Elf: Start your slow-paced life after becoming a farmer.

"In that case, Saltstone Fortification, use salting!" Karl gave the order without hesitation.

Compared to Poison, Salt not only inflicts the "Salted" status on opponents, but it is also a Rock-type physical attack move.

This means that salting will not be affected by provocation, since the purpose of provocation is to force the opponent to use a move that can cause damage.

Piper frowned at Carl's move, and then immediately used one of the three legendary moves in the Pokémon world, "Quick Dodge".

The moment Pipa finished speaking, the Mastiff Godfather, who was in perfect sync with Pipa, immediately began to run across the battlefield.

However, even though Pipa's command was timely, Salt Rock, who had already mastered the Salt Pickling technique, still managed to block all possible escape routes for the Mastiff Godfather by spraying rock salt with rock-type energy over a wide area.

Just as Carl's face lit up with a triumphant expression, Piper's command rang out again: "Godfather Mastiff, dig a hole!"

Having rehearsed this beforehand, the Mastiff Godfather, upon hearing Pipa's command, immediately dug into the soil at lightning speed and burrowed underground, successfully avoiding the "rain of salt."

Carl smiled knowingly at Piper's little design: "Not bad, but Piper, you're still too young."

Just as Karl was about to command Saltstone to use an earthquake to force the Mastiff Godfather out of the ground, Piper gave the order before Karl could: "Mastiff Godfather, come out of the ground!"

Chapter 268 Final Exam (Part 2)

After hearing Pipa's decisive command to break the Mastiff Godfather's burrowing state, Carl looked at Pipa with a hint of approval.

From just these few instructions from Piper, Carl could see how well Piper had prepared for the final exam.

"Saltstone Fortress, use Stomp." Carl immediately changed tactics, having Saltstone Fortress use Stomp, a lower-level alternative to Earthquake, in an attempt to slow down Mastiff Godfather.

In Carl's mind, the strongest Pokémon in Pippa's current lineup is the Mastiff Godfather, who is currently on the field. Furthermore, Pippa's lineup is severely lacking in special attack output. As long as he seizes the opportunity to perform a power-up or restarts his move cycle, he can still force the Mastiff Godfather out of the field.

As Karl's command fell silent, Saltstone raised its two somewhat clumsy forelimbs and stomped down, sending ground-based energy surging from Saltstone's body into the ground.

With a loud "bang," the ground in front of Yan Shilei surged up like a wave of yellowish-brown water, rushing towards the direction of the Mastiff Godfather.

"Godfather Mastiff, jump up and dodge, then charge toward the Salt Rock!" Pipa shouted loudly to Godfather Mastiff in the middle of the battlefield.

Facing the surging ground-type energy, the Mastiff Godfather's expression remained calm. It first leaped high to dodge the ground-type energy that represented a heavy stomp, then lowered its body slightly, and then rushed towards the direction of the Salt Rock fortress at an extremely fast speed.

Carl frowned upon seeing this. He had not yet figured out the specific intention behind Piper's command. Facing Salt Rock, whose physical defense stat was as high as 100, the Mastiff Godfather's attack was not strong enough to hit it.

Once the Mastiff Godfather and Salt Stone enter a close-quarters tug-of-war phase, Salt Stone can use its self-regeneration to deplete the Mastiff Godfather's stamina.

In a flash, Karl gave Saltstone another command: "Saltstone, headbutt it!"

As the Mastiff Godfather continued to approach Saltstone, a grayish-white light representing Normal-type energy surged from Saltstone's body. Just then, Pipa's command rang out again: "Mastiff Godfather, roar!"

"Um???"

Carl was taken aback when he heard Piper's command, but then he realized what tactics Piper had prepared for the final exam.

As is well known, the Mastiff Godfather has three abilities: Intimidate, Watchdog, and Crouch. Crouch, as a hidden ability, can deal double damage to the opponent when they switch Pokémon.

If the Roar move hits the opponent, the opponent will be forced to leave the field and switch to a backup Pokémon.

Theoretically speaking, as long as the Mastiff Godfather's roar can accurately hit the opponent, then Pipa can use its crouching characteristic to theoretically repeat the "combat skill".

Of course, this tactic is the same as the "substitute defense poison" tactic, and it is very vulnerable to being interrupted by skills such as taunt.

However, there is another variation of this tactic, which is the famous "sprinkling and blowing away" tactic. It also blows away the opponent and makes the next opponent take damage from Mitsubishi.

