Chapter 9

On a large cliff in the middle of nowhere, two pokemon appeared. A green stocky creature with a black helmeted head, accompanied by a smaller monkey.

"See this cliff? There's always at least a couple a' strong mons in the area. For the start of the exercise, why don't you go looking for one? Lure it here, and then I'll show you some proper high-level fighting." the monkey commanded.

"Exactly how strong are we talking here, gurutompa?"

"Strong enough. Now get going!"

Felix decided it wasn't worth it to argue and headed further up the ridge, keeping an figurative eye out for any mons that looked larger than average.

A few minutes later, Felix believed he had found a suitable target. Further down the cliff face a nest rested on a large branch, sticking out of the otherwise smooth rock. The nest itself seemed to be empty, apart from a large pidgeot roosting, breathing slowly, seemingly unaware of its surroundings.

'A older male that made a nest to impress possible suitors perhaps? I don't see any eggs...

Welp, it's kill or be killed out here. You should've paid better attention to your surroundings. DRAGON BREATH!'

Felix mentally commanded his inner power into motion, which resulted in a gout of purple flame exiting his wide open maw. He had purposely aimed for the nest, instead of the large avian, which he expected to be too tough to take damage from his attack itself.

The nest and its tree branch support held on for a surprising second or so, before crumbling, and dropping the surprised bird with it to the bottom of the cliff. What Felix had not deemed likely, however, was for the older pokemon to catch himself mid fall, and launch into flight.

Flight, aimed straight up, to the top of the cliff.

Aimed straight at Felix.

With a start, Felix ran off in the direction he came from, careful to weave in between whatever shrubbery and rocks he could find.

'A lot of flying type attacks use propulsion as their main advantage. A single brave bird, or even an aerial ace could finish me. That being said, the downside of these attacks is that the pokemon has to charge in a straight line to complete it. Bob and weave, Felix!'

Luckily for Felix, the pidgeot didn't know acrobatics, which would have negated this disadvantage.

As Felix continued his sprint, he started hearing explosions and bangs. The sound of rocks breaking, boulders rolling and bushes tearing followed him right at his heels. Clearly, the opposing mon had been thoroughly incensed by Felix' destroying of his nest. It no longer cared for recoil or collateral damage, only wanting to kill and, supposedly, eat Felix.

As the sound of destruction was about to catch up with him, Felix heard a voice that brought him relief, much to Felix' own frustration.

"I'll take it from 'ere, kiddo! You've lured quite the opponent! Watch as I school this barbarian."

Felix ran and hid behind a nearby rock, turning around to see the start of the fight just in time.

Gurutompa seemed calm and collected as he envelopped the pidgeot in a blue aura, stopping his forward momentum, and his attack in the process. With a squeal of glee, the retainer slammed his opponent into the ground repeatedly.

'Is that the move 'psychic'? Or maybe psyshock?' Felix pondered.

A moment later, the pidgeot broke out of the monkey's hold and flew off quickly to create some space.

The two pokemon assessed each others strength and prepared themselves for a dangerous confrontation. It was clear to Felix that Gurutompa held the advantage, because the pidgeot had already taken quite a bit of damage due to recoil. Gurutompa's surprise attack had only worsened those injuries. The old monkey, on the other hand, didn't look all that tough physically speaking. A single proper hit from the giant pidgeot could mean victory for the fringe pokemon. That meant that it would all come down to skill and battle tactics to determine the winner.

The small respite turned out to only be the calm before the storm. The stare down ended as suddenly as it began, as the avian took the initiative.

It launched a number of wind circlets, that reminded Felix of the move air slash from the video games. It didn't stop there, however, and immediately followed up this ranged attack by trailing behind his own projectiles covered in a white blur, signifying the use of a physical move of some kind.

Gurutompa attempted to dodge the two pronged attack by teleporting to a different position prematurely.

This didn't work as intended, seeing as how the moment the monkey blurred into reality, both the ranged projectiles and the pidgeot changed direction, losing almost no speed in the process.

Uncle guru did not seem fazed. In fact, he looked like he had predicted this in advance. The moment the attacks looked like they were about to hit him, he used his aura to rip out a huge chunk of earth to use as a shield. The wind circlets sliced into it, not fully penetrating, but making the earthen shield useless. The pidgeot himself cancelled his physical move, and instead flew into the nearby treeline, flitting in between the trees, spawning multiple circlets of wind every few seconds.

