Chapter 68: Milotic

Long Yanning stood quietly in the distance, remaining out of sight. She watched as Xia Yu accepted the water from Su Muzi, exchanged a few words with her, and walked onto the battle field to prepare for a match.

This sparked a bold conjecture in her heart, and the flames of gossip burned fiercely. Why would Su Muzi secretly come to give Xia Yu water after the group dinner? Could the two of them be secretly dating? Their opsec was entirely too airtight.

At this thought, a sense of regret washed over Long Yanning. If Xia Yu allowed himself to become immersed in a romantic relationship and wasted his time and energy, it would utterly betray all the hard work he had put in for so long—she was so disappointed that he wouldn't live up to her expectations!

Naturally, Xia Yu was completely oblivious to Long Yanning's wild imagination. Although he felt somewhat curious about Su Muzi's appearance here, he did not press her with questions.

"Go on, Milotic," Su Muzi called out, taking the initiative to release her Pokémon—a remarkably rare Milotic.

Milotic was rumored to be the most beautiful Pokémon in the world, evolved from Feebas. Xia Yu glanced at it and had to admit that Milotic was indeed quite stunning; its gentle pinkish hues looked rather nice, and its visual appeal vastly surpassed that of many hideous-looking Pokémon.

At the same time, Xia Yu secretly used his system to check the strength of this Milotic. Su Muzi's Milotic had exceptional potential, but its actual strength was merely at the Elite level, obviously having evolved only recently. The Elite-level strength was slightly superior to Xia Yu's Grovyle. However, after such a long period of rigorous training, Xia Yu's Grovyle was on the verge of breaking through to the Elite level as well, meaning the gap in their actual strength was negligible. Furthermore, Grovyle's Grass typing held a type advantage over Milotic, which essentially leveled the playing field.

All in all, this could truly be considered a closely matched battle.

"Let's go, Grovyle!" Without wasting any breath, Xia Yu directly sent out his ace, Grovyle. Having not fought for a long time, Grovyle appeared exceptionally pumped up, looking at the opposing Milotic with eagerness and an urgent desire to make a move.

Very good! As expected of my Grovyle, it won't be bewitched by the opposing Milotic. Xia Yu had genuinely feared that his hotheaded Grovyle might fall under Milotic's spell. Apparently, both Grovyle and Milotic belonged to the Dragon egg group, so there was a distinct possibility they could hit it off. Let's check the opponent's gender—female.

I'll need to tell Grovyle to be careful. Women only slow down the speed of drawing your blade, and female dragons are no different.

"We're about to start," Su Muzi said with a smile, before abruptly shifting the topic: "Xia Yu, would you like to add a little wager?"

"What kind of wager?" Xia Yu asked cautiously, though he sneered inwardly. Her fox tail was finally showing. After laying down so much groundwork, she had been waiting for him right here.

"Whoever loses has to agree to one request from the winner," Su Muzi said earnestly.

"No way." Xia Yu refused without a second thought. "What if I lose and you demand that I marry you?"

Su Muzi wore an expression of utter confusion. What was with that deeply disgusted tone of hers? Originally in a pleasant mood, her face instantly darkened. "Of course not! You can't ask the other person to do anything too excessive; it has to be something simple."

"Then I suppose I can consider it." Hearing Su Muzi's words, Xia Yu pondered for a moment and agreed. If he lost and Su Muzi demanded something excessive, the worst-case scenario was simply reneging on the deal.

Pride was the kind of thing that vanished the more times you lost it.

"Rest assured, I'll give it my all," Xia Yu said seriously.

"Then let's begin. I'll count down from three: three, two, one. Battle start!"

"Grovyle, keep your distance and use Magical Leaf!"

As Su Muzi's countdown ended, Xia Yu didn't hesitate to command Grovyle to launch the first attack, using Magical Leaf to test the waters. Having shed its heavy training weights, Grovyle moved at blinding speed, appearing as nothing more than a streak of green darting across the battlefield while executing the Magical Leaf technique.

