"The bowl furnace for making Apricorn Balls is finally finished."
On a dirt slope, Aiven set his shovel aside as he looked at the hole he had dug in the ground.
The first step in making Apricorn Balls was high-temperature forging, which required extremely high heat.
The bowl furnace Aiven had made was a simple forge capable of producing high temperatures, enough to forge Apricorn Balls.
Back in his previous life, when raising Fire-type Pokémon, he often used simple bowl furnaces like this to produce high heat and assist with training when resources were limited, especially out in the wild.
Of course, if he had the means, Aiven would have liked to build a Blacksmith Shop. But he was just a small-time fruit farmer, and his resources were limited.
Making a bowl furnace was very simple.
All it took was digging a hole in the ground or in a rock, blowing air into it through a tuyere, and then filling it with glowing charcoal. The maximum temperature inside could reach around 1,150°C!
"Chirp, chirp, chirp~"
Nearby, Mukkuru, whom Aiven had called over, watched him digging with a confused look, not knowing what he was planning.
"You'll find out soon enough. Just follow my instructions when the time comes." Aiven patted the proud little Pokémon.
Lately, Mukkuru's feelings had been truly complicated.
The last time Aiven had asked it to train by battling Petilil, Mukkuru had readily agreed.
After training hard, it had felt certain that its strength could now catch up to Luxray's.
But reality had been cruel. In front of Petilil, it had lasted only a few moves before being defeated outright, bound tightly by Leech Seed. The little Pokémon had taken quite a blow.
For the next day or two, it trained even harder, but Petilil still beat it with ease every time they battled.
Besides Petilil, it could also clearly sense how much the Walking Grass Pokémon had improved, which made it feel a growing sense of urgency.
In that situation, Mukkuru finally realized that Aiven really could help them get stronger. But how could it get Aiven to help?
The proud Mukkuru would never bring it up first.
Then, just as it was feeling this way, Aiven approached it and asked it to help with something. In exchange, he would help it train.
Watching Aiven busily working, Mukkuru felt conflicted.
A little while later, Aiven came over carrying a pile of wood. Next, he needed to make some glowing charcoal.
"Mukkuru, fan this spot with a strong gust of wind."
After putting the glowing charcoal into the hole in the ground, Aiven spoke to Mukkuru.
Though it had no idea what was going on, Mukkuru did as instructed. For a Flying-type Pokémon, summoning wind was child's play.
At once, the charcoal in the bowl furnace began to burn more fiercely. Terrifying heat radiated from the furnace, and the blast of hot air made Mukkuru jump.
Feeling the dreadful heat coming from the hole, Mukkuru's little eyes widened. It could tell that if it went inside, it would be burned to ashes in an instant!
"Done."
Aiven smiled. Next, he would need to control the furnace's temperature by adjusting the strength of the wind, bringing it to the level required for high-temperature forging.
But the forging itself was another big problem. Now that he had solved the issue of heat, Aiven started worrying again.
He looked at his skinny arms and legs and still felt that forging the balls himself wasn't a very reliable plan.
Once the forging of an Apricorn began, it couldn't be stopped. The hammering technique, position, and force all had to be just right. One mistake at any stage would ruin the whole process.
"Actually, the easiest solution would be to go to Meteorite City. It produces all kinds of ore, and its forging industry is very developed too." Aiven let out a breath.
Of course, it was only an idea. He didn't want to reveal how Poké Balls were made. The appearance of Poké Balls would cause a huge stir in this era and bring a lot of unnecessary trouble to his farming plans.
Still, he could make time to visit neighboring Meteorite City. Maybe he could catch a Pokémon there that was suited to blacksmithing.
In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.
It was already the Mid-Autumn Festival, with a little over a month left before winter arrived.
The Apricorns in the Fruit Orchard were visibly beginning to ripen. In another week, they would be ready for their first harvest.
Over the next month or so, the Orange Fruit should yield two or three harvests. Compared with previous years, when they could barely manage one, that was a huge improvement.
The pasture grass had also grown lush.
Normally, the grass would begin to turn yellow around the Mid-Autumn Festival. But with Ironclad Rhinoceros plowing the land with its Digging Move, the grass could stay lush and keep growing.
On the grassland, the Walking Grass Pokémon were lined up in neat rows, training their Sleep Powder.
After more than a month of training, they had become much more disciplined and could now follow Aiven's commands without fail.
Another twenty Walking Grass Pokémon had joined the farm over the past month, bringing their total to fifty. The Walking Grass squad was beginning to take shape.
Aiven had made the twenty newcomers the second Walking Grass squad and was training them by pairing new recruits with veterans.
"They're about ready to be taken out for a field test."
Watching the Walking Grass Pokémon release Sleep Powder from the leaves on their heads, led by Petilil, Aiven was very pleased.
After the Sleep Powder was released, Mukkuru, flying overhead, flapped its wings and raised a gust of wind, sending the powder quickly drifting in a specific direction.
At once, flecks of sparkling blue appeared in the air, carried by the wind into the distance. It was a beautiful sight.
"Mukkuru, excellent work."
Seeing this, Aiven gave the Mukkuru in the air a thumbs-up.
Because it had spent this time repeatedly controlling the wind to regulate the temperature inside the bowl furnace, Mukkuru's control over wind had improved by leaps and bounds.
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