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After more than half a month, Li Xiang suddenly realized he had learned another sword technique.
He initially thought his skills had advanced by leaps and bounds, that he was about to become a top-tier master in the martial arts world.
Unexpectedly, that was far from the case.
Duan Tianxing evaluated that Li Xiang had only grasped the form but not the essence—his understanding was superficial and incomplete.
Even if his body had some comprehension, his mind was far from enlightened; he hadn't truly grasped the real meaning of the sword technique.
Clearly, the "impartation" wasn't as miraculous as Li Xiang had hoped.
It was a headache. Li Xiang had no idea whether he had acquired these skills by chance or if it was an intentional act by Honedge.
However, ever since he demonstrated the Shimazaki family's sword techniques, something very unexpected happened.
—Honedge had become even more attached to him. It would cling to his back whenever possible, or insist on being held. Even when he went to the bathroom or showered, it would use its tassel to pick the lock through the door crack and sneak in.
Even its disdainful looks had decreased significantly.
At night, it absolutely had to sleep beside him, refusing to stay in its PokéBall or perch on Corviknight's head.
It acted like a delicate, clingy bird all day long.
During practice, it was incredibly enthusiastic, doing whatever was asked with high efficiency. When using Sacred Sword, the light blade had even grown longer.
It was just strange.
If it weren't for Riolu using Aura to check it each time and reporting no abnormalities, along with its joyful and happy emotions, Li Xiang would really think it had been mentally invaded by something.
Once he got used to it, he couldn't help but think, could this really be such a good thing?
Honedge being obedient was definitely a good thing, wasn't it?
...
Everything was proceeding step by step.
After more than half a year of training, Incineroar could now skillfully use its Magma Form and had successfully shortened the startup time.
In the anime, the principle behind Ash's Litten activating its form was absorbing Blast Burn, then having its HP drop to a certain level, triggering Blaze— twice, eventually resulting in a magma-like appearance.
Its combat power increased significantly as a result.
Since Incineroar didn't have the Blaze ability, its principle was naturally different from Litten's. The key triggers for it were burnt Catnip and flame temperature.
Having external flames to raise the temperature was the best scenario, but it wasn't essential.
Its powerful temperature control ability allowed it to raise its body temperature to over 4,500 degrees in a short time. Once it reached 4,500 degrees, Magma Form would naturally activate.
Of course, such high temperatures weren't completely harmless to Incineroar either.
Fire resistance, not fire immunity, meant it couldn't maintain Magma Form for long periods.
Li Xiang calculated it. At full health, it could last... three minutes. Currently, three minutes was the maximum.
Just like Ultraman.
If not started at full health, it might be even shorter.
If it hadn't defeated the opponent by the time the form ended, it might as well surrender, because while in Magma Form, both HP and attribute energy were being consumed rapidly.
Candies increased its six stats but not its attribute energy. After the form ended, it couldn't even use Rest to recover HP, let alone moves like Drain Punch.
It was a typical ultimate trump card. Unless facing opponents of similar or greater strength, using it wasn't very valuable.
As for Riolu, the pup might be small, but it still had plenty of room for improvement.
Lately, it told Li Xiang that its vision was getting a bit blurry.
Li Xiang was initially startled, thinking it had become nearsighted.
Nearsightedness was a complete debuff for both trainers and Pokémon. If one can't see the opponent's moves and actions clearly, how can they dodge and attack?
But after an eye exam, the doctor told him there was nothing wrong—its vision was perfectly healthy.
Li Xiang couldn't help but pay closer attention. Riolu never made baseless claims; something must have happened.
Later, after one battle ended, Riolu told him that after using Agility twice, the opponent's movements seemed much slower.
Only then did Li Xiang realize that Riolu was becoming faster, and its dynamic vision had reached a terrifying level.
A sense of déjà vu from Initial D washed over him.
'Are you Fujiwara Takumi!?'
Having sharper dynamic vision was certainly something to celebrate.
As the primary speed attacker in Li Xiang's team, Riolu's innate advantages were relatively weak. It was only through three years of daily, uninterrupted candy consumption that it was forcibly raised to such a high level.
Despite being a basic form, it could banter with a group of fully evolved Pokémon and even easily defeat them. Therefore, every bit of growth was extremely important.
Perhaps one day, Riolu could achieve a pseudo-time-stop effect through extraordinary speed, just like Jotaro Kujo.
By then, it might even touch upon Dialga's domain.
'Well, just a thought. Humans need dreams, and so do dogs.'
Greninja was currently learning the Niten Ichi-ryu sword style through computer materials, waiting for Li Xiang to go to Mist City in a few months to officially begin learning the Tang family's Ten Forms of Ksitigarbha.
It hadn't yet managed to fuse a third small shuriken into the Giant Water Shuriken, but success was believed to be near. Once achieved, the power of Water Shuriken would increase again.
Eventually, it would be able to create shurikens as large as Ash-Greninja's golden shuriken.
