Elf: Start your slow-paced life after becoming a farmer.

Pokémon battles are undoubtedly the number one "sport" in the world. On the street, anyone, whether they are adults in suits, bug-catching teenagers in vests and shorts, or even elderly people with white hair, can trigger a "battle".

Even though the battle atmosphere in the Padia region is relatively mild, and you may not necessarily encounter the type of trainer who thinks "a battle is a signal when you make eye contact," you can still have a match anytime, anywhere if they invite you.

With that in mind, Zhu Lan smiled and looked at Karl: "Karl, before Nemo comes back, how about we have a game?"

Chapter 275 The First Battle with Zhu Lan

Faced with Cynthia's invitation, Carl naturally had no reason to refuse. As a trainer from Sinnoh, the moment their eyes met was the signal that the battle was about to begin.

Although Carl had just let most of the Pokémon he was carrying roam freely, he still always had one Pokémon by his side.

"Zhenyifa, come out and stretch your legs."

The moment Karl finished speaking, the flapping wings emerged from the shadow beneath Karl's feet and floated into the battlefield in front of him.

"Whoa! (Who's our opponent this time?)"

Upon hearing that there was a fight to be had, Zhenyifa, who had been hiding in Karl's shadow, immediately switched from his usual cute appearance to battle mode.

When Zhu Lan saw Zhen Yifa emerge from Karl's shadow, she first raised her eyebrows, then took out a high-grade ball from the small bag tied to her waist and threw it.

As the Poké Ball opened, a humanoid canine Pokémon appeared on the battlefield. It had a thorn on the back of its hand and chest, milky-white fur on its torso, and blue and black fur covering its limbs and head.

This Pokémon is none other than Lucario, a Pokémon that is born with the power of aura and is quite popular among all generations of Pokémon.

Lucario, the Aura Pokémon, possesses the power of aura and can sense the thoughts and actions of others by detecting their auras.

Because it can read other people's thoughts, Lucario can only be captured by trainers with upright hearts.

Lucario boasts a base Attack stat of 110 and a Special Attack stat of 115. However, in the game, due to the limited total Effort Values, this dual-wielding approach forces players to choose to train Lucario as either a physical attacker or a special attacker.

However, in the real world, as long as the trainer is willing to train Lucario diligently, it will become an all-around attacker in both physical and special attacks.

As the new champion of Sinnoh and a woman standing at the top of the trainer pyramid, Cynthia's team's Lucario is obviously a weakling that is not good at either physical or special attacks.

Judging solely from the types of the Pokémon, it's a 60/40 matchup between Vibranium and Lucario. While Lucario's Steel-type moves are effective against Vibranium's Fairy-type moves, Vibranium's Ghost-type moves are immune to Lucario's Fighting-type moves.

However, for trainers like Carl and Cynthia, as long as it's not a situation where Grass-type is four times super effective against Swampert, type disadvantage is not the key to determining the outcome of a battle.

As both Pokémon entered the arena, Caitalia consciously stood at the edge of the battlefield to act as a temporary referee.

"Three, two, one, battle begins!"

The moment the battle began, Karl and Zhulan's eyes sharpened simultaneously.

"Wings of Fire, Shadow Ball."

"Lucario, close the distance with lightning speed."

As soon as the battle began, Carl and Cynthia gave completely different commands to their respective Pokémon.

The moment Karl and Zhulan gave their commands, more than a dozen shadow orbs made of nearly tangible ghost-type energy immediately appeared around Zhenyifa.

Lucario, standing on the other side of the battlefield, slightly bent down, then transformed into a blue-black figure and disappeared from the spot, leaving two clear claw marks on the ground where it had stood.

As Lucario activated its Extreme Speed ​​and approached Wingmax, the Shadow Balls hovering beside Wingmax were manipulated by it to crash into Lucario's trajectory.

Unfortunately, although Vibrating Wing had anticipated Lucario's trajectory, Lucario, in its Extreme Speed ​​state, used its unreasonable speed to forcefully break through the Shadow Ball's blockade and arrive in front of Vibrating Wing.

Seeing Lucario rapidly approaching, Carl immediately commanded, "Wingslash, use Phantom Strike to create distance."

After Karl finished speaking, Zhenyi threw out all the shadow orbs he had just condensed in one breath, and then disappeared from the spot in a flash.

