This account was currently stuck in the Great Ball Tier promotion series, which counted as the upper-middle echelon of the entire ladder.
At this rank, players matched with equally skilled opponents within two seconds.
Entering the preparation phase, Xia Chi began reading his opponent’s lineup.
“Charizard, Venusaur, Ninetales, Infernape, Magmar…
Huh, they’re actually bringing Flareon, the Unique King?
Guess I’ll go easy on them later.” Xia Chi said, “We’re facing a Sun team today, something super common on the ladder.
They’re completely within our range.” “The opponent will definitely be baffled for a second when they see our lineup, but they won’t figure it out.
What do you do in that situation?
They’ll naturally send out their three most trusted generals: Charizard, Venusaur, and Ninetales.” The singles mode in *Pokémon: Champion’s Path* was also a bring-six-pick-three format.
As Xia Chi spoke, he locked in his three Pokémon without hesitation: Hatterene, Mimikyu, and the core of his team, Trapinch.
The battle began.
Unsurprisingly, the player named “Abusing You Like Breathing” opened with Ninetales.
Xia Chi chose Mimikyu as his lead.
At this point, the chat was still locked in a fierce debate.
“I don’t get this lineup.
Six completely unrelated Pokémon with zero synergy—what’s the point?” “As an old fan of Master Shui Ye, I don’t get it either, but I believe in old mate Shui!” “Why leave Rhyperior behind when it hard counters Charizard?
Just watch Master Char sweep his whole team!” Thanks to its insanely high popularity and impressive battle prowess, Charizard still had a massive fanbase in this world and was respectfully dubbed “Master Char.” Xia Chi said nothing, casually changing his stream title to: [Trapinch 100% Win Rate to Ultra Ball Tier—Lose Once and I’ll Showcase Your Linguistic Flair].
Then, unhurriedly returning to the game, he began giving battle commands.
The opponent’s newly summoned Ninetales immediately triggered its Drought ability, changing the weather to sunny weather as expected.
Ninetales had higher Speed in the game than Mimikyu.
Just as Xia Chi issued the command for Trick Room, a Heat Wave swept across the field.
It had to be said that there was a reason this game was taking the world by storm.
Both its graphical fidelity and battle mechanics completely blew Game Freak out of the water.
A scorching hurricane blew across the screen, making Mimikyu’s head tilt to the side.
Mimikyu’s Disguise ability activated, blocking a single instance of damage from any source.
Right after, Trick Room opened!
It could only be said that Mimikyu was a fairly niche Pokémon in this world.
The opponent didn’t even know about Disguise, the only ability of its kind in the entire Pokédex.
Taking zero damage from the Heat Wave caused Abusing You Like Breathing to immediately type two characters in the global chat: “Hacking?” Xia Chi chuckled softly.
“If I haven’t closed my game, I’m hacking?
Then how will you handle my next move, Light Screen?” Under Trick Room, the speed order inverted.
Mimikyu, who originally moved second, took the initiative.
A transparent barrier rose, instantly forming a Light Screen that halved incoming special attack damage from the opponent.
This drastically reduced the damage of Ninetales’s second Heat Wave.
Even with the damage boost to Fire-type moves from the sun, it failed to deal significant damage to Mimikyu.
Toyed with like this, the opponent’s mindset underwent a subtle shift.
Logically, under the protection of Light Screen, a special attacker like Ninetales had no room to shine.
Yet, the opponent insisted on keeping Ninetales on the field, adopting an attitude of fighting to the death.
Xia Chi didn’t humor them either.
Leveraging his speed and Light Screen advantage, he opted for a hit-and-run Shadow Ball strategy.
As a side note, the combat system in *Pokémon: Champion’s Path* wasn’t strictly turn-based.
Under the player’s voice commands, Pokémon could move freely around the battlefield.
Although their AI wasn’t exceptionally high, they obeyed the Trainer’s orders completely.
This real-time command system gave players a more entertaining and skill-expressive operational space, bringing it much closer to real-life Pokémon battles.
Under absolute tactical suppression, the opponent’s Sun team couldn’t unleash its strength at all.
By the time Trick Room ended, both Ninetales and the Master Char that the stream audience had pinned high hopes on were already down.
The final Pokémon, Venusaur, thought it had finally found its chance to sweep the team.
However, Hatterene’s second Trick Room instantly shattered the dreams of the Sunny Day-boosted Venusaur.
Venusaur, which should have doubled its Speed in the sun thanks to Chlorophyll, moved sluggishly as if its legs had been broken.
Before Trapinch, the true Trick Room sweeper, could even hit the field, the thoroughly tilted opponent chose to forfeit.
“Easy win!” Having easily taken the first game, Xia Chi stretched and glanced at the chat.
“Holy crap, Trick Room works like that?!” “Learned!
Heading to challenge the Viridian Gym right now!” “Gotta admit, this playstyle seems really effective against fast Pokémon.” Like many tactics, the move Trick Room hadn’t received enough attention in this world.
The root cause was that Psychic-type specialist Trainers were rare in reality.
Most Psychic-type Pokémon could use Teleport.
Trainers preferred using a more flexible and convenient move like Teleport to create a speed advantage.
Carried over into the game, players naturally hadn’t developed Trick Room very much.
Amid laughter and cheer, Xia Chi rode a winning streak straight to his promotion series for the Ultra Ball Tier.
This rank was still a ways off from the top of the ladder, but for average players, it was already the ceiling.
With good luck, one might occasionally queue into a famous Trainer.
Evidently, Xia Chi’s luck today was exceptionally good.
” streamer’s logging off after this last game.
Let’s see who the final lucky winner is.” Just as he spoke, the opponent’s nickname made Xia Chi pause.
[IonoZone] “Iono again?
Is it the real deal?” This game didn’t restrict duplicate names, so it was perfectly normal for a big streamer like Iono to have fans using her name.
At that moment, the chat conveniently chimed in.
“It’s really her!
I’m lurking in Iono’s stream right now!” “Here from Iono’s stream!
Squad, crush this streamer for us!” “Old mate Shui, Iono dropped some harsh words—she said she’s gonna make you cry!” Xia Chi stroked his chin, a bright smile on his face.
“Make me cry?
Interesting…” Meanwhile…
Inside a luxury apartment in Levincia, Paldea region.
A cute girl with pink and blue twintails was gnashing her shark teeth, glaring angrily at her computer screen.
The oversized, Magnemite-like hair ornament atop her head blinked its eyes, expressing her current irritation.
“It’s this guy again!” Having confirmed the situation in Xia Chi’s stream, Iono returned to the game while dropping harsh words to her audience.
“Just watch!
I’ve already figured out how to counter his dirty tactics.
This match, I will avenge my past disgrace!” As she spoke, she glanced at the six Pokémon in her opponent’s preview team and her eyes widened.
“Eh?
This guy isn’t using those Pokémon from before?” The last time she encountered Xia Chi, she had been tortured to death by his Substitute-Protect-Toxic stall strategy, instantly marking him as her number one internet enemy.
Reenacting their reunion, she hadn’t expected Xia Chi to actually “reform.” “Did he find a conscience?
No wait…
What on earth is a Trapinch doing there?!” Seeing the brownish, big-headed ant in the prep zone, question marks popped up over Iono’s Magnemite hair ornaments.
But she quickly waved her hand, acting nonchalant.
“Whatever!
What can a Trapinch do anyway?
Trapinch can’t do anything!” Saying that, she rapidly locked in Kilowattrel, Luxray, and Mismagius.