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By evening, the temple fair officially began. Ash, following local customs, changed into a blue kimono. Of course, the attire for a temple fair had to be a kimono!
However, Brock said he was too old to participate in such a festival and remained in his hiking clothes. But Misty also changed into a kimono.
Yet, when Ash saw Misty in her kimono, he couldn't help but stare in a daze.
Misty's kimono was exquisite. Its soft colors and delicate patterns seemed to embody a spring cherry blossom garden.
Her wide sleeves swayed gently with every movement, light and elegant like butterfly wings. The kimono's collar was slightly open, revealing her long, graceful neck, with lines as smooth and elegant as a beautiful painting.
Her hair was down, orange strands reaching her shoulders, adding a touch of softness and gentleness to her appearance.
She walked lightly on the stone path in wooden clogs, the hem of her kimono swaying gently with her steps.
When Misty didn't speak, Ash almost thought she was a Pokémon from some secluded paradise!
"Hey~ staring, aren't you, Ash!"
Misty, still light-footed in her clogs, reached Ash in a few steps, waving her fair, delicate hand in front of his face.
"No, it's just my first time seeing you in such clothes. You do look very pretty. If you didn't speak, you'd actually have the aura of a Yamato Nadeshiko."
"I'll give you one more chance to rephrase that! Can't you speak properly! Praise me if you're going to praise me, but you just had to add two lines to insult me!"
Misty rolled her eyes exasperatedly, but seeing that Ash had complimented her beauty, she didn't bother to argue with him further.
"Let's go, let's dance."
"Dance? I don't know how!"
"You're so strong, your coordination must be great. If you don't know how, I'll teach you."
Misty said, pulling Ash's hand and walking towards the square. Pikachu silently climbed onto Brock's back, watching the two gradually disappear.
"This is youth, Pikachu."
"Pika Pika~"
In the square, Ash clumsily followed Misty's instructions, dancing with her. Just then, fireworks bloomed like stars, their colorful light illuminating the entire sky!
The bursting fireworks were like countless meteors streaking across the sky, instantly lighting up the darkness!
Under the light, the two looked at each other, their heartbeats quickening a few beats... Time flew by, and a week passed in the blink of an eye. After the temple fair ended, Ash and the others continued their journey to Saffron City.
With the Millennial Gastly, Ash now had the capital to challenge the Saffron Gym.
The Millennial Gastly was slowly getting familiar with various combat methods at Oak's Laboratory, and his sparring partners... were Oak's Pokémon!
The Gastly, who originally thought he was at least hard to match, if not invincible, after coming to the human world, was so battered this week that he began to doubt his life. What kind of Trainer had he found? How could an old man guarding the backyard have such terrifying Pokémon?
The Dragonite he faced beat him like a dog!
That was definitely a Champion-level Pokémon, and not one that had just entered the Champion rank... This world truly had hidden talents. Even a random old man watching the house had Champion-level Pokémon, and a young man encountered on the road could tear apart his Elite-level Ghost-type Pokémon.
This is truly ridiculous!
However, it was precisely this high-pressure training that allowed Gastly to gradually rediscover his fighting sense. After a week of training, his combat level was significantly stronger than before.
And Ash's Pokémon also saw considerable improvement.
Pidgeotto had already reached the peak of its advancement, progressing very quickly, but evolving into Pidgeot still seemed a long way off... Only after evolving into Pidgeot could Ash have a flying mount.
Then there were the Royal Three Families; Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander all showed varying degrees of improvement.
Bulbasaur reached the intermediate advancement stage, while Squirtle was at the ordinary peak. After all, Squirtle joined the team a bit late, and was only at the ordinary intermediate stage when he joined. To reach the ordinary peak now was enough to show Squirtle's extraordinary aptitude.
There were also various Pokémon nurturing guides provided by many great figures.
Although Ash's money was not as much as those born with a silver spoon, like a certain spiky-haired individual.
But in other aspects, he could almost be described as cheating.
Besides Bulbasaur and Squirtle, Charmander's improvement was truly significant; he had already reached the advanced advancement stage, surpassing Bulbasaur!
The reason for this terrifying improvement was that he... evolved!
Now Charmander was no longer Charmander, but Charmeleon!
