Chapter 160: A Summer Full of Defeats

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A few days later.

The flame absorption test was successfully completed. However, due to its underwhelming performance—absorbing less energy than a vacuum cleaner and paling in comparison to previous spectacular results—it won't be elaborated on further.

From early August to mid-to-late August,

Li Xiang participated in several tournaments: Qingcheng's 11th Youth Summer Battle Competition, the Wailord Cup Battle Tournament, and a few unofficial sponsor-named events.

Unfortunately, he didn't achieve any outstanding results.

The first was the Summer Battle Competition. After winning three rounds in a row, Li Xiang faced a professional trainer from Qingcheng University in the fourth round. The referee announced the opponent's title with great fanfare, likely to attract the audience.

Once the battle began, both sides sent out their Pokémon.

The opponent used a Gastrodon—a Water/Ground-type Pokémon resembling a shell-less snail or sea slug hybrid. It had three eyes on its face, ox-like antennae on either side of its head, a brown back, a pink belly, and two pale yellow stripes running down its body.

—The East Sea form.

Aside from a quadruple weakness to Grass, it had no other vulnerabilities. If it had the Storm Drain ability, it would even gain an immunity to Water-type moves.

Its durability was impressive—unless hit by a Grass-type move, it could tank hits like a champ.

The only downside was its speed… but then again, how fast can a sea slug really move on land?

The problem was, Li Xiang had sent out Torracat.

A bad matchup meant half the battle was already lost.

On top of that, while Gastrodon's exact level was unclear, Li Xiang's intuition and observations suggested it was at least Level 40 or higher.

This one-on-one single battle was practically doomed from the start.

Sure enough, once the battle began, Gastrodon tanked a Fake Out and recovered faster than any previous opponent, immediately setting up Rain Dance.

The rain covered nearly two-thirds of the battlefield. Torracat barely managed to escape the downpour, only to realize its moves couldn't reach Gastrodon from that distance.

While Torracat retreated, Gastrodon did the same, positioning itself just outside Torracat's effective attack range.

Whether it was Snarl, Overheat, or Heat Wave, none of Torracat's moves had an effective range beyond 25 meters. Beyond that, their power wasn't just halved—it was practically negligible.

Unless Torracat was willing to recklessly expend its energy and push Nasty Plot to its limits, there was no way it could hit Gastrodon from outside the rain.

Yet Gastrodon had no trouble striking back. As Torracat turned to flee the rain, it was hit by a Muddy Water.

A surge of mud and sludge, first secreted by Gastrodon onto the ground, was then propelled by an unseen force into a tidal wave of murky water.

By the time the wave reached Torracat, it was already weakening, but the force was still enough to make Torracat immediately use Protect to block it.

What made things worse was that after Torracat, determined to fight back, used Bulk Up twice in the rain and tried closing in with physical moves, Gastrodon hit it with Clear Smog.

The moment the move connected, all of Torracat's stat boosts were wiped clean.

Then, Gastrodon used Melt to disappear into the muddy terrain. By the time Li Xiang and Torracat, standing outside the rain, calmed down and used their "antenna radar" to sense Gastrodon's location, the rain clouds had already been dragged over their heads, and Gastrodon came crashing down with a Heavy Slam. Torracat barely managed to Protect again, but escape was impossible.

The thick, sticky sludge secreted from Gastrodon's body quickly covered Torracat's eyes, nose, and mouth. Before Torracat could erupt in rage, Gastrodon unleashed an Earth Power directly beneath it!

Not a single opportunity was given to Li Xiang and Torracat!

No matter how much Torracat could endure, facing such a relentless and overwhelming assault left it helpless.

The opponent didn't underestimate Torracat just because it wasn't fully evolved. They fought at their absolute best, completely dominating the battle.

Torracat was outmatched in level, typing, move range, and move diversity.

It had every possible disadvantage stacked against it.

In the end, it suffered a bitter defeat.

This was Torracat's most crushing loss to date, nearly breaking its spirit.

After all, it had only ever been on the delivering end of one-sided battles—never the receiving end.

