Chapter 4: S-Rank Ability, The Peak of Aura Power!
[First Pokémon Acquired. Reward Draw x1 Received.]
[Access Reward Draw Below...]
After clicking the dot of light, only two messages appeared. One informed him that he had earned a reward draw, and the other provided the link to use it.
Ash was completely lost.
A reward draw? For what? What kind of prize could this chat group possibly give him?
[Champion Ash]: You should see the notification for the reward draw, right?
[Ash]: Yeah, I see it. It says I got one draw for getting my first Pokémon. What do I win?
[Champion Ash]: You win one of our abilities.
[Ash]: Your abilities?
[Champion Ash]: Exactly. The prize pool contains everything except physical items. Things like my battle experience, the Breeder's knowledge on raising Pokémon, the Tactician's strategic mindset... everything.
The Champion's words sent a jolt through Ash's mind. Even if he didn't fully grasp the concept, the idea of instantly gaining someone else's knowledge was, without a doubt, a game-changing power.
[Champion Ash]: Besides experience, the draw also includes our innate powers. Different versions of us have awakened different abilities. Take the Aura Guardian, for example. He's almost completely mastered the Aura within his body. He can fight Legendary Pokémon using just his own power.
[Ash]: Um... what's a Legendary Pokémon?
[Champion Ash]: ...What on earth did you learn in Professor Oak's classes? Do you know Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres?
[Ash]: Nope.
[Champion Ash]: Wow.
Ash's reply left even the World Champion speechless. He had talked with nearly every other Ash in the group, but he had never encountered one who was this much of a blank slate.
He didn't know what a Pikachu was, and now he didn't even know what a Legendary Pokémon was. He didn't even recognize the famous Legendary birds of his own home region.
This went way beyond being a simple rookie.
[Aura Guardian Ash]: Just think of them as the most powerful Pokémon in the world.
[Ash]: For real? A human can actually fight one of the strongest Pokémon in the world?
If the people in this group weren't all versions of himself, Ash would have assumed they were pulling a massive prank on him.
A human fighting a top-tier Pokémon? That sounded like something out of a fairy tale.
[Champion Ash]: We have no reason to lie to you. Just go try the draw and see what you get.
[Champion Ash]: The abilities in the reward draw are ranked from highest to lowest: S, A, B, C, D, and E. The probability of getting an S-Rank is less than one in ten thousand. Most of us in this group have done over a hundred draws each, but only one or two have ever pulled an S-Rank ability.
Unlike the newcomer Ash, the others had all joined the group as "maxed-out accounts." They received a huge number of draws the moment they joined. But for them, most of the prizes were minor boosts at best. Having already reached the peak of their respective fields, they had little use for basic skills or experience.
[Ash]: The odds are that low? So who are the one or two guys who got an S-Rank?
[Breeder Ash]: That would be me, thank you very much. But I wish this stupid chat group had never given it to me! What use does a Pokémon Breeder have for the Master Tactician's complete battle knowledge?! I literally laughed out loud when I got it!
The Breeder was still fuming about it. He finally hits the jackpot with an S-Rank prize, and it had absolutely nothing to do with his specialty.
He did admit, however, that some of the tactical knowledge was fascinating. He'd even tried it out in a battle against Lance, the Champion of the Indigo League. The result? Lance was so thoroughly annoyed by his tactics that he swore he would never battle the Breeder again.
The ability wasn't just raw data; it had also transferred the Tactician's razor-sharp perception, predictive ability, and thought processes during battle. That's what made it S-Rank. If you gave it to a trainer who had never battled before, they would instantly have the experience and insight of a world-class Champion.
Unfortunately, it was given to a Breeder.
[Master Tactician Ash]: Hey! What's wrong with my ability? Go ask the Champion, he'd kill to have my skills! You should be grateful you got it!
The difference between the Champion and the Tactician was simple. The former relied on overwhelming power and high-level Pokémon. The latter specialized in using clever, and often dirty, strategies to defeat stronger opponents.
When the Champion had first talked with the Tactician, he was blown away by the sheer audacity of his tactics. He had never imagined such underhanded strategies could exist.
Things like combining Toxic and Toxic Spikes with a defensive tank to slowly wear down the opponent. Who even thinks of that? Not to mention infamous strategies like Toxic-stall and Serene Grace Chansey.
Even the Champion himself wouldn't want to fight the Tactician. It wasn't a battle; it was pure torture. You might not lose, but you'd be annoyed to your absolute limit.
[Champion Ash]: Anyway, just go do the draw. The link should be in the notification you got.
Hearing that, Ash put his curiosity on hold, clicked on the notification, and entered the reward draw interface.
A giant prize wheel appeared before him.
It was divided into six sections, corresponding to the six ability ranks the Champion had mentioned.
The S-Rank slice was so tiny it was almost invisible, confirming what the Champion had said about the one-in-ten-thousand odds. The prize wheel had to be enormous just to make the slice visible without a microscope.
"No wonder the odds are so low. Is it even possible to land on something that small?" Ash grumbled as he focused his will, setting the wheel in motion.
The wheel spun in a dizzying blur, its colors mixing together until he couldn't tell one section from another. After a few seconds, he mentally hit the "stop" button.
The wheel's rotation slowed, the clicking sound growing more distinct as it neared a complete stop. The small pointer crept slowly, agonizingly, toward the impossibly thin slice of S-Rank territory.
The width of the pointer and the width of the slice seemed to be a perfect match. Finally, with a soft click, it came to a dead stop.
Ash stared, stunned for a moment, then instinctively tried to rub his eyes, forgetting for a moment that he was just a form of consciousness.
But the action, or lack thereof, made him realize that what he was seeing was no illusion. The pointer had actually landed on S-Rank.
The prize wheel vanished, replaced by a new notification box.
[Congratulations! You have won the S-Rank Ability: The Peak of Aura Power. Your latent Aura has been fully awakened to its S-Rank state. All knowledge of its application has been uploaded directly to your mind. You may access this knowledge at will.]