This was the third Pokémon in Ash's team to evolve. The first was Caterpie, the second was Ralts, and then Charmander.
When a Pokémon evolves, its life energy experiences a leap in growth. In addition to improvements in various species abilities, its own level also has a high probability of increasing.
That's why Charmander was able to surpass Bulbasaur in one fell swoop.
Actually, Bulbasaur should have reached the point of evolution by now, but for some unknown reason, Bulbasaur showed no signs of evolving.
Ash asked the experts in the group about this strange phenomenon, and the grass-type specialist in the group gave Ash the answer—Bulbasaur might not want to evolve.
Its current level was definitely already at the point where it could evolve. The reason it hadn't evolved was simply because it didn't want to.
Some Pokémon are unwilling to evolve, perhaps because they think the evolved form is ugly, or perhaps to prove that they can become stronger without evolving, like Pikachu, who is a typical example of unwillingness to evolve.
He only wanted to maintain his Pikachu form. Bulbasaur might have the same idea as Pikachu.
But Pikachu has a partner form that can boost its combat power, while Bulbasaur doesn't have such a form... If he doesn't evolve, it will greatly affect his future combat power.
However, Ash also respected the Pokémon's choice. If Bulbasaur didn't want to evolve, then so be it. There's no saying that not evolving means you can't become strong or stand at the pinnacle.
After the Royal Three Families, there was Kirlia. Having just evolved to the intermediate advancement stage, after seven days of settling, her level also reached the advanced advancement stage, and she was about to level up again.
This leveling speed still made her the undisputed leader of the team.
Pikachu simply upgraded to the Superior advanced stage without much fanfare.
Teacher Pikachu's improvement speed wasn't fast, but he had a terrifying characteristic: he seemed to never encounter bottlenecks.
Over the past month or so, Pikachu had never been stuck at a level. Although his leveling wasn't fast enough, it was steady enough, making progress every day.
Coupled with Pikachu's fixed ability values upon leveling up... his improvement could only be described as outrageous. Ash even wondered if his Pikachu could contend with an Elite before the Indigo League?
That kind of thing was still too far away. Currently, Pikachu could at most try to challenge a Gym, but challenging an Elite was still too ambitious.
Finally, there was Riolu. After a week of treatment, Riolu's condition had significantly improved, and all his aptitudes had recovered to B-rank. He could actually begin some basic training now.
However, to fully recover from his internal defects as quickly as possible, it was best not to do anything that would strain his body. Therefore, Riolu was still at the beginner novice level, but once he fully recovered, he should experience a leap in improvement, just like Ralts.
Besides Ash, Misty and Brock's Pokémon were also steadily improving, but their training and battles weren't as intense as Ash's, so compared to the improvement of Ash's Pokémon, there's not much to mention.
Additionally, Ash and his companions encountered a group of Butterfree migrating south on their journey.
Ash wasn't particularly interested in the Butterfree migration. Southern migration is usually for reproductive prosperity, but, seeing so many Weedle and Caterpie in Viridian Forest, it was clear that Butterfree didn't necessarily need to migrate south to reproduce.
Moreover, his Butterfree was still with Oak, so it was even less likely that he would bring his Butterfree over to let it migrate south.
Besides, that was a Pokémon he had painstakingly raised, well-fed and well-cared for in the backyard, with a beautiful environment. Why would it run off to suffer in the south? To suffer needlessly, is that it!
So, migration was out of the question.
But Brock mentioned that it seemed to be the season for Butterfree to mate and reproduce, so Ash found a nearby Pokémon Center, had his Butterfree teleported back, and let it see if there was a partner it liked.
In the end, Butterfree did fall for a pink Butterfree. Its color, different from ordinary Butterfree, was sought after by many other Butterfree.
But under Ash's carefully nurtured Butterfree, the other Butterfree were no match. Finally, with the help of Team Rockets, Butterfree successfully won over his beloved.
After winning his beloved, they migrated south together?
As I said, southern migration was out of the question. Ash simply caught the pink Butterfree as well, then sent them both back to Oak's Laboratory to continue their romance.
Oak's Laboratory also had an environment suitable for Butterfree to live and reproduce, much better than migrating south.
