Pokémon: Start with an Admiral Crab!

Because they were about to leave for Yuejian Mountain, Wang Yao did not do any special training in the next two days.

It was a rare opportunity to be lazy, and it made him feel much more relaxed.

……

Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

After having lunch in advance and replenishing some supplies from the department store in Deep Gray City, Wang Yao came to the entrance of the museum to meet Li Ke.

"Sorry! I'm late!"

When Wang Yao arrived, Li Ke had been waiting at the entrance of the museum for a long time.

Unlike Wang Yao who led the Little Fire Horse and carried a lot of luggage, Li Ke brought much less, only a thin briefcase.

"Not too late, not too late! Actually, I was a little impatient, so I came early!"

Seeing Wang Yao arrive, Li Ke was eager to set off.

With his condition, it's no wonder he can't explore Mt. Tsukimi without someone to accompany him...

Not to mention encountering wild Pokémon... he probably wouldn't even be able to take care of his own three meals.

"There's no point in being anxious - even though Moon View Mountain is not far from here, it will take us at least half a day to get there!"

"I'm afraid it will be dark by the time we reach the foot of the mountain!"

Wang Yao poured cold water on Li Ke’s overly enthusiastic attitude.

"Ah...yes! I had totally forgotten about that!"

"Hehe...hehe..."

Li Ke reacted and scratched his head in embarrassment.

He had been to Mt. Tsukimi before, but he was chased back by Pokémon just as he reached the cave at the foot of the mountain!

"Okay... let's go!"

Wang Yao led the little fire horse and walked in front.

"Yes--!"

Li Ke immediately followed Wang Yao's footsteps.

“——Wait a minute!”

"Please wait!"

Two voices, one in front and one behind, shouted at Wang Yao from afar.

"Ok?"

Wang Yao turned around and found that the people who called him were the two little brats he had rescued before.

“Phew! Just in time!”

Shi Ye and Guang Shu stood in front of Wang Yao, panting.

Then you and I described our experiences of the past few days.

Ishiya: "We heard from Joey during lunch that you were leaving!"

Hiroki: “So I caught up with him right away!”

Ishiya: "Yesterday the Dark Gray Gym Leader easily defeated both of us!"

Hiroki: "...He said our practice wasn't enough!"

Shi Ye: "So we thought..."

Guang Shu: "It's a good opportunity for me to go to Yuejian Mountain with you, Brother Yao, to train together!"

Ishiya and Hiroki: "That's it!"

"You two really have a tacit understanding..."

Wang Yao commented somewhat speechlessly.

They spoke one sentence each and they were able to speak so coherently.

"Anyway... since you didn't get the gray badge, you plan to go to Tsukimiyama with me to train... and then challenge me again after you become stronger, right?"

Wang Yao summarized what the two people said.

"Correct!"

"That's right!"

The two looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

"Okay! Okay! I don't mind adding two more people on the road..."

Wang Yao waved his hand.

"But that's just right... you can still send Li Ke back later..."

"——Oh! Let me introduce you, this is Li Ke, a researcher at the Deep Gray Science Museum!"

There is a high probability that Wang Yao will not return to Shenhui City after arriving at Yuejian Mountain!

Regardless of whether he finds the so-called meteorite core or not, he will probably continue to move towards Cerulean City.

Therefore, it was just right to let these two brothers escort Li Ke back.

"Um...hello!"

Li Ke greeted.

"Hello!"

Perhaps out of students' awe of researchers, Ishiya and Hiroki behaved very well in front of Li Ke.

……

Although the number of people traveling together has increased, the road to Mt. Tsukimi will not become shorter or longer.

Wang Yao and his group arrived at the foot of Yuejian Mountain on time before dark.

"It's not convenient to make a fire in the cave... We'll camp outside tonight and have dinner first."

Wang Yao glanced at the sky and saw that the sun was about to set.

In front of them was the cave at the foot of Mt. Yuemimatsu. After passing through the cave, they could head to Route 4 and would arrive at Cerulean City in no time.

"it is good--!"

"Guangshu and I are going to collect firewood!"

The two little brothers divided the work very consciously.

"Um...what about me? I can help with the work, too!"

Although Li Ke was a little tired, he also wanted to help with some things.

"Well...put the pot up first."

"First, cook a pot of porridge. Remember to cook more porridge, including the Pokémon's portions. Make about enough for ten people!"

Wang Yao took out the newly bought large stew pot, and gave Li Ke the drinking water and a bag of rice that he had prepared earlier.

"Okay! Don't worry! Although I'm not good at manual labor, I usually cook for myself at home!"

Li Ke said with a solemn vow.

"Little Fire Horse, you guard the camp."

Wang Yao released the giant crab and the cowardly bug, and he planned to go find some food.

"You wait here, I'll go... pick some local specialties and come back!"

