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Lunchtime. Ash, Pikachu, Frogadier, and the other Pokemon picked up their bowls and chopsticks, and began to feast.
Having learned the 'true skills' from Ash, Brock's cooking level has gone up a notch. Although it's not yet at Ash's glowing culinary level, the taste is far superior to before.
However, in terms of cooking effects, he's still a far cry from Ash. That's because it takes blending all the ingredients to their utmost to achieve the special effects of Ash's luminous dishes.
For Brock, he may need another ten years of training.
After a hearty meal and a short break from training, Frogadier has completely met today's training goals and even exceeded some limits. But seeing the group of older brothers and sisters in the team fires up his desire to become stronger.
For this reason, he wanted to continue training, but Ash stopped him. As the saying goes, "too much is as bad as too little." Hard work is good, but too much can be a burden on the body.
Frogadier has just reached the Elite Intermediate Level not long ago, so the focus should be on stabilizing his current physical state rather than rushing to improve. With Frogadier's talent, becoming Divine Domain Level in the future is not a problem, and he shouldn't exhaust his potential here.
Besides Frogadier, Ash currently carries Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile, the three starter Pokemon from the Johto League.
In addition to Gardevoir and Pikachu, this is Ash's regular lineup of six Pokemon.
As for the special ones, they are basically fixed: Mewtwo, Little Lugia, and Giratina.
The Johto starters have been with Ash for a while now, their Levels are all reaching the brink of evolution; even a sneeze might trigger it, just waiting for the right opportunity.
Gardevoir's Level has soared to Champion Intermediate Level, even at Champion Level, she maintains a runaway improvement pace. Whose Champion Level can upgrade a sub-Level within a month!
Strictly speaking, Gardevoir only took half a month to ascend to Champion Intermediate Level. After the Crystal Tower incident, she broke through her Level and is now stabilized at Champion Intermediate Level.
According to her estimate, she could achieve another Level up within half a month!
Usually, the higher the Pokemon's Level, the harder it is to upgrade, but not Gardevoir. The higher her Level, the faster she advances—incredible!
However, Ash's roster has not just one incredible Pokemon; all his Pokemon are noteworthy.
Aside from Gardevoir, the fastest to advance is Pikachu, at Elite Peak, just one step away from Champion. Once Pikachu ascends to Champion Level, coupled with ability upgrade from third transformation, he can rival Champion Advanced Level—such is the terrifying nature of reincarnated Pikachu.
Everyone is steadily advancing; there's no problem tackling the upcoming Dragon Gym.
Aside from Ash and his Pokemon progressing, Serena has made significant progress over the past half month—her biggest achievement was capturing six new Pokemon.
Mareep evolved into Flaaffy, reaching Advanced Level, and Braixen evolved into Delphox, the final evolution of Fennekin.
As Serena's Starter Pokemon, Delphox is the strongest in her lineup, already reaching Elite Intermediate Level, setting a big gap with others.
After all, it's a final evolution of the three starters.
The little fox was initially reluctant to train, if not for the lure of food and Serena's compassionate and logical persuasion, plus her desire for the spotlight, she then joined Ash's Pokemon for training.
Even so, her training amount didn't match that of Ash's Pokemon.
Take the Advanced Junior Cyndaquil as an example; he uses Flamethrower over a hundred times a day. Such usage, Braixen only recently reached.
It's not that Braixen can't handle more; she simply doesn't want to. Plus, she's a girl, being Serena's Pokemon, Ash couldn't train her as strictly as his own.
Even with that, Braixen remains Serena's foremost powerhouse!
Ash noticed, even though his Pokemon train at the same intensity, they seem to improve more than others—perhaps his special ability is to further unlock Pokemon potential.
Yet, Ash doesn't know how exactly this special ability works.
Apart from Braixen and Flaaffy, Serena also originally had Sneasel and Rhyhorn.
Sneasel's Level climbed steadily to Advanced Level, while Rhyhorn evolved into Rhydon, attaining Elite Junior Level, second only to Braixen.
Two newly captured Pokemon are Water/Rock type Corsola, and Normal type Teddiursa.
These two were Advanced Junior at capture and currently haven't Levelled up, but have built enough synergy with Serena for effective battle strength.
At this point, Serena's team of six Pokémon is fully formed,
with Pokémon of the fire, water, rock, ground, dark, normal, and electric types covering an extremely broad range of attributes, enough to support Serena in dealing with various types of Pokémon.
The only downside is that Serena's Pokémon generally have relatively low levels, and despite watching many of Ash's matches and learning by his side for a long time, she still can't command independently.
So commanding these multi-attribute Pokémon is still rather difficult for Serena, and all Ash can do is teach Serena hands-on in their spare time.
Additionally, Misty has also captured a new Pokémon, which is Corsola. She caught her Corsola at the same time as Serena caught hers, from a large group of Corsola. Facing water-type Pokémon, how could Misty not be tempted?
Thus, she captured a new Pokémon.
However, Misty doesn't have many Pokémon in reserve, so capturing another Corsola is fine. Furthermore, as Misty sends her powerful Pokémon back to her family's gym, the Cerulean Gym is also thriving!
Even the Cerulean Three Sisters, who have little battle experience, can challenge trainers at Gym Level using Pokémon even grandmothers could manage with ease!
The Cerulean Gym is no longer the weakest gym; it is now among the top gyms in Kanto!
Because at this gym... there are no difficulty levels to choose from, going there means facing the highest difficulty!
The challenges in the gym all come from those Gym Level Pokémon. Many trainers seeking challenge have gone to challenge the Cerulean Gym, but all have been defeated miserably.
