I, Gary, Want to Become a Pokemon Master

Chapter 730 - 730: Reinforced Archaludon

"You came back rather early this time. Did you discover something?" Professor Sada asked.When they usually went out to investigate, they would not return so soon. It was only just after 3 p.m., which was far too early.

"Professor, you'll have to ask Gary. He arranged our next course of action," Nick said, pointing at Gary.

Professor Sada and Hannah both looked at Gary. Although Gary was very strong, in Area Zero, he was supposed to follow Professor Sada's arrangements. Why had Gary taken the initiative on his own? More importantly, neither Nick nor Garke had objected.

"Professor, here's what happened."

Garke quickly told Professor Sada everything that had happened in the Rock area.

After hearing the full story, Professor Sada said with a headache, "Gary, you care too much about Pokémon."

"Is there a problem with that?" Gary asked.

"What if that Pokémon is a Paradox Pokémon? What if it runs away?" Professor Sada asked.

"There aren't that many what-ifs. Since it dared to compete with Archaludon for territory, then it must have a certain sense of territory. It won't just leave the territory it snatched," Gary said.

"Fine. Then tomorrow, I'll have you investigate thoroughly and figure out what's going on," Professor Sada said.

Professor Sada couldn't really refute him. After all, Gary had been added to the team midway. It was already good enough if he cooperated properly. Expecting him to completely obey her every instruction was too unlikely.

"No problem."

Gary didn't care much about Paradox Pokémon at all. As long as it wasn't one of those two legendary lizards, Paradox Pokémon were not as terrifying as people claimed. With the three Pokémon Gary had brought, they were completely enough to contend with Champion-level opponents.

After the matter was explained clearly, Gary entered the observation station and used the treatment equipment inside to fully restore Archaludon's strength. Then he came outside the observation station alone and released Archaludon.

"ARCHA?"

Archaludon felt its physical condition. It should have taken several days to recover, but now it had recovered in an instant, leaving it very confused.

"Don't be confused. This is human technology. It can quickly restore the physical strength lost in battle," Gary explained.

Archaludon had been living in the Great Crater of Paldea all this time and had never been exposed to human technology, so it was quite surprised.

"I'll improve your strength and make sure you can defeat that Pokémon tomorrow," Gary said, getting straight to the point.

"ARCHA?"

Archaludon looked puzzled. It wanted to deal with that Pokémon by itself, but it was not fully confident yet. Although it had evolved, it was still a little worried that it might not be its rival.

"Don't worry. This will be a major improvement."

Gary walked over, reached out, placed his hand on Archaludon's metal arm, and used an Ability Expansion Stone.

[Ding! Ability Expansion Stone used successfully.]

...!

[Pokémon: Archaludon]

[Type: Steel, Dragon]

[Level: 59]

[Potential: Elite]

[Ability: Sturdy (When at full strength, even if it suffers a fatal injury, it will not be knocked down in one blow, and one-hit KO moves are invalid.)]

[Ability 2: Stamina (When attacked, physical defense will be increased by 1 stage.)]

[Ability 3: Stalwart (Can ignore the influence of Abilities and moves that have the effect of drawing in the opponent's moves.)]

[Moves: Leer, Metal Claw, Hone Claws, Metal Sound, Dragon Tail, Dragon Claw, Flash Cannon, Electro Shot]

[Teaching Moves: Reflect, Protect, Rest, Hyper Beam, Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Dragon Pulse, Thunderbolt, Stealth Rock, Sunny Day, Steel Beam, Attract, Body Slam, Hidden Power]

[Friendship: 240 (max value 255)]

Gary used the Ability Expansion Stone on Archaludon naturally because Archaludon had three Abilities.

Sturdy and Stamina naturally needed to be strengthened. These two could improve Archaludon's durability. In addition, Stalwart was very special, because this Ability was Archaludon's exclusive Ability.

The Stalwart Ability seemed to offer no offensive benefits, but it still had a certain effect. For example, it ignored moves like Ally Switch and Follow Me. In addition, Storm Drain and Lightning Rod would also be ineffective against it. It felt that its utility was quite useful.

It was worth strengthening.

Gary used three Ability Expansion Stones to strengthen all three of Archaludon's Abilities.

[Ding! Ability strengthened successfully!]

[Ding! Ability strengthened successfully!]

[Ding! Ability strengthened successfully!]

...!

[EX Sturdy (When at full strength, even if it suffers a fatal injury, it will not be knocked down in one blow, and one-hit KO moves are invalid; damage from super-effective moves is reduced by one quarter.)]

[EX Stamina (When attacked, physical defense and special defense will both be increased by 1 stage.)]

[Ability 3: EX Stalwart (Can ignore the influence of Abilities or moves that attract the opponent's moves, and ignores mental status effects.)]

Sturdy had already been tested on Magnezone before, so Gary knew it was worth strengthening.

EX Stamina was very good. It made up for Archaludon's weakness in special defense. Moreover, the more attacks it took, the harder it would become to defeat.

After Stalwart was strengthened into EX Stalwart, there was still no improvement on the offensive end. It only allowed Archaludon to ignore mental status effects — in other words, it could ignore certain conditions such as Taunt, confusion, and infatuation.

Overall, after all three Abilities had been strengthened, Archaludon had almost no weaknesses.

Archaludon's only weaknesses were Fighting and Ground, but because of EX Sturdy, the power of super-effective moves was reduced by one quarter.

The strongest moves of the Fighting and Ground types were naturally physical attacks. Archaludon's strongest defensive stat was its physical defense, so it would have no problem enduring them.

"ARCHA?"

Archaludon looked at the silent Gary and didn't understand what he was doing. It also didn't feel any changes in itself.

"Try sensing your current move pool. There should be a lot of moves now, right?" Gary said.

"ARCHA...!"

Archaludon felt it for a moment and suddenly realized that its move pool had become a move lake. More than ten moves had suddenly appeared, and basically all of them were very powerful attack moves.

"Can you still move easily now that you've adapted to your current body?" Gary asked.

"ARCHA."

Archaludon meant that after evolving, its body had become lighter, and it moved faster than before.

"Lighter?"

Gary thought about it and suddenly realized that before Archaludon evolved, its Ability had been Heavy Metal, which doubled its weight.

Duraludon's weight was 40 kg, and the Heavy Metal Ability increased its weight to 80 kg.

Archaludon weighed only 60 kg. Its physique had increased, but its weight had decreased by 20 kg, so it naturally moved faster.