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The dim corridor was packed with Dark Star mbers, yet no one spoke. The silence was heavy and unnatural.
A few more challengers in standard-issue Dark Star uniforms lingered off to the side, so leaning against the wall, others sitting with their heads bowed.
They all wore the sa expression ashen, as if their spirits had been drained.
So, clearly hit the hardest, sat slumped against the cold tal walls, hands clutching their heads.
"...Impossible..."
"...It's just a Flaaffy..."
"...Third floor..."
The atmosphere was thick with defeat and disbelief.
Those who hadn't entered Room 3-C yet watched their fellow mbers return in such a state, their own curiosity shifting to shock... and finally, a strange mix of eagerness and unease.
Click.
The door to 3-C opened.
All eyes locked on the doorway, trying to read the challenger's face before they even spoke.
Slowly, a figure erged a man with ssy black hair, his head lowered. His face was pale, his lips drained of color.
Feeling the weight of their stares, he lifted his left hand, gave a weak, dismissive wave, and sank to the floor against the wall without a word.
Sowhere in the silence, soone gulped audibly.
They were trained to handle losses. But this? This was absurd.
They were Dark Star's elite trainees the organization's future powerhouses. And they'd just been humiliated by... a Flaaffy.
It wasn't just defeat. It was a nightmare that no one could have imagined.
Inside the battle room, Rynce's movents were chanical as she recalled Kael into his Poké Ball and set it onto the healing station.
Her mind felt numb.
In her experience, Flaaffy had always been docile, pasture Pokémon cute, fluffy, and not exactly known for combat prowess.
Today had shattered that belief.
A harmless-looking sheep Pokémon had torn through the best young prospects Dark Star could throw at it.
"Heh..."
She chuckled, the sound a little too sharp in the empty arena. If she hadn't seen it herself, she'd have laughed in soone's face for telling her such a story.
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Inside the Poké Ball
Kael could feel the warmth from the healing currents seep through his body, easing his fatigue and soothing the sting of small wounds.
He was exhausted, the battles had been relentless, but the familiar ding-ding of system notifications kept his spirits high.
Opportunities for high-intensity, high-quality battles like these were rare. And he intended to milk every last bit of [Experience Points] out of them.
[Defeated Pokémon: Poochyena] [ 32 Experience Points]
[Defeated Pokémon: Haunter] [ 41 Experience Points]
[Species: Flaaffy]
[Level: 23 (67/100)]
[Moves: Tackle, Growl, Thunder Wave, Hidden Power (Dragon), Thunder Shock, Cotton Spore, Charge, Thunder Punch, Magnet Rise, Take Down]
[Evaluation: A Flaaffy with imnse potential.]
On the surface, only his level had changed from 20 to 23 but Kael knew the truth. Each level had sharpened his physical attributes, amplified his electrical output, and refined his control.
At first, he'd thought the system only gave him a neat, ga-like display of his stats. But now he was starting to realize its real power.
In the Pokémon world, the gap between individuals could be massive. Weak Pokémon might be little more than pets, while strong ones could bend ti, reshape space, or even create matter.
Even within a single species, strength could vary wildly. Humans had simplified this into a rough scale of 15 power tiers.
But Kael's system divided his growth into a full 100 levels, letting him gauge his strength with surgical precision.
Through battles and training, he could earn [Experience Points] and level up rapidly.
To a normal Pokémon, this was terrifying. In the wild, climbing to peak strength took years of training and scarce resources.
Even then, fatigue, injury, and emotional strain could leave permanent scars that cut into a Pokémon's potential.
Kael suspected that most Pokémon, even with unlimited resources, would hit their ceiling well before "Level 100" in his system maybe the equivalent of Level 96 or 97.
But him?
Every ti he leveled up, he felt it not just growth, but a wave of energy repairing tiny imperfections in his body, restoring him to the perfect state for his current level.
If that was true... and if he had enough ti to reach Level 100... then combined with the custom combos he was developing, he could beco sothing no Flaaffy had ever been.
After all, even Legendaries didn't grow without setbacks.
And Kael had no intention of ever slowing down.
Curled up in the Poké Ball's restorative field, he let himself imagine a future bright, electric, and filled with battles worth rembering.
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