Reiji's pen stopped over the page.
He had been trying to estimate how long his Pokémon would need to reach Elite Four tier, but the further he pushed the numbers, the less certain the answer became. Six months seemed possible. Nine months seemed plausible. For some Pokémon, it could easily take a full year.
The problem was that before he could model the climb toward Champion tier, he first needed to understand just how large the gap at Elite Four tier really was.
He had already experienced that difference firsthand. During the tournament, he had once thrown three Pokémon into a rotation against a single Elite Four-tier Scizor and still failed to bring it down cleanly. Scizor had been badly worn down by the end, but Reiji still had not been willing to gamble on whether his final attack could actually finish it.
The Elite Four-tier Kingdra he faced later told the same story. His own Elite Four-tier Poliwrath had ultimately been the one holding that battle together; replacing it with an ordinary Pokémon would probably have meant getting overwhelmed by Kingdra in less than a minute.
If Elite Four-tier Pokémon could dominate everything beneath them that badly, then Champion tier had to represent another enormous jump. Reiji had heard enough stories about Champion-level Trainers dealing with the Legendary birds on relatively equal footing to know the gap could not be small.
With that as his rough benchmark, he wrote down a tentative estimate.
If Poliwrath had needed roughly three months while absorbing Tier Three energy at the Champion level, then a Pokémon relying on Tier Three Elite Four-tier energy might need around nine months to achieve the same breakthrough.
That was only a working estimate, and Reiji knew better than to mistake it for a law. His sample size was tiny, and individual Pokémon processed energy at wildly different rates.
Weezing, for example, could absorb and process poison frighteningly quickly. Scizor was much slower; feeding it Steel-type resources was closer to maintaining a demanding training diet, where each round of absorption needed time and physical exercise before the next could begin.
That alone could shift the timetable by months. A Pokémon with exceptional absorption efficiency might manage the breakthrough in seven or eight months, while another using the exact same grade of resource could take considerably longer.
Reiji underlined the estimate rather than circling it.
Tier Three, Elite Four-grade energy: approximately nine months. Actual time depends heavily on the Pokémon.
He would not know how close that was until one of his current candidates actually broke through.
The outlook became even uglier when he considered Pokémon that lacked access to Elite Four-grade energy altogether. If they had to accumulate ordinary Tier Three type energy from below Elite Four tier, then even doubling the timetable again looked optimistic. At their current rate, two or three years of steady accumulation was entirely believable.
And some Pokémon had it worse than that.
There was no universal method for turning resources into strength. Certain Pokémon could consume elemental ores, others could not. Some benefited enormously from meditation, while others lacked the psychic aptitude to gain much from it. Aura could transfer power between compatible Pokémon, but most species had no such option. Poison worked beautifully for Weezing and Toxicroak, yet would kill plenty of other Pokémon outright; Electric types could absorb electricity, Steel types could consume metallic resources, and every species came with its own limitations.
For Pokémon without an efficient way to absorb even same-tier energy, three years might be the optimistic estimate.
Those were the ones that truly needed something better: Champion-grade type resources like the ancient Never-Melt Ice, energy from powerful Legendary Pokémon such as the Legendary birds or beasts, or something absurdly valuable like a Plate fragment. With resources of that caliber, a slow natural accumulation could be compressed dramatically.
Unfortunately, Reiji did not have Champion-grade treasures lying around.
He sighed and stared out at the rain.
He was not some walking magnet that could stroll through the world and have priceless resources fly into his pockets. At the moment, he did not own a single conventional Champion-grade type item. Elite Four-grade materials were already difficult enough for him to obtain.
If someone dropped a Champion-grade Water-type resource into his lap, though, he would take it without hesitation. Something comparable to Pryce's ancient Never-Melt Ice could potentially accelerate the growth of an entire group of Water Pokémon, and Water was already the type he intended to use in the upcoming Elite Four selection.
There was no better choice for him.