Just as Salt Rock was hit by Roar and returned to its Poké Ball, Nemo, the referee on the sidelines, pondered for a moment and roughly understood Piper's tactics.

As Karl's most capable lieutenant, Nemo may seem like a hot-blooded idiot at times, but her tactical skills are quite impressive: "What? You actually secretly prepared this tactic behind my back? Pipa, you really make me happy."

Ignoring Nemo's mutterings on the sidelines, Karl immediately began to think about how to break the deadlock. With Saltstone's forced exit from the field, a chubby little purple-skinned guy appeared on the battlefield.

In terms of the types of the Pokémon, Piper's Mastiff Godfather has a slight advantage. As a single Dark type, it has double the resistance to Gengar's Ghost type and is not weak to Poison.

The moment Gengar entered the battle, Piper's eyes lit up, and he immediately gave the command to Mastiff Godfather: "Mastiff Godfather, use Bite on Gengar!"

"Take It All" is a Dark-type physical attack move. Once this move hits the opponent, neither side can switch out their Pokémon until one of them is knocked out.

In the tactics prepared by Piper before the battle, after he used Roar to send Salt Rock out of the field, there were two possibilities: one was to encounter a Tirion, whose type was not advantageous, and the other was to directly encounter Gengar, whose type was advantageous for Mastiff Godfather.

Piper's strategy was that if Godfather encountered the former, he would try to use Roar to force the opponent to retreat until he encountered Gengar and formed an advantageous matchup.

Piper was very lucky today. He used Roar to pull Gengar out of the bench on his first try. He then seized the opportunity to use Tackling Rush to prevent Gengar from rotating and tried to defeat him.

This was the ultimate tactic that Piper had devised after a week of deep thought, a tactic he named "Defeating Gengar is Victory".

Now that the battle has progressed to this point, Carl has finally understood the tactics Piper is using, and as his teacher, he is very satisfied with all of Piper's current tactical arrangements.

So far, Piper is the only student among all the students who has thought of using a skill like "Roar" to force Salt Rock out of the game.

As the teacher in charge of this course, Carl knew very well that Piper was one of the less gifted students in the class.

Carl's statement about "poor talent" refers to Pippa's poor adaptability during battles. However, based on the current assessment results, Pippa is actually among the best-performing students.

From the very beginning of the battle, she provoked and blocked variations of her moves, then used the digging technique to avoid the salt, and just now she used the roaring tactic. All of this shows how much effort Pipa put into passing the final exam.

Of course, this is also partly because Piper knew Carl very well and knew that Carl wouldn't "go easy" on him so easily.

Even if Carl gets angry and sends Bear to push the team, he will still give Pippa a high score after the assessment.

Of course, since Carl had given Piper some extra help beforehand, allowing Piper to know the tactics Carl was using in advance, Carl would deduct some points from Piper as appropriate, but that's a story for another time.

Back to the present, when Piper used the Mastiff Godfather's Tight Bite to force Gengar into a one-on-one Pokémon match with the Mastiff Godfather, Carl immediately responded: "Gengar, use Lick!"

Upon hearing Carl's command, Gengar in the battle arena licked its lips with its large tongue: "Slurp, hehehe! (Understood!)"

Whether it was Piper on the other side of the battlefield or Nemo standing beside the battlefield acting as a referee, their expressions became subtle after seeing Gengar's performance.

Although Nemo and Piper both knew that Karl's Gengar was very, well, lively, was it really okay for it to show such excitement at the mere mention of using its tongue to lick?

The thought of Gengar sticking out its tongue and licking Mastiff Godfather sent chills down Piper's spine. He immediately decided to finish the job quickly: "Mastiff Godfather, use Crunch!"

As Piper gave the command, the Mastiff Godfather on the battlefield immediately began to accumulate Dark-type energy, and launched a counterattack before Gengar's Lickitung could land.

Because the Mastiff Godfather has double the resistance to Ghost-type energy, Gengar's lick did not cause much damage to him.

However, when faced with Gengar's frantic licking, the Mastiff Godfather was somewhat affected. Even though it wasn't paralyzed by the additional effect of the lick, the fact that its entire body was covered in Gengar's sticky saliva (which was actually a liquid formed from Ghost-type energy) made the Mastiff Godfather's movements a bit stiff.

At the same time, the Mastiff Godfather opened its blood-red maw, filled with intense evil energy, and bit down on Gengar.

