own natural body weight.

"Keep it up."

The immense weight immediately made Noibat's flight laborious and reduced its speed, but Xia Yu knew this was still not Noibat's limit. Under normal circumstances, a Noibat could lift prey weighing 1 to 1.5 times its own body weight.

Noibat flapped its wings with great exertion, looking at Xia Yu with tearful eyes. It let out soft squeaks, rubbing affectionately against Xia Yu's arm as if acting spoiled, begging Xia Yu to lighten the load and take off the flying weight vest.

Seeing Noibat's appearance, Xia Yu hardened his heart and gritted his teeth. He was currently lagging far behind the others by too much, and his surrounding peers had truly stimulated him.

Everyone was preparing for the Collegiate Cup, and every single one of these people owned at least one Lord-tier Pokémon, along with several pseudo-legendaries. If he were to fight against opponents like that, he would truly have zero chance of winning.

Therefore, if Xia Yu didn't train to the point of risking his life, there was simply no possibility of catching up to his peers. "Noibat, hold on! Whether it's you, Grovyle, Charmander, or myself, we all have to give it our absolute all."

While encouraging Noibat, Xia Yu added another 5 kg of weight to it. This latest increase doubled the difficulty of Noibat's flight, causing its speed to plummet drastically and making it hard to even maintain a straight flight path, yet it still gritted its teeth and persevered.

Although it wasn't quite Noibat's limit yet, Xia Yu felt it was sufficient for now, considering this weight vest needed to be worn over the long term.

"Good, just like that, maintain it, Noibat. Once you get used to flying with the weights, we'll go practice the strength of your claws and your biting force later."

Noibat and its evolutionary form, Noivern, actually lean more toward special attacks. Their physical attack move pool is very limited, primarily concentrated in four areas: wings, claws, teeth, and tail, corresponding to moves like Wing Attack, Dragon Claw, Super Fang, and Dragon Tail respectively.

However, Noibat's tail was still extremely short at this stage and could not learn tail-based moves; it would have to wait until evolving into Noivern before beginning to train its tail abilities. Therefore, Noibat's training focused primarily on its wings, claws, and teeth.

While the flying weight vest could train wing-related abilities, Noibat's remaining training directions naturally had to be its claws and teeth. There were no shortcuts whatsoever for these two areas of training; much like practicing martial arts, they could only be honed through repetition, with no shortcuts to speak of.

If once doesn't work, do it ten times; if ten times aren't enough, do it a hundred times; if a hundred times still fall short, do it a thousand times!

"Keep going, Noibat."

Continually encouraging Noibat, Xia Yu turned his attention to arranging training for Grovyle.