Poliwrath, Gyarados, Kingler, and Swinub had already demonstrated what even limited exposure to a resource of that quality could do. After getting their share of Pryce's Never-Melt Ice, their growth had surged so quickly that Reiji practically had to keep an eye on them to make sure they did not rush ahead too recklessly.
He could only envy Pryce for owning something so perfectly suited to his specialty.
Reiji had one comparable treasure left: another fragment of the Spooky Plate.
That was untouchable.
He intended to save it for Gengar's eventual attempt at Champion tier. Gengar had been one of his core partners from the beginning and had the potential to go much further, so spending the Plate fragment merely to accelerate another Pokémon into Elite Four tier would be a terrible trade.
Golurk was his only other Ghost type with any realistic claim on the resource, but there was no need. It still had an enormous reservoir of stored energy inside its body and could simply continue digesting that until it reached Elite Four tier naturally.
A Champion-tier Pokémon and an Elite Four-tier Pokémon were not remotely equivalent.
Reiji thought of it in terms of weapons. Elite Four tier was enough to give someone serious firepower; Champion tier was the kind of force that changed how everyone around you had to behave. A Champion-tier Legendary would be closer to possessing a strategic deterrent than merely owning a stronger weapon.
That was why every step upward became so difficult.
His entire model was based on only a handful of examples and a great deal of inference, but the sheer difference he had already witnessed between ordinary, Elite Four, and Champion-class power made one thing obvious: there was no cheap shortcut through those thresholds.
Not that Reiji would have complained if one existed.
Of course he wanted his entire team to become monsters overnight. Who would not? But wishing for it did not create resources, and he was already running low on the stockpile he had accumulated until now.
The alternative was to start throwing himself into ancient ruins or wandering through battlefields where Legendary Pokémon fought in the hope of finding another miracle artifact.
Reiji snorted at the thought.
He was Reiji, not Ash.
In his previous life he had been an exhausted office worker who had already had enough of grinding himself into dust. If his Pokémon could become stronger safely by taking another year or two, then another year or two sounded perfectly acceptable. He had no intention of sprinting into every death trap in the world just because there might be treasure at the bottom.
He looked over the notebook again. The pages were packed with estimates, resource grades, training methods, and possible breakthrough routes, and the conclusion was painfully simple.
They still had a long way to go.
Reiji could complain about it all he wanted, but the work still had to be done.
...
His remaining stockpile was already thin enough that every usable resource mattered.
Weezing was one of the easier cases. Gengar could continuously produce Elite Four-grade poison for it, giving Reiji a renewable source of the exact energy Weezing needed. As he thought about it, Gengar was lounging nearby and casually spitting another glob of venom toward Weezing as though operating a toxic supply line were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Scizor and Forretress were covered for the moment as well. The Elite Four-tier Steelix they had killed had been enormous, and the Steel-type materials recovered from its body were both plentiful and high quality. Those reserves should last long enough to support both Pokémon through a substantial part of their accumulation.
Magnezone had an even more convenient solution. Electivire could provide Elite Four-grade Electric energy, while Zapdos could contribute its own Legendary electricity whenever it happened to be home.
Reiji was less certain how to rank Zapdos's current output. It was still below Elite Four tier despite being a Legendary, and he suspected its Tier Two energy at that level might actually be less useful for a breakthrough than ordinary Tier Three energy produced by an Elite Four-tier Pokémon.
That was simply how important the threshold seemed to be.
An Elite Four-tier Electivire was still an Elite Four-tier Pokémon, while his Zapdos was ultimately a young Legendary that had not finished growing. Even natural advantages only carried it so far.
Ironically, Zapdos was also relying on Electivire for the same reason. Electivire had been transformed by absorbing energy from Legendary Pokémon, so letting Zapdos draw on that refined Elite Four-grade electricity was far too useful to waste.
Without Electivire waiting at home, Reiji suspected Zapdos might disappear for days at a time without bothering to return for meals. The wild child seemed perfectly happy roaming half the archipelago until it remembered there was something useful waiting back at the cabin.
Rhydon and Magmar were somebody else's problem for now.