Since Zhu Lan was not familiar with the skill pool of Zhenyifa, she did not expect that Zhenyifa's skill pool would actually contain the move "Qianling Ambush", which can create distance with almost no cost.

However, Cynthia is Cynthia after all. She adjusted her mindset in just one second and continued to command Lucario in the arena: "Lucario, use the Cannon."

Upon hearing this, Lucario immediately exited Extreme Speed ​​mode and activated the steel-type energy within its body. Gray energy representing the steel type randomly appeared on the surface of its body, and at the tip of the spikes on its chest.

The next instant, a torrent of gray energy erupted from Lucario's chest, guided by its waveguide perception, and shot toward the location of the Winged Strike.

It has to be said that the power of Aura is indeed a very overpowered ability. Lucario, who has mastered the power of Aura, is able to sense the Winged Star in the Spirit World through the Aura and predict where it will land when it emerges from the Spirit World.

Seeing this, Karl could only smile helplessly: "Wings of Power, use Guard to block this attack."

Although Karl's command was not timely, Zhenyifa reacted quickly thanks to the tacit understanding he had developed with Karl over the years.

Just a second before the beam cannon was about to hit Vibrating Wing, Vibrating Wing steadily erected a semi-transparent barrier, blocking the beam cannon that Lucario had precisely guided using its aura.

Although Carl's initial probing at the start of the battle was ineffective, that wasn't a problem for him or Winged. As a fearsome individual with insufficient firepower, he believed that if a dozen or so Shadow Balls couldn't harm Lucario, then dozens or even hundreds of Shadow Balls should suffice.

Then, in the next moment, Karl issued another command to Winged: "Winged, use Shadow Sphere at full power."

Upon hearing that Karl had actually asked him to lift the firepower restriction, the winged beast let out a joyful howl. Its long fur began to move without wind, and its golden-red eyes shone with excited red light.

When Gadria, who was standing on the edge of the battlefield, heard Karl's command, she was stunned. In her opinion, Karl's initial command failed to establish an attack. Even if he made this strangely shaped, large-sized Dream Demon use Shadow Ball with all its might, what difference would it make?

The moment this thought crossed Gadria's mind, hundreds of Shadow Orbs instantly appeared around Zhenyifa. The dense array of purplish-black orbs sent chills down the spines of Zhulan, who was standing on the other side of the battlefield, and Gadria, who was standing on the sidelines.

While most special attack moves can be scaled up by increasing energy output, theoretically, if the Pokémon's output is sufficient, Swift can deal the same damage as Reflection.

But that's only in theory. Pokémon's bodies have limits. In a short period of time, a Pokémon's total energy output is limited. There is only one Pokémon in the world that can increase its energy output to the point that Swift can rival Light Shard.

Chapter 276 Who has such a lack of public morality!

In Caitlin's trainer career, Cynthia was the strongest trainer she had ever met, but Cynthia's strength was a product of the combination of her command skills and the strength of her Pokémon.

At this moment, Gadria realized that there was another kind of trainer in this world who did not even need to make any ingenious tactical arrangements. He only needed to let his Pokémon fully exert their own strength to be comparable to Cynthia's Pokémon, the champion trainer.

As Wingfire unleashed its full power, Lucario in the battlefield was immediately plunged into a desperate situation.

Under the control of Wingfire, a dense barrage of Shadow Balls began to rain down on Lucario. As the barrage of Shadow Balls came hurtling towards him, Lucario instinctively used Extreme Speed ​​to dodge.

While Lucario in its Extreme Speed ​​state can indeed use its incredible speed to weave through the gaps between the Shadow Balls, a new problem has arisen for Lucario and Cynthia – it cannot maintain Extreme Speed ​​for an extended period.

Before battling Carl, Cynthia had never worried about Lucario's endurance in Extreme Speed ​​mode, since Lucario, under the boost of Extreme Speed, had almost never encountered an opponent who could allow him to maintain Extreme Speed ​​for an extended period of time.

As long as Lucario uses its speed to attack, even the most formidable opponent will be quickly defeated by its almost unstoppable speed attack tactics.

"Karl, you really gave me a big surprise." Cynthia looked at Lucario weaving through the barrage of Shadow Balls on the field, her face showing no signs of frustration or other negative emotions.

As time passed, Lucario's stamina rapidly depleted, and it soon slowed down. As soon as it slowed down, it was hit by a Shadow Ball, followed by a barrage of attacks from its Winged Wings.