Ash was also very emotional. Starting as a Caterpie becoming his Pokémon, it now had its own home, and only a little over a month had passed!
Some Pokémon find partners in a month, while some people are still single after twenty years... Yes, I'm talking about you, Brock!
Stimulated by Butterfree, Brock's craving for older sisters became even more severe... On the eighth day, Ash and the others finally entered Saffron City.
Saffron City is a large city in Kanto, and can even be said to be one of Kanto's city centers!
The two most prosperous cities in Kanto are Saffron City and Celadon City.
Celadon City has the largest department store in all of Kanto, plus all sorts of goods for sale, making it the city with the most trade.
Saffron City also has a considerable number of large shopping malls, but more than malls, it has many large corporations. Among them, Kanto's largest Silph Co. is also in Saffron City. The Poké Ball, for example, is one of the items created by Silph Co.
And the Saffron Gym is also one of the strongest Gyms in all of Kanto. Its Gym Leader, Sabrina, is a Psychic, and an extremely terrifying Psychic!
Sabrina became a Gym Leader only in the last two years. It is said that she is only sixteen years old this year, yet she already possesses the strength of an Elite Trainer.
The strength here has a double meaning: one meaning is that Sabrina has Elite-level Pokémon, and another meaning is... Sabrina herself also has Elite-level Psychic abilities!
"...To be honest, I don't recommend you challenge Sabrina, because people who fail to challenge Sabrina are said to suffer very painful experiences, and many challengers have developed psychological trauma."
"The Saffron Gym may not be the strongest Gym in Kanto, but it is definitely the most terrifying Gym in Kanto, bar none."
Joy at the Pokémon Center cautioned Ash and his two companions.
Upon arriving in Saffron City, the three immediately went to the Pokémon Center. After all, after all the training and battles along the way, the Pokémon were quite exhausted, so they naturally needed to recover at the Pokémon Center.
While recovering, they also inquired about information from Joy, and then learned about Sabrina's reputation and Joy's warning.
No matter how strong other Gyms were, at least failing only dealt a blow to one's self-confidence. But the Saffron Gym was different; failing there could have very serious consequences.
This was also why the number of challengers to the Saffron Gym had been decreasing in recent years.
The Alliance had issued some warnings about this, but they were all ignored by Gym Leader Sabrina.
Some people from the Alliance even personally sought her out, and in the end, no one knew what happened, but the Saffron Gym remained unharmed, and the Alliance no longer paid attention to it.
It just marked the Saffron Gym as dangerous, advising people to challenge it less often.
Actually, challenging the Saffron Gym wouldn't result in a life-threatening situation, but it would cause significant psychological trauma.
After learning the specific information about the Saffron Gym, Misty was a bit hesitant. This Gym was even more terrifying than she had understood!
As a fellow Gym Leader, she knew very little about the Saffron Gym, only that it was very powerful. She hadn't expected it to be so terrifying.
Brock knew a bit more, but he also didn't know that the Saffron Gym had such rumors.
Only Oak knew the Saffron Gym inside and out, so he had been trying to persuade Ash not to come to the Saffron Gym. But Ash was still determined to come, so Oak could only suggest that Ash first gather information at the Pokémon Center in Saffron City before challenging.
After all, Ash did have an Elite-level Gastly, which could at least somewhat contend with Sabrina.
Actually, the reason Oak finally gave up trying to dissuade Ash from challenging the Saffron Gym was that he learned from Gastly how Ash had captured him.
Originally, he was still wondering how Ash, with his Pokémon, managed to capture an Elite-level Gastly. The result... well, this guy turned out to be a humanoid Pokémon!!!
Guess how Trainers in ancient times captured Pokémon when they didn't have Poké Balls and couldn't use Pokémon to tame Pokémon?
Ash now was essentially using ancient methods to capture Gastly.
Oak didn't know where Ash's superhuman strength came from, but he knew Ash was still Ash, and that was enough. Moreover, this Ash increasingly aligned with the Ash he remembered.
After confirming that Ash had the ability to protect himself, Oak relaxed and let Ash challenge the Saffron Gym. Even if he couldn't win, with Ash's strength, couldn't he still escape?