Reiji had left both with Blaine, and if an experienced veteran like him could not find a way to push two gluttonous Pokémon toward Elite Four tier, Reiji certainly was not going to improve the odds by hovering over his shoulder.
He was genuinely curious what they would look like when they came back.
Lucario and Ditto were much more irritating because neither had a reliable route at all. Lucario depended on inheriting enough mental power and Aura from stronger predecessors, while Ditto had the bizarre ability to assimilate cells from dead members of its own species and use them to advance itself.
Reiji hated training methods that depended on luck.
Technically, he could remove the luck from both.
If he were ruthless enough, he could simply buy Ditto in bulk, kill them, and feed their cells to his own until it forced its way into Elite Four tier. Lucario presented a similar problem: manufacture enough convenient "accidents" around powerful Aura users and eventually it could accumulate everything it needed.
Both methods would probably work.
Reiji had done plenty of questionable things, but he still had lines he would not cross. He had always found it easier to play the villain when the alternative was forcing someone else to dirty their hands, but slaughtering innocent Pokémon purely to accelerate his own team was different.
That was not happening.
Sharpedo and Blastoise had a much cleaner possibility.
Reiji's earlier experiments with Gengar had shown that a Pokémon below Elite Four tier could temporarily touch that level through Mega Evolution, only to drop back below the threshold the moment it reverted.
His idea was brutally simple: repeat the process.
If Sharpedo and Blastoise could Mega Evolve again and again, repeatedly forcing their bodies to operate at Elite Four-tier output, perhaps the accumulated strain and adaptation would eventually make the breakthrough permanent.
It was hardly elegant, but Reiji did not care whether a method was elegant if it worked.
The rest of the team had their own routes. Toxicroak would continue refining its poison. Ninetales and Starmie could build their mental power through daily meditation. Golurk needed to finish digesting its internal reserves, while Dugtrio could keep accumulating energy through Gems and other mineral resources.
Reiji did not need every Pokémon to break through quickly. He only needed enough of them to reach Elite Four tier soon enough to give him options.
At present, his confirmed Elite Four-tier Pokémon numbered only three: Poliwrath, Gengar, and Electivire.
The next group was already consuming appropriate high-grade energy. Weezing, Scizor, Forretress, Magnezone, and Zapdos all had comparatively direct routes forward, even if their exact timetables differed.
Rhydon and Magmar were training under Blaine, while Gyarados, Kingler, Swinub, and Slowking had all benefited from periods of training under powerful veterans or access to exceptional resources.
Sharpedo, Blastoise, Dugtrio, Golurk, Toxicroak, Ninetales, and Starmie each had viable accelerated paths as well.
Lucario and Ditto remained the wild cards. Lucario might also become much easier if Reiji could ever get his hands on Lucarionite, but that created another problem: the most obvious person to ask was Korrina's grandfather, and Reiji had no relationship with the man strong enough to expect such a valuable item for free.
When he finished counting, the number surprised even him.
Twenty-two Pokémon had either already reached Elite Four tier or possessed a realistic route to getting there much faster than normal.
If most of those plans worked, Reiji could eventually command more than twenty Elite Four-tier Pokémon.
For the first time since opening the notebook, a trace of ambition slipped through his usual caution.
A roster like that would completely overwhelm Trainers still relying on Pokémon below Elite Four tier.
Years ago, back on the deserted island, Reiji had imagined building an enormous Pokémon army. Looking back now, the idea felt almost childish. At the time, he had not understood how brutally power scaled at the highest levels.
Numbers mattered only when the individual Pokémon were strong enough to matter.
An army of weak Pokémon could be swept aside by a single Champion-tier opponent before most of them even managed to contribute. If Reiji ever built anything resembling a real Pokémon force, quasi–Elite Four tier would have to be the minimum standard before sheer numbers became meaningful.
He smiled faintly at how little he had understood back then, closed the notebook, and tucked the pen away with it.
All that work had consumed the entire morning just to produce a few rough estimates.
