“Huff!
Huff!
Huff!”
Ragged breathing echoed through the clearing as Gu Yuan and his Charmander ran with everything they had.
Shadow stood quietly off to the side, watching without a word of encouragement or scolding.
Even so, Gu Yuan pushed himself to the limit, leaving no room for slacking.
As Shadow had said before, a trainer can’t just rely on their Pokémon to be strong; the trainer’s own body and mind must also get stronger to keep up.
Thinking of old man Oak, Gu Yuan had to admit, the words made sense.
Otherwise, if he ever managed to catch a Pokémon like Larvitar but couldn’t even carry it, wouldn’t that be a joke?
Over the past few days, Gu Yuan had been filling in the gaps in his knowledge about the Pokémon world.
The first was how Pokémon’s strength was ranked.
If compared to levels in the games, it went roughly like this:
Child Rank: 0–9
Rookie Rank: 10–19
Junior Rank: 20–29
Intermediate Rank: 30–39
Senior Rank: 40–49
Ace Rank: 50–59
Leader Rank: 60–69
Elite Rank: 70–79
Champion Rank: 80–89
Legendary Rank: 90–100
Gu Yuan also finally understood why Charmander’s moves had the label “Beginner” beside them.
In the games, moves were just numbers and effects.
But in the real world, for a Pokémon to truly learn a move, they need to undergo a lot of training, and then even more practice if they hope to master said move.
Beginner: The Pokémon can use the move, but it takes time to prepare, the power is limited, and failure is possible.
Intermediate: The Pokémon can use it quickly, at full strength, but it can still be interrupted.
Advanced: The Pokémon has mastered it.
They can unleash it smoothly, sometimes even stronger than expected, and it’s harder to be interrupted.
Expert: The move has become second nature, like an instinct.
It’s faster, stronger, and can even take new forms, making it nearly impossible to interrupt the move.
Both Pokémon strength and move proficiency could only be raised through training and battles.
But Gu Yuan’s system granted him points, which let him bypass that grind.
Through testing, he had found that with Charmander’s current strength, five points could raise him one step, about the same as a single level.
Of course, raw power was one thing, but the Pokémon still had to be able to control it.
Otherwise, even if Gu Yuan dumped enough points to raise a Pokémon from Rookie Rank all the way to Elite Rank in one go, it would be like handing a baby a giant club.
Even so, compared to other trainers, points were a massive shortcut, saving him enormous amounts of training time.
As for moves, the system divided them by base power:
Power 60 moves: 100 points to upgrade one stage of proficiency.
Power 90 moves: 500 points.
Power 100+ moves: 5,000 points.
Status moves: 1,000 points.
The system didn’t show costs beyond that—probably because it didn’t want to scare him.
After all, Gu Yuan only had five points at the moment.
And even those were from Charmander’s first reluctant agreement with him, which let him complete his first quest.
At first, Gu Yuan wanted to spend the points right away to strengthen Charmander.
But after thinking it over, he decided to wait.
After all, if Shadow were training him personally, he definitely wouldn’t neglect Charmander either.
Gu Yuan could rely on Shadow’s methods to complete missions, and then use the points at the most critical moment, like when Charmander was about to break through from the Rookie Rank to the Junior Rank.
That was the real bottleneck.
In this world, a breakthrough required relentless effort and countless battles.
But Gu Yuan could skip the wall with a single push of his system.
And as Gu Yuan expected, when Shadow trained him, Charmander was put through the same harsh regimen.
The shared hardship these past days had only deepened Charmander’s affection for him.
Soon, Gu Yuan had already completed the training Shadow had assigned.
But instead of stopping, he kept pushing himself further.
Charmander’s thoughts were simpler: As long as Gu Yuan didn’t stop, he wouldn’t either.
Standing to the side, Shadow’s eyes glimmered with a hint of approval.
These days, he had only taught Gu Yuan the basics of being a trainer, leaving the rest to physical training.
On both counts, Gu Yuan had not let him down.
Perhaps because he was living his second life, Gu Yuan’s memory was sharper, and he easily absorbed everything Shadow taught him.
As for stamina training, Gu Yuan showed surprising toughness and willpower.
With the special medicines Shadow prepared from berries, his physique improved rapidly, far beyond what his old self could have achieved.
Judging the time, Shadow decided it was nearly time to begin teaching Gu Yuan how to properly raise Pokémon and battle.
“That’s enough.
Rest for twenty minutes.
We’ll continue afterward.”
Though satisfied, Shadow kept his face neutral, not revealing a trace of emotion.
Gu Yuan, however, still felt that his progress was too slow.
But being dissatisfied wouldn’t solve his problems.
He accepted it; his foundation was too weak to begin with, so the only thing he could do was grit his teeth and endure.
He picked up the potion Shadow had prepared from a mix of berries and first fed it to Charmander, then drank one himself.
In this world, berries were far more mysterious than in the games.
Different blends crafted by breeders could have incredible effects.
The one Gu Yuan drank restored his stamina and eased his mental fatigue.
Even without deep knowledge, Gu Yuan could tell such potions weren’t cheap.
Since Shadow was investing so much into him, Gu Yuan knew he had to prove his worth in return.
And so, he thought to himself: Bring on even greater rewards, Shadow.
At first, he could only dream of becoming a Pokémon Master, but now, with the system, that dream finally had a clear path forward.
Soon enough, once his rest was over, Gu Yuan was back at it, training with Charmander without even needing Shadow’s reminder.
All members of a Pokémon species will have access to these moves after they reach the appropriate level.
TM(Techinical Machine) Moves are game items containing moves you can teach to your Pokémon.
Every Pokémon has a list of TMs they can learn, and some of them may even be moves they can also learn by leveling up, but in this case, the trainer can make they learn the move at any level by using a TM.
Egg Moves are moves a Pokémon inherits from its parents that they wouldn’t learn otherwise.
Pokémon have egg groups, some just have one, but others may have two.
If you leave two Pokémon, a male and a female(or any and a Ditto) that share an egg group on a daycare they will produce an egg of the mother’s species(or from the father if the other Pokémon is a Ditto).
If any of the parents know a move that is in the egg move list of the offspring, then the Pokémon will hatch already knowing the move.
In this way a Pokémon can acquire some moves from other Pokémon species, which usually have some use competitively.
This is the reason why Gu Yuan says that charmander has a strong draconic bloodline, because the parent Pokémon that can give it Dragon Rush are all dragon-type Pokémon.
Moves have varying battle powers(BP).
Basically, a strong offensive move will have a high BP, and a weak offensive move will have a low BP.
Ember→ 40BP Flamethrower→ 90BP