"Froakie, we may only have half an hour, but we can't waste even a second. Let's get some training in."
"Froaa~!"
Froakie naturally had no objections. It nodded obediently, eyes gleaming with focus.
Ash scanned the surroundings, then picked up a thick, dried branch that had fallen from a tree. Under Froakie's curious gaze, he snapped the branch into several shorter segments.
"Froakie, half an hour isn't much, so we'll focus on one thing—your accuracy. Let's sharpen your aim using Bubble and Frubbles."
He raised a piece of the broken branch and said, "I'll toss this into the air, and when I give the signal, you aim and attack. Understood?"
"Froaa!"
"Alright, let's start with Bubble!"
Ash flung a chunk of the dry branch into the sky.
Whoosh!
The piece spun as it rose, and Froakie's eyes narrowed, tracking it with intense focus, its amphibious vision adjusting in real-time to the flying target.
The move Bubble, one Froakie had trained in extensively, had already reached the [Proficient] level. With practiced precision, Froakie puffed its cheeks and fired a stream of thick-walled, hollow water spheres.
Pupupupu—!
Bang!
Each water balloon—roughly the size of a baby's fist—smashed into the airborne stick, dead center.
[Ding! Skill "Bubble" Proficiency +1]
As soon as the attack landed, Ash heard a mechanical chime in his mind.
"The skill's proficiency increased?" Ash blinked in surprise.
Then it hit him—this was one of the core modules of the Ascension Trainer System, specifically the Skill Proficiency Module.
The system categorized a Pokémon's move mastery into five ranks:
Novice → Skilled → Proficient → Mastered → Grandmaster
Proficiency represented how deeply a Pokémon understood and could control a move—its power, accuracy, consistency, and creative applications all depended on this.
A low-proficiency move would lack power, have poor aim, or be delayed in execution—completely unreliable in a fast-paced battle. There'd be no room for flashy moves or clutch turnarounds.
Thus, to measure a Pokémon's combat strength, you didn't just look at its level—you had to consider its skillset and how well it had mastered each move.
Although the Ascension Trainer System had been severely damaged, its three foundational modules remained active:
Level Advancement
Skill Copying
Skill Proficiency Enhancement
Ash had already mastered the skill-copying feature: by touching another Pokémon, he could replicate their moves and teach them to his own partners.
Just a few days ago, he'd copied and stored several common and rare moves from the backyard of Professor Oak's lab. In fact, not long ago, he had just used the system to help Froakie learn Aqua Ring.
Now, training Froakie's accuracy with Bubble had unexpectedly triggered the Skill Proficiency Module.
"Training can now increase skill proficiency?" Ash looked at Froakie's panel. The Bubble proficiency had risen from (36/1000) to (37/1000).
After activating this module, the system had instantly delivered a comprehensive explanation of how it worked.
Every time Froakie trains a skill attentively and fully, the system functions like a hyper-intelligent computer—analyzing the mechanics, interpreting deeper layers, and transmitting that understanding directly into Froakie's brain as a quantified Proficiency increase.
Unlike regular training, which might be hit-or-miss in effectiveness, the system guaranteed that each focused repetition would yield tangible results. No wasted effort. No plateaus.
As long as Froakie trained diligently, its mastery over its moves would grow in leaps and bounds—without ever hitting a bottleneck.
Ash couldn't help but admire how overpowered this function was.
"No wonder anyone who gets this kind of cheat system can crush so-called geniuses—even if they have mediocre potential."
"And mine is still a damaged version of the Ascension Trainer System! If the system hadn't been struck down by the world's will when I crossed over... just how powerful would it have been at full strength?"
"Maybe I would've received a newbie pack with Mewtwo or Rayquaza in it, beat up Elite Four members, kicked Champions into the dirt, and conquered the entire Pokémon world before even turning ten…"
Ash closed the system panel and chuckled to himself.
Still, despite all these thoughts, he felt no disappointment. After all, in his previous life, he had already died once.
Now, he'd been reborn in the world of Pokémon, with a loving (and maybe even over-doting) mother, awakened abilities like Aura and Viridian Power, and even this Ascension Trainer System.
What more could he ask for? Life was good—better than good.
He had learned to be grateful.
"Froakie, let's keep going. This time, try using your Frubbles."
"Froaa~!"
Froakie locked onto the next flying branch, eyes glinting. It reached behind its neck and flung two blobs of thick, sticky foam skyward—hitting the branch with perfect accuracy.
But this time, the system remained silent—no [Ding].
Ash wasn't surprised. Frubbles wasn't a skill—it was a natural secretion from Froakie's body, incredibly sticky and capable of mimicking the effect of Bug-type control moves like Sticky Web. But no matter how useful, it didn't qualify as an official move, so it couldn't gain proficiency.
Still, Ash was very satisfied. Among all the rookie Pokémon handed out to campers, Froakie was easily one of the top-tier picks.
...
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T/N:
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