It was already time to make lunch.
...
Elsewhere, Itsuki received Reiji's message and immediately asked Blaine for permission to leave.
He packed light, changed into dark traveling clothes, and climbed onto Flygon. If he wanted to reach Mandarin Island North before tomorrow evening, he could not afford to waste much time, and Flygon was soon carrying him away from Cinnabar Island toward the Orange Archipelago.
Shun had been home on Kinnow Island for two days and was already desperate for an excuse to leave.
News of his tournament performance had spread across the island before he even returned. Visitors had been flowing through his grandfather's house ever since, and every trip outside seemed to turn into another celebration.
His grandfather, naturally, was having the time of his life. The old drunk had spent two straight days accepting drinks in honor of his grandson and looked perfectly prepared to continue for another week.
Shun had reached his limit.
The moment Reiji's message arrived, he left a short note behind and slipped away rather than endure another round of congratulations. By the time anyone realized he was gone, he was already on his way to Mandarin Island North.
Tai had returned there as well, bringing Shingo with him.
He placed Shingo in a discreet safehouse inside the city and told him to stay inside, keep his identity hidden, and wait. After everything that had happened, Shingo was willing to cooperate. If he had not trusted Tai at least a little, he never would have followed him this far in the first place.
Tai promised that the answers he wanted were coming.
Then he went home.
He had already delegated most of Team Rocket's recruitment work to his subordinates and intended to spend the rest of the day recovering from the chase and Explosion.
His rest did not last long.
One of his men arrived with an unusual report.
Someone wanted to inform Team Rocket about Spider.
More strangely, the man refused to give the details to anyone except Tai.
Tai sat back in his chair, dressed in the black Team Rocket uniform he wore while maintaining this identity, the red R prominent across his chest. His expression barely shifted as he listened, although inwardly he was almost entertained.
This was a first.
Someone had come to report his own organization to him.
Tai had spent enough time inside Team Rocket to become very good at hiding what he thought. The organization rewarded controlled expressions, plausible lies, and the willingness to be vicious when necessary, and by now he could wear the role almost without thinking.
"Bring him in."
A few minutes later, Gai was escorted into the room.
Tai studied him without giving anything away. Gai looked nervous, shifting his weight and clearly wondering whether coming here had been a mistake.
He had never met Tai before.
More importantly, he had no idea that the masked Trainer he had encountered in the past and the Team Rocket officer sitting in front of him were the same person.
Tai leaned back and waited to hear exactly how Gai intended to report Spider to one of Spider's own members.
...
Meanwhile, Naoki was staring at his phone with a headache of his own.
He had been busy notifying the rest of Spider about tomorrow night's gathering, including the fact that Reiji apparently intended to introduce new members. Under normal circumstances, that would have been something to look forward to.
Unfortunately, there was currently an unfamiliar girl staying in his villa.
Keith had brought her there after being chased all the way to the waters off Mandarin Island North, and Naoki still had no idea how he was supposed to explain that situation to Reiji.
He rubbed his forehead.
Keith was becoming increasingly impressive in all the wrong ways. His strength was mediocre, yet somehow his appetite for dangerous trouble continued to grow. This time he had managed to get himself and a girl hunted by a quasi–Elite Four-tier Trainer and two Advanced-tier Trainers.
If Naoki had arrived any later, both of them might have ended up at the bottom of the sea.
And that was not even the only problem waiting for him.
Daishi had already called Reiji directly about something else, which meant Naoki had his own mess to worry about before he could start cleaning up everyone else's.
Then there was Gai.
Naoki checked his phone again. Gai had not replied to a single message, and nobody seemed to know where he had gone.
Maybe he had wandered somewhere outside signal range again.
That was the most innocent explanation Naoki could come up with.
Unfortunately for him, Gai was not in the wilderness.
He was sitting in front of Tai with his hands restrained and his mouth gagged, while his phone rested comfortably in Tai's possession.
Naoki could keep sending messages all night.
Gai was not going to answer them.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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