Even against stronger opponents, it had always managed to trade blows.

But this? Being utterly dominated without any chance to fight back, not even getting to use its trump cards…

It was soul-crushing.

Fortunately, Li Xiang's post-battle emotional support was solid, and Torracat's naturally resilient personality kept it from dwelling on the loss too much.

Moreover, this battle made Li Xiang realize something about his team.

They had fought too many one-sided battles—almost always being the ones dominating. They had rarely been on the receiving end of a brutal beatdown, so when it happened, their morale took a hit.

They were dangerously close to being the type that thrived in victory but fell apart in defeat.

This couldn't continue.

Torracat and the others needed to improve their mental resilience—they had to learn to handle both victory and defeat.

Never give up, never surrender.

The simplest way to build mental toughness?

Keep battling.

Lose enough times, and they'd learn to stay calm.

The real challenge was ensuring that, even after getting used to losing, they could still muster the fighting spirit against strong opponents—without falling into the trap of thinking defeat was inevitable.

"Ah, that opponent's too strong… I can't win. Might as well give up..."

That kind of mindset would ruin a Pokémon.

So, Li Xiang first demanded this resilience from himself. Even against unbeatable foes, he would fight to the very end.

Only by maintaining this attitude could he inspire his Pokémon to do the same.

After this, Li Xiang moved on to the next tournament—the Wailord Cup, sponsored by the Qingcheng Maritime Association.

Once again, he failed to reach the finals. This time, he ran into a Midday Lycanroc that used Keen Eye exceptionally well. It effortlessly saw through Double Team, Camouflage, and Smokescreen, then closed the distance with Accelerock before smashing Frogadier—who was charging an Ice Beam—with an Iron Head, instantly knocking it out.

This indicated a significant level gap.

Li Xiang had to settle for the Top 16.

...

After the summer tournaments came two unofficial events.

The first ended in the Top 8, with Corvisquire simply unable to overcome the opponent's Magneton.

Trapped in a 360-degree, full-power Discharge with no room to dodge, it had no choice but to go down.

Besides, without learning Body Press, Corvisquire had no way to deal with such a Pokémon.

The second tournament was even more frustrating. In the finals, Li Xiang lost a 3v3 battle to another older student.

That guy's team consisted of Duraludon, Gyarados, and Ampharos—a pseudo-"Dragon" trio.

The battle was absurd.

First, he sent out Duraludon and let Li Xiang's Riolu set up with Swords Dance and Screech.

Midway through, Duraludon fired off a Draco Meteor that didn't hit Riolu but instead kicked up a massive dust cloud, seemingly to obscure vision.

This didn't work—within three seconds, Riolu pinpointed Duraludon's location with its Aura Sense, dashed forward, and unleashed a Force Palm that resonated through Duraludon's entire body!

The impact was so loud, it sounded like someone had struck a giant bronze bell with a wooden log at point-blank range.

The reverberations alone were enough to make people dizzy.

Li Xiang had thought it would be a one-hit KO, but Duraludon somehow survived. It turned out the opponent had secretly used Iron Defense behind the dust cloud to buff its Defense!

Just one boost was enough to tank the hit.

This alone proved Duraludon's level was far higher than Li Xiang had anticipated—and that it had been trained specifically for physical defense.

Otherwise, there was no way it could have survived.

By the time Li Xiang realized what was happening, it was already too late.

With less than ten centimeters between Duraludon and Riolu, even Prankster-boosted Detect wasn't enough. At such close range, Duraludon immediately countered with Metal Burst—

Ignoring type matchups, it reflected 1.5 times the damage taken, and in a flash of silver light resembling an explosion, all of it was dumped back onto Riolu, who was already low on health.

Riolu went down instantly.

Li Xiang was so furious his liver ached. He recalled Riolu and sent out Frogadier, intending to teach his opponent a lesson.

But the opponent immediately switched to Ampharos, not giving Li Xiang a chance to react. Taking advantage of Electric-type moves' quick activation, Ampharos used Charge followed by Discharge, blanketing the field and revealing Frogadier's position.

