[Ding! Starmie (63) defeated Skarmory (72)/Skarmory (69)/... Permanent Quest 1 complete. The opponent's level tier was higher than yours. Congratulations, host! You earned 72/69/... Points. Starmie's growth level increased by a moderate/small/... amount!]
[Ding! Through constant effort, Starmie's growth level has increased. Current level: 65!]
"I was wrong to blame the Durant. The Skarmory are even more useless."
The Durant at least had two at Elite Four Level. The Skarmory, on the other hand, had numbers and little else. Their quality was shockingly low.
He could count the Skarmory at Gym Leader Level on one hand.
If there hadn't been so many of them, and if Patrick hadn't handled every Pokémon they'd encountered along the way, Starmie probably wouldn't have even reached level 65.
After all, under the battle quest's rules, if a Pokémon was more than two major level tiers above its opponent, victory earned Points but no growth-level increase.
(One major level tier higher gave a tiny increase; two made the increase negligible.)
"Oh well. Better than nothing."
Following his usual plan, Mu Yun packed up the young ones and knocked out the adults before moving on.
More than forty minutes after Mu Yun left, two meteors, one silver and one black, landed in Skarmory territory.
The sight of the wreckage stirred neither Rage nor surprise in the two Shiny Metagross. Neither let emotion cloud their judgment.
After examining the battlefield, they headed toward the disturbed spatial node.
The Excadrill colony's permanent home.
"Another bunch of tunnelers!"
Mu Yun looked at the openings scattered everywhere and sighed inwardly.
Durant liked carving networks of passages through mountains. Excadrill preferred building homes underground.
Different approaches, same idea.
Both made things difficult for him.
"Fine. I'll search."
Mu Yun spread his Aura and Psychic