Before returning to Primeape's tribe, a couple of Bisharp came to him and told him to follow. He could tell that they meant no harm. They were too proud to harm him with trickery. He was led inside those structures, where he found multiple stones carved with pictures of Pawniard and Bisharp.
It took him some time to realize, but when he heard,
"It is the carving of one of the sword technique that we follow. Even though your friend is not a part of our tribe, it is too embarrassing to see it fight like that. So, I will gift these techniques to you."
'They are king rank Pokemon. How can I forget that they could talk?', thought Axel.
Axel didn't know why they were being so generous, but these techniques were extremely compatible with Pawniard. They were not going to give those sword techniques to him. He had to remember it and teach it to Pawniard.
Axel began to note down the essence of the technique, and after some time, he was done.
"By the way, don't you have a Kingambit in your tribe?", asked Axel.
"We did in the past. The members that you see in our tribe were just a fraction of dust in the past. We were a nightmare rank tribe, but one day we lost, and we also lost our leader…. Let's not talk about it. It is something that I don't wish to remember."
"Oh, okay. I can understand. I have one final question."
"Speak."
"How does a Bisharp become a Kingambit?"
###
Finally, he and the team went out to return.
"You can now wake up. We are already far away.", said Axel. He was carrying Pawniard on his back.
It suddenly opened its eyes and went down. It was still having difficulty moving properly due to the injuries. Axel figured out that this injury might take a month to completely heal.
"Don't move. You need to rest now. Garry, carry Pawniard."
But Pawniard refused to be carried any further. How about its warriror's pride?
"Hey!!! You told me that you will follow everything that I say to the letter. Are you trying to deny that now?"
Pawniard realized that it had said those things. It gave a big sigh and let Garry carry it. It was hard to carry Pawniard because of the swords sticking out of its body.
The journey was uneventful. The Primeapes have decreased their consumption of medicines, and they were struggling to keep it up. Their sleep was disturbed, and it was very irritating. This led them to get angry and fight. Thankfully, Garry took care of them at that time.
"So, tell me. Why is there only one Annihilape in your whole tribe? Is it that hard to evolve into Annihilape?"
He believed that this was the perfect time to ask them the question. They were slowly starting to build trust towards him.
One of the Primeapes started to speak, showing hand signs and body language. After spending some time with them, it was easier for him to know what they were trying to say.
It turned out that it was not hard to evolve into Annihilape. The problem came after that. The major reason for the deaths of Primeape was not due to accident or fighting. It was due to its anger.
Unlike Garry and the Primeapes of this realm that had access to medicine, the Primeapes from the main world mainly died because they could not handle their rage.
When a Primeape evolves to Annihilape, its rage increases, and the power that fuels its body comes from rage. A Primeape in this realm may survive from the medicine that they had discovered, but the medicine had no effect on Annihilape. Unless one could control their rage and manipulate it to their advantage, it was dangerous to evolve into Annihilape.
After listening to their reasons, Axel was happy because Garry had already mastered 'Vital spirit.'
"If you know that mastering 'Vital spirit' is so important, then why didn't any of you try to master it?"
Then he found the real reason why they didn't want to evolve. From what Axel gathered, it was not only about mastering 'Vital Spirit' but also evolving it to the next level.
Only then could one be a perfect Annihilape. Also, the shortcomings of evolving into it were the change of typing. When a Primeape evolves into Annihilape, it also becomes a ghost-type Pokemon, and this was not something that most of them wanted to be.
To be frank, Annihilape did look quite dangerous and scary, but Axel had seen worse. This made Axel ask Garry if it really wanted to evolve. Surprisingly, it did. It wanted to become strong.
"Ok then. When we return, we will talk to the leader and start the process of evolution."
It was really hard for him to talk to anyone here because even though they were king rank Pokemon, they didn't know human language because there were no humans here.
Wait!!!
If that was the case, then how could those Bisharp talk in human language?
Axel had never thought about it before. He knew something was wrong with that tribe. Should he go back and ask them? Even if he did, they probably won't give an appropriate answer.
"Sigh, Pawniard, you will have to win. You will have to win against that tribe and become its leader. Can you do it?", said Axel.
His knee bent as he looked down at Pawniard. A flash of determination could be seen on Pawniard's face. After its defeat, it started to question everything that was happening in its life. There was a sense of doubt in its confidence.
But when Axel said those words, those doubts turned into confidence. It might be weak right now, but it promised itself and to Axel that it would win against all of them and become the Kingambit of that tribe.
