"Take that shot of her looking back by the pool. If the colors weren't so dull, it would be really good."
The Pokémon Photography activity allowed simple photo editing, but fixing the lighting wasn't as straightforward as turning up the brightness. He would have to edit in a shaft of light and render natural light and shadows, which was already a job for professional visual effects.
Then there was the photo from their hillside picnic, with Lilligant sitting on the grass and smoothing her hair.
The lighting was fine, and her movements were graceful. It was a pretty good shot.
But that kind of "good" leaned toward ordinary. He could take a picture like that any time the weather was decent, so relying on it to win first place was risky.
As for the "tears behind bars" series that followed, those were best kept for himself...
"Hm?"
[What is it?]
After going through the whole batch, Shen Qi hadn't held out much hope, but the last photo made it impossible to look away.
In the picture, Lilligant was running in profile, with a railing separating her from the sunset over the sea.
While driving, Lilligant glanced at the photo.
[This one won't work. I suddenly started running, so it came out blurry.]
"It's a shame, really. We can't enter it in the contest, but it's genuinely good."
The railing he had jokingly called "tears behind bars" looked like a cage here, too. Beyond it lay a vast world of magnificent waves, and Lilligant was running with all her might.
One day, she would leave the sorrow and restraints of her past behind, escaping beyond the photograph into an unknown future that stirred the imagination.
Farewell, cage-
Chapter 38: Days of Torrential Rain
"This weather is killing me."
Sheets of rain kept pouring down. The downpour had already lasted four days straight.
Island 6 was surrounded by sea, with moisture in abundance. Rainfall during the spring and summer rainy season seemed endless, and Pokémon High School had suspended classes outright to keep students from having accidents on the mountain roads.
That meant he couldn't go out to take pictures. Rainy scenery was beautiful, but not in a torrential downpour.
Shen Qi went over to the windowsill and felt the clothes he had already brought indoors.
He hadn't seen the sun in days, and the air was so damp that he kept feeling as if mushrooms were about to sprout on his clothes.
In the courtyard, amid the dense downpour, a pink sphere stood quietly.
Chansey said she was undergoing rigorous training to gain some kind of Martial Arts insight. For the past two or three days, she had set aside long stretches of time to practice in the rain.
Her little arm punched out sharply, shattering the raindrops before her. The scattered droplets traveled about a meter through the curtain of rain before dissipating.
"She isn't trying to get to the point where one punch shatters the raindrops and sends the spray ten meters through the rain, is she?"
Chansey had gradually recovered from her weakened state. She soon realized that her strength seemed to have increased considerably, and, overjoyed, she seized the chance to train hard in the downpour.
That feeling was certainly accurate. Just before the [Inspection Card] expired, Shen Qi had checked Chansey's attack stat. It had been 54.
Though that was only a little stronger than Caterpie, it already far exceeded the Physical Attack her species was supposed to possess.
After so many days, he wondered whether it had grown any further.
In any case... he would have to remind her during his next massage not to get anyone killed.
Click.
He took a few pictures of Chansey practicing her punches in the rain. These couldn't compete for first place in the photography event either; they were simply records of his life with his Pokémon.
He opened his book. He couldn't fall behind on his studies.
Rather than studying, though, this was really training.
Shen Qi had no trouble with his regular academic courses, and his progress in training his energy system ranked among the best at Pokémon High School.
But he couldn't compare himself only against a Pokémon High School with such limited resources. Compared with ordinary high schools in Kanto, the time Shen Qi had taken to unlock his energy chakra was above average.
For humans in the Pokémon world, sensing and using type energy came very naturally. The vast majority could do it; the difference lay in how well they applied it.
Without sitting cross-legged in meditation or adopting any other training pose, Shen Qi followed the textbook, repeatedly sensing the Normal-type energy he knew best. Little by little, he drew in small amounts to practice controlling it.
Once his control was sufficient, he would be able to use energy to carve out Skill Pathways and use the corresponding Trainer Skill.
The journey from being unable to sense energy to sensing it was difficult, while going from sensing it to exerting a little control was only moderately challenging.
Going from control to tracing out pathways, however, was another major hurdle.
Fortunately, Shen Qi had a unique way to train with Normal-type energy: repairing the [Adaptive Tire].
Restoring this game item's durability required the player to use Normal-type energy, making it a complete cycle of controlling absorption, expending energy, and then controlling it again.
Over the past few days, he had restored its durability much faster than before. By the time the sky began to darken and Shen Qi felt mentally exhausted, the [Adaptive Tire] had returned to full durability.
In the courtyard, Chansey had finished resting and was practicing Brick Break again.
Moves in the Pokémon games had limited uses. Normally, Brick Break could be used fifteen times, displayed as PP: 15, rather than using the traditional gaming concept of mana.
In other games, casting skills consumed mana or energy, and they could be used as long as enough remained. But once a Pokémon exhausted Brick Break's PP, or Power Points, it could no longer use that move. It had to recover through restorative medicine, rest, or treatment.
