Eevee's Training Plan

"Name?"

"Xia Chen."

"Age?"

"Sixteen. I'm a student."

The next day.

At the Trainer Association office in Zhijiang City's old district, Xia Chen held Eevee as he completed the registration process.

For standardized management and crime prevention, every citizen's Pokémon had to be registered with the Association before it could be considered legally registered.

And since caring for Pokémon was already a demanding, exhausting task, the Pokémon League had imposed age restrictions on new Trainers.

After all, this wasn't some children's anime world. Letting a ten-year-old run around the world with Pokémon was hardly reliable.

"Hmm, sixteen is exactly old enough. Now then, your ID, this Eevee's birth certificate, and health certificate."

The registration clerk typed away at her computer without looking up.

"As for a birth certificate, I found this Eevee as a stray wild Pokémon in the city, so she doesn't have one. Here are my ID and Eevee's health certificate."

Xia Chen offered the health certificate he had conveniently obtained at Mingyi Clinic the day before with both hands. Though the clinic was small, it had everything it needed; as a proper Pokémon clinic, handling this sort of paperwork was easy enough.

"Is that so? The Pokémon League doesn't really recommend that new Trainers choose Pokémon not bred at breeding facilities as their starter Pokémon. Where are your parents?"

Xia Chen replied calmly, "They went missing in an accident. I live by myself now."

"Ah, sorry. You're Xia Chen, aren't you?" The young woman finally looked up from her screen, her face full of apology.

In this small old district, Xia Chen, whose parents had both gone missing, was something of a "celebrity."

The kindhearted neighbors always looked after him a little.

This young woman was no exception.

"Hmm, normally, using a wild Pokémon as a starter requires parental consent. But given your situation—and since the Pokémon is an Eevee... I'll make an exception for you."

The young woman took the documents and went back to typing furiously at the computer.

Xia Chen and Eevee exchanged smiles. From this moment on, they were officially a legal Trainer-and-Pokémon pair.

Although it was summer vacation, Xia Chen was no less busy than he had been during school.

Starting in their final year of high school, students in the Pokémon program who aspired to become professional Trainers had to gradually begin practical Pokémon battle training.

And for those who wanted to continue their studies at elite academies, these two months before school started were their final chance to get a head start.

In fact, many families prepared a starter Pokémon as a birthday gift as soon as their child turned sixteen.

Of course, the more important reason was to give their children an advantage from the starting line.

The earlier a child began raising Pokémon, the more they could stand out among their peers during the college entrance exams.

But everyone thought the same way.

If there was competition, everyone could compete.

If the Pokémon League didn't enforce strict age requirements for new Trainers' starter Pokémon, plenty of wealthy families would probably give their children fully evolved Pokémon right away.

Xia Chen had been sixteen for nearly half a year already. If he didn't make good use of the remaining month of summer vacation, he would probably end up at the bottom of his class once school began.

So, as soon as he had finished the paperwork, Xia Chen brought little Eevee to the Silph Pokémon Department Store.

This tech company, which originated in the Kanto Region, was one of the leading names in Pokémon item manufacturing.

Pokémon care, Pokémon training, medical supplies, battle items.

From a Trainer's first steps to their final days, this place had everything they could possibly need.

The only downside was... it was expensive.

The hundred-odd thousand in Xia Chen's account would probably only be enough for Eevee until graduation.

As one of the few major cities in the Donghuang Region with a Gym, Zhijiang City had a rather large Silph Co. chain store.

It took Xia Chen an entire morning to purchase nearly everything Eevee would need for the summer.

He had originally only wanted to buy some entertaining training tools that would spark Eevee's interest in battling.

But Eevee showed an unexpectedly strong interest in the more advanced specialized training equipment.

Strength training, impact-resistance training, balance-and-evasion training, speed training, endurance training.

After a brief adjustment period, Eevee handled all kinds of training equipment with ease.

Her talent was so exceptional that the instructors beside the various training devices were amazed.

Since Eevee was working so hard, Xia Chen couldn't afford to slack off either.

Gritting his teeth, Xia Chen decided to buy every one of Silph Co.'s newly developed advanced compact Pokémon training devices. Of course, that was impossible.

He couldn't blow all of his hundred-thousand-plus savings at once. After setting some aside for daily expenses and emergencies, the remaining hundred thousand or so was only enough for two of them.

That was even with the student ID discount.

After carefully considering his options again and again, Xia Chen ultimately chose the balance-and-evasion and speed training devices.

In his plans, Eevee's future evolution would be Sylveon, an evolution that no one had yet discovered.

Sylveon was a Pokémon with particularly strong Special Attack and Special Defense, while her stamina and durability were fairly decent as well.

But the other three points of her six-point stat chart—Attack, Defense, and Speed—were not especially good.

Attack did not matter, but her shortcomings in Defense and Speed would have to be made up for through training.

This world had no concept of base stats, and even if such things did exist, they could only represent the average level of a species.

A Trainer's care and a Pokémon's training could greatly change their various capabilities.

Otherwise, what would be the point of all the effort put in by Trainers and Pokémon?

Thus, Xia Chen planned to use training to compensate for Sylveon's future weaknesses: Speed and physical Defense.

For physical Defense, Xia Chen did not choose the stupidly blunt approach of impact-resistance training.

For one thing, he could not bear to put Eevee, who had only just been born, through such training. For her, the drawbacks would definitely outweigh the benefits.

For another, Eevee's body structure was what it was. No amount of training could make her physical Defense comparable to an Aggron's.

The harder one worked in the wrong direction, the further wrong one would go.

For a petite Eevee, balance-and-evasion training was the proper way to compensate for low physical Defense.

Real battles were nothing like turn-based Pokémon games. Accuracy was not so rigid.

Aside from Pokémon moves with tracking properties, such as Swift and Aura Sphere, even supposedly sure-hit Pokémon moves could still miss.

This mechanic gave positioning and evasion enormous room to shine in actual combat.

And since this kind of training complemented speed training as well, it could not have suited little Eevee better.

Having made his decision, Xia Chen cheerfully filled in the delivery address. Seeing that his account balance had dwindled to a fraction of what it had been, he felt no ripples in his heart.

That was what being a Trainer meant. You had to give something up to gain something.

Xia Chen's home was old, but it was not small.

The three-story house with a courtyard in the center of the old district covered several hundred square meters of land by itself.

If redevelopment had been certain, Xia Chen would have been a potential billionaire given this location.

After lunch, Xia Chen and Eevee began clearing out the abandoned courtyard beneath the blazing sun.

He could not afford a professional Pokémon training facility, so this would be the training base he prepared for Eevee.

It was enough for everyday practice, really. Once he had money in the future and added more training equipment, this place would be no worse than a professional training facility.

After working all afternoon and setting up the training equipment in the courtyard with Silph Co.'s delivery staff, the busy day finally came to an end.

(I've signed a contract! Updates will still be at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.~ Since I have plenty of chapters saved up, I'm setting a little reward system: every time the recommendations advance by one tier, I'll immediately add two extra chapters. Everyone, squeeze me dry!

P.S. Recommendations only require you to keep reading—just click through to the final page after you finish! Even if you want to stockpile chapters, please try to click through to the last page!)