"Stop, Zhenyifa."

After several Shadow Balls successfully hit Lucario, Carl volleyed a halt to his full-power Wing Slash.

Upon hearing Carl's command, the hovering winged machine reluctantly stopped bombarding Lucario.

At this moment, Lucario was in extremely poor condition on the battlefield. Having taken several Shadow Balls from Wingfire, its aura was very weak.

Upon seeing Lucario's miserable state, Cynthia quickly rushed to Lucario's side and began to examine its injuries.

"Is Lucario alright?" Carl asked Cynthia softly as he approached Lucario.

Cattleya quickly came to Cynthia's side, glared at Karl, and then asked Cynthia with concern, "Is Lucario's injury serious?"

"It's not serious. Carl stopped it just in time." After checking Lucario's condition, Cynthia breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to Carl and said in a low voice, "Although you won this battle, I didn't enjoy fighting you at all, Carl."

Carl smiled awkwardly upon hearing this: "That's just how Winged Wings fights. I'll switch to a different Pokémon next time and we'll have another match."

In fact, the Pokémon in Carl's team are the type that don't require much skill to master, but Fluttershy and Urshifu are among the best.

Since Carl began his journey to the Kanto region, apart from the Pokémon under Red's command, Carl has almost never encountered an opponent that Kubora could not defeat with a single punch.

Back then, even Mewtwo on the new island couldn't withstand a punch from Ulquiorra, but if the opponent were Kyurem, Ulquiorra would probably get serious.

There's an old saying that goes something like this: a trainer who gets their car overturned by Master Xiong just needs to lie flat, while Master Xiong has a lot to consider, like what to cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Just then, Nemo, who had gone to the Pokémon Emergency Center to treat her Pokémon, arrived late. She looked at the messy battle arena, then at Lucario, who looked weak in the middle of the battle, and then at Winged Strike, which had been stopped by Carl before it could even be satisfied.

"Eh!!!"

"Karl, you didn't just have a Pokémon battle with Cynthia, did you?!"

After seeing Karl nod, Nemo's face showed an expression of extreme regret: "Aaaaaaahhhhhh, why did I leave just now? Why didn't I stay? Why didn't anyone call me!"

Seeing Nemo's increasingly frantic state because she hadn't witnessed the two of them, Karl smiled with satisfaction.

'Sure enough, under my guidance, Nemo has gradually begun to let loose,' Karl thought to himself.

Meanwhile, Gadriya was clearly frightened by Nemo's sudden outburst. She instinctively took a step back, shrank behind Zhulan, and tugged at Zhulan's sleeve, saying weakly, "Could it be that there's something wrong with this child's mind?"

The more Gadria thought about it, the more she felt that there was nothing wrong with her idea. After all, what child would be so enthusiastic about challenging their opponent after being defeated a dozen times?

Seeing that her friend seemed to have thought of something very polite, Zhu Lan sighed and then gave Karl a look that said, "You should control your students."

After receiving a look from Zhu Lan, Carl raised his hand and gave her an OK sign. Then he went to Nemo, put his hand on her head and shook it a few times.

"Stop, stop, stop, Karl, what are you doing?!" Nemo raised her hand and slapped away Karl's hand that was on her head, staring at Karl with a "resentful" look.

Seeing that Nemo had shaken off her state of regret, Carl asked seriously, "Nemo, do you believe me?"

“Uh.” Nemo looked at the familiar expression on Karl’s face and was momentarily speechless.

Logically speaking, Carl is a very reliable person in most situations, but the moment he shows this serious expression, it means he's about to start conning people.

"My battle with Cynthia just now wasn't really worth learning anything from. I simply let Vibrating Wing go all out, and Cynthia's Lucario couldn't withstand it. It's that simple," Carl said.

"Really?" Nemo looked doubtful, then turned to look at Gadriya, who was standing behind Orchid: "Gadria-senpai, is that really true?"

Upon hearing Nemo's question, Gadria's expression darkened further. Although Karl had defeated Cynthia through sheer Pokémon strength, he hadn't demonstrated any command skills.

But a Pokémon's strength is also part of the battle, and a loss is a loss. No matter how good her relationship with Cynthia is, she can't explain the outcome of the battle for Cynthia.

In fact, Nemo bypassed Zhulan, the person directly involved, and asked Gadriya only to take care of Zhulan's feelings.

