Ember and the other five were all at the early-stage Pseudo-Champion. For Lucario and Aggron to defeat their Pokémon, it wouldn't be as easy as before.
Earlier, Lucario had taken them down in one hit, but now it would take at least two or three moves to defeat one.
Adrian's Venusaur had no speed advantage, so it caught Aggron's attention.
Aggron strode forward with heavy steps, and upon seeing this, Venusaur immediately lashed out with its vines, wrapping tightly around Aggron to bind it.
"Quick, my Venusaur has restrained Aggron's movements!" Adrian urgently shouted, signaling Ember and the other four to attack.
But the next moment, with a slight exertion of force from Aggron, the vines binding it instantly snapped. Venusaur cried out in pain and tried to retract its vines, but Aggron grabbed them with one massive steel hand.
Then, with a powerful yank—
SHWIP!
Venusaur was violently pulled forward.
Lucario fired an Aura Sphere the moment it flew into range, slamming it into Venusaur, followed immediately by Aggron's Mega Punch.
Meanwhile, Aggron was hit in the back by combined attacks from Ember and the other four's Pokémon. The massive impact caused it to stagger forward a few steps.
But that was all.
"Such monstrous defense," Asher said with a dark expression, staring at Aggron's incredibly tough shell and feeling a major headache. The combined efforts of their four Pokémon had only made it stagger.
After dealing with Venusaur, Aggron turned its attention to Regirock, another Pokémon with low speed.
Seeing Aggron striding toward it, Regirock couldn't help but feel nervous. It looked at the other three Pokémon as if to say, "Hurry up and stop it!"
Regirock itself readied Zap Cannon—a powerful move but with low accuracy. It was best used with Lock-On to ensure a hit.
However, Aggron was so large that even though Zap Cannon had low accuracy, the huge target size naturally increased the hit rate.
Facing the incoming Zap Cannon, Aggron countered with a Focus Blast, shattering the attack. Then, it stomped hard on the ground, triggering a powerful Earthquake.
Lucario instantly leapt onto Aggron's back to avoid the shock.
But Regirock and Abomasnow were caught dead-center and took the full brunt of the attack.
Blaziken was more clever and leaped into the air. While, Gardevoir used its psychic abilities to float.
A moment later, two more Aura Spheres flew out—cleanly finishing off the heavily injured Regirock and Abomasnow.
Blaziken and Salamence were already thinking they might as well surrender—they clearly couldn't win.
As for Gardevoir, it also felt that surrendering was a perfectly acceptable option.
A few minutes later, the three Pokémon lay defeated on the ground as well.
And just like that, the 2 vs. 10 battle concluded, having taken about ten minutes in total.
Apart from Ember and the other three, who had already anticipated the outcome, the remaining six trainers felt deeply frustrated. They were supposed to be geniuses, so how had they lost even with ten against two?
Their confidence had taken a serious hit from Julian's overwhelming display.
Meanwhile, Julian scolded with a straight face: "You're the worst batch I've ever trained."
Upon hearing that, the ten of them collectively fell silent. All of them had gone through student life before, but they had never heard the phrase used this unironically in real life.
After all, this was clearly his first time training a team!
They didn't dare refute Julian's words, so they could only complain in their hearts.
Aggron and Lucario hadn't gone too hard, so the Pokémon recovered quickly—though their expressions looked terrible.
Like their trainers, they were used to dominating others effortlessly. Now, being on the receiving end, they were struggling to adjust.
Those two monsters were just terrifyingly strong.
Especially Aggron—was there any Pokémon who could break through that kind of defense?
Although their Pokémon had been thoroughly thrashed, Julian could see that their ace Pokémon were still quite impressive in strength.
All of them were capable of fighting above their level.
Even the four peak Elite Pokémon stood a very good chance against ordinary early-stage Pseudo-Champion level opponents.
After all, these ten were the elites chosen from all of Drakoria; the ability to battle above their rank was practically a basic requirement.
"Looks like none of you wanted the Ultimate treasure after all. Can't blame me for being stingy, then," Julian said, holding the Strange Water in his hand—the very treasure James had given him the day before.
He then tossed the Strange Water to Aggron, who swallowed it, bottle and all.
Aggron: 'Swallowed too fast… didn't taste anything.'
Ignoring Aggron's hopeful look that seemed to ask if there was more, Julian simply brushed off the big oaf.
"Julian, how exactly are you planning to train us?" Ember asked, walking over.
The others gathered as well, all full of curiosity and anticipation. After all, a training plan devised by a Champion had to be extraordinary, right?
But Ember's question actually stumped Julian a bit.
Because the truth was—he wasn't entirely sure how he should train these people.
If you talk about battle training, it might not be very effective for them. Their battle experience wasn't the issue; the reason they lost to him was purely due to the significant gap in Pokémon strength—a gap that couldn't be bridged by experience alone.
Therefore, the most crucial thing was how to enhance the strength of their ace Pokémon.
There was only one month until the tournament, and he wonder if it was possible to level up their ace Pokémon by one level within that time.
Since Julian had become their team leader, he naturally had access to many resources. There was no way Drakoria would appoint him as an instructor without providing resources to improve the trainees' strength.
So, Julian currently had quite a lot of resources at his disposal. The problem lied in how to use those resources to boost the strength of their team.
The strength of these Pokémon was already quite high. Although the nation had provided ample resources, it seemed unlikely that those resources alone would be enough to level up all of them.
Was he supposed to dip into his own pocket?
'Ugh!'
"Let's talk about it tomorrow."
Hearing that, Ember felt certain that Julian definitely hadn't thought it through yet—or maybe he hadn't even considered it at all.
"Alright, that's it for today. You can practice sparring among yourselves. I'm leaving."
"Ella, you're in charge of supervision. If anyone slacks off, let me know, and I'll have a special training session with them tomorrow."
"Yes, Commander."
Ella nodded.
"Oh, and according to our earlier bet, you're not allowed to eat dinner tonight. So, you might want to eat more at lunch. Ella, keep an eye on them—no one is to have dinner today."
Hearing Julian's words, Ella smiled faintly.
The others, however, grimaced. They thought it was just a joke, but it turned out he was serious.
Champion Walker… seemed a bit petty.
Ember and the other three: 'Actually, he can be even pettier. You'll find out eventually.'
*****
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