"Cacturne, use Growth!"
"Munna!"
Time rewound to a month ago. At that point, Sato and the Pokémon had reached the final stage of their intensive training.
After many Pokémon successively broke through to Elite Four level, Cacturne, who had trained under the Champion-level Serperior, was instead unable to make a breakthrough for a time.
On the training ground, Cacturne's entire body shimmered with a dense golden light as its body rapidly grew larger at a visible rate.
In less than a moment, the one-and-a-half-meter-tall Cacturne had already grown over five meters tall, and it was still slowly growing.
Opposite Cacturne stood the equally gigantified Serperior. In its orange-yellow eyes were two parts indifference, three parts arrogance, four parts disdain, and one part concern that was hard to detect.
No matter what, Cacturne was a disciple it had personally trained.
It had already fallen one step behind the other Pokémon in making a breakthrough. Its most proficient Growth could not fail to produce any results as well.
Fortunately, Cacturne could naturally learn the Growth Skill. Its previous tactics had also centered around stamina, so it adapted quite well to Serperior's Growth.
Serperior had relied on Growth to break through to the Elite Four, even stepping into the Champion level.
But for Cacturne, it was merely an additional unique battle method.
It seemed like a bonus, but there was no way to perfectly integrate it with Cacturne's original Battle System.
The two were incompatible! Serperior had been too confident in itself to notice this, but both Shiping and Sato had already discovered the issue.
Just as Sato wanted to offer Cacturne some guidance, Shiping stopped him.
"Only by believing in itself can Cacturne complete its breakthrough.
"The reason Cacturne has fallen behind now is not only because its early stage went too