Zhu Lan also saw through Nemo's little thoughts. She looked at Nemo and smiled, saying, "That's right, the battle just now was just like Karl said."

Upon hearing this, Nemo turned her head and looked at the chaotic battlefield before nodding to indicate that she understood.

Just as the four of them were about to leave, an angry roar came from afar: "Who is so disrespectful to the public arena? I have repeatedly told them not to use high-powered moves, why don't they listen!"

Chapter 276 Straight-Ahead Bear: Can I not say?

After paying the fine to the site manager and promising to repair the battlefield before sunrise the next morning, Carl, Zhu Lan, and the other two returned to the camp.

For Cattleya, tonight was probably the best time she had been since arriving in Padiya, except for the day she met Orchid.

It's quite a rare sight to see Karl, who just defeated Gadriya, being scolded like a grandson by the venue manager.

Noticing the gloating expression on her friend's face, Zhu Lan sighed helplessly. Jia Deliya was good at everything, but she had a hard time controlling her emotions.

Fortunately, Karl, who was preoccupied with Nemo, didn't notice Gadriya's expression. Taking advantage of the situation, Zhulan tugged at Gadriya's sleeve and gave her a "watch your expression" look.

Cattleya pursed her lips, but under Zhulan's gaze, she managed to suppress the gloating smile on her face.

Upon returning to the camp, Karl's expression suddenly changed, and he quickly said to Zhenyifa beside him, "Zhenyifa, could you please go and find the Straight-Charging Bear?"

Upon hearing this, Zhenyi tilted its head. Although it didn't understand why Karl wanted it to do this, out of habit, it nodded: "Puff! (Leave it to me!)"

Then Zhenyi's figure flickered and disappeared from the spot.

Noticing the change in Karl's expression, Zhu Lan asked with some confusion, "Karl, what happened?"

"It's a long story..." Karl sighed, then explained to Zhu Lan the "achievements" of Straight-Charging Bear.

When Cynthia heard that her former Bebop had managed to steal food right under Carl's and his Pokémon's noses, a hint of surprise appeared on her face.

Although Cynthia doesn't know exactly how strong Karl was when he encountered Grimoire, he was at least strong enough to get through the Sinnoh Champion Road.

The fact that the straight-running bear was able to steal things right under his nose is enough to prove the quality of his "scavenging" skills.

"Hopefully it won't cause any trouble," Karl said helplessly.

Seeing Zhu Lan chatting with Karl, Gadriya frowned and then said, "Zhu Lan, it's getting late. Let's go back and set up our tents."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Lan turned to look at Gadriya. Noticing Gadriya's urging gaze, she smiled apologetically at Karl and said, "Karl, then Leah and I will head back now."

"Do you need my help?" Karl noticed Cattleya's expression, a mischievous smile playing on his lips as he teased, "I imagine it's a bit inconvenient for you to set up the tent by yourself, Orchid?"

"You!" Even if Gadria was stupid, she could understand the underlying meaning of Karl's words.

Before Gadriya could speak again, Zhulan reached out and grabbed Gadriya's slender wrist, smiling as she said to Karl, "That's why you need to learn, right? I believe in Elijah's intelligence. As long as I teach her once, she will definitely be able to learn."

After being nearly made red with anger by Karl's words, Gadriya's face immediately blossomed into a beautiful smile upon hearing Zhulan's words. She then glared at Karl before obediently letting Zhulan lead her away by the hand.

Looking at Cattleya, who had been coaxed into submission by Zhulan's words, Karl shook his head and muttered to himself, "This girl is hopeless."

"Karl, what's beyond saving?" Nemo asked curiously as she walked out of the camp built by the Serpent Lord.

“No, it’s nothing.” Carl shook his head, then immediately changed the subject, “By the way, Nemo, have you seen Shinji and Pippa?”

“They’re giving the Pokémon treatments inside,” Nemo said, yawning. “Carl, what time are you planning to go to bed tonight?”

Although Nemo showed no signs of exhaustion during her battle with Gadriya, now that she's idle, fatigue has overwhelmed her. All she wants to do is wash up and go back to camp to sleep.

“Wait a little longer, Master Xiong and the others haven’t returned yet.” Carl noticed the fatigue on Nemo’s face and urged, “If you’re tired, hurry up and wash up and get some rest.”