118 Trick master

"Well now that that is settled I guess it's time to divvy up the exp tickets by how close each of you are to grasping aura already." I said with a smirk. "Do you know how to try and activate your aura or do you need me to explain it?" I asked Yani first since she probably needed the most help with the subject. "Tree! Tree! Ko!" the little reptile surprised me however as she claimed to know how to do it already. "Well then everyone minus Vulcan start meditating and I'll use my own aura to judge how close you are to grasping your own." I said and they went at it.-

While they all meditated and attempted to activate their auras I rested my hand on them one by one and circulated my own aura the see how close they were before moving to the next one. It came as no surprise to me that Tank was the closest since he was entirely immobile and thus could spend every waking moment meditating. I refused to even give him a single ticket because he was only the tiniest bit away from grasping it. -

Rune came up as the second closest thanks to his triple variation giving him an innate advantage over Gaia who was not far behind him due to trying to get it sooner than him. I used two tickets on Rune which got him through the door and another two on Gaia to do the same. Yani on the other hand was a prodigy with energy control as it turned out as I literally felt her growing rapidly closer to grasping her aura with every breath. I used only a single ticket for her to grasp the energy and even get a little ahead of the others.-

This still left me with five tickets however to use that I chose to dump into Vulcan after asking who wanted them and why. Vulcan wanted them so that we could lessen the amount of focus I had to divide training everyone. Gaia wanted them in hopes they would let her evolve again earlier than expected. Rune wanted them so he could be lazy for the next few weeks without being ineligible for the challenge and Yani wanted them to boost her aura use as far as possible as soon as possible.-

None of these reasons were bad per se but Vulcans was the only one that benefited everybody so it got the tickets. This boosted it's level from seventy to eighty five instantly while also letting it naturally learn fire blast , fire fang and calm mind. As I feared however it was clear that it's progress in getting levels was starting to slow down drastically as if I used five tickets on it when it was level thirty it might have gained another thirty and yet now it only got fifteen. Still at least now Vulcan was all but set for the next two challenges which I estimated would have a level eighty and ninety set up just for it to face.-

Gaining another five levels to close that number gap could probably be done with some hunting on Vulcans part so long as it chose to challenge typings it was weak to. As it would happen there were some pretty strong rock and water types in our near future with the desert and route along the shoreline ahead of us both after and before Mauville respectively. Assuming that I don't go challenge the winstrait family that was consisted of fairly strong trainers.-

Did I mention that they were also the current Hoenn champion Wallace's biological family? Oh yeah that was a thing that was frankly crazy to think about for me. The man came from an entire family of trainers that were actually pretty strong considering they never really left the area near Mauville. It wasn't public knowledge or anything like that but it was one of those pieces of information from the games that just sorta stuck with you after you learned it. Another such piece of information that I was going to check was the mirage tower located in the desert area north of Mauville.-

There was rumors of it in several pokemon forums but I wanted to go there myself because unlike in the games were you could only find a couple of fossils at the top and some rare but good pokemon inside it. There was a very good chance that there was a whole lot more treasure in the tower and I wanted it if that were true. I'm not greedy or nothing but I won't say no to free money like a fucking idiot either. While we traveled to Mauville we came across a strange building that was quite large all things considered.-

'No fucking way this gimmicky place is actually real.' I thought with childlike glee as we immediately walked in. The trick house was by far my favorite part of the Hoenn region as it was a fun little side activity that used the HM mechanic of the games. In reality though I was counting on it to be far more entertaining. The owner of the house liked to hide in the entrance room so I looked around before I spotted a a houseplant with a set of eyes watching me.-

The trick master immediately jumped out of the plant pot when he realized I was staring right at him. "Dang it! I was sure I well well hidden that time but clearly that was not enough to fool those sharp eyes of yours! No matter I am the glorious owner of this place , the trick master!" The man said without bothering about the soil and plant camo he still had on. "So the maze is through there I take it?" I asked to mess with him a bit. I couldn't help myself as I am fairly sure this guy LIVED for mind games and so I wanted to switch our roles up to fuck with him.-

I watched on with amusement as he looked like a goldfish for a moment as his entire flow was smashed apart by me. "Um yes? I could have sworn I've never seen him before and that this place isn't famous so how could anyone know what was going on?" I heard the man mutter to himself in confusion. 'Shit , I think I broke him , ah well whatever.' I thought before speaking again. "Hey so we are just going to go through the maze so like feel free to meet us in your secret tea table area after that." I said choosing to fuck with him some more.-