It did not look broken, either. It looked as though it had not fully grown.
Having spent nearly a year in the Pokémon world, Shen Qi knew perfectly well that Pokémon of the same species could differ in appearance.
Some Golem had slightly spiky shells;
Blue's Arcanine had a particularly long tail;
There were even tall, cylindrical Chansey shaped like giant nuts...
And so on. They were not all stamped from the same mold.
So there was nothing unusual about a Cloyster looking different.
The problem was... this Cloyster's unusual appearance seemed to stem from incomplete development.
"Lorelei, was this Cloyster injured, or has it been like this since it was little?"
"A congenital developmental deformity." Lorelei patted Cloyster's shell, which struggled to open and close. "There were already problems when it was a little Shellder. I hoped evolution would improve things, but unfortunately, it didn't."
A congenitally deformed, physically frail Cloyster like this would be of no use in battle. It could have some fun in racing events, but its foundation was still too weak. Picking up any other Water-type would be better.
Gently stroking the deformed Cloyster, Lorelei asked him, "If you were pursuing competitive battling and encountered a Pokémon like this, what choice would you make?"
Shen Qi understood what Lorelei meant.
In pursuing ultimate strength, a person's mindset could keep changing until they treated Pokémon as nothing more than tools-"weapons," "armor," and the like-gradually becoming obsessive and extreme.
In the end, their compatibility would drop instead, leaving them unable to bring out their true strength.
A typical example was Paul, one of the protagonist's rivals in Sinnoh in the anime, who pursued Pokémon strength to the extreme and despised weakness.
After suffering setbacks, he gradually learned to support his companions, praise his Pokémon, and build deep