It sounded a little strange. Shen Qi had only learned the underlying principle after coming to this world.
Pokémon naturally possessed energy chakras. The moves they mastered formed pathways similar to spell circuits, engraved into their chakra discs.
Repeatedly activating a pathway to use a move within a short period caused that pathway to wear down and develop gaps, until it was finally too damaged to use. It then needed downtime for repairs.
The higher the proficiency, the more robust the Skill Pathways became, allowing more consecutive uses. In player terms, that meant more PP.
Shen Qi had checked the relevant material. At 80% proficiency, the Fighting-type move Brick Break could be used roughly fifteen times within a short period, matching its normal PP in the games.
As proficiency increased further, the number of times the Skill Pathways could be used within a short period would also increase, eventually reaching twenty or even more.
Using medicine to raise maximum PP in the games brought Brick Break's maximum uses to twenty-four, matching research findings in the Pokémon world.
What the games couldn't reflect were proficiency's other benefits, such as a move's stability, the damage it actually dealt, and whether it would fail at a crucial moment.
After all, real battles happened in real time and relied on physical execution, rather than being turn-based games where each side attacked once.
"Chansey, dinner's ready."
"Jili!"
Chansey walked back inside through the curtain of rain, water dripping down her smooth, round body. She gave herself a couple of twists on the spot and shook her body dry.
At the dining table, Shen Qi used his chopsticks to put a piece of cured pork on Chansey's plate.
"Once I win the grand prize in the Pokémon Photography activity, I'll get you Pokémon Rations."
It was a little embarrassing to admit, but while living with Shen Qi, Chansey could only eat very ordinary food.
Ordinary food was fine for Pokémon. But to help them grow better, their diet needed Pokémon Rations to replenish the energy they required. When circumstances allowed, they also needed Moomoo Milk, Poffins, and Pokéblocks from time to time.
That principle applied to all Pokémon. Even Ghost-types, which barely needed to eat, still required Pokémon Rations for better care and growth.
Chansey had never had a Pokémon Trainer. She had eaten better at the Pokémon Center, where Pokémon Rations were available. At the Luxury Resort, she had mostly eaten ordinary food, with Pokémon Rations only occasionally.
With Shen Qi, it was simple home cooking every day.
He couldn't very well make her eat her own eggs...
Laying eggs consumed energy. Eating them herself would only waste the energy expended in the process.
[It's all right.]
Chansey raised a little hand. [This is how I've always lived.]
At least she had regular meals at Shen Qi's house. When she went into the mountains to train, she wasn't guaranteed food every day, yet somehow she still maintained that round figure.
"Kraa-"
"Aah-"
The sound of flapping wings came with seabird cries. Shen Qi opened the front door of the ground-floor hall and saw an enormous, pelican-like gull land in the courtyard, then hurry under the carport to shelter from the rain.
Pelipper, a Water/Flying-type Pokémon.
At a full 1.2 meters tall, she was both taller and larger than Lilligant.
With a squawk, she spat a smaller gull out of her mouth: her child, Wingull.
When danger arose, Pelipper would put her children in the large pouch beneath her bill and carry them away.
The days of torrential rain were nothing to an adult Pelipper, but a young Wingull had a harder time enduring them.
Their previous shelter could no longer hold out, so Pelipper had hurried to relocate with her children.
"Come inside. It's too cold out there."
Shen Qi sent Chansey over to talk to them. A little while later, Pelipper entered the house with some hesitation, keeping her children close.
Chapter 39: The Pelipper Family
Pelipper and her three baby Wingull stayed in the empty storeroom on the ground floor.
The mature Pelipper knew not to cause trouble in someone else's home, so she simply sat quietly in a corner to recover her strength.
It was the little Wingull's first time inside a human home. Once they had confirmed there was no danger, they became intensely curious, peeking around and trying to run outside. They only gave up after their mother hauled them back several times.
"Chansey, help dry them off with this towel."
Shen Qi handed Chansey the towel he had found.
Although the Pelipper family knew the human before them meant no harm and that they could shelter from the rain for a while, they still couldn't accept a human spreading out a large piece of cloth like a net and lowering it over them.
So Chansey had to do it.
After some discussion, Chansey confirmed that Pelipper didn't need to be dried. After evolving, she had gained great mastery over the sky and sea. Sometimes she slept floating directly on the sea, and she could even carry other small Pokémon while flying.
She draped the towel over a Wingull. At half a meter tall, the seabird was large by ordinary animal standards, but compared with Pelipper and Chansey, Wingull was only half their size.
As the towel rubbed back and forth, Wingull's feathers dried a little, but they also fluffed up wildly, making its siblings cackle.
The Wingull with feathers sticking out everywhere glared fiercely back at them: Your turn is coming!
Sure enough, Chansey picked up the next Wingull and rubbed its feathers into the same fluffed-up state.
In the end, the three Wingull, rubbed until they looked like Swablu, huddled miserably against their mother for warmth.
Before you continue