The Lake Acuity was a wide body of water. Although it was inside a cave, there was a large hole at the top of the cavern through which the high sun could be seen.
The temperature inside the cave was extremely cold, yet the lake's surface never froze over under the sunlight.
Ripples appeared on the lake's surface from time to time, indicating that pokémon were active underwater.
"We've arrived. You can go ahead and fish!"
Lorelei pointed toward the Lake Acuity.
"Alright!"
Adrian grinned and quickly took out his fishing gear and bait from his backpack to start setting up.
Glancing at Lorelei standing idly by, Adrian quickly took out his spare fishing gear and asked, "Miss Lorelei, would you like to fish with me?"
"Fishing? No thanks!"
Lorelei shook her head; she had no interest in fishing.
What she was truly interested in was Adrian's Gyarados, but after observing it for a long time last night, she hadn't seen anything unusual about it.
This led her to suspect that Gyarados's special ability might only be triggered during battle.
Feeling a bit bored, Lorelei took Jynx to find a place to sit. She rested her elbows on her knees and propped her chin in her hands, spacing out.
Besides collecting dolls, Lorelei's other hobby was spacing out.
She loved feeling nature and enjoying the sensation of the natural world!
This was remarkably similar to Adrian's hobby of fishing; they were quite compatible.
"Slowpoke, come out and chum the water!"
Before starting to fish, Adrian released his red Slowpoke and warned, "There might be Shellder in this lake. Be careful not to let your tail get bitten."
"Don't worry, I'll use Psychic to scout the underwater situation first. If there's anything unusual, it usually won't escape my perception."
After Slowpoke nodded solemnly, its eyes immediately emitted an eerie blue light, and the Psychic energy within its body seeped into the water to continuously explore the conditions below.
"Eh? There actually is a Shellder underwater."
Slowpoke gave an awkward smile. With a thought, several translucent walls appeared, neatly laid out across the water's surface.
"Is this—Reflect or Light Screen?"
Adrian was stunned for a moment. He quickly opened Slowpoke's attribute panel and found two new moves listed: the Psychic-type skills Reflect and Light Screen.
These two moves had similar effects, both creating magical walls to block damage from opponents. The difference was that Reflect targeted physical damage, while Light Screen targeted special attack damage.
There was no doubt that Slowpoke had learned these new moves from Lorelei's Slowking.
"My Slowpoke!"
Adrian was overjoyed, unable to hide his excitement. "You're a damn genius!"
In just one night, it had learned two more Psychic-type moves.
If it maintained this learning speed, Adrian would only need to stay at Lorelei's place for another ten days or half a month to pluck all the moves from Slowking, wouldn't he?
Translate this for me: what the hell do you call a pleasant surprise!
"It's alright, I guess!"
Slowpoke smiled proudly and sent a Telepathy message: "Senior Slowking said these moves are relatively simple and easy to pick up. Learning the subsequent moves will be much harder and require more time and energy."
"Besides that, Senior specifically warned me. Mastering a move is just the basic entry level. To effectively increase combat power, one must work hard to improve skill proficiency. While increasing the skill's power, one must also shorten the casting time—that is the key!"
Although Slowpoke's voice was childish, its tone and expression were like those of a wise old man as it said solemnly, "I couldn't agree more!"
Adrian laughed and patted Slowpoke's ego, saying, "Alright, chum the water first!"
Slowpoke nodded and immediately dipped its tail into the waters of the Lake Acuity.
A sweet scent was released, spreading continuously with the current. The pokémon underwater caught the scent immediately.
Splash, splash~
The Lake Acuity began to boil with activity!
The strange, sweet fragrance from Slowpoke's tail was attractive to many pokémon.
But when it came to the pokémon most attracted to it, it was undoubtedly the Shellder and Cloyster evolutionary lines.
In the Lake Acuity, a large number of Cloyster and Shellder that caught the scent fell into a frenzy and rushed madly toward the shore.
Among them, the Shellder closest to the shore leaped directly out of the lake.
Unfortunately, it didn't notice the Reflect on the water's surface, slammed into it face-first, and fell back into the water unwillingly.
"~~~," "Thump, thump, thump!"
However, as more and more shells swarmed in, Slowpoke's Reflect finally shattered into pieces under the continuous, violent Tackle.
Fortunately, Adrian had anticipated this situation. He had already recalled Slowpoke into its poké ball and released Gyarados as a deterrent, with Dratini acting as support.
Consequently, the group of shells could only mill around restlessly by the shore, unwilling to leave.
"Chumming successful!"
Adrian grinned, quickly baited his hook, and cast his line.
Besides the nearby Shellder and Cloyster, he also saw other Water-type pokémon further out in the lake.
However, they hadn't fallen into a frenzy, so they just watched from a distance and didn't want to get into a fight with the shells.
Since catching Slowpoke, Adrian had also upgraded his bait. All the other ingredients remained the same, but he added a little bit of Slowpoke's sweet tail-juice.
Although it was only a little bit, for Shellder and Cloyster, it was undoubtedly quite attractive.
So, after the bait hit the water, the shells began to fight over it.
However, in front of the massive Cloyster, the group of Shellder were somewhat outmatched and simply couldn't compete.
Snap!
As the fishing line was pulled taut, making a whistling sound, Adrian quickly pulled the rod.
"Yuoer~"
Dratini stepped forward to help, wrapping its thick tail around the fishing gear and pulling hard.
Splash!
A large, menacing-looking Cloyster was pulled out of the water, followed immediately by the reward notification from his golden finger.
[Caught Cloyster, reward: 1 Rapid Spin TM.]
"Rapid Spin? That's a good move!"
Adrian raised an eyebrow, a look of joy appearing on his face.
Rapid Spin was a mid-to-high-tier Ice-type move with a power of 80 in the games.
But what Adrian valued most was Rapid Spin's secondary effect: it could destroy terrains through its spinning motion.
Terrain moves were special moves no weaker than weather moves, providing a huge boost to the strength of certain pokémon.
Without a way to counter them, it was very easy to be at a disadvantage during a battle.
[Caught Cloyster, reward: 1 Icicle Spear TM.]
[Caught Cloyster, reward: 1 Mud Shot TM.]
[Caught Cloyster, reward: 1 Energy Orb.] * N
[Caught Cloyster, reward: 1 Aqua Ring TM.]
[Caught Cloyster, reward: 1 Blizzard TM.]
Although the Lake Acuity was quite large, the number of Cloyster living in it wasn't many—only about a dozen. It didn't take long for Adrian to catch them all once.
Perhaps because it was an evolved form, the rewards obtained from Cloyster were significantly more generous.
And because Cloyster possessed the Ice type, the rewarded skills were mostly Ice-type moves.
Besides TMs and Energy Orbs, he also got an Iron out of the Cloysters, which was a pleasant surprise.
Afterward, the Shellder began to take the bait, one after another.
Taking advantage of the gap while baiting the hook, Adrian communicated via Telepathy with Slowpoke hiding in its poké ball: "Slowpoke, you take a look at this next batch of Shellder too. If any of them catch your eye, let me know."