From the day he caught Feebas, Lionel's livestream title changed to "shiny Feebas Training Diary."
He gave Feebas a simple and affectionate nickname—"Little Jewel." This name was criticized by the livestream audience for a long time, as they felt it didn't quite match Feebas's appearance.
Every morning, Lionel would take Feebas to the shallow water area on the edge of Dewford Town after the tide receded for training.
When the first training livestream started, riding the wave of trending traffic, the number of online viewers quickly broke through three thousand.
"So this is Feebas! It actually looks like this!"
"This appearance... by comparison, it seems Magikarp looks a bit better (no offense)."
"I don't think so; Feebas is more interesting, it's kind of ugly-cute!"
"Will it also evolve into Gyarados?"
"To the person above, even if it evolves, it should be called Ugly-dos!"
"Hahahahaha..."
Lionel's livestream equipment lens was steadily aimed at the figure in the water diligently wagging its tail.
Feebas was practicing its Tackle skill, targeting a reef half-buried in the water.
It summoned all its strength and rushed forward, but perhaps because the skill was only at the entry level, Feebas suddenly veered off course a foot away from the reef and plunged headfirst into a sand pile in the nearby water, leaving only its wiggling tail exposed.
The bullet chat was instantly flooded with laughter.
"Feebas: I just wanted to Dig a hole, I didn't mean to go off course!"
"With this accuracy, I suggest switching to practicing Dig (doge face)."
"Even though it's a bit clumsy, you can tell it's working hard. Giving a like to the streamer and Feebas!"
Lionel waded over, carefully dug Feebas out of the sand pile, and washed the silt off its body with clean water.
Feebas flicked its tail, splashing water all over his face, but its small eyes showed a refusal to give up. It turned around and rushed toward the reef again—this time, although it still didn't hit the reef, it was much closer than before.
"Progress!" Lionel smiled at the camera. "Go Feebas, let's keep trying."
Such training became a daily routine.
Lionel and Feebas spent their days practicing skills, and skill training was much harder than Lionel had imagined.
Feebas practiced the Splash skill, and it took a long time just to increase its jump height by a tiny bit;
When practicing the Tackle skill, it would veer off course six or seven times out of ten. An occasional success would make it spin three times in the water with excitement.
As the hype of the traffic gradually faded, the audience in the livestream room slowly decreased, eventually settling at two or three hundred people.
They became "supervisors" who waited punctually every day, watching the screen quietly as Feebas grew day by day and made progress bit by bit.
"That Tackle just now finally didn't go off course! I'm moved to tears, guys!"
"The streamer's patience is really good; I probably would have given up long ago (whispering)."
Every day after the livestream ended and he had accumulated enough popularity points, Lionel would click on the lottery interface to perform a Primary Lottery.
For the Primary Lottery at 1,000 points per try, besides drawing Energy Clusters, Pokémon food, and Poké Balls, he also drew a Technical Machine [Tackle ×1]—a skill Feebas already knew.
[Technical Machine: A magical item that can quickly allow a Pokémon to master a skill or improve skill proficiency, provided that the Pokémon can learn the skill.]
Although Lionel had already guessed a bit about the Technical Machine, he was still greatly shocked when he actually drew it.
One must know that Technical Machines were originally exclusive items in the game world—
In reality, if a Pokémon wanted to master a new skill, it first had to undergo enough training to have a chance to learn it, and then rely on day-after-day of polishing to use the skill superbly.
But this Technical Machine was different; as long as it was used, it could directly improve skill proficiency, saving a large amount of tedious training time. This efficiency simply overturned Lionel's understanding of Pokémon growth.
With the dual help of Energy Clusters and Technical Machines, his Pokémon could definitely grow at high speed.
When Lionel used the drawn Tackle skill on Feebas, it first paused slightly in the water, its eyes half-closed as if digesting the new insights brought by the skill. Then, it suddenly wagged its tail, and its movements abruptly became more agile.
The description in Feebas's skill column on the panel had been updated: [Skills: Splash (proficient), Tackle (proficient)]
When Feebas used the Tackle skill again, the direction that often veered off became much more precise, and the force when rushing toward the reef had a noticeable increase.
The little guy stared intently at Lionel, performing several more Tackles in succession as if showing off, each one more vigorous than the last.
Days passed, and when Lionel used the Basic Energy Cluster for Feebas as usual, after those green lights seeped into Feebas's body, it just wagged its tail and didn't even blink, seemingly feeling nothing.
"Is this... no longer useful?" Lionel was stunned and tried several times, but the results were the same.
From then on, Lionel no longer performed Primary Lotterys, but instead saved up ten thousand points for an Intermediate Draw.
Although it took longer to accumulate, the rewards were much richer. In the first Intermediate Draw, the wheel stopped on the Technical Machine area—Congratulations to the host for obtaining: [Water Pulse ×1].
Lionel immediately used it on Feebas. A moment later, Feebas gently wagged its caudal fin in the water, and the surrounding water surface actually rippled with regular circles, like stones being thrown into a calm lake, spreading out layer by layer.
Although the pulses were still shallow, it was enough to see that the skill had been initially learned.
The scene of using this skill the next day instantly made the livestream room boil with excitement.
"!!! What skill is this? Feebas hits reefs every day and actually got trained to learn a new skill!"
"Amazing! I said back then that shiny Pokémon must have some differences!"
"Streamer, quickly make it perform again! I'll record the screen and post it!"
Lionel smiled and let Feebas try again. This time the water ripples were more obvious, even pushing a small reef back by a few centimeters.
The notification sounds for donations in the bullet chat were continuous, and the popularity points number surged upward.
In the following two months, Lionel even drew [Technical Machine: Icy Wind].
When a stream of air carrying a chill sprayed from Feebas's mouth, causing a thin layer of ice to instantly form on the water surface, the number of online viewers in the livestream room directly broke through six thousand... Fragments of memory were like shells washed away by the tide, gradually settling with the noise coming from the seaside.
Lionel came back to his senses, looking with a smile at Feebas playing in the sea before him. The current panel for Feebas was completely different from eight months ago.
[Pokémon: Feebas (shiny)]
[Type: Water]
[Category: Fish Pokémon]
[Ability: Swift Swim]
[Skills: Splash (Mastered), Tackle (Mastered), Flail (Expert), Water Pulse (Expert), Icy Wind (proficient)]
[Livestream Duration Today: 32 minutes]
[Current Online Viewers: 5,164 people]
[Total popularity points: 8,574]
[Items: Basic Energy Cluster ×3, Luxury Ball ×1, Stealth Rock ×1, Ice Fang ×1...]