Two days had passed since the battle between Terrance and Grass Star Style’s Grayson.

In Mauville City, Terrance walked out of the Pokémon Center, his thoughts heavy, his mind still replaying that match against Grayson over and over. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

In that battle, the one who performed most outstandingly was undoubtedly Ninetales.

Pupitar, whose combat strength had not yet fully matured, still found it difficult to contend with the main Pokémon of such a seasoned Trainer. As for Gardevoir, it had ended in mutual defeat with the opponent’s ace, Venusaur.

And the key issue exposed in that battle lay with Gardevoir.

Because of its inherently powerful psychic power, Gardevoir, having just evolved into its final form, already possessed top-tier psychic power, allowing it to step easily into the top-tier.

However, its foundation had not kept pace with this explosive surge in psychic power.

Since its days as a Vulpix, Ninetales had focused heavily on coordination training. After evolving, it mastered top-tier Snowy Weather control ability and became highly skilled at combining light-based moves with ice and snow energy. These were its foundations—the very reason it could easily defeat opponents of the same level.

As for Beautifly, its foundation lay in the Wind Domain and the Source of Stamina.

Pupitar, once it evolved, would likewise gain top-tier Sandstorm control, in addition to possessing the Light-Heavy mode as a core foundation.

So...

The drawback of Gardevoir’s rapid rise in strength had become apparent. Because it could grow stronger quickly through simple meditation alone, it had accumulated very little foundational depth during its growth process.

"Combined with Gardevoir’s outstanding computational ability, its clone-puppet tactic using Confusion Markers can barely be considered a practical technique. However, this move mainly serves for evasion and interference, it doesn’t pose much real threat to the enemy. Most importantly, the technique can be easily copied. There’s nothing particularly difficult about it. Any Psychic-type Pokémon that knows the same moves could successfully imitate it. Although pairing it with Gardevoir’s computational ability yields better results, its value is far inferior to top-tier weather control. Furthermore, the likelihood of this move being countered is quite high. It’s fine to use when necessary, but it must not be overly relied upon, unless Gardevoir’s Teleport reaches the extraordinary level of that of Mega Gallade. But Gallade is far too special. That goal is clearly not easy for Gardevoir to achieve."

Terrance tidied the items in his backpack and sighed inwardly.

Being able to use a single move to the point of perfection could itself be considered a kind of foundation.

Gallade’s Teleport was exactly such a case.

Unfortunately, Gardevoir’s grasp of Teleport seemed to have hit a bottleneck. It could never reach Gallade’s level. That gap was like an insurmountable chasm, something that required the right opportunity to cross.

In theory, given Gardevoir’s remarkable psychic power, it should have had an easier time mastering Teleport than Gallade. Yet in reality, because of Gallade’s unique experiences, it had shed more sweat and, in doing so, gained a special insight into Teleport.

Terrance had watched public battle footage of Psychic-type masters from all over the world. Among those experts, a few Pokémon came close to Gallade’s proficiency with Teleport, but only one surpassed it: Kalos Champion, Diantha.

That was only based on publicly available footage. As for how many hidden experts existed, Terrance had no way of knowing. Still, this was enough to show that Gallade’s mastery of Teleport was among the very top tier.

"Alright. Next, it’s time to head to the desert."

After finishing his inspection, Terrance slung his backpack over his shoulder and prepared to leave Mauville City. He had already decided to investigate the Desert Ruins.

Along the way, Terrance still did not stop thinking.

"If Gardevoir were to imitate Ninetales’ battle style, it could combine Light Screen with Dazzling Gleam. However, Gardevoir’s mastery of Light Screen isn’t as refined as Carbink’s, and its control over Fairy energy is inferior to Ninetales’. Although its computational ability is impressive, it lacks the corresponding coordination skills. Clearly, Gardevoir’s talent for coordination isn’t as strong as Ninetales’. In that case, while the Light Screen and Dazzling Gleam combo could be used effectively in battle, it’s still not enough to serve as one of Gardevoir’s foundational strengths. Moreover, this approach comes with major limitations. After all, Ninetales has mastered numerous light-based moves, but Gardevoir doesn’t have that same foundation. If Gardevoir were to simply imitate Ninetales’ battle style as its primary combat mode, it would be like throwing away a watermelon to pick up a sesame seed. Gardevoir should have its own unique qualities!"

"Gardevoir’s unique trait... lies in the immense psychic power granted by its powerful psychic strength. That much is undeniable. Not even its Fairy type can overshadow the brilliance of its Psychic type!"

"But how to bring out the full potential of that psychic power foundation, that’s the difficult part..."

Terrance thought to himself that if Gardevoir relied purely on Psychic-type moves to wield its massive psychic power, it would be nothing more than an ordinary Elite Four–level Pokémon. Compared to other Elite Four–level Psychic-type Pokémon, aside from its stronger computational ability, it would have no distinctive traits. That was precisely the problem, a lack of foundation. Moreover, if it were to face Pokémon like Alakazam or Metagross, which also excel in computational ability, Gardevoir’s only advantage would disappear.

"Gardevoir’s growth in psychic power has already slowed down. It can no longer improve at the explosive rate it once did. That being the case, its training direction must be redefined. Otherwise, simply meditating to train psychic power and then converting that into combat strength is far too inefficient."

This was the main issue Terrance had been pondering over the past two days.

Compared to Ninetales and Pupitar, Gardevoir’s growth had been far too easy.

Ninetales underwent long-term coordination training, practiced top-tier Snowy Weather secret technique, strengthened its Fairy Aura, and mastered the combined application of Ice- and Fairy-type moves. Only by integrating this entire complex system was it barely able to step into the Elite Four level. And that effort was far from meaningless, the foundation accumulated during that process granted Ninetales numerous methods and made it extremely difficult to deal with.

In contrast, Gardevoir had reached the Elite Four level merely through meditation and the blessings of Mewtwo and Mew. In Terrance’s eyes, this was certainly something to celebrate, but it had skipped over a crucial phase of foundational accumulation. Now, that missing process had to be made up. At this level, advancing further was extremely difficult. To increase combat power, one had to build upon a Pokémon’s foundation, and not foolishly hope that Gardevoir could still rapidly advance into the Champion level through meditation alone. Even if it was one of Mewtwo’s experimental subjects, that wouldn’t be enough.

It had been quite some time since Gardevoir evolved, and Terrance had long since realized that its growth rate had completely slowed. Continuing like this was not a solution.

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