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At this very moment, seeing Sceptile's full HP bar instantly deleted by Dracovish in one hit, not only was Cynthia stunned, but naturally, all the viewers in the livestream were completely bewildered too.
They shared the same confusion that Cynthia had just felt.
—Why did Sceptile, with all that HP, just disappear like that from what was admittedly a super effective move, but not even a same-type attack?
The power of "Ice Fang" wasn't supposed to be as terrifying as something like "Giga Impact," right?
Could this Dracovish's physical attack stat possibly be even more frightening than Slaking's?
That didn't seem very logical.
But at this moment, Cynthia had directly noticed the ability that had flashed by earlier.
"Strong Jaw."
So... was this an ability unique to Dracovish, this fossil Pokémon?
No, that didn't seem right.
She vaguely remembered hearing that other Pokémon also possessed this ability that boosted the power of biting moves, but such Pokémon were pretty rare, so this ability was quite obscure, too.
Even the research community had spent considerable effort discovering this ability...
Because this ability was so uncommon, Cynthia only had a vague impression of it—she didn't know the specifics.
For example, exactly how much damage did this ability boost?
If the boost percentage was relatively small, then it would prove that this Dracovish's physical attack power was indeed somewhat ridiculous.
But if the boost percentage was large, then this wouldn't really count as Dracovish's own inherent strength.
However, if this Pokémon could learn "Ice Fang," then maybe it could also learn "Fire Fang" and "Thunder Fang," as well as the Dark-type "Bite"...
Combined with this ability, this Pokémon would have quite a distinctive fighting style.
No matter what move it used, it would always use those massive jaws to chomp on enemies... and could counter many opponents.
That actually seemed pretty interesting.
At this moment, Cynthia's attention returned to this battle.
This Pokémon's offensive capability was indeed pretty scary, but her team had so many Pokémon after all—even through attrition, she could wear it down to death.
But Cynthia couldn't be sure whether she'd still be able to capture it after defeating this Pokémon.
So she could only carefully send out Ludicolo, using the relatively lower-powered "Zen Headbutt," planning to chip away at the opponent's HP.
The pink headbutt formed from psychic power slammed heavily into Dracovish's body, taking away another small portion of its HP and causing its health to flash red.
This time, the move Dracovish used was exactly what Cynthia had just predicted—"Crunch."
Deep black energy gathered on its teeth as it viciously chomped down toward Ludicolo.
Ludicolo's HP bar instantly dropped by more than half!
Facing the red-flashing Dracovish, Cynthia took a deep breath and directly threw out a basic red-and-white Poké Ball.
The Poké Ball hit Dracovish, converting it into a red light and drawing it inside the ball.
After the ball shook slightly twice, Dracovish actually broke out directly—capture failed!
The Dracovish that hadn't been successfully captured by the Poké Ball appeared extremely angry. It lunged forward again, delivering another round of chomping attacks on Ludicolo.
Although both "Crunch" and "Ice Fang" weren't its same-type attack moves, under the damage boost from its "Strong Jaw" ability combined with its own inherent power, Ludicolo's HP bar was starting to struggle, already down to just a sliver of red health.
Cynthia suddenly realized a problem.
Her team defeating it really wouldn't be difficult, but if she let it keep biting like this, there might actually be a real possibility...
So she gritted her teeth, steeled her heart, took a deep breath, and selected from her bag that deep black "Ultra Ball" she'd found earlier—far beyond what should be obtainable at this stage of the game—and threw it directly.
The deep black ball traced a perfect arc through the air, converting Dracovish into a yellow beam of light and drawing it into the ball. This time, the Poké Ball fell to the ground and began shaking violently.
The air seemed to freeze at this moment, with everyone nervously watching that Poké Ball on the ground. This was Cynthia's only Ultra Ball—once used, it would be gone.
Fortunately, when the Poké Ball's shaking reached the fifth time, there was a "click" sound as the button on the ball's surface locked.
Several stars emerged from the Poké Ball, accompanied by excited, cheerful BGM, proving Cynthia's successful capture.
[Congratulations! Successfully captured Dracovish! New Pokémon information has been added to the Pokédex!]
Only at this moment did Cynthia breathe a slight sigh of relief as she watched the screen exit the battle interface.
If even this Poké Ball hadn't been able to capture Dracovish, she really would have been uncertain whether she could successfully capture it with regular red-and-white balls before this Pokémon chomped through her entire team.
Looking at it this way, she'd probably need to figure out how to get more high-quality Poké Balls going forward.
Otherwise, when encountering Pokémon worth capturing in unexpected situations like this, having only the most basic red-and-white balls would be pretty awkward...
Before she could examine Dracovish's Pokédex entry, Bill, who had been hiding in the nearby grass, came running over with apparent relief.
