Chapter 752 - Intermediate Psychic and Space Cutting

As the number of battles continued to increase, the psychic powers within Aoki's body gradually surged like boiling water.

Only Slowking, standing beside Aoki, could slightly sense the abnormality within him. The rest of his Pokémon were in an excited battle state, growing increasingly carried away.

Aoki's wrist began to heat up, though he didn't notice it at first. In this way, he led his team of Pokémon straight toward the Lake. Every wild Pokémon they encountered along the way was swiftly defeated by Swampert. Eventually, weaker Pokémon didn't even dare to appear on the path ahead of Aoki and his team.

Slowly, the distinct characters of the Unown began to form in Aoki's mind, piecing together into a larger pattern. Upon closer inspection, this pattern resembled an exclamation mark!

Click!

Suddenly, Aoki stopped in his tracks, and his Pokémon snapped out of their strange battle frenzy. A wave of exhaustion washed over them—like the fatigue one feels after sprinting, where the exertion only hits once they stop.

But Aoki had no time to tend to them. Without realizing it, his psychic energy had surged to the limit of a novice psychic's psychic capacity. The click he heard was like a warning, snapping him out of his previous state. It was as if his body's self-preservation instincts had kicked in—if he had continued charging forward, his psychic power would have kept intensifying beyond what his body could contain. The result would have been catastrophic, like a balloon overfilled with air until it burst.

So Aoki halted immediately, closing his eyes to regulate the psychic energy coursing through him. He didn't have time to question why his powers had grown so rapidly—his priority now was breaking through to the intermediate psychic level.

Slowking was the first to react, sensing the unstable surge in Aoki's energy.

"Yah don!" it called out, rallying the rest of the team to stand guard around Aoki. This was a critical moment—he couldn't afford any outside interference.

Boom!

A dull thud reverberated within Aoki's body. He let out a pained grunt, feeling as though his head had split open. His consciousness seemed to detach, his entire being light as air, floating without restraint. Psychic energy swirled around him, lifting both him and Slowking off the ground.

With his eyes still closed, Aoki suddenly raised his hand and slashed downward through the air. His psychic energy condensed into a sharp edge, slicing through space itself—a small rift formed, revealing a glimpse of the Distortion World beyond.

Aoki slowly opened his eyes, observing the psychic energy he had just unleashed. It felt like an innate ability, as natural as breathing.

Gently descending back to the ground, Aoki scanned his surroundings. His vision was sharper now—the colors of the forest more vibrant, the details more pronounced.

"Is this... the power of an intermediate psychic?" he murmured, staring at his hands.

Then he noticed the three Unown symbols on his wrist. They had dimmed significantly, no longer as dark as before.

Closing his eyes again, Aoki focused on the psychic energy within him. Channeling it into his right hand, he swung it horizontally toward a nearby tree.

A small spatial distortion appeared—not as large as the initial rift, but enough to warp reality. Half a second later, the tree's trunk split cleanly, the upper half crashing to the ground.

"Much smoother than using a blade," Aoki remarked, examining the fallen tree.

Slowking stared at him in disbelief.

Was he really comparing psychic spatial manipulation to a knife?

That was Spatial Rend—a rare and advanced psychic technique.

Aoki recognized the ability from Sabrina's training manuals. Not every psychic could master it—it required an inherent spatial affinity. Some advanced psychics never managed it, no matter how strong their powers were.

Yet Aoki had instinctively used it upon reaching the intermediate level.

"Did teleporting with Slowking so often awaken this talent?" he wondered.

Or perhaps it was the Unown's influence.

He recalled the Unown script forming in his mind during his breakthrough, culminating in that massive exclamation mark. Now, the three Unown symbols on his wrist had faded.

When they used Secret Power to access alternate dimensions, they were manipulating space—was that why he had this affinity?

Still, Spatial Rend was powerful but costly. That single slash had drained a quarter of his psychic energy.

"Becoming an intermediate psychic... clearer thoughts, sharper senses, but not as overwhelming as I expected," Aoki mused, assessing his new limits.

In truth, Sabrina had skewed his expectations. She was an advanced psychic, but her strength far surpassed others at that level.

At the very least, Aoki could now sustain telepathic commands in battle for much longer—directing six Pokémon in a full-hour team battle was now feasible.

And Spatial Rend gave him a new trump card. No longer was he defenseless—ordinary humans wouldn't stand a chance against him, and even weaker Pokémon might fall to a single strike.

Seeing Aoki recover, his team finally relaxed, slumping to the ground in exhaustion. Only then did Aoki realize their condition.

He checked the time—evening already.

They had been fighting nonstop since morning, maintaining peak efficiency without even stopping for lunch.

Had they all been swept up in that strange state alongside him?