Xia Huanao, who had been hunting insects for over an hour, was quite affected, to the point that he dreamed of Pheromosa and Buzzwole leading countless insects to attack him. Even his girlfriend, Shen Yu, grew a pair of insect wings and flew towards him. Xia Huanao was buried by the insects before he could even fight back.
The next morning, Xia Huanao's head was still buzzing.
Xia Huanao shook his head, "This is going to kill me. What a dream. I can't live like this."
Xia Huanao pushed the door open and saw Xiao Yuer squatting in front of a fish tank. "Xiao Yuer, what are you doing?"
Xiao Yuer pointed at the fish tank, "I'm looking at Shellder, big brother. How can Shellder evolve into Corsola?"
Xia Huanao thought for a moment, "I remember Shellder can evolve into Seadra and Corsola. One needs a Deep Sea Tooth, and the other needs a Deep Sea Scale. But both of these items are not easy to get."
After speaking, Xia Huanao asked the system, "System, did I say anything wrong just now?"
The system replied, "No, Shellder evolves into Seadra with a Deep Sea Tooth. Actually, it doesn't matter if you're wrong, this little girl is so young, she can't tell what's what. You won't be staying here for long, will you?"
Xia Huanao thought, that makes sense. When the weather starts to cool down, he would have to go somewhere else to recover from his injuries.
Xia Huanao chatted with Xiao Yuer for a while and was about to leave. Xiao Yuer wanted to follow him, but Xia Huanao scared her by saying he was going to see how many insects he had killed last night. Xiao Yuer immediately behaved, saying she would stay put in the folk custom village and go nowhere.
Xia Huanao tricked Xiao Yuer and arrived in the woods. "Guagua, how about we try something new today?"
Guagua's curiosity was piqued by Xia Huanao. He stared at Xia Huanao intently, wanting to see what new tricks Xia Huanao would come up with.
"Guagua, do you know the incantation for Tai Chi?"
Guagua shook his head. Although he knew Tai Chi, it didn't mean he understood much about it. Xia Huanao explained to him, "It says, 'From Tai Chi, two forms arise; from two forms, four phenomena arise. From four phenomena, eight trigrams arise, and from eight trigrams, the weekly journal emerges... Oh, that last part isn't right!"
The system was also confused by Xia Huanao's explanation, "What does this have to do with Tai Chi?"
"Don't worry about it. I'm just fooling our toad seedling. Keep quiet."
Guagua couldn't actually understand Xia Huanao's words, but he instinctively felt that it sounded powerful. After making a starting stance, he looked at Xia Huanao, wondering what to do next.
Xia Huanao continued to fool him with his explanation, "When Guagua learns Tai Chi, he becomes Tai Chi Guagua. On the basis of Tai Chi, you learn 'Clear Water Movement,' which is called 'Tai Chi Guagua gives rise to two forms.' What we're going to do today is 'Two Forms Guagua gives rise to four phenomena.'"
Guagua seemed to understand but not fully. He listened as Xia Huanao continued, "Guagua, just one Shadow Clone is enough."
Guagua flashed, and another Guagua appeared in the woods. Xia Huanao pointed at the original Guagua, "In the upcoming training, you will be called Guagua B."
Then, Xia Huanao pointed at the Shadow Clone, "And you will be called Guagua A. Understand?"
The two Guaguas nodded. Xia Huanao continued, "Guagua B, use Clear Water Movement. Guagua A, use Clear Water Movement to launch Dark Pulse!"
The two Guaguas clapped their hands, and a blue ball and a purple-black ball appeared in their hands respectively. Xia Huanao slowly brought his hands together, "Guagua, learn from me. Slowly merge Dark Pulse and Water Pulse."
The two Guaguas followed suit, bringing their hands, which held Water Pulse and Dark Pulse, closer together. The moment the water ball and dark ball touched, they exploded, leaving Xia Huanao covered in dust.
Xia Huanao patted the dust off himself, "Ptooey, ptooey, it really hurts when it explodes. Why did it explode? Two Guaguas, do it again. Don't merge them, just throw them!"
Looking at the two pulses spreading out in the distance, Xia Huanao stroked his chin, "I see. Is it because the rotation direction of the pulses is the same?"
Xia Huanao thought for a long time and came to this conclusion. The next experiment would be to make the rotation directions of the two pulses different, one clockwise and one counterclockwise. This way, they could interlock and accelerate, and they wouldn't directly collide and explode.
However, the idea was good, but implementation proved troublesome. Guagua found it difficult to separate the vortices formed by the two pulses. This was also due to Xia Huanao's previous practice of Clear Water Movement, where he drew circles counterclockwise to teach Guagua, causing Guagua to only produce counterclockwise circles when using Clear Water Movement. He couldn't even produce a clockwise one. Xia Huanao spent hours teaching Guagua before he could barely manage a clockwise Water Pulse.