"Finally got that guy under control! You really came through, Strawberry Ice Cream! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have known what to do."
Cynthia glanced at Bill, then at the little cabin in the distance.
The cabin that had already been run-down now looked no different from a garbage shack after Dracovish's rampage.
She couldn't help pressing the interaction button to ask:
"Uh, is your research lab okay?"
Bill looked back at his house in the distance, his expression freezing momentarily, but he quickly waved his hand in response.
"It's fine, it's fine. I was planning to move somewhere else recently anyway. That guy's destructive power really is pretty scary—good thing my equipment didn't get chomped up."
"Fossil Pokémon really live up to their reputation—so wild!"
Speaking of this, he looked up at the deep black Poké Ball in Cynthia's hand, moved closer, took a deep breath, and suddenly entered an extremely excited state.
"Speaking of which, I really have to thank you this time for giving me the chance to revive a fossil Pokémon. This finally proves that all my painstaking research has been completely sound!!"
At this point, Bill suddenly began acting like he'd gone crazy, dancing around and throwing his arms up in celebration.
"Oh yeah!! Hehe haha!!"
You could tell he was genuinely happy.
Before Cynthia could say anything, she saw Bill in this state quickly return and approach her character.
"Looking at your expression, I know what you're thinking—you think I don't look like a researcher at all right now, don't you? Let me tell you, you're dead wrong!"
Cynthia paused for a moment.
Honestly, that really hadn't occurred to her. She'd known plenty of researchers—at least five if not ten—and pretty much all the top-tier researchers behaved exactly like Bill.
Whenever they made discoveries in their research fields, they'd all fall into this kind of dancing, crazy state. You could say none of these research types had normal mental states.
So she was pretty used to it.
However, Bill in the game didn't know her thoughts and pointed a finger at the black Poké Ball in her hand, speaking emphatically.
"You don't understand what reviving a fossil Pokémon means to me!"
"It means all my years of research weren't wasted or just fantasy! It was all well-founded and correct!"
"And reviving a fossil Pokémon—this might be my only chance in this lifetime!"
"Oh man, mainly because you don't know how precious active fossils are—I've been searching for years and never found one!"
"Although I'll keep searching for these things for decades to come, I feel like I might never find another one in this lifetime..."
"So anyway, thank you so much."
Bill rushed forward, grabbed the protagonist's hands, and shook them up and down, expressing his sincere gratitude.
However, Cynthia's expression at this moment was somewhat complex.
"Active fossils are precious, impossible to find another one in this lifetime?"
Hmm...
After thinking it over, she finally pressed the interaction button to speak.
"Uh, actually..."
Having his words interrupted, Bill immediately frowned.
"Actually, what? Hey, you're not questioning what I said, are you?"
"Really, there's probably only this one active fossil in the entire world! I even asked Steven about it, and even he's never seen one!"
However, as soon as he finished speaking, Cynthia's character directly pulled something from her pocket—a deep black stone with huge claw marks on it...
This was exactly the new fossil she'd obtained in the desert earlier.
"Actually, I have another active fossil here that I'd like you to help me revive."
Bill: ??????
After handing over that new active fossil to Bill, he had a thousand words to say, chasing Cynthia in circles, stopping just short of kneeling before her.
After learning that this new active fossil was somewhat complex and would take about a day to revive, Cynthia left Bill's cabin.
A day in the game corresponded to roughly half a day in the real world, meaning she'd probably have to wait until tomorrow when she logged on to see what Pokémon would hatch from this fossil.
After leaving the cabin, Cynthia didn't go far but directly opened the team interface to examine the new Pokémon called Dracovish that she'd just obtained.
You don't know until you look, but once you look—wow! She discovered this Pokémon really was quite different from all the Pokémon she'd seen before.
In terms of stats, this Pokémon surprisingly had no obvious weaknesses, with all its values being quite high, like a well-rounded hexagonal warrior with balanced stats.
But its stat distribution was quite balanced, which in other words meant it wasn't particularly outstanding in any specific area.
This Pokémon's speed wasn't as fast as Ludicolo's, its special attack and physical attack were lower than Sceptile's, though its HP was pretty decent—clearly a Pokémon that leaned toward the defensive side.
Seeing this physical attack stat, Cynthia immediately began contemplating. Looking at it this way, it should be that ability it possessed that provided significant damage boosts...
Sure enough, when Cynthia opened this Pokémon's ability interface, a line of text immediately appeared before her eyes.
[Ability: Strong Jaw increases the power of the Pokémon's biting moves by 50%.]
50% was already quite an outrageous boost value. You had to know that in this game, classic damage-boosting abilities like "Overgrow," "Torrent," and "Blaze" all required the Pokémon's HP to drop to 1/3 before triggering—the requirements were quite harsh.
