The move Ice Ball consists of concentrating ice energy and attacking for five turns, increasing its power each time it hits the opponent.
By its operating principle, the move Ice Ball and the move Defense Curl function in the same way.
The difference is that the move Defense Curl is applied to the user's own body, while the move Ice Ball creates a sphere of ice using Ice-type energy to attack.
In addition, the move Defense Curl consists of curling the body into a ball to increase defense. After using it, the moves Rollout and Ice Ball double their power.
That's right.
The move Defense Curl not only enhances the move Rollout, but also the move Ice Ball.
Precisely because of this, Ethan wanted to study how the move Defense Curl enhanced the move Ice Ball.
Perhaps through this study Sandslash could develop the move Defense Curl a second time, allowing it to apply it to external objects, just like Adrian's Gastrodon could apply the move Harden to mud.
"Walrein, use Ice Ball."
When Sandslash was ready, Ethan gave the order.
"Walrren!"
Walrein roared softly and opened its mouth.
Ice-type energy began to gather and gradually formed an ice ball.
While Walrein used the move, Ethan observed carefully.
He discovered that the ice ball looked like a randomly made snowball, with an irregular shape.
BOOM!
Walrein launched the ice ball.
It struck the move power meter, registering 23 points of power.
After the first attack, Walrein launched a second ice ball.
This time, clearly more Ice-type energy gathered, and after the ball formed, more energy accumulated on it, doubling its size.
BOOM!
The second ball was launched.
Just as expected, its power was double the previous one.
"What is the principle?"
"When it throws the second ball it seems to gather more ice energy from the air..."
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
He felt there was some deeper principle behind it.
While he was thinking, Walrein created the third ice ball, gathering even more energy.
The ball in front of its mouth now looked like a vortex absorbing ice energy from the surroundings.
Third ball.
Fourth ball.
Fifth ball...
The size and power of the ice balls kept increasing.
However, after the fifth ball, the accumulation of energy seemed to reach a limit.
"No... it's not that it can't gather more ice energy..."
"It's that the ice ball can no longer absorb any more energy!"
Suddenly, Ethan discovered the difference.
According to the game data, after the fifth hit Ice Ball reaches a power of 480, its normal limit.
If it absorbed more energy, it would reach 960.
"960... that must be the limit with Defense Curl."
Ethan thought for a moment and ordered, "Walrein, use Defense Curl."
Walrein nodded and curled its body.
At that moment, the ice energy floating around the ball was compressed by an invisible force inside it, making the sphere perfectly round.
During that process, the ball was constantly compressed, causing the ice energy inside it to become increasingly dense.
Although the size of the ball did not increase much, the terrifying energy fluctuations showed that its power had reached the theoretical maximum of 960.
"I see... The principle by which Defense Curl enhances Ice Ball is condensing and compressing energy."
Ethan seemed to have understood something.
After that, he had Walrein use the move several more times, confirming his hypothesis.
The true reason why the move Defense Curl doubled the power of the move Ice Ball was compression.
It was like a snowball fight.
A large but loose snowball does not do much damage. But if you compress it again and again until it becomes solid ice, its hardness can be like that of a stone... and it could even make someone bleed if it hits hard!
"Sandslash, now you can begin the second stage of Defense Curl training. Walrein will use Ice Ball, and you will use Defense Curl to reinforce its power."
Ethan explained to Sandslash.
He already had a complete plan for the second development of the move.
The first stage of training was using the move Defense Curl to affect sand.
This step was the most difficult.
If Sandslash could not affect sand with the move Defense Curl, the rest of the training would be impossible.
But since Sandslash had trained the move Defense Curl since it was young, it had extraordinary talent, and it had already completed that step.
The second stage consisted of using the move Ice Ball to train the ability to condense and compress energy with the move Defense Curl.
If it managed to master this, the development of the move would be halfway complete.
The third stage would be using the principle of the move Ice Ball to control sand and form a sand sphere, achieving the initial control of sand.
If it completed these three stages, Sandslash would be able to apply the move Defense Curl to sand, achieving an effect similar to when Gastrodon applied the move Harden to swamp mud.
Of course, this was only the most basic application of the move Defense Curl. In Ethan's conception, the main function of Sandslash's Defense Curl was still to condense and compress energy.
As long as it could master the move, the power of Sandslash's other moves could be doubled. Just that alone would increase its strength several times.
Moreover, Ethan had even deeper ideas for developing the move Defense Curl.
For example, applying the move to external objects, thus generating the ability to twist or deform objects.
Like a steel bar: if Sandslash used the move Defense Curl on it, the force of the move could twist the bar until it turned into a ring.
Of course, this was only a rather bold idea from Ethan, just like his earlier concept of developing Vibrava's Levitate ability and its vibration capabilities.
However, the facts had already proven that his hypotheses did have the possibility of becoming reality. For example, Vibrava's Levitate ability had already been fully developed and was demonstrating extremely powerful strength.
If Vibrava managed to develop the full potential of the Levitate ability, then it could definitely obtain power comparable to that of legendary Pokémon.
After all, the use of the Levitate ability was already approaching the level of manipulating the rules of the world, something similar to the special abilities of legendary Pokémon.
"Sha!"
Sandslash's eyes burned with enthusiasm.
Especially when it thought about Vibrava's use of the Levitate ability, it could hardly contain its excitement.
It too had to fully develop the move Defense Curl and obtain power comparable to that of legendary Pokémon!
Thus, Sandslash and Walrein soon began training.
Walrein opened its mouth and condensed an ice ball.
Then Sandslash held the ice ball created by Walrein with both hands and used the move Defense Curl, trying to compress the Ice-type energy inside the sphere to increase its power.
Of course, the final result was failure.
Although Sandslash could use the move Defense Curl to concentrate the power of the move Rollout, when it came to the move Ice Ball—and moreover used by Walrein—that feeling of freely controlling the energy disappeared, becoming extremely difficult.
However, from the slight trembling of the ice ball it could be seen that the move Defense Curl did have some effect on Walrein's Ice Ball.
(End of chapter)