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Two days later.
Boom! Boom!
The heavy crash of bodies colliding burst out beneath the lake's surface.
Even through the thick layers of water, the force hidden in those dull impacts could still be felt.
The once-calm lake churned violently, as though a storm had swept through it, sending waves rolling across the water.
Through the shifting surface, two lithe figures could be seen darting and crossing at high speed along the lakebed.
Rushhh~
The fast, restless movement of the water echoed outward as countless tiny bubbles streamed toward the surface.
Bright white light flashed along Kael's slender arms.
With nothing more than a casual swing through the water, his hands sliced through the cold resistance like sharpened blades, carving out tiny pockets of vacuum that existed for only an instant before collapsing.
His blue eyes locked on the figure in front of him.
Then, with the white glow still wrapping his fists, he drove them forward in a sudden strike. The burst of speed and force behind the attack was far beyond anything he had been capable of just two days earlier.
Boom!
The water exploded outward.
A dark green figure shot away, tumbling end over end through the lake.
Compared with the way it had met Kael's attacks head-on two days ago, Basculin now looked increasingly outmatched. Even with its powerful durability and dense muscles, it was struggling to take a direct hit.
Panting bubbles into the water, Basculin stared at the small blue figure before it and could not help feeling a little overwhelmed.
"So it was true."
"This Sobble really was holding back before."
"With the strength he's showing now, forget an even fight. I can't even last two moves."
Because the intensity of Kael's attacks had gradually increased over the past two days, Basculin had actually begun to believe that Sobble was deliberately raising the level of difficulty bit by bit to sharpen its combat instincts.
That thought only deepened the submission already in its heart and added something else as well.
Gratitude.
Of course, that was completely wrong.
Kael was already having enough trouble improving his own strength. He had no extra energy to spare helping anyone else grow.
He did not follow up with another strike.
The white light faded from his hands as he floated there in the water, his expression a little darker than before.
Over the last two days, he had finally gathered enough evidence to answer the question that had been on his mind.
Could repeated battles against the same opponent still grant experience?
The answer was yes.
According to the system's strange hidden logic, repeated fights could indeed give him experience.
At first, that discovery had thrilled him. Excited did not even begin to cover it.
But as he fought Basculin again and again, he had also uncovered the limit hidden inside it.
The system was never going to let him abuse it forever.
First, the experience earned from repeated battles was very low. It was not even a quarter of what a normal fight would grant.
For an opponent like Basculin, who in theory should have been worth somewhere between twenty and thirty points of experience, Kael was now only getting around five.
It was a huge drop.
Still, for someone with Kael's patience and endurance, that limitation could be offset simply by fighting more often. Even with the small returns, his leveling speed had still improved far beyond what it had been before.
But then the second limitation appeared.
Over these two days, as Kael farmed more and more experience from Basculin, his own level had risen.
He was now level fourteen.
He had not learned any new moves, but the gains he received from his maxed-out underlying values had still been significant.
His energy reserves and physical condition had both improved greatly. It was not a complete transformation, but compared with two days ago, the difference was obvious.
Basculin, on the other hand, was just an ordinary Pokémon without anything like a system backing it up.
That meant the matchup had shifted.
What had once been an even fight was now becoming a battle Kael could win without too much difficulty.
And as that gap widened, the experience granted from defeating Basculin dropped even further until it was almost meaningless.
Ding.
The familiar system chime sounded in his ears.
...
Defeated Pokémon: Basculin
Experience +1
...
Kael let out a quiet sigh.
If he wanted to reach his first evolution while still inside the park, he was clearly going to have to find another way.
By then, Basculin, which had been blasted away to the far side of the lake by his attack, slowly swam back over, breathing hard.
These last two days of constant high-intensity sparring had clearly taken a toll. Even with Basculin's exceptional life force and stubborn endurance, it was struggling to keep up and looked visibly worn down.
Watching Basculin drift quietly beside him like a loyal guard, Kael could not help showing a trace of approval in his eyes.
At first, he had expected a Pokémon with such a fierce appearance to be stubborn and difficult, even if it had submitted to his strength.
But instead, over the last two days, Basculin had shown almost no resistance at all to the near-constant battles Kael demanded, broken only by the bare minimum time needed for rest.
It had trained with him day and night without complaint.
For that, Kael was genuinely grateful, even if he never showed it openly.
He quietly promised himself that when he had more room to spare in the future, he would help Basculin however he could.
Not necessarily by getting it out of the park, but at the very least by making sure the rest of its life here could be steady and secure.
Then suddenly.
A burst of distant noise carried down from the shore, unusually loud against the stillness of the lake.
Kael raised a brow in surprise. With a strong flick of his broad tail, he shot upward through the water.
Splash!
His round, half-transparent head broke through the surface under the effect of his camouflage.
Looking toward the far bank, a flicker of surprise passed through his blue eyes.
With Sobble's exceptional eyesight, he could clearly see a long line of humans moving along the wet shoreline, chatting noisily among themselves.
From the red-and-white Poké Balls swinging at their waists, Kael guessed at once that they were Trainers.
But why would so many Trainers show up together in a marine park meant for ordinary visitors?
And more than that...
Kael stared at the matching outfits they all wore, his expression turning increasingly strange.
Wide-brim sun hats.
Thin, translucent sun jackets.
Dark sunglasses.
Fingerless gloves.
And most eye-catching of all, the long fishing rods resting across their shoulders.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!