But this ability could unconditionally boost all biting moves by 50%!
As expected, these fossil Pokémon all had their own special tricks.
However, the chat in the livestream didn't seem entirely satisfied with this result.
[This is a fossil Pokémon? Feels like something's missing.]
[Yeah, look at how ridiculous Archen's physical attack damage was before, and that Lileep was so tanky it was nauseating. This Pokémon's stats are so balanced—it's really lacking something.]
[True, playing it safe equals mediocrity. Only this ability is kind of a highlight, but I remember lots of other Pokémon should have this ability too, right?]
[I remember it that way too, so this Pokémon probably isn't particularly strong among fossil Pokémon. If we're talking about advantages, I guess the Water/Dragon typing is pretty solid.]
While the livestream discussed Dracovish, Cynthia opened Dracovish's move pool to take a look. If this Pokémon's core lay in its "Strong Jaw" ability, then how many biting moves it could learn became quite important.
The actual situation left Cynthia somewhat disappointed.
At this level, Dracovish should have learned pretty much all the moves it could.
But the biting moves Cynthia saw in the move pool were quite scarce. Currently, in this Dracovish's move pool, there were only the "Ice Fang" and "Crunch" that had already appeared, plus the Dark-type "Bite" and Normal-type "Hyper Fang." That was it.
Moves like "Thunder Fang" and "Fire Fang" that Cynthia had imagined were nowhere to be found.
This situation was quite regrettable, since lacking these two moves correspondingly meant losing a lot of potential coverage... really unfortunate.
She could only see if biting-type TMs would appear later in the game, that this Dracovish could learn...
While Cynthia was contemplating, she suddenly noticed two unfamiliar words appearing in the bottom right corner of the move pool that she'd never seen before.
"Fishious Rend."
She immediately paused. What kind of move was this?
Hovering the mouse over the move, a string of information quickly appeared.
["Fishious Rend," Water-type move, Base Power 85.]
[Classified as a biting move.]
Seeing this, Cynthia nodded slightly.
This... wasn't bad, since Water-type coverage was pretty broad.
And this was even this Pokémon's same-type attack move—not only could it get the same-type attack bonus, but also receive another boost from the ability. The damage output should be pretty decent.
But then she suddenly noticed there was an additional effect listed below this move line.
Cynthia initially hadn't paid much attention to it.
Her experience playing this game told her that moves like this weren't uncommon.
For example, "Thunderbolt" had a small chance of paralyzing the opponent—basically a bonus effect with usually very low probability.
But Cynthia found that what she saw next completely exceeded her expectations.
It was quite a simple and straightforward line of text.
[When moving first, this move's power doubles.]
Cynthia: ???
Chat: ????
The moment this line appeared on screen, the entire livestream exploded again.
[Teacher, I can't do math—what's this move's power if it goes first?]
[85 × 2 × 1.5 × 1.5 = ?]
[Stop calculating. It's basically 10,000 tons of damage (^_^)]
[Guys, he's invincible now.]
[Reminder: this game's damage calculation probably isn't simple multiplication like that, but if you add a held item that boosts Water-type moves, that's another 30% damage boost.]
[I told you—not a single fossil Pokémon is reasonable. Now this feels right!]
While the livestream erupted in discussion, Cynthia was internally just as shocked.
If this move went first, wouldn't its theoretical damage be even higher than "Giga Impact"?
And it could still enjoy Dracovish's 50% ability boost...
This was a bit too ridiculous, wasn't it?
That said, while the "moving first" requirement seemed demanding, most Pokémon actually followed the same pattern—those with high durability and defense usually weren't very fast.
Correspondingly, those fast Pokémon with strong offensive capabilities usually didn't have particularly good defensive stats.
This meant...
With this move's base damage combined with Dracovish's ability, fast but frail Pokémon probably couldn't tank it.
And when facing those extremely slow, defense-oriented Pokémon, Dracovish's terrifying double power could deal devastating damage to them, too!
As for those Pokémon with moderate speed—just a bit slower than Dracovish...
Meeting Dracovish, they could only consider themselves unlucky.
And these theories were just based on Pokémon's base Speed stats.
You had to know that in actual battle, there were tons of ways to make Dracovish move first.
Like Pelipper's already-mastered "Tailwind," which could double all friendly Pokémon's speed.
Or the "Choice Scarf" that had appeared once in the game—when held, it boosted the Pokémon's speed by 50% but locked it into repeating the same move...
Even the "Trick Room" she knew about that reversed Pokémon action order...
Heck, even having Dracovish consume a speed-boosting item mid-battle would work.
No matter which method was achieved...
The entire battle would probably become Dracovish's personal buffet—chomping through gods and legends alike!
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