"Hah! I've got you now, dumb chicken!" the old monkey shouted.

A moment later, the area that the avian was using as cover lit up with a blue aura. The trees, bushes and the earth itself were all included. A split second later the pidgeot was also caught by the aura.

The bird seemed he would break out of gurutoma's hold any second now, but the blue aura just barely held on this time.

From there, the monkey released an Armageddon on the affected area. Everything he could grab was torn up, thrown around like a blender and crashed into his opponent, who was still immobilised.

What felt like an eternity later the area calmed down again.

Gurutompa was breathing heavily from the exertion, and gestured towards the damaged zone, that now just looked like a pile of rubble, with bits of tree and bush mixed in.

"See that, kid? That's the power of move mastery and concept application combined. Don't worry, I already received the level up notification, the bird's dead. The bastard held on for far too long."

"Why aren't you a higher level if it's just that easy?"

"Just that easy?! Are you crazy? A single attack from that thing could a' killed me. And I was already close to a level up before this anyways. We're not all as lucky as you."

And indeed, in the centre of the crater Felix could see a bird corpse strewn out. Gurutompa lifted his hand using his blue aura and covered the corpse in dirt, effectively burying it.

"So, let's do a small battle review, shall we? First of all, having seen that battle, can you give me an example of move mastery? Go ahead. Just guess." the old monkey said.

"I think the bird's ability to use multiple moves at once might've been move mastery. And what about your ability to grab the bird? Was that something you can normally do?"

"You're correct about the first. Most stronger mons learn how to use multiple moves at once, which is entirely dependant on the mastery of said moves. You can probably imagine how big of an advantage this is. A fully mastered move can be used as easily as breathing. I myself have mastered three moves, all of which you saw just now.

You were wrong about your second assumption, however. The move 'psychic' allows you to grab your opponent and effect their physical body, but not objects. The move 'psyshock', on the other hand, allows you to grab things and objects around you, but not other pokemon. Technically I used both in conjunction with the move confusion and my concept to pull off that stunt at the end.

Talking about concepts, both the bird and myself are in the concept founding realm. What do you think our concepts are?"

"I think the bird might have some kind of homing projectile concept? I can't imagine that move mastery could allow you to do something only the move aura sphere can normally do. As for yours, I have absolutely no idea. Did you even show it in this battle?"

"Where did you hear about the move aura sphere? Has someone been blabbing again behind the guards back? Well, no matter.

As for your assumption about the birds concept, you're close. My best guess is some kind of tracing or trailing concept, considering he was able to redirect himself as well. It could be a momentum concept, but such concepts are very rare among fringe pokemon because of their lower intelligence and development.

Now, about my own concept, I created a 'synergy' concept, which empowers my moves by a certain percentage when used at the same time!"

Ding! You've learned about a [Synergy] concept. The owner has allowed you to see the summary of the concept.

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Concept: [Synergy] (Rare)

While using multiple mastered moves at the same time, increase the power of said moves by 65% and lower the energy consumption of these moves by 40%.

Current total of mastered moves: 3 (Confusion, psychic, psyshock)

Concept stat multiplier: 30%

---

Felix regarded this new screen with reverence. This concept multiplies gurutompa's overall strength by an order of magnitudes! No wonder there's such a big difference between us.

"Should you be telling me all of this? This sounds pretty personal."

"Don't worry about that young master, the family has full knowledge of the concepts the retainers hold, so you would learn all of this eventually anyway. I'm quite proud of my concept! It took me ages to comprehend it enough to be offered a rare version. Even then, the limitation of it only applying to mastered moves made me useless until I spent a decade or so on move training. Just you wait until you have to start making your own concept, then you'll feel my pain."

"What's this stat multiplier?" Felix inquired.

"Each realm comes with it's own stat multiplier, creating a chasm of strength between the different realms. The better your concept, the better the multiplier you'll get. It has something to do with concept rarity, I think. The average multiplier is somewhere around 15%, so yer old uncle is a talented one, isn't he!" gurutompa said proudly.

"Stop talking like a thug, I know that you don't actually need to talk like that by now." Felix replied in monotone.

"I don't kno' what yer talkin' bout' there' kiddo! I always tak' jus' like this hea'!" the monkey claimed unashamedly.

The two decided to continue hunting a little while longer, this time searching for some opponents for Felix. They continued going back and forth, bickering, as they entered the treeline, where Felix once again found himself in a somewhat familiar forest environment.