Reiji picked up his old rod, baited the hook, and glanced at Poliwag, who was sitting by the shore with eyes closed, tuning into the atmosphere. His earlier hypothesis had been correct—whether Poliwag could enter the Moisture Sense state depended on the humidity in the air.

Going forward, he'd need to continue digging deeper along this line. There were only two directions: improving instantaneous sensing and reducing humidity requirements.

After all, it's not like high-humidity air is always available. Lowering Moisture Sense's dependency on humidity while being able to instantly sense the opponent's position amid the chaos and interference of battle—this would be Poliwag's next training phase.

Instant recognition. Preemptive positioning. A coiled strike. That would become the focus of Poliwag's combat discipline.

And for that, it would need attacks with explosive power—moves that could knock out a target in one clean hit.

Once Poliwag evolved, the most powerful moves it could learn were…

Dynamic Punch, base power 100, guaranteed to confuse. A STAB move. Practically made for Moisture Sense.

Focus Punch, base power 150. Also STAB. Requires charging, but if Poliwag could pull this off, the damage output would be devastating.

Then there were other usable options—less ideal but viable in specific scenarios.

Recoil Moves: Double-Edge, 120 power.

Special Attacks: Focus Blast, 120 power. Hydro Pump, 110 power.

Recharge Moves: Hyper Beam, Giga Impact—both 150 power but skip the next turn.

Non-STAB Moves: Earthquake (100), Blizzard (110), Mega Kick (120).

Stat-drop Moves: Close Combat (120, lowers both defenses), Superpower (120, lowers Attack and Defense)—hard to sustain.

These all had their place situationally, but right now Poliwag didn't know any of them. It could learn them in the future. For now, the top priority was adapting to Moisture Sense.

Buzz—

"Whoa, got a bite," Reiji muttered as he scanned Poliwag's movepool. A sudden jolt from the rod nearly dragged him into the sea.

He'd fished long enough to get a sense of the opponent by the force on the line. It was either something clueless… or a Carvanha.

After playing the fish a bit, depleting its energy, Reiji hauled it up. Sure enough, a splash of red broke the surface. "Yep, figured it was that dumb thing." He'd been hoping to catch this guy anyway—to feed Krabby some calcium.

He pulled the Magikarp up onto the sand and lobbed a Poké Ball, capturing the flopping Water-type with a splash.

[Magikarp]

Type: Water

Gender: Female

Potential: 45%

Level: 5.58%

Not bad. Over 40% potential—that was rare. Most Pokémon Reiji had caught so far were in the 30s, 20s, or even 10s in potential.

Still, anything below 60 didn't meet his standards—59 was his bare minimum.

After storing the Poké Ball, Reiji baited his hook again and kept fishing until sunset, but didn't catch another bite. Fortunately, he'd gotten the "dumb one" already—he wasn't going home empty-handed. Dinner just meant another round of crab hunting.

Better to ambush Krabby than wait for it to sneak into camp. If he wiped out the ones on this beach, there'd be no more lurking ambushers.

Wiping them out entirely was impossible though. Beyond the beach, around the fallen trees, there were plenty more Krabby—that was their real base, and Kingler might be there too.

Besides the beach Krabby, there were also Krabby in the island's central lake, but they didn't act as aggressively.

Here, Krabby were the kings. In the lake, they kept their claws tucked in and their heads down.

He halted training for the day and caught six crabs with his Pokémon for dinner. Their potential was—as always—trash.

Dinner for Krabby was Magikarp. The others would be eating crab meat.

Boiled crab was done quickly. The Magikarp had been roasted and ground up for Krabby—though the "dumb one" didn't see it happen, as Reiji had already returned it to its Poké Ball and placed it in the treehouse.

Dinner time. As they ate, Reiji brought out a Charti Berry he'd picked two days ago to spice things up—it really gave the crab some kick.

No spicy crab tonight though. A little indulgence now and then was fine, but too often and he might end up poisoned.