"Guagua, merge the dual pulses!"
Unfortunately, although Guagua had mastered the dual rotation technique, his control over clockwise rotation was not yet proficient, and the speed of the pulse release was still a bit slow.
However, looking at the two pulses with different rotation directions, Xia Huanao was still excited, "Guagua, don't merge them from top to bottom, but from left to right according to the rotation direction."
The two Guaguas merged the two pulse balls. The pulse ball instantly became chaotic, and the intense energy fluctuation tore at Guagua's hands. Xia Huanao quickly told Guagua to throw the ball away, "Guagua, target the sea, launch!"
A ball of unknown color flew onto the sea surface, and then... it vanished.
Xia Huanao's eyes almost popped out, "Such a powerful-looking ball, and it disappeared on the sea without even making a splash. What's going on!"
"Let me explain some physics and energy principles to you. Water Pulse and Dark Pulse are both pulses, and since they are pulses, they have crests and troughs, do you understand?"
Xia Huanao nodded, "So, the crests accurately hit the troughs, canceling each other out?"
The system shook its head, "This is a possible reason. Another reason is that your two pulses approached each other while rotating, like interlocking gears, constantly accelerating. As they accelerated, they exceeded the control limit of Froakie, so they collapsed on their own."
After this brief lesson on skill mechanics, Xia Huanao seemed to understand why the experiment had failed. In simple terms, the two skills interfered with each other and caused a problem. However, Xia Huanao's theory was precisely to make the two skills influence each other to strengthen their power. If they didn't interfere, what would be the difference from throwing two skills separately?
"Guagua, go play for a while. I need to think about this."
Xia Huanao rested his chin on his hand, contemplating skill development, while Guagua went to pick berries with Diancie.
Xia Huanao made a gesture of holding two balls in his hands, bringing them closer and closer, "What should I do?"
As Xia Huanao brought his hands closer, he made rotating motions, looking quite lecherous. Even the system couldn't stand it, "What are you doing? Where did you get this perverted look from?"
Xia Huanao looked at his hands, and indeed, they gave the impression of a mind filled with lewd thoughts. Xia Huanao picked up a handful of stones and threw them, "Ah, this is so annoying!"
Looking at the splashes the stones made in the water, Xia Huanao had an idea, "If I offset the crests and troughs, theoretically, the skill won't destroy itself due to its wave nature. As for acceleration, if I merge them from top to bottom, they shouldn't accelerate. Even if they do, I can just have Guagua lower the initial speed by a few notches, and then it will be controllable."
Without delay, Xia Huanao turned to find Guagua, "Guagua, let's... huh? Where did Guagua go? Diancie?"
Xia Huanao wheeled his chair not far before seeing Diancie and Guagua squatting under the grass, doing something. Xia Huanao wheeled his chair to Guagua's back, "What are you two doing?"
Xia Huanao's voice startled Guagua. The two little ones turned around and saw Xia Huanao staring at them. Diancie poked her fingers, and after a long time, she made a scary gesture.
Xia Huanao touched Diancie's jeweled crown, "You two wanted to scare me, right? I won't fall for your trick. Let's go, continue training."
Back to training, Xia Huanao explained his guess to Guagua, and Guagua followed Xia Huanao's arrangements to train.
"Guagua, practicing one by one is too time-consuming. Let's directly use Shadow Clone. We'll practice five at a time. With this kind of cheat, why wouldn't I use it?"
"Are you acting crazy again? You said it was hard to control before, and now you want to make ten clones to speed up the training progress."
Hearing the system's words, Xia Huanao gave an awkward smile, "Well, that's... just consider it me wanting to speed up the Shadow Clone practice. It's not like forcing growth, right?"
"Whatever you say. I can't argue with you."
...
Although this afternoon's special training progressed very quickly under Xia Huanao's cheat with Shadow Clone, Xia Huanao's heart ached as he looked at his wallet. The word "uncomfortable" was written all over his face.
After all, extensive training consumes a lot of PP, and while items to replenish PP are not particularly rare, both the overpriced Rainbow Star Mall and the affordably priced Pokémon League have high prices for Energy Potions.
Although Xia Huanao had the Affiliation Trainer Badge, which offered significant discounts, that badge was destroyed in Mew's space. Therefore, every practice session felt like Xia Huanao was being cut with a knife.
Xia Huanao felt distressed for a long time before finally sighing, "Forget it, no more training. Let's rest this afternoon and go out for a walk to clear our minds. If we continue like this, I'm worried Guagua might sleepwalk and hit me in the middle of the night."