In Su Chuan’s eyes, the past two days had been the most thrilling experience of his life, truly a brush with death.

  However, because of this, he had also learned many things he wasn’t supposed to know.

  If it weren’t for this unexpected turn of events, he probably wouldn’t have been privy to this information until he reached the Heavenly King-level as a trainer.

  As for the researcher, he had been transferred to the capital to work on reted projects.

  But for Su Wen, it seemed like his father had just gone out for a couple of days. He hadn’t even had much time to explore Charmander’s moves before Su Chuan returned.

  Seeing Su Chuan’s exhausted and dusty appearance, Wang Xuan immediately went to prepare hot water and lunch, wanting him to rest properly.

  Su Wen sat down beside Su Chuan. "Dad, what happened? Why did the secret realm suddenly close?"

  The forums were already devoid of any news about the Cloud City secret realm. Su Wen knew the Alliance must have intervened.

  A secret realm that was supposed to merge with the real world suddenly disappearing—it was the kind of thing that felt shrouded in mystery.

  However, Su Chuan just ruffled Su Wen’s hair. "Nothing happened. The secret realm closed because it was unstable."

  Su Chuan didn’t reveal anything about the secret realm to Su Wen, but Su Wen just pursed his lips, knowing his father wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  Chen You had sent him a message saying that someone on the forums cimed to have seen Heavenly King Long Xu fleeing the secret realm with two others.

  If even the strongest Heavenly King had to flee, the secret realm must have been far from ordinary.

  But the post had been deleted within a minute, and only someone like Chen You, who practically lived on the forums, could have caught it.

  Understanding that his father wouldn’t tell him, Su Wen didn’t press the matter. Once he was strong enough, his father would eventually share the details.

  After confirming that Su Chuan wasn’t injured, Su Wen returned to the backyard to interact with Charmander.

  That morning, Su Wen had wanted to see how many of Charmander’s three inherited moves it could actually use.

  It turned out that, apart from ?Dragon Cw, which could barely manifest as a faint green glow on its cws, ?Outrage and ?Dragon Rush were completely unusable.

  There was still a long way to go.

  However, Su Wen was pleasantly surprised to find that while Charmander disliked training, it was quite enthusiastic about practicing moves.

  In the mere ten minutes Su Wen had spent asking Su Chuan questions, Charmander, who he thought would sck off, had been diligently practicing ?Dragon Cw on thin air.

  "Take a break," Su Wen said with a smile.

  Charmander walked over to Su Wen, looking frustrated. It couldn’t even properly condense the energy for ?Dragon Cw, let alone use it.

  Su Wen reassured it, "Dragon Cw is one of the top-tier cw-based moves. It’s not easy to master. Let’s start with the basic move, ?Scratch."

  When it came to using moves, there was something called ?STAB (Same-Type Attack Bonus).

  This meant that when a Pokémon used a move of its own type, the move’s power would be significantly boosted.

  Charmander didn’t have the Dragon type, so even if it mastered ?Dragon Cw, it wouldn’t be able to unleash its full power.

  But Su Wen already had the Charizardite X. If he could find a Key Stone, Mega Charizard X would gain the Dragon type.

  Even if Mega Evolution wasn’t possible, mastering Dragon-type moves would expand Charmander’s coverage.

  If Charmander ever faced a Dragon-type Pokémon, Fire-type moves would be less effective, making Dragon-type moves a valuable asset.

  So Su Wen decided to focus on Fire and Flying-type moves, which were Charizard’s natural types, with Dragon-type moves as a secondary priority. Other moves would be added based on coverage.

  Apart from its inherited moves, Charmander currently only knew three moves: ?Scratch, ?Growl, and ?Ember.

  Scratch and ?Growl didn’t need much training. These starting moves were like a baby’s filing punches or noise attacks—they had almost no training value.

  Or rather, they were of no use to Charmander at this stage.

  A baby’s punch and a martial arts master’s punch were worlds apart.

  Only when Charmander reached Tier 1 would Su Wen start teaching it combat techniques.

  After merging his Aura with Charmander, Su Wen entered that unified perspective again.

  Through experimentation, Su Wen found that this unified state was the most draining, while simply guiding energy to assist Charmander’s training could be maintained for a longer period.

  Once again, Su Wen felt the six stars representing Charmander’s six moves.

  "Charmander, use ?Ember."

  Without needing to speak, Su Wen directly conveyed his thoughts to Charmander through Aura.

  Charmander was momentarily startled, curious about how Su Wen was communicating with it, but it quickly complied. The fme on its tail fred up, the temperature rising sharply, and then it flicked its tail, sending out a small fme.

  Along with the fme, Su Wen’s consciousness was also flung out.

  "Ugh~" Su Wen instinctively rubbed his tailbone.

  For a moment, Su Wen had even thought he was the one using ?Ember. Startled, his Aura fluctuated violently, instantly disconnecting from Charmander.

  After calming down, Su Wen merged his Aura with Charmander again.

  "Charmander, use ?Ember again."

  Su Wen had never heard of this state before, so he had no experience and could only slowly figure it out himself.

  And so, it went: merging Aura, being flung out, merging Aura, being flung out.

  Even after exhausting his energy, Su Wen still hadn’t gotten used to this state.

  "Gulp gulp gulp~ burp~" Completely drained, Su Wen downed half a bottle of ice-cold co.

  Charmander was also exhausted, absorbing energy from the Charcoal while giving Su Wen a reproachful look, making Su Wen feel a bit guilty.

  "Let’s stop the move practice for today. We’ll start training now," Su Wen suggested to Charmander.

  "Char char~" `(＞﹏＜)′

  Charmander quickly staggered to its feet, waving its little arms to show it was still okay. Su Wen couldn’t help but ugh. He hadn’t expected the little guy to be so averse to training.

  But there was no escaping it. To reduce Charmander’s resistance, Su Wen broke the training time into smaller segments spread throughout the day.

  In total, Su Wen scheduled two hours of training for Charmander each day. With Su Wen’s assistance and the Fire Stone, two hours were enough for Charmander to reach its daily energy absorption limit.

  For other Pokémon, relying solely on the sparse energy in the city, even training 24 hours a day without eating or drinking wouldn’t be enough to reach the limit.

  After forcing Charmander to train for fifteen minutes, Su Wen and Charmander returned to practicing moves.

  "Try ?Scratch. Use that target as your goal."

  The results of repeatedly using ?Ember were slow progress, so Su Wen decided to try a different move.

  Charmander looked at the wooden target, which had been specially processed to be quite sturdy.

  Raising its right cw, a faint grayish-white glow barely visible to the naked eye enveloped its short cws.

  "Cng." The friction with the target produced a metallic sound, and unsurprisingly, only three white marks were left on the wooden target.

  This time, however, Su Wen wasn’t flung out, and his Aura didn’t disconnect.

  In fact, Su Wen felt that Charmander’s method of exerting force wasn’t quite right.

  When Su Wen was younger, he had trained in martial arts for a while with Uncle Zhou Li, but he eventually gave it up for various reasons.

  However, during that time, Su Wen had learned a straight punch technique.

  The legs had to push, the waist had to twist, the shoulders had to drive, and the force had to focus on the fist. With one strike, nothing could withstand it.

  In a daze, Su Wen subconsciously activated his Aura.

  Then, Charmander twisted its waist, turned its body, and delivered a straight ?Scratch to the target.

  This time, instead of a metallic cng, there was a dull thud as Charmander’s cws pierced into the wooden target.