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When the team of ten sages sent a squad up to clear out the phantoms, they saw Mewtwo controlling the phantoms, as well as Li Xiang battling the scattered ones.
"What are you two doing?" asked the leading Lucario, somewhat confused.
"Just training," Li Xiang replied, a little embarrassed, but still spoke up. "Could you leave the phantoms in this area to us?"
Someone was actually willing to help?
Lucario certainly couldn't ask for more.
Fighting phantoms was dangerous, you know. Did they think it was a game?
Fighting for survival and being unafraid of death were two different things. Only those who wanted to protect their homes were willing to risk their lives.
"Of course! How large of an area do you want?" Lucario generously brought out a map of Mirage Island. The map even recorded the underground tunnels.
Li Xiang looked at it for a long time, then looked up and asked, "Do you have a time requirement for me?"
"Huh?" Lucario was taken aback.
"I mean, could you possibly leave all of them to me? As long as you don't push me too hard for time." Li Xiang smiled somewhat sheepishly.
"No, no, no. There are at least tens of thousands. It would take you forever to finish them all. We can't wait that long." Lucario shook its head. Expecting Li Xiang to take care of all of them by himself was simply not a normal line of thinking.
Tens of thousands!
Li Xiang's eyes lit up.
In all his time training Pokémon, he had only fought about ten thousand battles. That meant he had only earned around ten thousand candies. If he could clear out the phantoms on Mirage Island, wouldn't he save another three years of effort?
Well, that calculation felt off... but whatever, it's the same!
"Please, you must leave them to me!" Li Xiang bowed to Lucario. "If I really push myself, I can fight about three hundred a day, or at least two hundred. The flow of time on Mirage Island is slower than on Mist Island. You won't have to wait long on Mist Island!"
He would seize every opportunity to grow stronger. After experiencing so much, how could Li Xiang not understand the importance of strength? If shamelessness could make him stronger, he would have been invincible long ago.
"Well..." Lucario looked back at the others with a troubled expression. Among the sages who had come up, besides itself, there was the forest sage Venusaur, and that giant Steelix.
"There's nothing wrong with leaving it to him. He seems to be fighting quite well. At worst, if he doesn't want to fight anymore, we can come back up. We haven't finished clearing the lower areas anyway, right?" Steelix laughed heartily. It had a high opinion of Li Xiang.
Venusaur didn't offer an opinion. It belonged to the faction wary of humans. But through today's events, it had learned that the rangers truly meant no harm. Perhaps it would still be wary of humans, but at least it wouldn't be wary of Li Xiang and the others anymore.
Everyone could see clearly who could be trusted and who couldn't.
Since the eldest had spoken, and Venusaur had no comment, what else could Lucario say? "Alright then... want to give it a try?"
"I'll try!" Li Xiang nodded vigorously.
And so, this squad that had just come up went back the way they came.
Mewtwo had been watching the whole time. After Lucario and the others left, it said, "Does fighting these phantoms greatly help you?"
"Yes, why? Asking again?" Li Xiang was puzzled.
"I can create these things too." Mewtwo transformed into Dark Mewtwo, stretched out a hand, and pulled upwards from the ground. Instantly, a phantom Pokémon was yanked out of the earth.
Li Xiang was dumbfounded. "Y-You... how did you do that?"
"I thought I could do it, so I did it." Dark Mewtwo looked completely innocent, the golden bone spurs on its shoulders glistening in the sunlight.
Li Xiang couldn't help but applaud. What an idealistic Psychic-type lifeform!
Pokémon are idealistic beings, and the Psychic type is the most idealistic of the idealistic. Things like time travel, future sight, wish fulfillment, life manipulation, black hole creation, and interdimensional travel—all of it is done by the Psychic type.
Slightly underwhelming in the games, but all-powerful in lore. That's the Psychic type.
In light of this, Dark Mewtwo creating phantoms that only the Adamant Orb could create wasn't particularly surprising. Well, it was very surprising.
"I'm convinced." Li Xiang conceded defeat to Dark Mewtwo.
Dark Mewtwo: "?"
Putting aside these small interruptions, Li Xiang threw himself wholeheartedly into the great cause of earning candies.
Mewtwo, on the other hand, borrowed a dictionary from the museum and diligently studied the profound and extensive language. Of course, it didn't forget to help Li Xiang separate and control the phantom groups.
Incidentally, it became friends with Incineroar and the other Pokémon.
At first, Incineroar and the others thought Mewtwo was a bit strange, not really like a Pokémon, but more like a human wearing a Pokémon's skin. After interacting more closely, they discovered it was actually quite easy to get along with: straightforward and not vindictive.
Its mentality was calm. Its only drawback was that it was both innocent and shrewd at the same time—easy to fool yet not easy to fool.
It was like someone who could eat the icing off a sugar-coated bullet and throw the bullet back. Its instinct for seeking gain and avoiding harm was frighteningly strong.
If Li Xiang hadn't shown it goodwill from the very beginning, he probably wouldn't have been able to get along with it like this. It was his love for Pokémon that saved Li Xiang.
...…
Eight days passed in a row.
During these eight days, Li Xiang never left Mirage Island.
