"Chimecho is unable to battle, so the winner is Riolu!"
As Chimecho dropped to the ground, the referee whistle of Nemona rang out.
Nurse Joy offered a helpless smile, recalling Chimecho back into its ball.
"I lost..."
Actually, among the Joy family, apart from the few sisters who served as League inspectors and evaluators, her battle standard ranked in the upper-middle tier.
After all, most Pokémon Centers in Paldea were established on the outskirts of cities or in the wild, and they frequently encountered stressed wild Pokémon.
Therefore, sometimes situations where problems had to be resolved through battling were inevitable.
After going back and forth, she felt that her commanding proficiency shouldn't be bad at all.
Yet reality dealt her a small blow.
Even when facing a Pokémon that was still in its initial stage, and despite having a massive type advantage, she was still easily defeated by Qingyu.
"That was a wonderful battle! Losing is no big deal at all, keep it up and win it back next time, Nurse Joy!"
Having finished her job as the referee, Nemona-who had held back from speaking for quite a while-instantly recovered her vigor, walked over to Nurse Joy, and gave a thumbs up.
"Right, Teacher Qingyu!"
Qingyu smiled and nodded, considering it an acknowledgment of Nemona's words.
Now that the Gym Challenge portion had concluded, the next step was a review and analysis.
"Nurse Joy has already initially formed her own tactical style, and she shares a certain rapport with Chimecho. In my view, she has already passed the assessment."
Just as he said before the battle, Qingyu valued a Trainer's standard far more than victory or defeat.
On that score, utilizing Chimecho's trait of excelling at producing sound, and maintaining calm commands no matter the situation, Nurse Joy was definitely qualified.
"It's just a pity that the Sunshine Gym currently doesn't belong to the eight designated Gyms of the Victory Road assessment, otherwise she ought to be issued a badge logically speaking."
Qingyu shook his head helplessly.
The relevant rules of each region varied, generally formulated by the local League.
In the Kanto region, every Gym possessed the authority to issue badges;
yet most regions still followed the eight-Gym rule, and the Paldean Region was no exception.
However, since she came to challenge the Gym, he really ought to give some advice to look more like a Gym Leader.
"Regarding commanding and raising, I don't have much to guide Nurse Joy on, but I do have a personal view concerning Chimecho's move set."
As soon as Qingyu's voice trailed off, Nemona and Joy at the side instantly perked up.
"Mm-hm, please instruct me, Teacher Yu!"
Although Qingyu was currently only a Gym Leader, judging from his consecutive victories over two Elite Four members, he was definitely exceptionally outstanding in tactical standards and fundamentals.
Chimecho was considered a relatively niche Pokémon in Paldea, so she hadn't expected Teacher Yu to understand it as well.
Joy from Flat Dish Town couldn't help starting to look forward to Qingyu's advice.
"Actually, it's nothing much, I just suggest having Chimecho learn the move Yawn."
As he spoke, Qingyu opened the Rotom Phone that Nemona had previously given him as a souvenir, entering the National Pokédex function.
[Yawn: a Normal-type move. By letting out a big yawn, it induces sleepiness in the target, causing them to fall asleep shortly after.]
The broadcast voice from the phone rang out promptly.
During the battle just now, Qingyu noticed that Nurse Joy's tactical style was relatively steady, and she excelled at widening the distance while continuously wearing down and harassing her opponents through mobile warfare.
Yet when enemies closed in on Chimecho, it clearly lacked any means to widen the distance again.
In that case, Yawn was definitely the most suitable disruptive move for Chimecho at present.
"If you encounter an opponent that can close in rapidly like Riolu, Yawn should be able to alleviate defensive pressure to a very large degree."
"Riolu?!"
Following Qingyu's train of thought, Riolu imagined the scenario.
There was actually such an insidious move, and what's more, sonic attacks were very difficult even for itself to dodge...
If it got hit by Yawn...
Did it apparently only have willpower left to tough it out?
No, there was an even simpler method!
As long as it used Fake Out on itself, it might just be able to knock away the desire to sleep!
When it felt drowsy next time, it would test whether it worked first.
What Riolu-with its back turned to him-was thinking, Qingyu naturally couldn't know.
The suggestions he could think of amounted to only that much.
Psychic-type Pokémon like Chimecho generally had better affinity with Psychics, but ordinary people could also attempt to raise them.
Qingyu could tell that Nurse Joy should have systematically put it through Calm Mind training, which was why it could barely unleash an Extrasensory that counted as a finishing move.
If she practiced slowly, once her spiritual power increased in the future, the move's power and usage frequency would naturally go up as well.
"So that's how it is."
Nurse Joy nodded repeatedly.
The suggestion provided by Qingyu was indeed the most suitable one in her view at present; she only needed to learn Yawn to resolve a huge portion of the problems encountered in actual combat.
At the same time, her view of the Sunshine Gym was completely refreshed.
Though it had been closed for half a year, this young Mr. Qingyu had gathered all the traits an outstanding Gym Leader should possess.
Strong in strength, capable of patiently guiding challengers and offering practical, useful advice-if he could keep it up, the reputation of the Sunshine Gym would sooner or later resound throughout the entire Paldean Region.
Especially for novice Trainers, having someone guide the way for them was truly too important!
As a Gym Leader, Qingyu was quite literally an industry benchmark!
"Thanks for your guidance, Teacher Yu~"
Nurse Joy bowed politely, her tone becoming even more brisk.
"If it's Teacher Yu, I feel like there's high hope for a direct promotion to the eight Gyms during the year-end Gym assessment!"
"...Let's hope so."
Regarding this topic, Qingyu's spirits were not high.
The system quest had also stalled at the Gym assessment link, and if he wanted to reach a higher level, he couldn't possibly bypass this stage.
However, he was merely a rookie Gym Leader who had debuted for only a week; he wasn't qualified to think that far ahead yet.
It would be fine as long as he made a little progress every day.
"There's one more thing, Teacher Yu."
Nurse Joy suddenly recalled a matter.
"Did you know that our Paldea League also has a work communication group?"
Because the Gym had been closed for half a year, Qingyu probably hadn't been pulled into the communication group established by the League a while ago, right?
To make communication among Gym Leaders more convenient, while also making the transmission of various intelligence and work more efficient, Top Champion Geeta had established such a group chat.
?
I have no idea!
Qingyu wore a blank expression.
Was he perhaps being isolated by the Paldea League?
Oh, right, it was actually him who had isolated the whole world previously, so never mind that.
"Then, please come with me to Flat Dish Town!"
Nurse Joy smiled and nodded.
As a group chat with official League properties, applications needed to be submitted to the Paldea League headquarters via the League network first.
Of course, besides that, there was an even more important matter.
"Teacher Yu shouldn't have claimed your Tera Orb yet; as a Gym Leader, you're qualified to use Terastallization, so let's go to the Pokémon Center and claim the Tera Orb together!"
Griping Diary 5.8
The story arc of this book takes place roughly two years before the start of the game. According to the canon timeline, the Paldea League had already figured out the mechanism of Terastallization and developed Tera Orbs about eight years ago. However, students in the games rarely use Terastallization, whereas Gym Leaders use it quite a bit, so I added a tiny bit of my own setting. It shouldn't affect the reading experience~
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