As Dark-type energy was injected into Gengar's body, Gengar's usual smiling expression disappeared, replaced by an expression contorted with pain.

However, Gengar's training during this period has significantly improved its pain tolerance, and it did not lose its composure due to the pain.

"Gengar, create some distance and use Dazzling Magic!" Seeing that Lick hadn't paralyzed the Mastiff Godfather, Carl immediately changed tactics, trying to use Gengar's high mobility to pull the opponent away.

Upon hearing Carl's command, Gengar immediately broke free from the Mastiff Godfather's mouth using its ethereal body, a feature unique to Ghost-type Pokémon, and then mobilized its internal energy to unleash the Magic Dazzle as instructed by Carl.

Piper smiled wryly at this. Although he had long anticipated that Gengar, having been trained by Carl, would most likely master Fairy-type moves that countered the Mastiff Godfather, he was still surprised by Carl's training ability when faced with this situation.

After all, Piper was present when Carl captured Gengar. Only a few months have passed, and the former "skill whiz" has not only made up for her basics under Carl's training, but has also learned a lot of moves to make up for her shortcomings.

For most Pokémon, learning non-Style moves is a very difficult process, since most Pokémon are not used to generating non-Style energy in their bodies.

'As expected of Karl?' Piper sighed inwardly. He knew very well that he was not a genius. The reason he could still hold his own against Karl was simply because he understood Karl better than others and had put more effort into him.

Even though the base stats of the Mastiff Godfather are higher than those of Gengar, the Gengar trained by Carl has an overwhelming advantage in terms of move pool compared to the Mastiff Godfather.

"Even if I don't defeat my last Pokémon, I still want to show Karl my progress," Piper muttered to himself, his eyes gradually hardening.

As a pink glow, representing the brilliance of magic, appeared on the battlefield, Pipa immediately shouted to the Mastiff Godfather in the arena, "Mastiff Godfather, take it, then use Revenge!"

Revenge, a Dark attribute physical attack move, as the name suggests, allows the user to return the last damage received to the opponent before the move is executed. This is the last trump card that Piper prepared for Carl.

As the magical light fell upon the Mastiff Godfather, he immediately let out a painful groan.

As the magical flash ended, a dense surge of malevolent energy immediately appeared on the surface of the Mastiff Godfather's body, causing his body to swell.

Then, the Mastiff Godfather let out a long howl and started running at an astonishing speed. Its figure became a blur in the battlefield as it rushed towards the direction of Gengar.

The evil energy surrounding the Mastiff Godfather left a black trail in the air. After entering within five meters of Gengar, the Mastiff Godfather leaped forward, charging towards Gengar with unstoppable momentum.

"Gengar, Protect!" Seeing this, Carl gave the Protect command without hesitation.

At the critical moment, Gengar managed to erect a protective barrier just as the Mastiff Godfather touched it. However, the barrier that Gengar hastily erected shattered under the Mastiff Godfather's earth-shattering claw. Then, in full view of everyone, Gengar took the real blow of the Mastiff Godfather's revenge.

As the Mastiff Godfather landed back on the ground, Gengar rolled around a few times before staggering to its feet. It then stared sharply at the Mastiff Godfather, who was also panting heavily, standing not far in front of it.

Piper knew that the next encounter would be crucial in determining the outcome of this round, and his mind began to race, trying to make the right decisions for his next command.

Nemo, who was acting as a temporary referee standing by the battlefield, looked at Pipa, who was standing in the middle of the battlefield with a solemn expression, and a smile involuntarily appeared on her lips.

Don't get me wrong, Nemo was happy because of Pipa's serious expression simply because, as a trainer, she knew very well that Pipa was completely immersed in the battle.

This state of mind belongs only to trainers who truly enjoy Pokémon battles; she is happy that she will be able to add a new "dummy" for the upcoming summer vacation.

In the silence, Carl and Piper simultaneously looked up, gazing at each other across the distance. Then, as if by prior arrangement, they simultaneously issued commands to their Pokémon:

"Gengar, Drain Punch!"

"Godfather of the Mastiffs, an eye for an eye!"

As both sides gave the order simultaneously, the Pokémon on the battlefield also moved at the same time. Due to the difference in speed, Gengar's little fist, which was carrying Fighting-type energy, hit the Mastiff Godfather first.

Due to the power of its drain punch, Gengar absorbed a small amount of energy from Mastiff Godfather's body, restoring some of its strength. Under double the resistance, Mastiff Godfather almost couldn't maintain its energy and collapsed to the ground.