###
The next day, they reached the tribe. It looked like all of Axel's Pokemon were eagerly waiting for his return. When they saw the bandaged Pawniard, all of them came to ask what had happened.
Pawniard puffed its chest and said,… "Pawni.. PAWNIARD!!!"
Koffing had just been enjoying all the garbage and trash that the merchant had brought, but when it heard that Pawniard had lost the battle, its face was full of disbelief.
Koffing had never won against Pawniard, and it believed that Pawniard was the strongest common rank Pokémon. But now it had lost.
Staraptor also made an angry face, but it didn't say anything to Pawniard right now.
"Okay, it is not a big deal. We lose and we learn. I will be strictly training Pawniard from now on. It had said that it would win against that tribe in the future…"
Axel gave a small speech, and then everyone went their own way.
"Togekiss, can you help me talk to the leader. I want to ask you something.", said Axel.
He could clearly see the annoyed face of Togekiss. It was losing time translating and being in useless meetings.
"Oh, come on. I promise that after making training plans for others, I will only concentrate on your growth for 2 months. I will make sure that you will reach the king rank by that time."
Togekiss didn't believe that it would reach king rank in 2 months, but it agreed to help Axel in this meeting.
###
'So, Mr. Axel, what do you want to talk about?'
Togekiss was just translating what the leader was saying in Axel's mind. After a few conversations, it looked like the leader could finally understand human language, but it still could not speak it.
"I want to ask about the ranks of a tribe. Is there such a thing? And how powerful is a nightmare rank tribe?"
Just when he spoke about the nightmare rank tribe, the leader gasped. Its hand trembled as it stepped back involuntarily. Axel was amazed by seeing such a drastic expression from Gorn.
'Did you meet a nightmare rank tribe on the journey? Are they near?'
"No, I didn't. I just heard about it and wanted to ask you."
Hearing the answer, the leader visibly relaxed and took deep breaths.
I would appreciate it if you could tell me the full story from the beginning. I nearly had a heart attack.'
"Okay, now can you tell me about this nightmare rank tribe?"
Every tribe is ranked based on its fighting capabilities and the resources that it holds. The ranking starts from common rank, uncommon rank, and goes to epic rank and then legendary rank.
Finally, there are nightmare rank and hell rank.
For a tribe to be a nightmare rank, it must at least have one god rank Pokémon with it. That's why I was so scared.'
"Really? What is the requirement for a hell rank tribe?"
'A hell rank tribe is the overlord of a certain region or a place. Like this competition, which is held once every 2 years, it is done by the hell rank tribe. They control our tribe in certain ways.'
"What rank of tribe are we?"
'We have two king rank Pokemon, so we are an uncommon rank tribe.'
"Really? That low. How do we increase the rank of the tribe? Besides, what is the use of these ranks? I just don't get it."
Except for flexing their ranks, what was the use of these ranks? Axel had no idea.
'Oh, there are a lot of uses for having good tribe ranks. Before, let me tell you how to increase the rank of a tribe. It could only be done by the hell rank tribe, and for us, it is done every 2 years after the competition is over.
Also, there are many uses of having a good rank. The first is resources. The higher the rank, the more resources you can have. For example, if my tribe were a legendary rank tribe, the tribe around me would submit to me, and I would get a portion of their resources. Other tribes of my own species may also want to merge with my tribe.
But the most important benefit is during wars.'
"Wars? There are wars here?"
Since this was a fairy realm, he believed that it was a peaceful place. But there were wars here.
'It doesn't happen always, but when it does, having a good rank will help you a lot. The war could only happen between two god rank tribes. At that time, if our tribe had a higher rank, we would get to command lower-ranked tribes and also get more resources.
I always wanted to raise the rank of our tribe to legendary rank. But sigh, I am already near my deathbed.'
"Why only legendary rank, why on hell rank?"
'Are you crazy? Do you think that raising the rank of the tribe to hell rank is so easy?'
Axel had learned a lot of things. He was quite fascinated by the new things that went on in this realm. New world, new ranks of tribes, hell rank tribe. He knew that his time in this realm would be limited but one day, he wanted to meet the leader of a god rank tribe.
---
A/N: There are more than 60+ advanced chapters in pa-treon along with two new side stories of the novel. If you are interested in reading more and getting ahead in the story, subscribe to my pa-treon channel.
https://www.--patreon.com/c/TheSilverPrince1
delete the '--' after 'www.'