[Magical Leaf]: A Grass-type special attack that scatters tracking leaves which are guaranteed to hit the target.

While Magical Leaf was a guaranteed hit in the video games, reality was not always so absolute. Sharp leaves erupted from all directions, coated with Grass-type energy as they surged toward Milotic, continuously slashing against its body.

"Ugh!"

"Milotic! Recover!"

[Recover]: Causes all the cells in the body to regenerate, drastically restoring stamina.

Milotic chose to take the Magical Leaf attack head-on, emitting a sound of pain. As a Water-type, Milotic was instantly injured by the super-effective Grass-type move, but the damage wasn't severe. Combined with the restorative power of Recover, Milotic was instantly brought back to full health.

Milotic naturally possessed exceptionally high Special Defense alongside decent Special Attack, making it clearly a special-attack-oriented Pokémon. Conversely, Milotic's physical Attack was extremely low, and its physical Defense lagged far behind its Special Defense.

Therefore, the best way to deal with Milotic was to use physical attacks for a direct breakthrough, whereas Magical Leaf belonged to the special attack category, naturally inflicting limited damage.

Right at that moment, flames suddenly ignited across Milotic's body. The Flame Orb it held against its chest activated, inflicting the burn status condition upon Milotic while causing its scales to gleam with a magical, vibrant luster.

[Flame Orb]: Inflicts the burn status on the holder.

Observing this scene, Xia Yu's face darkened as a bad premonition washed over him. He had most likely fallen right into Su Muzi's trap. While it was true that her Pokémon's power was only at the Elite level, it was abundantly clear that she had already mastered a complete tactical setup, leaving Grovyle with very slim odds of winning.

Depending on their Ability, Milotic's training directions generally fell into two categories. One was Milotic with the Competitive Ability.

[Competitive]: When the Pokémon's stats are lowered by an opponent, its Special Attack is sharply boosted for each lowered stat.

A Milotic with this Ability was undoubtedly suited for an offensive playstyle. When facing Pokémon with Intimidate abilities like Gyarados or Incineroar, if the opponent's Intimidate lowered its Attack, its Special Attack would instantly rise by two stages, making a team sweep entirely possible.

[Intimidate]: Cuts the opponent's Attack stat when entering battle.

The other training direction for Milotic was far more annoying, troublesome, and aggravating, yet it had historically been Xia Yu's favorite playstyle: Milotic with the Marvel Scale Ability.

[Marvel Scale]: Boosts the Pokémon's Defense if it has a status condition.

Milotic's physical Defense was its weak point, but thanks to the effect of Marvel Scale, a Milotic suffering from a status condition received a boost to its defense, completely compensating for its shortcomings. This was precisely why Milotic carried a Flame Orb to burn itself.

This particular training direction leaned heavily toward a defensive tank build. Its core moveset consisted of a series of infuriating status moves such as Toxic, Protect, Hypnosis, Recover, Mirror Coat, Haze, and Mist, while moves like Scald, Surf, and Ice Beam allowed it to effectively strike back at opponents. You could call it thoroughly disgusting.

Just imagine: a Milotic poisons you with Toxic, then alternates between Recover and Protect, occasionally throwing in a Hypnosis. If you hit it with a high-powered special attack, it reflects it back with Mirror Coat; if you try to boost your stats, it resets them with Haze, slowly grinding down its opponent until they die. It was the epitome of infuriating.

After secretly reviewing Milotic's data, Xia Yu discovered that its movepool was completely abnormal—filled entirely with filthy tricks. Now seeing this play out before him, Xia Yu desperately wanted to stage a revolt and shout: "This is unfair! Rematch!"

This match shouldn't count! The young lady looked refined and proper on the outside, so why was she playing so dirty, relying entirely on these sickening tactics?

Someone, bring out my Shadow Tag, Perishable Song, Mega Gengar!