Mewtwo only went to the Museum of Knowledge. Uxie simply lay sprawled on the vines, snoring away.
After eight days, Zhong Hai and Mo Ye returned, bringing a medical team and a man with an androgynous appearance.
—Elite Four member Cheng Xin, known as the Psychic Elite.
"Forgive the intrusion, Mewtwo. We would like to collect some of your biological samples, such as dander, blood, and the like..." Zhong Hai got straight to the point as soon as he arrived, speaking in a pleading tone.
Mewtwo, holding a book, glanced at the medical team and said, "Fine, but you must trade knowledge for them."
"Trade knowledge? What kind of knowledge?" Zhong Hai was a bit confused.
"They are doctors, correct? I want knowledge of medicine." Mewtwo laid out its terms.
This request was somewhat abrupt. It even made Zhong Hai feel an inexplicable sense of alertness, as if an alien were gradually trying to understand their society in order to replace it.
Fortunately, Zhong Hai knew this was just his imagination. In this day and age, some knowledge was "cheap" and impossible to hide, so he agreed.
Mewtwo allowed the medical team to fiddle with its body, even taking away its secretions. It had experienced this feeling back in its cultivation dish days and was long used to it.
Next was Cheng Xin. He first smiled and greeted Li Xiang. Then, he explained his thoughts to Mewtwo.
"Entering my dreams to awaken my deep-seated memories and obtain more information..." Mewtwo thought for a moment, then said, "Fine, but like before, I want knowledge. The knowledge of entering dreams."
Cheng Xin agreed.
It was clear that the Association considered the otherworldly visitors a greater threat than Mewtwo, which had a strong capacity for learning. After all, Mewtwo might not necessarily do anything bad, while those otherworldly visitors were already doing bad things.
Zhong Hai and the medical team left first. Li Xiang returned the Starmie to Mo Ye and thanked him for his help.
"It's good that you're safe. Leaving you here alone was an oversight on my part." Mo Ye considered himself Li Xiang's temporary guardian and told him that he would be staying on Mist Island from now on.
"Mmm..." Li Xiang wasn't sure whether to be happy or not. Mo Ye was generous with battles against him, and fighting an Elite Four member would teach him a lot. But on the other hand, his autonomy would be somewhat reduced.
There was no helping it. He was weak, and he was a minor. Li Xiang could only grit his teeth and accept it.
However, taking advantage of the time when Mewtwo was asleep and couldn't help him split the battlefield, Li Xiang decided he could start testing the effects of the gummy candies. How exactly were they to be used?
He found an open space with no phantoms passing through, still within Mo Ye's line of sight. Li Xiang took out a total of eighteen colors of candy, corresponding to the eighteen types.
Feeding a Fire-type Pokémon like Incineroar the candy of its corresponding type seemed to enhance the gummy's effects. Moreover, the effects of the gummies were unstable. They might only boost one stat, or they might boost both Attack and Defense. Feeding the correct type of gummy increased the probability of the latter outcome.
"Hope it boosts all six stats, hope it boosts all six stats." Li Xiang took out an orange candy and gave it to Riolu, who was most sensitive to changes in its body. Orange represented the Fighting type.
"Be good, eat the candy." Li Xiang pinched Riolu's cheek and popped the gummy in.
Riolu didn't hesitate, biting down and starting to munch.
After waiting two seconds, the dog tilted its head, looking confused. It was clear that no change had occurred, or the change was minimal. The effect of a single gummy wasn't particularly impressive.
Seeing this, Li Xiang took out ten orange gummies and handed them over. Riolu ate them all, then nodded excitedly at Li Xiang, swinging its fists.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The sound of its fists cutting through the air was very loud.
Li Xiang led it to a wooden post and had it attack with just its fists, no moves. Riolu punched, leaving a dent on the surface of the post and sending splinters flying!
Without using moves, Pokémon were relatively weak and couldn't break a wooden post. But adding type energy, even for the weakest move like Tackle, would make the result completely different.
"Keep eating." Li Xiang gave it another ten gummies and had it attack another wooden post.
So, another punch. This time, the damage to the post was deeper than before, proving that a large number of gummies had a noticeable effect.
Li Xiang was quite excited.
Hard candies hadn't caused any significant changes in Riolu and the others for a long time. The fact that gummies could produce such results was something he had been hoping for.
Unfortunately, the number of orange gummies was limited. Furthermore, considering that sudden, drastic changes might arouse suspicion from others, Riolu didn't eat for long before they stopped.
But based on the current situation, it seemed that the gummies were no longer limited to the original four stats, but boosted all six. However, it was random, unlike the hard candies which were fixed.
"Very impressive, very impressive. Let's keep up the good work next time!" Li Xiang happily stroked Riolu's face. The latter's eyes narrowed into crescent moons as it nodded vigorously.
"Riolu!"
The dog stepped down, and Incineroar took its place. Over these eight days, whether by fate or coincidence, the highest number of gummies produced were Fire-type. Over two hundred of them.
After it finished eating all of them, Incineroar's strength would surely grow to an extremely exaggerated degree. It would likely be a very painful ordeal for its future opponents.
"Incineroar!"
Caught up in Li Xiang's emotions, Incineroar excitedly scratched at the wooden post.