After a satisfying breakfast, Kael began his morning training. His strictness was never limited to Pokémon alone—when it came to conditioning his own body, he never allowed himself any slack either.
Just one look at the rows of professional fitness equipment lined up in the courtyard was enough to show how much effort he poured into physical training on a daily basis. After finishing a simple warm-up routine, Kael lowered himself into a squat, leaned his body forward, and spread his hands apart, assuming a textbook push-up stance...
He lifted his head and glanced toward the Ralts not far away. No words were needed—the little one immediately understood her Trainer's intent.
"Lulu's coming!"
With a cheerful cry, Ralts leapt down from the dining table to the ground. After a few light bounds, she landed steadily on Kael's back, her short, delicate legs folded neatly beneath her in a lady-like kneeling posture.
At that moment, the red eyes hidden beneath her green bowl-shaped head flared with a faint blue glow. With a small wave of her hand, a soft, pale-blue psychic light instantly spread across Kael's entire body.
As pressure surged from every part of his body, Kael's lips curved into a satisfied smile. In a gentle voice, he said, "Too light. Increase the force."
"Lulu understands!" Ralts replied with a light shout. She spread her hands wide, and the pale-blue psychic glow flared dramatically. A tremendous force—enough to send an ordinary person flying—pressed down on Kael's entire body in an instant.
"Hah!" Kael exhaled sharply. The relaxed smile on his face vanished, replaced by firm resolve. His sword-like brows lifted, his legs slowly rose into the air, and his arms—one up, one down—began moving as he executed a perfectly standard Russian push-up.
Russian push-ups were more than ten times harder than ordinary push-ups. Most people couldn't perform them at all, yet Kael completed the movement with ease—even under the full suppression of psychic pressure.
While Kael trained, Ralts's own training did not pause. She carefully controlled her psychic power, ensuring that every bit of force was distributed evenly across her Trainer's body. The pressure couldn't be too strong, or it would damage his body; nor could it be too weak, or the training effect would be compromised. Moreover, different parts of the body required different levels of force. This entire set of demands meant Ralts couldn't afford even the slightest distraction.
She focused completely, manipulating her psychic power with total concentration. During this process, her mental energy consumption was 3.56 times higher than usual—a conclusion Kael had arrived at after repeated measurements.
Training muscles required tearing old fibers so new ones could grow stronger. Training the mental power of Psychic-type Pokémon worked the same way: rapidly exhausting existing mental energy, then allowing it to recover little by little. Over time, their psychic strength would continue to grow. Combined with precise control, this would also allow Lulu to use her moves with extreme finesse later on—down to needle-fine precision.
...
After two hours of physical training, Kael took a cold shower and returned to the garden. Lulu, having overexerted her mental energy, had already gone back to her room to rest.
Wearing only a pair of black shorts, his well-built upper body completely bare, it was hard to believe this physique belonged to a fifteen-year-old. Perfectly defined six-pack abs, a narrow waist, clear V-lines, and a solid, well-shaped chest.
What stood out even more was the chibi-style Ralts tattoo inked over the left side of his chest. Rather than looking cold or intimidating, it carried a subtle warmth. Kael had been used to tattoos in his previous life—Back then, his tattoo had been a stylized obsidian dragon. In this life, to commemorate the first Pokémon he had ever obtained, he had tattooed this chibi Ralts a year ago. The little one had been happy about it for months; every time she saw the tattoo after Kael finished bathing, she would always want to lean in and rub against it.
Turning on his computer, Kael logged into the Bounty Hunter Guild's official website. Trainers with bounty hunter certification could accept or post missions here.
Ordinary people could also post missions, but only after paying a hefty deposit. Moreover, due to strict League oversight, all missions published on the official bounty hunter site had to be fully legal. As a result, most of the bounties listed there weren't particularly high.
To make real money as a bounty hunter, one had to walk the gray—or even the black—side of the line. The rewards for those missions were truly staggering.
Kael had no intention of chasing big money for now. He didn't even have a second Pokémon yet—taking on gray or black missions at this stage would be nothing short of suicide. A person didn't need to be clever, but they did need self-awareness.
He typed "Sneasel" into the search bar. In the next second, hundreds of results flooded the screen.
Sneasel's primary habitat lay in the Silver Mountains of the Johto region. However, since Viridian Forest stretched across both Kanto and Johto, Pokémon native to Johto would occasionally wander into the forest by accident. The fate of those stray Pokémon was rarely a good one—most were either killed by other wild Pokémon or captured by poaching teams.
After all, Pokémon from other regions often fetched exceptionally high prices on the market.