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When it came to battle experience and fighting skill, Kael lacked nothing.
After all, he had lived through several cycles as different Pokémon. From the clumsy, low-level struggles of newborn Pokémon all the way up to battles on the level of legendary beings, he had seen it all.
But that did not mean there was nothing left for him to gain from fighting.
Quite the opposite.
For the Kael of now, intense, high-pressure combat was exactly what he needed.
The trials of his past lives had tempered his soul to an absurd degree, to the point where its strength now likely stood just below that of only a handful of legendary Pokémon.
But the body he currently inhabited was still only that of a newly born Sobble, one of the weakest starting points imaginable.
It was like stuffing a quantum engine into a toy car built out of plastic bricks.
Because of the limits of this frail body, Kael could not fully bring out all the advantages that came with his hardened soul.
Only through time, growth, and the strengthening of his body would those restraints gradually loosen.
And naturally, fierce battles could help accelerate that process of fusion between soul and body to a certain extent.
Kael was not especially impatient about it.
But if a suitable opponent came along, he certainly would not reject the opportunity.
Of course, that was all for later.
"Haa..."
Kael lay sprawled across the soft hospital bed like a fish washed ashore, utterly drained.
His blue eyes rested on his slender right leg, still wrapped in layer after layer of bandages, and he narrowed them thoughtfully.
"The tech in this world is seriously ridiculous..."
In terms of clothing, architecture, and general appearance, the world still looked much like it had in the early twenty-first century before his reincarnation.
But when it came to Pokémon-related technology, it was bizarrely advanced.
With the kind of injury he had suffered before, a leg so badly wrecked it had practically exploded apart, back in his old life it would have taken at least half a year to recover properly, and even then, there would probably have been some permanent complications.
But here, only a little over a day had passed since he had been brought to the Pokémon Center, and Kael could already clearly feel that his muscles and bones had been completely rejoined. With the natural resilience of a Pokémon body, he figured that in another week or so, he would probably be back to normal.
No wonder battles were so common in the Pokémon world.
With medical technology like this, unless a Pokémon died on the spot, it seemed like they could practically be dragged back from the hands of death itself.
"Hoo..."
Kael let out a quiet breath, feeling strangely moved.
Being reborn into a world like this as a Pokémon might actually count as good fortune, in its own way.
And while he was lying there lost in thought, unaware of it, a quiet conversation was taking place just outside the door of his room, one that would quietly determine what kind of future awaited him.
Nurse Joy walked slowly down the broad hallway of the Pokémon Center, her brow slightly furrowed, dark eyes fixed on the medical chart in her hands as if she were mulling something over.
Mercury Town was only a small town. The population was not large, and its remote location meant the Pokémon Center rarely saw truly heavy traffic except during a few busy seasons each year.
Still, with Molten Season Forest right next door and so many wild Pokémon nearby, injuries happened often enough. Every few days or so, something would come in.
Even wounds as severe as Sobble's were not especially rare.
The matter occupying Nurse Joy's thoughts right now was related to that Sobble.
But oddly enough, it was not really about his injuries.
"Joy."
A voice calling from ahead pulled her out of her thoughts.
Lifting her eyes from the chart, she saw a young man in the pale pink work uniform of the Pokémon Center approaching her.
A warm smile appeared on her face as she answered.
"Afternoon, Ashu."
In the real world, Pokémon Centers were naturally nothing like in games, where only one Nurse Joy seemed to exist.
Cleaning, moving supplies, repairing equipment, maintaining the network, all kinds of work had to be handled by someone.
No matter how capable Nurse Joy was, one person alone could never manage everything.
That was why Pokémon Centers needed clearly assigned staff for different responsibilities.
Ashu was one of the people recruited by the League to work at the Center.
His main duties were financial management, procurement of equipment, handling donations, and overseeing staff salary payments, among other things.
In a way, he could be considered part of the upper staff.
And since Joy was the League-assigned head of the Center, the two of them naturally knew each other very well.
"Did the new medical equipment donated by Eevee Tech Group arrive yet?"
Since there were not many patients today, Joy had some room to breathe. She lowered her eyes to the chart again, leaned lightly against the wall, and chatted with him in a casual, offhand way.
"Yeah. It got here this morning."
Ashu nodded, then noticed the faint crease in her brow, like she had something on her mind.
A little puzzled, he asked, "What's wrong. Is this about that medical accident from a few days ago?"
"I told you, that wasn't your fault. Nobody could have predicted the electrotherapy unit would suddenly explode."
"Stop dwelling on it and take a few days off..."
Before he could finish, Joy cut him off.
"That's not it."
She sighed, her face showing the kind of expression people wore when they wanted to say something but were not sure how.
Rubbing lightly at the space between her brows, she thought for a moment before speaking again.
"That Sobble from yesterday morning. You remember it, right?"
"Of course I do."
Ashu raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"A Pokémon personally brought in by Lanlian, the League's hottest new Elite Four member. That kind of thing sticks with you."
"That's exactly the problem."
Joy turned her head toward the private room where Kael was staying, her face full of thought and quiet frustration.
During her years working in different Centers, it was not as though she had never seen wild Pokémon rescued by Trainers before.
But in most cases, once those Pokémon were treated and healed, the Trainers who brought them in would catch them.
It was rare for someone to drop one off and then simply leave without another thought.
As far as Sobble's current situation went, Joy saw two possible ways to handle it.
The first was to release him back into the forest.
That was the standard solution.
But the problem was that all of Molten Season Forest contained only one small lake suitable for Water-type Pokémon to live in.
And because the whole region was so saturated with Fire-type energy, hardly any truly talented or rare Water-types ever stayed there.
If Sobble were released into that lake, then for all practical purposes, it would mean cutting off its future.
He would lose almost all room to keep growing.
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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!