After giving Li Ke some instructions, Wang Yao led the two Pokémon into the cave.

……

"I am back!"

Half an hour later, Wang Yao returned from the cave with a full load.

"Oh! The fire is already lit!"

A bonfire had been lit in the makeshift camp, and the stew pot on top was bubbling!

"The porridge is ready! Let's have mushroom porridge for dinner tonight!"

Wang Yao poured out a bunch of colorful mushrooms and strange-looking orange pliers from his backpack.

These mushrooms are big and small, but their color is almost the same, a red mushroom with light yellow spots.

And the other orange pincers, or rather the thick forelimbs of some arthropod...

These forelimbs are about the same size as chicken legs, and there are much fewer of them than mushrooms, only eight in total.

“These mushrooms look so familiar…”

Shiye took a closer look and muttered in confusion.

"It's the mushroom on Paras' back! Didn't you teach that in school?"

Wang Yao's tone was very natural.

"And their front limbs. I felt they were quite meaty, so I only picked eight."

"——These are all right forelimbs!"

For some reason, Wang Yao emphasized this point.

As he spoke, Wang Yao cut the mushrooms into small pieces and put them into the porridge in the stew pot.

"ah--!?"

"Can Paras' mushrooms be eaten?!"

“Fore…forelimbs?!”

Ishiya and Hiroki were very surprised.

Instead, it was Li Ke, a museum researcher, who gave the answer.

"Don't you know? Paras' mushrooms are precious medicinal materials!"

"And after Paras picks off the mushrooms, new mushrooms will grow on his back every year!"

"Although it can be processed as food...but I think most people would not want to do that after getting it, right!?"

As a researcher, Li Ke has some insight into this.

But he was just talking about it on paper and had never actually eaten the mushrooms on Paras' back.

"As for Paras's forelimbs... I'm not sure, but they should be similar to the claws of giant crabs. Can they be regrown?"

Pushing his glasses, Li Ke guessed hesitantly.

He had only seen people gathering mushrooms from Paras, but had never seen anyone gathering those from the forelimbs.

"Can this be delicious?"

Although I learned about the Paras mushroom from Li Ke.

But Guangshu still looked at the pile of red mushrooms with some suspicion.

"You'll know if you try it... I think it will be delicious."

Because we also had to prepare portions for the giant crabs and we had collected a lot of mushrooms, the pot was full after only half of them were added.

Simply skewer some mushrooms, brush them with oil and grill them.

The other part is cut into thin slices.

Wang Yao took out another frying pan, fried the thinly sliced ​​mushrooms, and put them into a bowl.

While Wang Yao was processing the mushrooms, he also threw the forelimbs of Paras next to the fire to heat them up, intending to grill them directly over charcoal.

……

Since the porridge had been cooked in advance, it didn’t take long and dinner was ready!

"——Come out to eat!"

Wang Yao released all the Pokémon and asked Guangshu and the others to do the same.

Anyway, I cooked a lot of dishes today.

The Pokémons' dinner is mushroom porridge with fried mushroom slices and grilled mushroom skewers!

The same went for Wang Yao and the others, except that each of them had two more [Charcoal-grilled forelimbs].

"Coward! You did a great job today!"

Wang Yao cracked a joint open with the back of a knife, took a bite, and handed it to the cowardly bug as a reward.

"Guji~"

The coward proudly enjoyed the special meal.

After all, half of the mushrooms today were picked by it!

These Paras are not as big as it!

Moreover, he is slow and has no combat experience.

It was a rare experience baby! It was easily defeated by it with its agile fighting methods!

After the victory, the coward was able to use his metal claws to harvest the spoils one by one.

But the forelimbs... were handled by Wang Yao himself...

I was just collecting mushrooms...

But his trainer suddenly said something: "Since the roast goose is better on the right half...then the same goes for Paras!"

Then he calmly pried off the right forelimb of the still unconscious Paras.

This operation scared the timid bug who was still picking mushrooms!

……

But you still have to eat it!

When the cowardly worm lived on the bottom of the sea, it could happily eat even rotten food and had always been acting as nature's cleaner.

What's more, the fragrant white shredded meat revealed after cracking the shell is a delicacy that the timid bug has never tasted before!

In terms of food quality, it is even better than the squid and spearow we had before!

Hiroki and Ishiya also released all their Pokémon.

In addition to the monkey monster and Nidorino that we have already seen, there is also the fur ball that Guangshu collected in advance so he didn’t get to see...

And there is an iron-shelled Kun in Shi Ye's hand, which is in the evolution stage.

Of course, the iron-shelled kunmichi doesn't need to eat... Shi Ye released it just to help it clean its shell and cultivate some affection.

"Shouldn't your monkey monster be able to counter rock-type monsters? Why can't you defeat it?"

Wang Yao asked curiously.

Before evolving, Nidorino was a pure poison-type, and was at a disadvantage in terms of attributes, so it was reasonable for him to lose.

