The rest of the battle became garbage time. Shali's remaining two Pokémon could not break through Tyranitar after two or more Dragon Dances, and they were injured by the Sandstorm stirred up by Dragon Dance as soon as they entered the field. As a result, the final two rounds ended in less than thirty seconds.
The result was stunning. The Sandstorm King Gongping had effortlessly crushed a master Coordinator from the Hoenn Region 6-0, making many trainers in the Kanto Region recognize this new king's might.
That Dragon Dance Tyranitar in particular left people feeling almost helpless. Thus, across the major online forums, the Sandstorm King's fan base began to grow little by little. The number of fangirls who liked Gongping had already reached over a hundred.
However, Gongping's core fans were still viewers who enjoyed hard-hitting combat. Though the Sandstorm King looked quiet and reserved, his fighting style was unexpectedly decisive, direct, and ferocious.
Meanwhile, scandals concerning Shali also began surfacing online, including her family background and the several breeding farms registered under her control, among them a plantation producing Bounsweet juice.
Public opinion reversed, and Shali's image plummeted in an instant. She became a vicious queen who would stop at nothing to get ahead, her formerly gentle and considerate exterior exposed as a complete sham. Soon, more and more discussions about the female Coordinator appeared online.
These measures were Lorelei's doing. Since Shali had failed to defeat Gongping, she would have to bear the consequences of her earlier actions.
Gongping knew nothing of these behind-the-scenes matters. After the exhibition match ended, he returned alone to the room arranged by the League, opened the laptop he had brought along, and recorded many details of the battle.
Once he finished recording them, it was time to begin the rest of today's special training!
A specially developed VR device connected to all the Poké Balls in Gongping's computer storage. Countless pieces of data immediately came together and entered the virtual fantasy world along with Gongping's consciousness.
This VR system was also known as the Dream World. As its developer, Gongping had drawn on certain settings from Sword Art Online and Accel World in his previous life, building it with the technology currently available.
During his earlier travels through several regions, Gongping had scrimped and saved to put money toward learning VR game development.
The Pokémon world's advanced technology was extremely powerful. Poké Balls themselves used technology that combined data with transitions between reality and virtual space. Incorporating that into the Dream World system's VR training was not technically difficult; all that had been missing was the idea.
In the Kanto Region, VR games were mainly used for map research and development. Once inside a game, you primarily viewed the scenery along the way, allowing you to experience Kanto without leaving home.
Using what he had learned, he cracked these existing VR games, then imported them through the reading device in his Pokédex. After a period of improvements, he finally completed this Dream World system.
Simply put, Gongping had modified the game R, turning a single-player game into a local-network game. The participants included not only himself but also his partners inside their Poké Balls.
That had been Gongping's initial version. After years of modifications, this altered game had gained various features, including virtual battles and realistic parameter settings.
After streams of glowing data flashed past, Gongping slowly opened his eyes. Now dressed in a combat outfit, he stood on a vast grassland, with all his Pokémon gathered behind him.
With conventional training methods, trainers could easily neglect one thing while attending to another. After all, providing an enormous training ground in the real world was difficult, especially since the Pokémon making up Gongping's Sandstorm team were all large.
As part of their regular training, VR training primarily strengthened the coordination between trainer and Pokémon in battle.
For instance, today Tyranitar fought various powerful legendary Pokémon on the virtual battlefield. Though Tyranitar lost more often than won, it undoubtedly increased Tyranitar's practical combat experience. Of course, the data for these legendary Pokémon had all been imported and simulated based on existing information.
The environments in this training VR program were built to match reality. Every injury, every bit of damage to the terrain, and every release of a move's elemental power was replicated one hundred percent. It was through this training method that Gongping had grown rapidly over the past few years and become a regional king.
Shali was added to the simulated training opponents today. According to the computer's comprehensive calculations, her team could actually achieve results such as -6 or -6, but doing so required completely abandoning those flashy, impractical elements.
Improving the AI's intelligence further would require a more professional team. However, Gongping currently had no intention of revealing the secret behind his growing strength, so the virtual opponents' strength could only be adjusted on the basis of his existing understanding.
Tyranitar's control of Dragon Dance still needed improvement. Against an airheaded trainer like Shali, it was manageable, but a more formidable expert would never allow so much time for strengthening.
With that thought, Gongping opened the virtual projection of the strongest trainer he had encountered in the past and began the final round of each training session: being drilled by this top-tier expert. He only hoped he could force out the final Pokémon today.
Mt. Moon, one of the Kanto Region's most renowned mountain ranges, was itself an enormous wild ecosystem.
Apart from the route Ash and his companions took in the anime, Mt. Moon had dozens of other paths intersecting at various junctions throughout the mountains. Of course, the most magnificent part was Mt. Moon's main peak, which housed an enormous number of Clefairy, as well as Moon Stones, one of Mt. Moon's local specialties.
This mountain range was also an area where Team Rocket frequently operated, with many bases built within it. In the past, due to intelligence and various other considerations, the League had been unable to spare the resources to deal with Team Rocket. Recently, however, with Team Rocket's influence expanding ever further, the League had finally decided to act against them.
To put it plainly, Team Rocket was a force created to facilitate certain secret dealings for Silph Co. Besides trafficking Pokémon, Team Rocket also helped Silph Co. carry out many shady activities.
Silph Co., currently the strongest manufacturing enterprise in the Kanto Region, had operations spanning Kanto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and many other regions. It was one of the world's few colossal suppliers, an entity even Lorelei had to be wary of.
However, Team Rocket's leader Giovanni seemed to have ambitions beyond being Silph Co.'s dog. Over the years, as Silph Co. found the leash in its hand increasingly unable to control its dog, it decided to join forces with the League's senior officials to launch a series of strikes against Team Rocket.
Thus began a massive crackdown, and this mission at Mt. Moon was one part of that series of operations against Team Rocket.
Bruno arrived at the command post a few hours before Gongping, but he was not particularly enthusiastic. To put it plainly, the League had known the locations of these bases for years, and their members were not strong. Given free rein to deal with them, the work would be over quickly.
"I'll leave these guys to you, Gongping. I'm going to rest for a while."
After saying that, Bruno ignored Gongping, who was earnestly reading the information beside him, and began snoring away. With a new Sandstorm King around, this veteran king could evidently slack off and rest without worry.
Team Rocket actually had thirteen bases on Mt. Moon alone. Everything recorded in the intelligence seemed to tell the League that these bases were very easy to handle and could be swept away without effort.
But Gongping instinctively sensed that this mission might not be so easy. The intuition he had developed over time made him take this job very seriously.
Before you continue