Chapter 480:

"Ninetales?"

Upon hearing about such a dish effect, Alolan Ninetales became interested. It had been a long time since that last "farewell."

It hadn’t seen that big guy for a while. Although it kept saying it wanted to beat Rayquaza.

In reality, while the impression was deep, after not seeing it for so long, that "thinking of it as the big villain" idea had gradually faded.

Now, with this beverage, it was just the right time to reinforce that impression.

"That’s right. So you can try it yourselves at night." Handing the beverage to the three little ones and watching them drink it, Kaede didn’t disturb them further.

But the little ones clearly couldn’t wait until night. They immediately planned to head to bed and try it out.

However, Kaede stopped them, "Wait a moment..."

"Ninetales?" *(What?)*

"Are you planning to challenge Rayquaza right from the start?" Kaede asked.

The Pokémon looked at each other, then all turned to Kaede. "Ninetales?" *(Why not?)*

They hadn’t thought about it at all, just wanting to go back and try.

Kaede shook his head with an amused smile. "Can you defeat it now?"

"You can’t beat it now. Let me teach you a method. Like the Sky Challenge, I’ll set up several stages for you to challenge one by one."

"For example, for the first stage, I’ll set up the Psychic-type Elite Four’s Metagross, then parallelly set up the Fire-type Elite Four’s Charizard, the Grass-type Elite Four’s Venusaur, the Ice-type Elite Four’s Mr. Rime... That’s the first stage. Then the second stage could be Champion Kazephyr’s Moltres. The third stage could be Tapu Koko, Tapu Bulu, the Bewear you met in Alola... and finally challenge Rayquaza. How’s that?"

"I’ll set their stats based on the strength of their Pokémon, and then..."

Seeing the Pokémon’s eyes grow brighter and brighter, Kaede felt the stages he set up should fit the little ones’ nature of "playing while training."

He paused, then added, "How about this: every time you clear a stage, I’ll also make you something delicious..."

Before he could finish, Alolan Ninetales excitedly interrupted with "Ninetales~"

o(*￣▽￣*)ブ: "Ninetales..." *(Great, great... Let’s start quickly, let’s go sleep now~)*

"Uh... why are you as impatient as Blaziken?"

"It’s not that fast. I need to design and reference data too..." Kaede flicked its forehead lightly.

Among the Pokémon he mentioned, aside from Mr. Rime, Charizard, Tapu Koko, and Moltres which they had seen, they hadn’t seen the others.

For the ones they’d seen, it was easy to set up—he knew their moves, IVs, and energy levels.

But for the Pokémon they hadn’t seen, how should he set them up?

Kaede looked at the beverage in his hand and shook his head.

There wasn’t much of this beverage left.

He had only given some to Gardevoir, the Indeedee siblings, Blaziken, Latias, and now these four little ones.

He originally thought he’d be reluctant to drink a bottle himself, but now...

He had to drink one too.

It wasn’t because there was only one Lunar Feather. During later searches, he found another Lunar Feather. He himself forgot when the system had rewarded it.

It was because the water infused with Darkrai’s Nightmare Stone needed time to absorb its energy. Moreover, as it was used more times, the energy attached to the stone gradually diminished. To make more like this, he’d probably need to get another stone from Darkrai.

But speaking of dreaming, Kaede was a bit curious.

Given the properties of this dish...

The dreams of other Pokémon were quite easy to guess.

It’s just...

"What kind of dream would Gardevoir have?"

Shaking his head, Kaede didn’t dwell on it and walked toward his room.

After some meandering, a peaceful day quickly passed.

Perhaps because Alolan Ninetales and the others drank the Sweet Dream Beverage today, they didn’t watch anime or cause much fuss tonight. They quickly settled down obediently beside Kaede and fell asleep.

It must be said, the sleep quality of these little ones was excellent. Not long after lying down, even breathing sounds could be heard—clearly, they were already in dreamland.

Kaede also began to enter the dream state to set up the "stages".

.....

The remaining days of May seemed uneventful.

The sightings of Suicune, Entei, and Raikou gradually faded along with the conclusion of the Rainbow Hero’s trial, their figures slowly disappearing at the edges of Aogiri Forest.

As their traces vanished, some traveling Trainers also regretfully left the area. Although during this time, they had witnessed various strange and novel phenomena in this town, such as the Sky Challenge.

Upon hearing it was hosted by this year’s Pokémon League Conference Champion, quite a number of Trainers participated.

Moreover, these Trainers who were often on long journeys usually had decent strength, so quite a few managed to pass the first stage. There were even some who passed the second stage. However, the number of challengers decreased sharply in the later stages.

Even so, upon hearing that currently, among the very few who had cleared all stages were only the Ice-type Elite Four member, the Fire-type Elite Four member, and a Gardevoir, some Trainers stayed behind with the goal of clearing it.

Some even took up residence here just to keep challenging.

Time flowed smoothly, and soon it was early June.

June 1st.

Children’s Day.

On this holiday, the town’s streets were filled with the playful sounds of children.

Some early-ripening Wangwang Rice had already begun to sprout ears, bearing small, rice-white flowers. Looking at them, they would probably mature soon, and then he could purchase some to brew rice wine.

That’s what Kaede was thinking.

Ever since Giratina became a regular visitor to the plantation, Kaede always felt the supply of alcohol wasn’t enough. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

The Grepa Berry Wine was down to only thirty barrels. Fortunately, the production of various fruit wines was slowly catching up. The fruit wines brewed earlier were gradually maturing, barely allowing the supply rate to keep up with the consumption rate.

"I wonder how Mewtwo is doing..."

After a long period of uneventful days, it’s easy to start reminiscing.

Mewtwo’s last departure was after dealing with Team Rocket’s affairs. In the blink of an eye, over two months had passed. Not seeing it for over two months, he had no idea where it had gone.

And Megumi...

This girl had been gone for three or four months and hadn’t called him once.

Goodness, hopefully she wouldn’t only call him when she got into trouble.

He really missed that Noibat and Blastoise.