The Charti Berries picked yesterday? None of the Pokémon would touch them unless mixed with honey.

Their picky tastes left him speechless. Such delicious fruit, and not one would eat it.

So he ate the Charti Berry himself.

"Kacha kacha," Krabby crunched through the crisp roast. Reiji had told it fish was good for strengthening its shell, so it didn't complain and kept eating.

Still, it shared some with Poliwag out of respect. Poliwag didn't refuse either. The little guy clearly cared about its crab buddy.

But the more it chewed, the tougher the fish felt—until finally, it hit a piece that simply couldn't be bitten through.

Even after forcing a few more chomps, Krabby had to spit it out, curious what was so unchewable.

"Kacha?" It called out softly, and Poliwag came over.

"What's up?" Poliwag waddled over, saw the crab digging through food scraps, and spat a Water Gun to rinse off the table.

Out of that splash rolled a blue scale—the culprit behind the failed chew.

"Yo?" Poliwag looked stunned, staring at its crab brother as if to say: You tried to eat this??

"Kacha…" Krabby squeaked guiltily. It had no idea—it was just in the food bowl, so it ate it.

"Yo, yo," Poliwag couldn't identify the scale and called out to Reiji for help.

"What's going on, Poliwag?" Reiji walked over and saw both of them hunched over a blue scale. He picked it up, rinsed it in Magikarp's water bucket, then examined it under the light.

It was pure blue, palm-sized, and tough—so hard the crab couldn't even leave a bite mark.

Just to avoid misidentifying it, Reiji activated the proficiency panel, hoping it could identify the item.

[Dragon Scale: A rare reverse scale shed from a Dragon-type Pokémon (Dragon energy concentration: 67.91%)]

Reiji froze. The panel had actually recognized it. This thing was real—something that actually existed in the game's data.

He'd once tried scanning a roadside rock. Got nothing. Guess rocks weren't in the game files.

But this—this was the real deal. Somehow, the crab had chewed its way into a Dragon Scale.

Well, more likely: Magikarp had eaten it, then the crab ate Magikarp… and voilà, Dragon Scale.

A blue one. Possibly from a Dragonair, Kingdra, Salamence, or even Latios.

Regardless of the origin—it was valuable.

This was a Dragon-type remnant. And "Dragon-type" was synonymous with power—high base stats, excellent typing, top-tier growth.

Even their early forms were strong—often on par with or stronger than starters.

Just look at the pseudo-Legendary count per region.

Kanto's Dragonite, Johto's Tyranitar.

Hoenn's Salamence… and also Metagross.

Sinnoh's Garchomp, Unova's Hydreigon.

Kalos had Goodra, Alola had Kommo-o.

Galar? Dragapult.

Eight regions. Nine pseudos. Seven were Dragon-type.

The other two? Tyranitar (Dark/Rock) and Metagross (Steel/Psychic)—the only non-Dragons holding their ground.

Other types? Still in prison, waiting for the devs to realize Dragon might be a bit too dominant.

Even Gen 9's pseudo was another Dragon-type.

So yeah—Dragons are busted. Stats don't lie.

Catching one pseudo-Legendary Dragon could change a trainer's life. That was Elite Four material, minimum.

But those were monopolized. Once he left the island, his only hope would be pseudo-dragons or lower-tier Dragon-types.

Like Kingdra, Flygon, Druddigon, Dracovish, Noivern…

Or Charizard, Ampharos, Gyarados…

Anyway, how would he even use this Dragon Scale?

He had no Dragon-types.

From the earlier list, the only one remotely within reach… was the dumb fish.

The others—Ampharos, Kingdra, Flygon—maybe possible after leaving the island. But on this deserted island, his only shot was Gyarados.

"Sigh… kind of tragic," Reiji muttered as he pocketed the scale.

"All right, everyone, back to dinner," he waved a hand, breaking the Pokémon's curiosity and herding them back to their meals.