The Cerulean Gym is not what it used to be!
Alongside the rise of the Cerulean Gym, the Pewter Gym is also taking off.
Although there's no groundbreaking progress, Brock's Pokémon have steadily improved.
Onix has evolved into Steelix through Metal Coat, the initial capture of Zubat has also evolved into Crobat, and Geodude has evolved into Golem.
These Pokémon that Brock has cultivated from the start have all become formidable on their own, though none have reached genuine Gym Level, they are all at a professional peak level.
Brock has sent them back to the Pewter Gym so his father could have more Pokémon choices, leaving him with the newly evolved Rhydon and the Pineco he recently caught in Azalea Town.
"At our current pace, it's estimated that it will take more than half a month to reach Blackthorn City. This city is really not just ordinarily far." Brock checked their distance to Blackthorn City on his phone and, comparing it to their recent travel distances, concluded that they need at least another half month to reach.
Ash put down his clean bowls and utensils and said matter-of-factly, "Of course, we've stayed in two cities for four or five days in the meantime, which allowed Serena to earn two Gym Badges and capture two Pokémon, a rather fruitful harvest."
The important part of a journey isn't the destination; the scenery along the way holds more meaning. Although their travel pace is slower than expected, they've accomplished a lot along the way. In the two cities they passed through, Serena challenged the local gyms.
One was Cianwood City, and the other was Olivine City, where they just left. Although the gym leaders in these two cities are no slouches and have genuine Gym Level strength,
Since the one challenging was Serena, they chose apprentices to battle against Serena, and she won narrowly in both gyms, with her Braixen evolving into Delphox during this time.
"Where is Miss Cynthia now? She contacted you today, didn't she?" Misty inquired curiously.
This morning, she vaguely saw Ash making a call, at the time she wasn't fully awake, so she didn't catch what Ash said, she only heard Cynthia's name mentioned.
"She is currently with her apprentice in Azalea Town; she said she was planning to visit Pryce."
"Pryce... he used to be the strongest trainer in the Johto League, right? It's said his strength reached Champion Level, and no one has ever forced Pryce to reveal his true power. However, Pryce suddenly stopped accepting challenges recently for unknown reasons, possibly due to health issues."
Brock, while tidying up the utensils, shared the information he had gathered online.
Originally, their Johto journey included Azalea Town as part of the challenges, but the gym leader Pryce in Azalea Town, for some unknown reason in recent times, refused all challenges.
Helplessly, Ash could only skip Azalea Town and set Blackthorn City, with its two challenging gyms, as their final target.
As long as they can clear the two gyms in Blackthorn City, they will have enough badges.
"Professor Oak and Pryce are friends, right? I heard yesterday that Professor Oak was planning to go to Azalea Town."
"Should we take a detour to Azalea Town? If we go to Azalea Town and then to Blackthorn City, it only adds about a week to our journey." Misty tapped her phone lightly, planning the route.
"How long will it take us to get to Azalea Town now?" Ash stretched his body, clearly tempted, as he loved a lively scene.
"Around ten days."
"Uh... then let's not go, by the time we reach Azalea Town, Professor Oak and Miss Cynthia will likely already be gone." Hearing the ten-day estimate, Ash dismissed the idea of detouring to Azalea Town.
After all, Professor Oak was not traveling on foot like them but likely had a vehicle to get there.
Professor Oak could get to Azalea Town in a day at most, and by the time they get there, Professor Oak would be gone, and Cynthia probably wouldn't stay there long either, so they might as well go straight to Blackthorn City.
Once there, they could learn what happened to Pryce from Cynthia.
"Alright then, let's pack up and continue our journey." Misty put away her phone and, along with Brock and Serena, began tidying up, while Ash put the camping gear into their space backpack one by one.
...
Twenty days passed in a blink.
When Ash and his group finally passed through the winding mountain roads and reached the entrance of Blackthorn City, a serene mountain landscape unfolded before them.
Blackthorn City, located in the northeastern corner of the Johto Region, is surrounded by lush green mountains, making the entire city look like a black gemstone embedded carefully in a valley.
The city isn't large and more resembles a tranquil town nestled in the mountains, yet it still boasts a considerable scale.
Along the streets, dark stone buildings are neatly arranged, their rooftops tiled with blue-gray shingles that gleam faintly under the afternoon sun.
Due to the presence of Dragon's Den, trainers from here are mostly adept at using dragon-type Pokémon, even the air seems to carry traces of draconic aura.
On the streets, one can see many dragon-type Pokémon like Charizard, Seadra, Ampharos, Altaria... it's interesting that the only one that isn't technically a dragon-type has "dragon" in its name, which is a bit incongruent.
Yet undeniably, Blackthorn City is a sacred place for dragon-type trainers, as the Johto League Champion, Kanto's Dragon Taming Lance, hails from this city.
Within Blackthorn City, the Dragon Taming Race has 'Dragon's Den' specifically to provide dragon-type Pokémon for family members, marking this place as the base of the Dragon Taming Race.
"So this is Blackthorn City, the atmosphere feels completely different from any city we've visited before!" Ash looked around, his eyes sparkling.
"It seems like the air is permeated with the presence of dragon-type Pokémon, no wonder that person from Hammerlocke City chose to settle here." Brock, arms crossed, squinted into the distance, not sure whether he was sensing dragon-type Pokémon or searching for a beautiful lady.
"Let's head to the Pokemon Center first; Ash and everyone's Pokémon need to recover." Serena pointed in a direction, which would lead them to the Pokemon Center.