Technical Machine

Since the day he had reeled in Feebas, Lin Mo's stream title had become "Shiny Feebas Training Diary."

He gave Feebas a simple, affectionate nickname—"Xiao Mei." The viewers in the stream had mocked the name for quite a while, saying it did not really suit Feebas's appearance.

Every morning, Lin Mo took Feebas to train in the shallow waters left behind by the tide at the edge of Dewford Town.

When he started his first training stream, riding the wave of his recent popularity, the viewer count on the screen quickly broke three thousand.

"So this is Feebas? It actually looks like that?!"

"This looks... compared to it, Magikarp might actually be a little prettier. (No offense.)"

"I don't think so. Feebas is more interesting—it's ugly in a strangely cute way!"

"Can it evolve into Gyarados too?"

"Upstairs, even if it evolves, it should be Uglydos!"

"HAHAHAHA..."

The camera of Lin Mo's streaming equipment remained steadily trained on the figure in the water, desperately swishing its tail.

Feebas was practicing its Tackle move, targeting a reef half-buried beneath the water.

It charged forward with all its strength. Perhaps because the move was still only at a beginner level, Feebas suddenly veered off course when it was still a foot away from the reef, plunging headfirst into a nearby mound of sand and leaving only its tail wriggling nonstop above the water.

The comments were instantly drowned in laughter.

"Feebas: I just wanted to dig a hole. I didn't mean to go off course!"

"With that accuracy, I suggest practicing Dig instead. [doge]"

"It may be weak, but you can tell it's trying hard. Give the streamer and Feebas a like!"

Lin Mo waded over, carefully dug Feebas out of the sand, and rinsed the mud off its body with clean water.

Feebas flicked its tail and splashed water all over his face, but its tiny eyes shone with stubborn determination. It turned around and charged toward the reef again—though it still failed to hit it this time, it came much closer than before.

"That's improvement!" Lin Mo said with a smile at the camera. "Keep it up, Feebas. Let's try again."

This sort of training became their daily routine.

Lin Mo and Feebas spent their days practicing moves, and move training was far harder than Lin Mo had imagined.

When Feebas practiced Splash, it took a long time just to increase the height of its jumps by a tiny amount;

when it practiced Tackle, it went off course six or seven times out of ten. Whenever it succeeded even once, it would excitedly spin around in the water three times.

As the initial surge of traffic gradually faded, the number of viewers in the stream slowly dwindled until only two or three hundred remained.

They became the "supervisors" who showed up punctually every day, quietly watching from behind their screens as Feebas grew and improved bit by bit.

"That Tackle finally didn't go off course! I'm crying, everyone!"

"The streamer's patience is seriously incredible. If it were me, I probably would've given up long ago. (Quietly.)"

After every stream, once he had accumulated enough Popularity Points, Lin Mo would open the draw interface and perform a Basic Draw.

The 1,000-point Basic Draw gave him Energy Orbs, Pokémon Food, and Poké Balls, but he also drew a Technical Machine [Tackle ×1]—a move Feebas had long since learned.

[Technical Machine: A magical item that can quickly allow Pokémon to master moves and increase move proficiency, provided that the Pokémon can learn that move.]

Although Lin Mo had long suspected what Technical Machines might be, actually drawing one still left him deeply shocked.

After all, Technical Machines had originally been exclusive items from the game world—

In reality, if Pokémon wanted to master a new move, they first needed sufficient training before they even had a chance of learning it. After that, they still had to refine it day after day before they could use it with true mastery.

But Technical Machines were different. With just one use, they could directly increase a move's proficiency, saving enormous amounts of tedious training time. That kind of efficiency completely overturned Lin Mo's understanding of Pokémon growth.

With the dual support of Energy Orbs and Technical Machines, his Pokémon could definitely grow at astonishing speed.

After Lin Mo used the Tackle Technical Machine on Feebas, it first froze slightly in the water, its eyes half-closing as though it were digesting the new insights brought by the move. Then it suddenly swished its tail, and its body became noticeably more nimble.

The description in Feebas's move slot on the panel had already updated: [Moves: Splash (Proficient), Tackle (Proficient)]

When Feebas used Tackle again, its previously wayward direction became far more accurate, and the force behind its charge toward the reef had clearly increased.

The little fellow stared at Lin Mo and, as if showing off, launched several more Tackles in a row. Each one was more energetic than the last.

Days passed. One day, when Lin Mo used a Basic Energy Orb on Feebas as usual, the green light seeped into Feebas's body, but it merely swayed its tail without even blinking, seemingly feeling nothing at all.

"Is this... not working anymore?" Lin Mo froze and tried several more times, but the result was always the same.

From then on, Lin Mo stopped doing Basic Draws and instead saved up ten thousand points for Intermediate Draws.

Though they took longer to accumulate, the rewards were much better. On his first Intermediate Draw, the wheel stopped on the Technical Machine section—congratulations to the host for receiving: [Water Pulse ×1].

Lin Mo immediately used it on Feebas. Moments later, Feebas gently swished its tail fin in the water, and neat rings of ripples spread across the surface, like stones tossed into a calm lake, expanding layer upon layer.

Though the ripples were still faint, it was enough to show that the move had been initially learned.

When it used the move the next day, the stream instantly erupted.

"!!! What move is that? Feebas has been ramming reefs every day, and it actually trained itself into learning a new move?!"

"That's amazing! I said it from the start—Shiny Pokémon definitely have something different about them!"

"Streamer, make it do it again! I want to record it and post it!"

Lin Mo smiled and had Feebas try once more. This time, the water ripples were more distinct, even pushing a small reef backward several centimeters.

Donation notifications rang out one after another in the comments, and the Popularity Points climbed rapidly.

Over the next two months, Lin Mo even drew a [Technical Machine: Icy Wind].

When a freezing current burst from Feebas's mouth and instantly formed a thin layer of ice over the water's surface, the stream's viewer count directly broke six thousand.

Fragments of memory settled like shells scattered by the tide, gradually sinking beneath the noise drifting over from the shore.

Lin Mo came back to himself and smiled as he watched Feebas playing in the sea before him. The panel before his eyes was now completely different from what it had been eight months ago.

[Pokémon: Feebas (Shiny)]

[Type: Water]

[Category: Fish Pokémon]

[Ability: Swift Swim]

[Moves: Splash (Complete), Tackle (Complete), Thrash (Mastered), Water Pulse (Mastered), Icy Wind (Proficient)]

[Today's Stream Duration: 32 minutes]

[Current Viewers: 5164]

[Total Popularity Points: 8574]

[Items: Basic Energy Orb ×3, Luxury Ball ×1, Stealth Rock ×1, Ice Fang ×1...]