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Swamp (Steelix): Able to create a swamp in the ground that could trap its opponents and also decrease their speed. The heavier the enemy, the more chances of trapping it.
Sand Armor (Steelix): The user is able to create and harden the armor made of sand increasing its overall defense.
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These were the 2 new moves that it had learned. They were good moves but unlike Beedrill and Nidoking, Steelix didn't have an 'IT' factor. Axel didn't even know what he should be doing about its directions. There were a lot of things that he needed to plan for Steelix.
When he met Steelix and its five girlfriends, Steelix was very arrogant cause it was the strongest of them all. But that didn't mean that those 5 were weak. All of them were king-rank Pokemons.
Steelix Blissey Scizor Golem Gyarados
Axel was especially interested in Blissey and after communicating with it, he found out that it was ideal for healing injured Pokemon. So now, most of them it was in the hospital doing its duty. Blissey was a tier 1 king rank Pokemon and it was very strong. But it didn't want to battle in wars. It was happy to treat injured Pokemons and Axel was happy about it too.
When he completed one of the main missions by helping the Pidgeot tribe's leader, he got a substantial reward.
The rewards were: Ice path, Fire path, Wind path, and Poison path.
These rewards would not only point out and detail about the all the directions of a particular path but also the system will create a separate space for Axel's Pokemon to train in these paths.
But it was not free. Axel could get the information of all the directions of each of the paths, but to unlock the space of the respective paths, he would have to fulfill some requirements.
The first requirement was for ice path and it was won in the next tide battle which he had already completed. The system was now working tirelessly to create this space and it was close to completion.
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Ding!
Ice path space: 90% completed
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'System, will it take such a long time to create a single space for a path every time?', asked Axel.
Because it had been more than 2 months since it had started and it had still not been completed.
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Ding!
Negative. The first space to be created will take some time but the subsequent space will take less time.
---
Axel sighed in relief. A lot was riding on this space. Axel estimated that with the increase in completion percentage, the time required for the next percentage increased. So, he estimated that it might take around a month to complete this space.
He was quite excited about this separate space that the system was creating and wanted to explore it himself.
###
So, he had knowledge about these 5 types but didn't know much about the ground-type Pokemons. Axel thought about researching it and planning it again when Steelix reached tier 3 king rank.
Right now…
"Steelix, you need to do a lot of things. First, you need to learn a water-type move and improve the hidden power mastery. You also need to concentrate on 'Ancient power' and finally, you need to improve your passive move, 'Resistance' to the next stage."
He had a lot of things planned for Steelix but first he would have to improve its foundation. Passive moves were not so easy to upgrade but 3 months was a lot of time.
Axel first wanted to concentrate on a water-type move because it was easier than the other two.
But alas, it was not that easy to do.
He wanted it to start with something simple. So, he told it to learn the move 'Water gun'. Wartortle was free right now, so he told it to learn from it.
It was not a hard move to master. But Steelix took a lot of time to learn it. Almost an entire day.
A regular move like 'Water gun' would only take an hour to learn even for Pokemons like Steelix but it took more than 10 hours to learn and the move could not even be used by Steelix.
Why?
Because when it used the move, the move had a side effect on Steelix too. Axel knew that Steelix was weak to water type moves but it was using this move to hurt others, not itself.
Even Pidgeot who was weak to electric type moves had learned moves like 'Parabolic charge' that would affect its body with electricity and there was so much hindrance in learning the move.
So, why was such a thing happening to Steelix?
It was a mystery indeed.
Axel only knew one person who may be able to answer the question and it was Serena.
She was in disguise and was actually a legendary Pokemon. If anyone had any idea about this, then it must be her.
###
"Axel, sometimes, I don't even know if you are a brilliant trainer or a stupid trainer.", sighed Serena shaking her head.
"Why? What did I do wrong?"
"When your Pidgeot learned the move 'Parabolic charge', it must not have reached king rank, right?", asked Serena.
"Yes, it was very young at that time."