Thankfully, Frogadier had used Mud Sport in time, granting it temporary immunity to Electric-type moves—otherwise, it would have been knocked out on the spot.

However, its Protean ability was exposed.

Seizing the opportunity, Li Xiang quickly switched to Torracat.

The opponent seemed to anticipate this and just as swiftly sent out Gyarados.

Both sides Intimidated each other.

Then, just as Gyarados was about to attack, Torracat interrupted it with Fake Out, followed by a U-turn to swap back into Frogadier, who immediately activated Camouflage.

But Gyarados, sharp-eyed, took advantage of the brief moment before Frogadier vanished to set up Rain Dance.

Frogadier's Taunt was just half a second too slow.

The situation instantly collapsed.

This Gyarados' vision was far sharper than the previous Sudowoodo's—it spotted Frogadier almost effortlessly.

Frogadier couldn't engage Gyarados head-on; the gap was too large. It had no choice but to use Smokescreen to obscure the area and look for an opening to set traps.

But the moment the smoke appeared, Gyarados blew it all away with Twister.

Forced into direct combat, Frogadier fired multiple Ice Beams, but none dealt significant damage—Gyarados' Special Defense was simply too solid.

Meanwhile, the opponent, with ample energy to spare, used Whirlpool to create vortexes that restricted movement and Power Whip to lash wildly across the field.

The battlefield was a mess.

Li Xiang considered switching Torracat back in but hesitated due to the water traps everywhere.

Bounce wasn't an option either.

If Frogadier used it, it would be like a tennis ball tossed into the air—just waiting for Gyarados to smash it back down.

After all, Bounce didn't allow midair repositioning.

The lack of wire mesh around the battlefield also severely limited Frogadier's "Spider-Man" mobility tactics.

Cornered, Frogadier was pushed to the edge of the field. Just as it attempted to use Quick Attack to climb onto Gyarados' back for a desperate strike—

Gyarados unleashed another Twister, blasting Frogadier straight into one of the still-spinning whirlpools.

A Power Whip—so green it was unsettling—came crashing down.

Frogadier had no choice but to go down.

Now, only Torracat remained standing.

At this point, the outcome was already decided. Fighting further would be futile.

But remembering that his goal wasn't the championship prize money but to train himself and his Pokémon—

Li Xiang gritted his teeth and sent Torracat out for one last struggle against Gyarados.

The moment it hit the field, Torracat went all out. Rain or no rain, it Fake Out-stunned Gyarados, then charged recklessly forward, unleashing a suicidal combo of Overheat and Flame Charge right into Gyarados' face!

The extreme heat instantly vaporized the rainwater, creating a thick white mist that shrouded the battlefield. The opponent, seemingly caught off guard by Torracat's kamikaze tactics, repeatedly called for Twister, but there was no response from within the fog.

When the smoke cleared—Gyarados had been knocked out.

Frogadier's earlier attacks hadn't been in vain. Combined with the initial Fake Out, U-turn, and Torracat's all-out Overheat, Gyarados fell.

But Torracat paid the price.

Like Frogadier, it had been caught in one of Gyarados' lingering Whirlpools. Even weakened, the vortex, empowered by the rain, still chipped away at its health.

By the time it faced Duraludon again, it managed to Protect against a Flash Cannon—but failed to dodge a follow-up Draco Meteor, which blasted it into unconsciousness.

Li Xiang was eliminated in the finals, tearfully accepting the 20,000 PokeDollars consolation prize.

Later, when he asked around, he discovered—yet again—that his opponent was from Qingcheng University.

The previous one was a third-year at Qingcheng University, while this one had just gotten accepted — a prodigy from No. 2 High School, ranked within the top ten of his year, and within the top twenty city-wide.

Yuzhou had only three major universities: Yuzhou University, Qingcheng University, and Yongcheng University.

Yuzhou University was naturally the best, but Qingcheng University was no slouch either.

More importantly, Qingcheng University was located at the center of a triangle formed by Qingcheng, Xiangcheng, and Liancheng—effectively serving as a prestigious institution for all three major cities.

It just happened to bear Qingcheng's name.