After dinner, they'd need to rest—everyone had trained hard all day.

Once the Pokémon were resting, Reiji checked on Wingull. After a full day of training, he wanted to see if it had learned Water Pulse. He opened the proficiency panel.

[Wingull]

Type: Water/Flying

Gender: Female

Potential: 57%

Level: 17.97%

Ability: Hydration (6.39%)

Moves Learned:

Gust (7.59%)

Roost (8.01%)

Aqua Ring (5.23%)

Water Gun (11.49%)

Quick Attack (8.29%)

Wing Attack (4.58%)

Water Pulse (0.87%)

Wingull was nearly Level 18. It would evolve at Level 25—so another 7 to 10 days and he'd be off this island.

The rest of its stats were steady. Water Gun had gained 1% in mastery, and it had newly learned Water Pulse.

Not bad at all—learning it in a single day. From here on, training would just focus on refining what it already knew.

There were no shops here. Even if he wanted a TM, there was nowhere to buy one. And no money anyway.

He wasn't even sure if TMs existed in this world. Other Trainers taught moves, so it seemed possible.

In the anime, he remembered how Trainers helped Pokémon learn moves—that's how he had Wingull learn from Wishiwashi.

Same with Krabby—it learned new moves from others. Butterfree learned new techniques during evolution.

Right now, he knew of six methods for move acquisition:

Peer Learning – The simplest and fastest. Learn from your own species.

Targeted Training – Repeated practice until the move is discovered.

Evolution – Moves learned during evolutionary change, likely due to activated genes.

Special Conditions – Certain moves require unique situations or rare timings.

Growth – Strengthening the body until a move becomes usable, like small Ground-types not being able to use Earthquake until fully grown.

Tiered Moves – Upgrades of previous ones, like Bubble into Bubble Beam.

So far, he hadn't seen moves simply unlocked by leveling up. The proficiency panel wasn't that magical. Every new move had a traceable path.

Maybe TMs existed—he'd find out once he rejoined society.

He closed Wingull's panel. Everyone had finished dinner and was resting on the grass. After a while, he called the four of them back to the treehouse to sleep.

Before bed, he gave each Pokémon a goodnight wish, then opened Butterfree's panel. He hadn't checked it in two days and wanted to make sure it hadn't slacked off.

[Butterfree]

Type: Bug/Flying

Gender: Female

Potential: 69.96%

Level: 18.26%

Ability: Compound Eyes (5.21%) | Hidden Ability: Tinted Lens (0.21%)

Moves Learned:

Confusion (10.14%)

String Shot (6.15%)

Gust (5.13%)

Bug Bite (1.29%)

Supersonic (2.11%)

Poison Powder (5.13%)

Stun Spore (9.22%)

Sleep Powder (8.35%)

Psybeam (2.11%)

Butterfree had reached Level 18.

Its Ability Compound Eyes had gained 1%. Not surprising—Abilities weren't often used outside of battle.

Confusion had increased by 2%, now at 10%. Stun Spore and Sleep Powder had also gone up by 1% each.

Butterfree's Confusion was steadily improving. Still, Reiji didn't know what the upper limit was for a Bug-type using Psychic-type moves.

"Well, no point worrying too much. It's not a Psychic-type anyway," Reiji sighed and closed the panel.

If he had the chance, he'd love to catch a true Psychic-type—especially one with Telepathy or Teleport. Great for escaping… and for translating speech, letting him speak directly with his Pokémon.

Teleporters were easy to find. It was the telepaths that were rare.

Plenty of Pokémon could learn Teleport: Butterfree, Slowpoke, Exeggcute, Staryu…

And talking Pokémon? There was Meowth from Team Rocket, the 1,000-year-old Gastly from Maiden's Peak, the 200-year-old Ninetales, the Slowking from Shamouti Island… even Mewtwo.

Yeah, Legendaries could all use telepathy.

(End of Chapter)

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