I Won the Lottery (Please Bookmark, Vote, and Send Monthly Tickets!)

Aron was currently Level 7 and knew three moves: Tackle, Harden, and Mud-Slap.

No, it should be four now. It had learned Headbutt yesterday as well. Jiang Jing guessed it had picked it up while ramming the target every day.

There was no special training method for such basic moves. Just keep practicing. Nothing more to it—practice made perfect.

He had watched many authoritative Douyin bloggers explain training methods for basic moves. They were all simple and did not need to be overly complicated. Diligent practice was enough.

For example, with Tackle, all you had to do was keep ramming things. As proficiency rose, talented Pokémon would naturally pick up little techniques during training that increased the move's power.

The difference in talent showed itself here. With the same move and the same hard work, the power I could unleash was simply stronger than yours.

There was another very unfair aspect: talented Pokémon had greater training endurance than ordinary ones. For instance, some Pokémon could only train intensely for six hours a day before reaching their limit, and any more would injure their bodies.

But talented ones could train for eight hours. Think about it—two extra hours a day amounted to sixty hours a month, or seven hundred and twenty hours a year. That was thirty full days.

Unless you possessed a better training method to close the gap, or relied on superior tactics to defeat me, you were guaranteed to lose.

This silly Aron rammed targets every day, so there was no need to specifically train Tackle. What it needed was to practice Harden, Mud-Slap, and Headbutt.

"Aron, use Harden!"

Aron used Harden right there in the living room. Gray energy surfaced over its body and instantly covered it from head to toe, as though it had changed skins.

Looking closely, a very thin layer of energy covered its body. But its defensive power was truly outstanding.

Jiang Jing's mother wanted to watch television dramas, and Pikachu and Jigglypuff kept causing trouble and interrupting Aron's training.

So Jiang Jing had no choice but to return to his room to watch the matches, while Aron continued using Harden until it reached its limit.

Then it trained its newly learned move, Headbutt, on the humanoid target.

Aron did not need Jiang Jing's supervision and conscientiously began training against the target.

Watching the hardworking Aron, Jiang Jing liked it more and more. Tell him, what Pokémon did not cause trouble, did not slack off, loved training, had good talent, and was self-disciplined? Other than eating a little too much, it had no other flaws. Who would not like it?

After a morning of training, Aron was exhausted. Jiang Jing did not dare let it train any further, so he had it rest at home while he headed to the Cerulean Pokémon Supermarket.

When he arrived in the main hall, the Suicune Cup Pokémon Challenge banner was still hanging there, but not many people were looking at it anymore.

Most people in the hall were watching the National Championship on a huge LCD television.

At the food section, he pushed a cart and quickly grabbed five 2-kilogram bags of low-grade Steel-type Pokémon food, as well as five hundred jin of iron ore.

He also took five 2-kilogram bags of low-grade Rock-type Pokémon food, along with one bag each of Moomoo Milk, Steel-type Pokéblocks, and Rock-type Pokéblocks.

It pained him dearly when he checked out. This purchase cost a total of 3,988 yuan. Iron ore had recently risen in price to 2,000 yuan per ton, while one bag of Pokéblocks cost 399 yuan.

Money truly flowed away like water. He had never spent this much before, yet in less than a month, he had already visited the supermarket three times.

As he carried his two bags and was about to leave, he suddenly heard a voice from nearby. "I won."

He suddenly noticed two red machines in the corner of the hall that looked like vending machines.

He recognized those things. Weren't they automatic lottery machines?

He remembered that these things had only appeared several years later in his previous life. Why were they already here now?

He had bought lottery tickets in his previous life too. Back in university, one of his roommates liked buying them, often purchasing Seven Select Five Lotto tickets, though he had never won.

Whenever they went out, that roommate also liked buying scratch-offs from lottery machines. Occasionally, he would win ten or twenty yuan.

Jiang Jing had been influenced by him and developed the habit of occasionally buying lottery tickets too. Seeing the lottery machines again now made his hands itch, and he unconsciously walked over.

A young couple stood in front of him, apparently cashing in a prize. The man said excitedly, "I didn't expect to really win fifty yuan."

The woman asked, "How about we scratch off two more?"

The man shook his head. "Based on my experience after playing the lottery for so long, winning once is enough. Otherwise, it's just wasting money."

"Come on, let's go get milk tea. We'll order the large size."

When they turned around, they saw Jiang Jing. After walking farther away, the man said to the woman in a voice he thought no one else could hear, "Basically, after winning one, it's nearly impossible for the next scratch-off to win too."

Jiang Jing heard the man's words loud and clear and secretly laughed. Young man, you know too little.

He selected a green ten-yuan scratch-off ticket on the machine's screen and paid by scanning with WeChat.

Then a scratch-off ticket dropped from the dispenser below. He took out a coin and began scratching it.

First came the winning number: 13.

He scratched off the rows one by one. The first row had 100,000 yuan. No match.

The second row had 50 yuan. No match either.

He kept going until the fourth row, where he finally scratched out a 13. Jiang Jing's heart skipped a beat. He had won! He scratched off the prize amount, and—holy crap—there were three zeros after it. Five thousand yuan. A full five thousand yuan!

Though Jiang Jing was incredibly excited inside, his face remained calm.

He picked up the QR code on the back of the scratch-off ticket and held it before the machine's scanner. Three seconds after scanning it, WeChat chimed. He opened it and saw that five thousand yuan had been deposited.

YES! He had really won. He had gotten five thousand yuan for nothing. I really am a lucky bastard.

In his previous life, Jiang Jing had been famously unlucky, but now, guess what? He had actually become incredibly lucky.

If that couple found out the next ticket could have won five thousand yuan, would they regret it to death? Would they come back and secretly assassinate him?

After all, they had also bought a ten-yuan scratch-off. Any normal person knew which they would choose between fifty and five thousand.

With five thousand yuan in hand, he bought two more tickets, but neither won. Only then did he stop.

In a wonderful mood, he carried his two large bags home happily.

Ten days later, July 14th.

That morning, Jiang Jing returned from exercising with Aron. It followed behind him, panting heavily from exhaustion.

Aron could now complete a full ten-kilometer run. Although it took quite a while, its growth rate was astonishing. It had not even been a month since it was born.

Looking at Aron's current stats.

Pokémon: Aron

Type: Steel, Rock

Talent: ★★★

Level: LV9

Ability: Heavy Metal

After so many days of training, Aron had smoothly reached Level 9.

Its progress could be described as extremely fast. Aside from its improved physical fitness, Aron had improved even faster in move training.

It now had four moves: Tackle, Harden, Mud-Slap, and Headbutt.

Among Trainers, Pokémon's mastery of moves was also divided into three levels:

Basic, Proficient, Mastery.

Basic, as the name implied, meant understanding a little and being able to fully execute the move one had learned.