Sunny's Poisonous Dilemma

This dirty but effective strategy was the only method Ash could think of to enable Larvanine to triumph over stronger opponents.

Ash was confident that this strategy had never been used on Gaia before.

Here, Spirit Beast were not like Pokémon in the games, which could use skill like Protect to shield themselves from attacks during the current turn.

Even Substitute, a skill that can only learned by certain special species of Spirit Beast, functioned differently here.

Unlike the Pokémon games, where a Substitute skill could absorb damage in place of the user, Spirit Beast' Substitutes were more akin to combat clones that acted alongside their main body.

In essence, the Substitute here was simply a split body of the original.

The core of an attrition-based strategy lies in protection and gradual depletion.

Without the key elements of this system, it was no wonder no one on Gaia had ever executed an attrition strategy like "Substitute-Protect-Toxic" in battles.

And that was precisely where Ash's opportunity lay.

After all, the "Substitute-Protect-Toxic" strategy was, in a sense, an unbeatable dirty trick in lower-level matches.

If an opponent didn't have a means to counteract the poisoning effect or nullify the poisono damage, there was virtually no outcome other than being slowly worn down to defeat.

Previously, Ash had spent a significant amount of money hiring someone to investigate the recent sales and adoptions of Spirit Beast in her Verdantia region.

Her goal was to gauge the likelihood of encountering Spirit Beast that could counter her "Substitute-Protect-Toxic" strategy during the upcoming practical exams.

Thankfully, the conclusion was that her odds of winning were higher.

However, that was on the condition that Ash could successfully help Larvanine master the three core moves required to form the "Substitute-Protect-Toxic" system.

"Sigh..."

Every time Ash thought about the long and arduous path ahead of her, she couldn't help but sigh.

At the moment, she and Sunny were still stuck on figuring out how to poison their opponents effectively.

Without any means of ranged attack, they couldn't even take the first step toward executing the "Substitute-Protect-Toxic" strategy, let alone think about the future.

On top of that, she still needed to develop protective skills for Sunny that could used as replacement for skills like Protect and Substitute.

"So, developing protective skills has to be prioritized as soon as possible..." Ash muttered to herself, shifting her gaze away from the book titled <<Guide to Raising Venenum-Type Spirit Beasts>> that she had just finished reading.

In Pokémon games, the skill Protect decreases in success rate if used consecutively.

Ash realized this principle could also be applied to the world of Spirit Beast battles on Gaia.

Here, every skill a Spirit Beast performed was powered either by its own spiritual energy or by the spiritual energy provided by its Beast Master.

Although the attacks seemed instantaneous, they actually required time to form and varying in speed depending on the complexity of the skill.

Protective skills, in particular, often required the longest time to form compared to offensive skill, except for those requiring charging.

Unlike offensive skill, which could simply unleash condensed spiritual energy in specific shapes, protective skills demanded intricate structures to better withstand opposing forces.

As a result, in most cases, three offensive skill could be executed in the time it took to successfully form two protective ones.

With that in mind, Ash stood up and walked to the nearby bookshelf, searching for books that detailed the skills Terra-type Spirit Beasts could learn.

Of course, she wasn't expecting to find something exactly like Protect.

Reality wasn't a game.

Even if there were protective skill similar to Protect, they would likely require a significant amount of spiritual energy to execute.

That clashed with Ash's current principle of stretching every ounce of spiritual energy to its limits.

This was why she leaned more toward developing new skills herself.

She pulled out a few sheets of paper from her backpack, then meticulously copied down every protective skill and its formation principles from the books she'd found on Terra-type Spirit Beasts.

She summarized and categorized them, trying to organize the information clearly.

But that wasn't enough.

Ash then jotted down all the skills she remembered from Pokémon battles that synergized with Protect to create frustratingly effective stall tactics, wondering if she could merge those concepts with the principles of Gaia's protective skills to spark inspiration for a new skill that Sunny could use.

However—

After filling up nearly ten sheets of paper with notes, Ash suddenly threw her pen aside, slumping over the desk as she tugged at her hair in frustration.

"It's not working...!"

The problem of insufficient spiritual energy constantly constrained her and Sunny.

No matter how she calculated it, if they wanted to maintain a poisoned state for their opponents, the remaining spiritual energy wasn't enough to use protective skills for stalling.

Unless Sunny's own poison could be enhanced, Ash first had to ensure her opponents stayed poisoned the entire time.

But that brought her back to the original question: how could she enhance a Spirit Beast's poisonous capabilities?

This created a deadlock.

Because the damage from poisoning was insufficient, she needed protective skills to stall.

But the spiritual energy cost of protective skills was too high, requiring her to increase poison damage output instead.

The core issue she faced was that she currently had no way to significantly enhance the poison damage caused by the toxic spiritual energy in Sunny's body.

After searching extensively, Ash had only found two methods to improve a Spirit Beast's elemental capabilities.

The first method was feeding them spirit fruits containing the same type of spiritual energy.

With enough quantity, qualitative changes could be achieved.

The second method was for the Spirit Beast to devour the crystal cores of other Spirit Beasts of the same type, absorbing their power to enhance its own.

However, both methods required one key resource—money.

Whether it was Venenum-type crystal cores or spirit fruits rich in poison spiritual energy, they all came with a hefty price tag.