Nova had already found a way to adjust Nidoking's trait through the breeding system. His plan was to merge the "Psychic Heritage" trait, which was not very useful right now, with the "Special Force" trait that Nidoking used the most. If this worked, the Psychic power stored inside Nidoking's body could boost the strength of its main special attack moves.
This kind of change needed careful work. Nidoking would also need to train hard to master the skill of using Confusion to strengthen itself from the inside.
Nova did not know much about Psychic power. He had come from a world without Pokémon, so even now he did not fully understand how Psychic energy worked. Because of this, he had no special method to train it directly. All he could do before was give Nidoking general training based on hints from the breeding system.
This showed that Nova's breeding system was not some overpowered cheat that let him do anything he wanted. It had no shop full of points, and it could not affect the real world directly. Even its breeding plans still needed Nova's own thinking to carry out. If this world were a huge, open RPG, then Nova's system was more like a game menu inside his head. Compared to an ordinary person, a hero with a system like this had some extra information, but that was all the advantage he had. To grow stronger, Nova still had to use his own mind and put in the work.
Luckily, Nova was not on his own anymore. He was a member of Layered Peaks Gym, so when he needed help beyond his own knowledge, he could turn to the Gym's resources. He remembered hearing that some Trainers at Layered Peaks Gym knew how to use Psychic power well. One of them came from a very well known background, the Mozelle Family, the most famous Psychic-type family in the region. The current League's Psychic Elite Four, Luanna, also came from the Mozelle Family of Central Plain City.
The old master of the Mozelle Family had been invited to the Gym after Gilbert visited him many times to ask for help. Gilbert had once found a Baltoy with real talent, but since he had no experience raising Psychic-type Pokémon, he spent a great deal of money to hire a senior Psychic instructor from the Mozelle Family. That Baltoy had since evolved into a Claydol and was now one of Gilbert's strongest Pokémon.
This senior Trainer, Ramsey, was over fifty years old and had worked at Layered Peaks Gym for more than ten years. He was a bit old fashioned, which fit well with Gilbert's own personality.
When Nova went to find the old master, Ramsey was drinking tea and listening to rock music in his own office. Nova found the mix strange, but since every Pokémon Trainer seemed to have odd habits, he supposed it fit the pattern well enough.
Ramsey was confused about why Mort's student had not gone to his own master for advice and had come to him instead. Still, after listening to what Nova wanted to achieve, he thought about it for a moment and scratched his head.
"Nova," Ramsey said, "this request of yours is honestly something new to me. Most Trainers who come to me for Psychic-type training want to push their Pokémon's Psychic moves to be as strong and destructive as possible. You are the first one who has asked me to help pull that Psychic energy back inside the Pokémon's own body."
"Master Ramsey, I don't really have another option," Nova replied. "Confusion is the only Psychic move Nidoking can use for attacking, and it isn't even a same-type move for it. It works fine against weak opponents, but against a Trainer of equal skill, there's almost no chance to use Confusion well."
He continued, "Also, my Nidoking has real natural talent for Psychic power. If I don't put that gift to good use, it would be a waste."
"But Psychic power was never a strong point for the Nidoking line to begin with," Ramsey said. "It makes sense that it wouldn't be very useful."
He added, "Think of it like a person born with unusually long ears. That trait doesn't really help humans do anything. You wouldn't go looking for a trainer just to make use of long ears, would you?"
It had to be said, Ramsey truly earned his reputation as a senior Psychic trainer. His question pointed straight at the part of Nova's plan that seemed unreasonable to most people.
If the breeding system had not already given Nova a clear answer, he might have let Ramsey talk him out of this uncertain plan. But that was exactly what made the breeding system special. It could always find a training method that others would overlook, using a Pokémon's own traits to shape it into something that went against common sense, yet still became strong.
Nova was never worried about his Pokémon being unusual. The stranger a Pokémon's traits were, the more the breeding system had to work with. Nidoking's current "Toxic" trait was a good example. Before Nova bred it, this trait had simply been called "Toxin Taster," and it only let Nidoking absorb a small amount of poison from food to slightly boost its own venom. The breeding system had used this trait back when Nidoking was still a Nidorino. By slowly feeding it venom from five different Poison-type Pokémon, and then adding something unusual from a Poison-type Ultra Beast, the system managed to breed the powerful "Toxic" trait that Nidoking now had.
If the breeding system believed a method could work, then it always did.
So, after Nova kept insisting, Ramsey finally agreed to help. He would use his professional knowledge of Psychic power to help Nova adjust Nidoking's current abilities.
Part of the reason Ramsey agreed so easily was because of the good reputation of Nova's master and senior. Nova understood this well, so he made sure not to be careless about proper payment.
A professional Psychic trainer usually charged three thousand league coins per hour. For someone as senior as Ramsey, though, price was not really about the market rate. It depended on what he wanted, not what others offered.
Ramsey did not want a single coin. To him, the friendship of a future Gym Leader was worth far more than a large sum of league coins, so he brushed off Nova's offer by saying the Gym already paid him a monthly salary.
But Nova insisted that friendship was one thing and proper payment was another. He did not want Ramsey to think he was someone who let feelings get in the way of fair reward.
The salary the Gym paid Master Ramsey was for his everyday work. The reward Nova wanted to give was for this personal favor. The two, Nova believed, should never be mixed together.