But thinking about Piper's growth over this period, a surge of energy inexplicably welled up within the Mastiff Godfather, allowing it to withstand the attack. With an eye for an eye, Gengar was the first to fall to the ground.

Chapter 269 Miss Champion's Desert Festival Invitation

The battlefield fell silent for a moment as Gengar collapsed. Piper looked at the swaying figure on the battlefield, pursed his lips, and felt an indescribable emotion welling up inside him.

In fact, in Piper's original plan, he had always approached the final exam with the mindset that "not getting a shave" was a victory.

But to his surprise, he actually won the first round by following the pre-planned tactics, and the feeling of victory made his blood boil.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Carl retrieved the fallen Gengar into its Poké Ball. He then glanced at the Mastiff Godfather, who was standing in the middle of the battlefield panting heavily, and finally looked at Pipa, who was bowing his head slightly.

"Hey, Pipa!"

Pipa looked up at Carl upon hearing this, and Carl smiled and said, "Pokémon battles, aren't they interesting?"

Looking at Carl's bright smile, Piper nodded vigorously, his little face already beaming with joy: "Yes, Carl."

“Now I’m going to get a little serious.” Karl pulled out a Poké Ball, a mischievous grin playing on his lips. “This is an Easter egg that only a select few can trigger.”

The moment Carl finished speaking, Piper's heart skipped a beat. Seeing the mischievous grin on Carl's face that he knew all too well, he knew Carl was about to pull another stunt.

The next moment, Carl raised his hand and threw the Poké Ball in his hand. With a flash of white light, Paradox Ancient Species Majestic Fang made its grand entrance!

"No way, Karl, Majestic Tooth isn't on your roster." Piper's hard-won fighting spirit vanished instantly. "That's against the rules!"

“Excuse me, but during the final exam, my rules are the only rules.” Carl spread his hands, speaking as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Besides, Pipa, your performance just now was good enough to get you a high score. Next up is a hidden bonus question.”

"Now that I've already gotten a high score, can I withdraw from the assessment early?" Pipa hadn't given up trying.

"No, there's no such thing as handing in my exam early." Karl's tone rose slightly. "Alright, enough talk, let's continue the battle. Majestic Fang, use close combat!"

……

"Karl, play one last game with me!"

In the main square of Orange Academy, Nemo circled around Karl, chattering and pleading.

“Please allow me to refuse.” Karl glared with dead fish eyes, his tone utterly merciless. “This is your fourth ‘last’ match.”

"This is really, really, really the last one." Nemo blinked her big, watery eyes and looked at Karl with a pleading expression.

"I don't want to. You should go find Shinji instead," Karl tried to shift the blame.

Upon hearing this, Shinji, who was following behind Karl, said expressionlessly, "Reminding" him, "Master, my main force is receiving treatment."

“Nappa, you…”

Before Carl could finish speaking, Pipa interrupted him, "Carl, I only have three Pokémon."

"Hmm... Nemo, how about I help you make an appointment with Teacher Huangbo?" Karl said, stroking his chin as he met Nemo's expectant gaze.

"Oh dear, playing with Teacher Huangbo is nowhere near as fun as playing with you, Brother Karl." Nemo's face showed a conflicted expression upon hearing this. "However, it wouldn't be impossible if Teacher Huangbo were available."

Upon hearing Nemo's last words, Karl promptly took out his phone and sent a message to Huang Bo. Not long after, Huang Bo replied, and Nemo and the other two immediately gathered around.

[Huangbo: Sorry, Mr. Carl, I made plans to go shopping with Lip this afternoon.]

“Sigh—” Karl sighed deeply, “Nemo, as your teacher, I have to criticize you.”

"Hmm?" *3

As soon as Karl said this, Pipa and Shinji both cast curious glances at him, their expressions seeming to say: Karl/Master, let's see what other excuse you can come up with.

"Huh? Why?!" Nemo exclaimed, an incredulous expression on her face. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Your training volume must be quite high, right?" Carl said, putting on a serious face. "While a lot of training can indeed improve you and your Pokémon, maintaining a high training load for a long time will accumulate fatigue. You need to relax appropriately so that your Pokémon won't get tired of training."

"Is that so?" Nemo began to recall her Pokémon's recent training status, and she suddenly realized that her Pokémon's enthusiasm for training seemed to have indeed decreased a lot recently.