From what he remembered, the principle behind the golden shuriken was that the energy inside the water shuriken was so intense it boiled over, causing the phenomenon.
This was according to the animation director on Twitter.
Although he wasn't sure why it was rumored that the director said it boiled to evaporation, it might still be worth learning.
His Greninja wasn't Ash-Greninja; if it encountered a Mega Charizard X, it wouldn't foolishly use Water-type moves against it.
'Why not use the super-effective Rock Slide? It's still a same-type attack bonus anyway, hitting the Mega Charizard X with big rocks until its brains spill out, with a lucky chance to flinch.'
As for its camouflage combined with Shadow Sneak, it had definitely hit a bottleneck.
Li Xiang had the idea of having it conceal its moves as well, but it simply couldn't be done.
They could only take it one step at a time. Pokémon like Greninja with such outstanding camouflage abilities were truly rare.
Li Xiang searched online for a long time but found no similar cases. They could only rely on themselves to feel their way.
Regarding Substitute, originally, the energy injected at one time was very limited, akin to Pikachu's Thunderbolt becoming a mere ten volts.
It couldn't utilize the full strength of the original body at all.
Now, after long and arduous training, the amount of attribute energy the Substitute could store had greatly increased. After using a low-cost move once, there was still energy to spare, ensuring it could maintain its camouflage state for a short time under the original body's control.
If this move succeeded, it would mean Li Xiang would soon have two Greninjas.
Maybe even three or four in the future.
After all, it could recover HP with Rest, have the Substitute work, while the original body hid and created more Substitutes.
The only thing limiting Greninja was attribute energy.
It had to create clones and share energy with them—too arduous. It wasn't a Legendary Pokémon with an endless, inexhaustible supply of attribute energy.
According to online discussions, Legendary Pokémon were like individual energy nodes, with so much attribute energy they could use it endlessly without depletion.
This was also their capital to "run wild" in the world.
Like Kyogre and Groudon, whose abilities could affect half a region at a time—who could handle that?
Li Xiang thought that Legendaries' energy must have limits; otherwise, they wouldn't need to sleep. At most, their total energy far exceeded that of all ordinary Pokémon.
That was all for Greninja.
Among all the Pokémon, Corviknight had made the most progress.
As early as a year and a half ago, Li Xiang had been thinking about Mirror Armor, trying to make it reflect light-based moves.
But he never achieved much success.
Finally, not long ago, Corviknight finally achieved minor mastery in the Three-Blind Perception Method, bringing it even more terrifying body control and... intuition.
What is intuition?
For example, if Li Xiang threw a ball at Corviknight from behind, it could accurately bat it back where it came from without even looking.
The most direct result was that when light-based moves came at it, while enduring them, it could subconsciously adjust its angle to reflect them back at the opponent.
That's right.
A genuine rebound.
The first victim was an Alakazam, using Psybeam confidently, only to flee in disarray.
Others included Magneton's Mirror Shot, Mr. Mime's Dazzling Gleam, and many more light-based moves.
It had reflected them all back, startling both the opponents and their trainers.
Not only that, Corviknight had also become more skilled at taking hits.
As everyone knew, hitting different parts of a Pokémon could cause different damage, with some even resulting in critical hits. But similarly, Pokémon also had more resilient areas on their bodies.
For instance, canine Pokémon were said to have copper heads, iron bones, and tofu waists.
After minor mastery of the Three-Blind Perception Method, Corviknight's body control improved, allowing it to present its more durable parts to opponents while hiding its vulnerable spots.
As a result, it often happened that after being hit by Wild Charge or Flare Blitz, Corviknight would caw, completely unfazed, and continue fighting.
It could even block Thunderbolt and Flamethrower with its wings.
Extremely impressive.
As it became more and more durable, Incineroar started complaining that this guy was too hard to hit; the more it punched, the more its own paws hurt.
Fighting it was like being hit head-on by a car.
Riolu simply stopped fighting Corviknight up close, opting for long-range attacks with Force Palm and Aura Sphere.
Metagross... this guy was the most straightforward. Relying on its own hardness, it would clash head-on with Corviknight, ending up unable to lift its arms, only to be mocked by Corviknight.
Not sure what to say about that.
Rotom was still about mobile spellcasting and creating the Thunder Cage.
Nothing much to say; its purpose in life was to discharge electricity. If electricity didn't work, it used Hydro Pump. If Hydro Pump failed, it used something else.
There was always a way to deal with you.
Interestingly, it could still discharge electricity while inside a phone, at most frying the phone in the process.
Li Xiang thought that if he ever encountered danger in the future, he might rely on this method to save himself. As for something like Iron Man's suit, he would definitely try to develop it if given the chance.
Perhaps, Rotom could even become his weapon terminal, like shooting electromagnetic cannons from his palm.
Metagross... as mentioned before, was training its Meteor Mash and Barrier.
Honedge was striving to level up and evolve to its final stage; everything would be easier then.