"That is your answer.", said Serena.
"What do you mean? I don't understand."
"Axel, when a Pokemon reaches elemental rank or king rank, there is a significant change in its body. When it reaches elemental rank, it would have a core of a particular type.
This will not only make the power of that particular type stronger but also it slowly starts to regulate that typing on its whole body. Slowly and steadily its body would transform internally and when it reaches king rank, the body of that Pokemon will have similar properties of that core type.
So, now your Steelix had the body with the properties of ground type. This also existed before it was an elemental rank but at that time, it had a lot of energies inside its body of various types. You can just say that it is now becoming more pure than before.
So, if your Steelix had trained on water-type moves before it was a king-rank Pokemon, it would have developed some sort of resistance to water-type moves, making it able to not only defend water-type moves properly but also use water-type attacks if it could do it.
But since you didn't train it in a single water-type move, it would now take a lot of time to learn a water-type move and even if it does, it would itself be affected by this move."
Axel never knew such a thing about Pokemon and their rank importance. If he had known this, he would have already instructed it to train in water-type moves before.
"So, what should I do now? I don't want this potential of Steelix to die down."
"Hmm, the only think you can do right now, is to develop some sort of resistance for Steelix regarding water type moves but that would be almost impossible to do right now.", said Serena.
Suddenly, Axel had a brilliant idea. Why didn't he even think about it before?
###
"Steelix, we have work on creating a passive move that would help you resist water type attacks. This is going to be painful and it might take a lot of time. So, if you don't want to do it, then I will not compel you.", said Axel.
ROOOOARRR
"I can do such a simple thing. You don't need to worry about it.", roared Steelix from the top of its lungs. It felt that Axel had underestimated it and now it wanted to show off.
"Ok, you will battle with Gyarados and it will use water-type moves on you. You need to defend that attack and do it again. Don't try to simply take the attack head-on. Try to think what you could do so that you can increase the water-type resistance inside your body."
Realistically, Steelix would not be able to do this. Create a resistance passive move on the type that it was weak against. But Axel had full trust in the system and he believed that with enough training and brain storming, it would be able to do it.
###
A few more days had passed.
The training was going in full swing. Finally, the new members were getting the hang of the formations and tide battle strategy. Axel was quite happy about this. He had made training plans for all of the Pokemons that he thought needed it.
Now, it was time for him to have a weekly meeting with his commanders.
He had decided to do this to check the progress of his team members.
"Marry, what is happening on the new strategy that you guys are trying to imply?", asked Axel.
Axel was asking about the 'Sunny day' strategy.
"Sir, it is going quite well. Finally, one of my teammates has ranked up his Arcanine to king rank and we are working on its pre-domain move. If the training goes well, then I believe that this strategy will be quite overpowered."
"That is quite good to hear. What about the Shedinja that people are so hyped about? Had something happened in that regard?"
"Sir, after your speech, most of the trainers didn't want to get a Shedinja learning how hard it is to rank it up to king rank. But there are some of them that still wanted to try it.
There are around 50 of them that wanted to try it and we have given them the eggs of Nincada. Most of their Pokemon had hatched and they are taking good care of them."
Axel was satisfied with the response. It was true that if their Shedinja reached king rank, then it would be quite overpowered specially in tide battles but raising a weak Pokemon like Shedinja to king rank was extremely difficult.
"Have you checked the aptitude of these trainers? How good are they?"
"Most of them are young but they are one of the most talented trainers in my team. I believe that most of them would be able to achieve it.", replied Alon.
"Hmm, I am happy to learn that. Now, I called all of you here today, cause we need to improve ourselves too. Since all of you wanted to learn soul arts, all of your ranks have regressed to uncommon rank.
I don't want my commanders to be so weak. So, we will personally devote some time in a day to train ourselves too.
I have got the plan here and if you want to change something for yourself, you are welcome."
Axel threw a stack of papers on the table. This was a training plan that he had come up after lengthy discussion with Krishna. Krishna was like a second brain of Fairy Tail.