But your Monkey King is a Fighting-type Pokémon!

As an assessment for beginners, just a few fighting moves should be enough to defeat Brock or the Geodude used by Takenori, right?

"Um... Gym Leader Xiaogang commanded Geodude to create a sandstorm... In the dust..."

Guangshu was a little embarrassed to say it, so Shiye filled in the blanks for him.

"The monkey monster was blinded by the sand and was fighting around on the field without following commands - in the end, he ran out of energy and was defeated!"

Shi Ye said with a smile, it was obvious that the two of them did not pass, which made him feel much better!

"Hmph..."

The monkey monster put down the bowl dejectedly.

How can it fight back if it can’t see where the enemy is?

"That's right..."

Wang Yao nodded, agreeing with Xiaogang's idea.

Although you can let the beginners off in the exam, if you just catch a Pokémon with a restraining attribute and let it pass... that's just too unreasonable!

Using the weather to assess challengers is a relatively simple training method, and it can also enrich new trainers' combat knowledge about different weather conditions.

It can be considered as killing two birds with one stone.

"I want to pass the gym assessment..."

Under the expectant eyes of Guangshu and Ishiya, Wang Yao had no choice but to introduce to them a method to pass the test.

"Or - we can knock it down before Geodude creates a sandstorm!"

Wang Yao looked at Guangshu and said that in this regard, he needed to train the monkey monster's speed and strength. In short, he wanted to improve the monkey monster's level as much as possible!

"Or——master the skills to restrain rock-type!"

This sentence was said to Ishiya who had Nidorino.

"Of course, if you can find items that are not affected by sandstorms, such as wearing dust goggles, maybe your gym challenge will be much easier!"

Wang Yao added another sentence.

"It's not a big deal to challenge the gym with just tools..."

"Yeah... there's no real progress at all this way!"

The two honest children, Ishiya and Hiroki, refused the option of taking shortcuts.

After determining their respective directions of effort, Ishiya and Hiroki immediately became full of fighting spirit.

Wang Yao scanned the information of Monkey King and Nidorino through the illustrated book.

The levels of these two Pokémon should be similar... since they both have very few skills.

The only fighting skills that the monkey monster has mastered are [Kick Down] and [Bare-Handed Slash], and a move he recently learned, [Digging Holes], which is pretty good.

Nidorino evolved not too long ago, and its strongest moves are just [Dig], [Random Attack], and [Poison Needle].

"Actually, judging by their levels and skills... your Pokémon should all be good enough to get the first badge."

Wang Yao looked at the scan results. In fact, both Pokémon were not too bad. At least they had skills that were enough to deal with Rock-type Pokémon!

The reason for their loss was that they lacked experience in commanding as trainers.

"I suggest letting Monkey King train Kick Down. After all, most Rock-type Pokémon are very heavy."

"As for dodging, just dig a hole! It should be enough to avoid the sandstorm!"

Wang Yaoxian arranged a special training plan for Guangshu.

"Nidorino's digging skill needs extra training... Also, I read from the database that it should be able to learn a skill called [Double Kick]!"

"I don't know how to learn it though... but judging from the name, it should be similar to [Kick Down]! You can let it watch the monkey monster's movements more - maybe it can get some inspiration."

Wang Yao, who was a half-baked person, made a suggestion to Shi Ye according to the introduction in the illustrated book.

"Thank you so much!"

"Okay! Let's go to special training now!"

The two were about to start special training excitedly, but were stopped by Wang Yao.

"It's already dark, why are you still training? Eat your meal and go to sleep first!"

Wang Yao was also quite helpless with these two energetic little brats.

Because they did not prepare tents, Wang Yao and his friends spent the night at the entrance of the cave.

After finding an "L"-shaped corner, Wang Yao released the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Using the body of the Iron-Armored Tyrannosaurus Rex as a barrier and leaning against the rock wall, a small space large enough to accommodate four people was formed.

The ground was also covered with hay and leaves in advance, so at least there was no problem with keeping warm!

Letting the little fire horse sit cross-legged on the ground, Wang Yao was able to lean on the little fire horse's body and fall asleep.

The little fire horse can now control the temperature of its own flames well and will not ignite the blankets and hay on the ground.

"Sure enough, there must be a fire-type in the team!"

Because the little fire horse's body was warm enough, Wang Yao didn't even need to cover himself with a blanket.

"Haa ...

Huddled together on the same blanket, Guangshu and the monkey monster slept peacefully against a rock wall.

"Good night, everyone!"

Next to the tail of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Ishiya was holding the Iron Shell Kun and was also preparing to rest.

Only Li Ke was not prepared to spend the night outdoors, so Wang Yao lent him his blanket.

“It always feels… wonderful!”

As a researcher, Li Ke looked at the scene in front of him and felt quite emotional.