Leaving Murkrow to rest on the side, Aoki began contemplating his plan for the upcoming period.
First, the core strategy remained unchanged: Murkrow would continue eating Yellow Berry Blocks.
Judging from the past few days of consumption, the results had been quite good.
Based on appearance alone, in just four days, Murkrow had grown from a visibly malnourished state to the standard size of a normal Murkrow, reaching nearly fifty centimeters in height.
In Aoki’s eyes, however, Murkrow’s changes went beyond mere physical growth.
While the increase in size was the most obvious, daily precision scans by the microchip revealed that its strength and speed had both improved to varying degrees.
Even its innate talent and potential had shown progress.
Although it was still in the green tier, the green color was distinctly deeper than it had been days ago, indicating that Murkrow’s natural talent was at the top tier even among green-potential Pokémon.
Especially after this afternoon’s continuous battles, Murkrow’s absorption efficiency of the Yellow Berry Block had grown even higher.
With three days remaining, Aoki believed that after continued use of the Berry Blocks, Murkrow’s original potential would be fully restored.
At that point, its rapid growth phase would officially begin.
Therefore, the training over these next few days could not stop.
Ideally, they should seek out battles with various different Pokémon.
This would allow Murkrow to get accustomed to the rhythm of combat while better absorbing the effects of the Berry Blocks to recover more effectively.
As for Murkrow’s future training direction, speed would remain the primary focus.
Extending the duration of Tailwind required persistent practice.
On top of that, Murkrow needed to master several essential moves.
The moves it had already learned required time to practice and master so they could be executed more efficiently in battle.
As a dual Dark and Flying-type Pokémon, Murkrow possessed excellent type resistances.
Without any 4x weakness, it wouldn’t be severely counter-played by a single type.
Even 2x weak moves—such as Electric, Ice, and Fairy—were extremely rare on the trial island, if not nonexistent.
Thus, when fighting on this island, the main thing to watch out for was Rock-type moves.
With the Prankster Ability, Murkrow often enjoyed an advantage in executing moves, boosted further by Tailwind.
All that was needed now was more combat, improving the synergy between trainer and Pokémon, and mastering existing battle techniques.
Once the Yellow Berry Blocks were exhausted, Murkrow would need a different kind of Berry Block to accelerate its growth and enhance its development.
Aoki had already decided on this new Berry Block before the first ranking.
Dark Speed Berry Block—a medium-grade Berry Block with alternating black and white layers.
According to the microchip’s database, its primary ingredients were Darkmotion Berries and Swiftmotion Berries, supplemented by over a dozen different types of therapeutic herbs and berries.
It was a Berry Block specially tailored for Dark and Flying-type Pokémon, perfectly matching Murkrow’s typing.
Therefore, all the points earned from the first ranking had been spent exchanging for berries.
In fact, these two types of berries were what Aoki had redeemed the most, nearly wiping out Team Rocket’s inventory on the island.
As long as he crafted them, he was confident Murkrow would enter a period of rapid power growth in the coming days.
After pondering for a while, the weary Aoki felt a wave of fatigue from the full day of work.
Pillowing his hands behind his head, he glanced at the moonlight streaming through the cave fissure, closed his eyes, and gradually drifted off to sleep to the steady rhythm of Murkrow’s breathing.
The next day, the sun rose slowly over the eastern horizon.
As the darkness dissipated, the forest gradually returned to silence.
The chirping of insects faded, and the tracks of wild beasts vanished.
A beam of sunlight broke through the cave’s fissure and shone onto Aoki’s face.
The gradually rising temperature awakened him from his slumber.
It was currently summer, so the sun rose quite early.
Having fought all day yesterday, Aoki surprisingly failed to wake up before sunrise—perhaps because things were progressing smoother and smoother, lifting the heavy weight that had pressed upon his heart.
Stretching his limbs, Aoki glanced at Murkrow, who had also woken up because of his movement, and smiled.
In his previous life, after becoming a Quasi-Elite Four powerhouse, he had gradually let his guard down and begun enjoying life.
Since starting over, today was the very first time Aoki had slept his fill.
“Murkrow, your task today is simple.
Stand here and keep flapping your wings until all the foul odors in the cave are dispelled,” Aoki told Murkrow.
During the previous battle, Murkrow had come close to executing Gust with the aid of Tailwind.
Aoki believed that with just a bit more practice, it would master Gust, and with further advancement, it might even master high-tier damage moves like Hurricane ahead of schedule.
Exercising its abilities while clearing the stench and cleaning the cave was killing two birds with one stone.
“Gah!” Murkrow nodded vigorously.
It always executed Aoki’s orders meticulously.
From the time it hatched until now, Murkrow had never seen its parents.
It had lacked a good environment, delicious food, proper training, and had often been bullied by other Pokémon.
Until it met Aoki—the first and only person who was good to it.
Thus, beyond the typical respect a Pokémon had for its trainer, Murkrow’s feelings for Aoki carried the deep reliance a child had on a parent.
It must never let Aoki down—that was Murkrow’s sole thought.
Seeing Murkrow’s high spirits, the corners of Aoki’s lips curled up involuntarily.
From his storage space, he retrieved today’s portion of Yellow Berry Blocks.
Under Murkrow’s expectant gaze, he tossed them into the air one by one, where Murkrow quickly devoured them.
“Burp…” Letting out a satisfied burp, Murkrow flew into the air inside the cave and began flapping its wings, causing a howling wind to blow through the cave.
Standing behind Murkrow, Aoki wasn’t affected in the slightest despite the fierce wind roaring through the cavern.
After washing up briefly and eating some simple rations, Aoki pulled out berries and medicinal herbs one by one from his storage space, placing them in sequence on the rock.
Taking a relatively clean cloth from his person, he carefully wiped down every single berry before setting it down gently.
He then washed the tools for crushing berries with clean water.
Perhaps because the cave was adjacent to a lake, or perhaps because an underground spring had originally existed here—which was why the cave’s original owner built it here in the first place—it now benefited Aoki and Murkrow.
Compared to the lake water that every Pokémon drank from, the underground spring water here was much clearer and sweeter.
Due to limited conditions, the tools Aoki used were extremely primitive: wooden bowls and pestles, a hand-cranked impurity separator, a hand-cranked compressor, and a manual condenser.
Because all the tools were simple wooden apparatuses, the production process was quite tedious and crafting Berry Blocks was relatively slow, but the quality still achieved the desired effect.
As for higher-grade Berry Blocks, they were beyond what these rudimentary tools could create.
Aoki carefully peeled and cored all the berries with a small knife.
Guided by the microchip’s calculations, he chopped the berries into identical sizes on the cutting board, trimmed away the excess parts of all the medicinal herbs, mashed the herbs, and removed impurities.
First, he added the fruit pulp of the Darkmotion Berries and Swiftmotion Berries, grinding them with a hand-crank mixer.
Then, following the microchip’s step-by-step instructions, he added the other berries and herbs one after another.
Every material required precise control over the amount added, exact mixing times, precise blending consistency, and the exact order of addition.
It was precisely because the production process of Berry Blocks had such strict requirements that people in the Alliance who could craft Berry Blocks efficiently were extremely rare.
Fortunately, Aoki had the microchip to control everything for him; he only needed to follow the recipe steps.
After pouring the prepared liquid into pre-arranged containers, compressing and condensing it, he only needed to place them in a cool, shaded spot to set.
After a short while, the preparation would be complete.
Having finished a batch of Berry Blocks, Aoki set the container aside, retrieved another identical portion of materials, and continued crafting the next batch.