The sky gradually brightened.
The light rain began to fall, veiling the entire forest in a thin mist, adding a touch of mysterious haze to it.
Doublade panted heavily, surveying the slightly muddy ground where the docile Vigoroth lay "peacefully sleeping" and nodded in satisfaction.
After an entire night of fierce battles, it finally appeased this group of "friendly" neighbors, putting them all to "sleep" one by one.
It also gained a preliminary understanding of its current physical condition through the night's battles.
Its attack power became stronger, and the sharpness of its blade improved—details aside—the enhancement in hard strength led to an increase in power. The Steel Ability within it became stronger, and the power of its Steel-type Techniques also increased, roughly gaining a thirty percent boost, surpassing the typical effects of a "Metal Film."
The most significant change was in its defense. Augmented by "Iron Wall," its defense, in the eyes of the Vigoroth, could be described as "terrifying."
Amid the frenzied attacks of a group of Vigoroth, Doublade wasn't severely harmed and instead handled them with ease.
Even when subjected to consecutive Flame Fist strikes, its blades no longer turned red as they used to.
Finally, there was the change in weight.
The increase in weight made Doublade slower, but it also enhanced the power of using "Gyro Ball."
However, Doublade had means to counter this; it could use the Technique "Body Lightening" to reduce its weight in exchange for a speed boost.
Besides, there was the old method of using "Shadow Assault" for rapid maneuvering within a certain range.
Overall, post-coating, Doublade gained more good aspects, and there were appropriate methods to mitigate and deal with the negative aspects.
Natsuhiko rubbed his temples.
Accompanying Doublade through a night-long training, he didn't rest, and despite being a Superpower User, he felt some physical and mental fatigue.
However, compared to the enhancements Doublade gained, this fatigue seemed somewhat insignificant.
At the same time, Natsuhiko found another advantage of settling within the territory of the Vigoroth.
It was the ability to acquire a large number of quality training sparrings for free.
Undoubtedly, this was excellent, allowing for better training of Pokémon, finding shortcomings in battles, and adjusting or compensating in time.
But it was quite energy-consuming.
"Doublade, you should rest now," Natsuhiko said.
Doublade nodded, the two blades sheathing themselves, sinking into Natsuhiko's shadow.
The Togetic resting inside the collar of Natsuhiko's coat leisurely awoke, rubbing its sleepy eyes and letting out a long yawn.
On seeing the Vigoroth scattered around, it showed a hint of surprise.
"Chacochi?"
'Did the two swords do all this?'
Since Honedge evolved into Doublade, its "nickname" given by Togetic had changed slightly.
Natsuhiko nodded slightly, "This eased a lot of pressure on Kona and that little girl, Du Juan."
He scooped a handful of cold rainwater from a wide leaf nearby and splashed it on his face.
The refreshing water invigorated his skin and his somewhat weary spirit.
Rest wasn't required; he had to seize the limited time, whether it was looking for traces of Lance and the others or finding more Original Groudon Shell Fragments from Magma Team's large-scale intrusion, there was no time to lose.
Without informing Kona and the others, Natsuhiko summoned Mudsdale, mounted it, and quickly moved out of the Vigoroth's territory.
Without knowing the exact location or target, Natsuhiko could only use the most straightforward method.
He decided on a direction and kept moving forward until he encountered insurmountable obstacles or reached a distance unsuitable for Yujira's Instant Movement to return, then he would stop.
Since the last time in the Sinnoh Region, when sending Meiyu back to the Divine Hall of Snow Peak required crazy consecutive Instant Movements, Natsuhiko developed a significant aversion to continuous spatial traversals.
Even as a Superpower User, he found it uncomfortable.
So, he limited the distance to a range reachable by ten Instant Movements.
Once exceeding ten Instant Movements, he would desist.
Thus, following this simple plan, Natsuhiko began his long search journey.
Perhaps because shortly after entering the Alternate Space, he found two Original Groudon Shell Fragments, his luck was nearly used up.
According to the law of conservation of luck, over consecutive days and in both directions, he failed to gather any valuable information or significant findings, at most enriching the practical battle experience of the Pokémon against various others.
However, he did encounter many members of the Magma Team.
If a Magma Team search party encountered had fewer than three members, Natsuhiko would conveniently deal with them, otherwise, he would choose to avoid them.
Within two days, he had disposed of quite a few Magma Team members.
Utilizing Doublade's special abilities, he extracted useful information from them.
So the time came on the eleventh day, the eleventh day of entering the Alternate Space.
Natsuhiko, after identifying a direction based on the plan, set off on his search.