Pokémon: The Path of Ascension

"How am I supposed to guess that?" Toshi shook his head. "Come on, just tell me!"

"Hehe," Shoji pulled out a Poké Ball from his waist. "Alright, Toshi, let me show you."

"Come out, my partner, Taillow!"

With a flash of white light from Shoji's Poké Ball, Taillow appeared.

"Taillow!"

"Taillow!" Toshi's eyes brightened because he was very familiar with Taillow.

His dad, Hideo, had a Swellow, and since he often looked at his dad's cultivation notes for Taillow, he really knew a lot about it.

Taillow perched on Shoji's shoulder, and Shoji smiled as he said, "So, what do you think of my Taillow?"

Toshi looked at Taillow, and because he was so familiar with it, he quickly recognized that this Taillow had good quality.

"Shoji, this Taillow's quality is…"

"Hehe, just as I expected from Toshi; you figured it out so quickly," Shoji said with excitement and pride. "That's right, this Taillow's quality is good quality!"

Toshi smiled and said, "Congratulations, Shoji."

"Thank you."

Hearing Toshi's congratulations made Shoji even happier.

...

The two of them didn't notice how long they had been talking until they heard someone around them say, "The train is here!"

That's when they finally realized the time.

"Shoji, it's time; let's get on the train."

Shoji returned Taillow to his Poké Ball. "Then let's go."

Due to space limitations, some Pokémon were not allowed to be released on the train, and that applied to Butterfree as well, so Toshi returned Butterfree to its Poké Ball.

Of course, these rules varied depending on the type of train. For smaller trains between towns, like the one Toshi was about to take, Pokémon weren't allowed out. However, for larger trains that traveled between cities, smaller Pokémon could be released.

Before getting on the train, Toshi and Shoji found that they hadn't seen either of their dads show up. They were both used to this, so they didn't say anything about it.

Unfortunately, their seats were not in the same train car, so they wouldn't be able to sit together for the journey.

They agreed to meet again after getting off the train and then each went to find their respective seats.

Toshi was lucky; his seat was by the window.

Next to his seat was a man in his thirties, wearing a white long-sleeve shirt and a black hat.

"Hello, sir. This is my seat; could you let me through?" Toshi said with a smile.

The man looked up and then silently shifted to the side.

"Thank you."

After Toshi sat down, he looked around and noticed quite a few people nearby wearing different styles of black hats.

"Is black hats trending lately?" Toshi wondered to himself.

Fortunately, he didn't pay much attention to it, so after the train started moving, he focused on other things.

"Speaking of Butterfree's cultivation resources…"

Toshi lowered his head, and lines of text suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Strangely enough, the surrounding people didn't seem to notice this at all.

...

This was when Toshi discovered the ability he had after returning Butterfree to its Poké Ball.

When he first crossed over, Toshi had thought about whether he had a system or something similar, like in some stories. However, after numerous attempts and still coming up empty, he realized he was overthinking it.

Yet yesterday, at the moment when Butterfree entered the Poké Ball, a few lines of text suddenly appeared before him:

[Pokémon: Butterfree]

[Type: Bug, Flying]

[Gender: ♀]

[Ability: Compound Eyes]

[Quality: Average (Good Quality)]

[Base Stats: 380]

[Strength: Basic]

[Moves: Gust, Tackle, String Shot, Harden, Bug Bite, Supersonic, Confusion, Poison Powder, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, Air Slash]

At first, when Toshi saw this text, he thought he really had a system or something like that. However, after trying various operations without any results, he finally realized that this English text was just providing him with Pokémon data.

And it only applied to his own Pokémon; otherwise, how could he have only seen this after being in this world for two years?

This didn't mean that Toshi's panel-like feature was useless; on the contrary, he knew that it was incredibly helpful.

In this world, it was quite difficult for Trainers to fully understand the data for each aspect of their Pokémon. It not only required spending a lot of money on various specialized machines for testing, but the data obtained might not even be accurate.

After Toshi obtained this panel, he could constantly see the precise data for each aspect of the Pokémon in his hands and could adjust the cultivation methods in response to changes in that data.

This helped him avoid wasting a lot of money and time on futile efforts.

Moreover, he could open more detailed pages for each line of data.

For example, in the quality section, the faintly displayed "Good Quality" in parentheses.

When Toshi clicked on it, he found information stating that Butterfree's initial quality was "Good Quality," but due to insufficient nutrition, the quality had declined.

Additionally, there were more detailed descriptions for "Base Stats," "Moves," and so on that Toshi could view by clicking on them.

For example, regarding "Base Stats," Toshi thought to himself that this was indeed the best and most convenient feature.

He knew that Butterfree's base stats should be 395, but his Butterfree only had 380. The missing 15 points in base stats were evenly distributed across Physical Defense, Special Attack, and Speed, with each missing 5 points.

When he saw this, Toshi realized how to cultivate Butterfree properly.

And he was confident that he wouldn't make any mistakes.

...

On the train, Toshi was looking at Butterfree's panel while getting lost in thought.

"According to this panel, I will divide Butterfree's cultivation into short-term and long-term parts. The short-term goal is to improve the proficiency of its moves in order to quickly increase its strength, while the long-term goal is to restore Butterfree's quality and base stats…"

"As for the moves, that's manageable; I do know how to train some of them. However, learning new moves might be more difficult…"

"Additionally, if I want to improve Butterfree's quality, the first thing to do is to increase its base stats. But all of this depends on having sufficient nutrition; otherwise, if the nutrition falls short, the base stats will definitely decline again. To ensure adequate nutrition, I will need a lot of money…"

Money is, at the end of the day, still a problem.

With Toshi's current abilities, he couldn't think of any ways to earn money. Did he really have to exchange all his points at the academy for cash?

He did mention that to his parents, but that was just talk. In reality, Toshi wanted to find a way to earn money without using his points.