“System, what exactly does this evolution progress mean?” [Ding!
Evolution Progress refers to a Pokémon’s progress toward a perfect evolution.
The closer it is to 100%, the better the effects of evolution will be, and the greater the improvement after evolving.] Seeing the system message pop up, Evan Lane’s eyes lit up.
At the same time, he could not help feeling lucky.
Thankfully, he had chosen to upgrade the Detection function.
Otherwise, according to Evan’s original training plan, he might have arranged for Snivy to evolve at around 80%, wasting quite a bit of her talent for nothing.
“Sni, Sni…” Looking at her Trainer, who was lost in a look of “as expected of me,” Snivy wore a face full of disdain.
Her eyes were almost rolling into the sky.
Her Trainer was calm and reliable whenever he trained moves or battled, and that made him seem rather cool to her.
But normally, not only was he lazy, he occasionally acted like something was wrong with his head.
He really did not match her elegant temperament at all.
Now that Evolution Progress was displayed as a value, Evan could clearly grasp Snivy’s best timing for evolution.
His heart immediately felt much more at ease.
When he arrived at the front desk of the school warehouse, the old man in charge of managing it, Mr.
Blake, had one leg crossed over the other and was slowly sipping hot tea.
Seeing Evan walk over, Mr.
Blake showed no expression.
He only called out, “Number?” “2568.” After Evan said the number the principal had told him in advance, Mr.
Blake finally stood up slowly and brought out a palm-sized iron box from the room behind him.
Picking up the ordinary-looking box in front of him, Evan somehow had the illusion that he had been scammed.
He slowly opened the lid, and a green gemstone appeared inside the iron box.
The gemstone was entirely green and roughly shaped like a leaf.
Although its color was dull, the Grass-type energy it emitted still made Snivy beside him unable to stop looking at the box in Evan’s hand.
This was actually a low-quality Leaf Stone!
Although a Leaf Stone of this quality would have a poor effect if used to evolve certain Pokémon, if it was only used for Snivy to absorb energy and prepare for her future evolution, it had arrived at exactly the right time.
Evan handed the Leaf Stone to Snivy beside him.
He was still fairly satisfied with this reward.
Although the price of this Leaf Stone might not compare to the Protect TM from before, it could effectively speed up Snivy’s evolution progress.
After calculating the time, Evan nodded to thank Mr.
Blake, then brought Snivy to the training field, preparing to continue training.
Today’s assessment had already ended, and all twenty spots in the elite class had been assigned.
Once the results came out completely, some were happy and some were miserable.
Evan’s childhood friend Connor Hale had actually failed to get a spot in the elite class.
Seeing Evan walking over from a distance, Connor had a bitter expression and complained, “Evan, how am I this unlucky?
Losing badly because I got put in the same group as Lucas in the first round was one thing.
But in the second round, I ran into that Butterfree that knew Confusion!” Hearing Connor’s description, the image of a Butterfree using psychic power to avoid Snivy’s damage could not help appearing in Evan’s mind.
That Butterfree really was quite strong.
If it had not run into Evan, it might even have achieved a good ranking in the top ten matches.
“If your Charmander had the same strength as Lucas’s Charmander, you definitely would’ve won.
How about I introduce you?
You can take Lucas as your teacher.” Evan teased Connor.
Originally, he had only been joking, but when he saw Connor actually start considering whether this was possible, he quickly said that he had to train and ran toward an open training field.
He understood his childhood friend’s personality far too well.
If Connor trained at Lucas’s intensity, Evan would eat his own hat if he lasted three days!
Evan arrived at the training field in the farthest corner, the place he used most often.
Perhaps because Evan trained in the same place for long periods of time, the students usually left this field open.
As long as there were other places to train, they generally would not come to this area.
Evan and Lucas were already very popular among the senior students.
With the results they achieved in this assessment, even people who had not known much about them before had become familiar with them.
Because some lower-year students had also watched the assessment, Evan and Lucas had already become recognized throughout the school as Mapleford First Academy’s two sharpest blades for the state tournament.
Watching Snivy use move after move smoothly and continuously, Evan’s own passion was also stirred up.
He began doing stamina training and Poké Ball throwing practice.
After Snivy had trained according to Evan’s plan for a week, she could already train herself according to the routine.
She would even adjust her bad habits in certain moves based on the shortcomings she had noticed in the battle earlier.
Although Snivy had a proud personality, when it came to training and battling, she had always followed the attitude that if something could be done perfectly, then it had to be done perfectly.
That had always been Snivy’s creed.
Evan had once told her that if she wanted to keep being proud forever, she had to keep defeating every opponent, never stop, and never lose.
Only then would she have the right to be arrogant.
Otherwise, she would just be fooling herself.
As time passed, the number of people on the training field slowly decreased.
Evan also noticed that this training session felt different from before.
For some reason, whenever he trained moves together with Snivy, there was a sense of seamless connection that had not existed before.
It was as if they were not two separate individuals, but were tightly linked together.
Their senses felt synchronized, and one round of training seemed to have the effect of two.
The smoothness had also improved quite a bit.
In the previous battle, Evan had been too focused to notice it.
After obtaining the “Grass-Type Pokémon Affinity Lv.
1” ability, his communication with Snivy had become far more natural and unobstructed.
Every time Evan had not even spoken his command yet, the moment the idea had just surfaced in his heart, Snivy could quickly react and make the strongest counterattack for the current situation.
“Looks like this new ability also needs to be placed at the top of the upgrade list.” As he thought about it, Evan already understood that this ability called “Grass-Type Pokémon Affinity” was not as simple as its name sounded.
Most likely, the Grass-type Pokémon he caught in the future would also produce the same effect.
In the past, Evan had worried that specializing in a single type would make him easy to target and counter.
Strategically, he would also be less flexible than Trainers who did not follow a specialist route.
After all, even the Elite Four members of each type did not necessarily use entire teams made up of only one type, while Evan had no choice because of the system’s restrictions.
For example, Lance, Kanto’s Dragon-type Elite Four member, came from Blackthorn’s dragon clan, yet he still had a handful of Flying-type Pokémon on his team.
Plenty of fans jokingly called him “Bird Keeper Lance.” Now that Evan had gradually witnessed the system’s powerful abilities, he no longer had as many worries.
Before, he only had a goal.
Now, he had confidence as well.
Facing the setting sun at dusk, Evan brought Snivy home.
On the way, Evan rubbed Snivy’s little head and asked softly, “Training right after the assessment might’ve been a bit much today.
Are you tired?
We still have to keep working hard tomorrow.” “Sni, Sni~” Snivy turned her head away and said nothing.
Even if Evan had not said it, she would definitely keep working hard.
What Evan had never known was that some exceptionally talented Pokémon could already faintly sense the outside world while they were still inside their Eggs.
Although it had been vague and unclear, Snivy had still felt countless disdainful gazes.
There had even been a time when she thought no Trainer would ever choose her.
Then Evan appeared.
His pure fondness, that warm and joyful emotion, had made Snivy want to break out of her shell immediately and meet him.
From the very beginning, they had chosen each other.
When Snivy first opened her eyes after hatching from the Pokémon Egg, she immediately turned her head away.
Evan had always thought Snivy was simply born with that kind of personality.
In truth, Evan’s gentle gaze had been too warm and intense, and Snivy had not been able to meet his eyes.
At that moment, Snivy had sworn to herself that she would keep winning.
She would become so strong that even when facing the emerald legendary dragon, she would have the courage to battle it.
She would bring Evan with her and march toward the highest peak!