Chapter 317: The Essence of a Skill
After arranging for Abra and Scizor to train, Xiu looked at the sprouting seeds on the ground. It was obvious that Rinko was doing some experiments with her Gloom and had repeated them many times.
Looking at Gloom again, it was currently accumulating energy through Photosynthesis.
Not long after, Rinko came out of the house holding a notebook. "Here are my notes on the skills. Please take a look."
Xiu took the notebook but corrected her gently, "I am far from being qualified to be someone's teacher, Rinko. There's no need to be so polite in the future."
"Hmm," Rinko murmured, secretly looking at Xiu.
She found that his attention was fully on the notebook, so she then looked at him more openly, waiting for his assessment.
Xiu discovered that Rinko was a person of intelligence and diligence. The ten skills she had analyzed were all Grass-type moves, and her Gloom had a chance to learn most of them.
This showed that she hadn't just picked common, easy skills to try and fool him or take a shortcut. Moreover, the content was detailed, including both information collected from external sources and her own conjectures and thoughts about these skills.
This attitude was very sincere and thoughtful.
"Do you have any specific ideas now about Grass Knot?" Xiu closed the notebook and asked her.
"I've seen other people's descriptions of it in various texts," Rinko replied. "In simple terms, it's using grass or vines that suddenly sprout from the ground to trip the opponent."
"Hmm…" Xiu obviously didn't fully agree with her limited definition, but he didn't say anything immediately and instead changed the subject. "Next, let's verify whether your idea is correct through practical application."
"How do we verify it?" Rinko looked at him, puzzled, obviously not quite understanding his intent.
"Abra and I will demonstrate it for you," Xiu said without explaining much further, and called Abra over.
When Rinko heard this, she was a little confused. Could it be that Abra also knew how to use Grass Knot?
"Come," Xiu shouted to Abra, and then he himself walked towards Abra.
As he did, his feet were soon entangled by a nearly transparent rope of psychic energy, tinged with a blue fluorescent light. However, because Xiu was walking slowly towards Abra, he simply stopped where he was after the psychic "rope" tightened.
"Let go. Try again," Xiu instructed Abra. The psychic rope that had originally bound his feet disappeared, and Xiu walked back to his original spot.
Just after he returned to his starting position, he turned his head and gave Rinko a mischievous smile. Then, he suddenly accelerated and rushed forward towards Abra.
The original distance of dozens of meters was shortened in a very brief amount of time, and Xiu seemed to have crossed the intervening space almost instantly.
Rinko was also frightened by his sudden change in speed and intensity, but this was just the beginning. Even more frightening things were yet to come.
Xiu was about to reach Abra, but suddenly, just as he got close, he was violently sent flying backward, as if struck by an invisible force. He rolled several times on the ground before skidding to a stop.
Rinko didn't see what had happened at all— but when she saw the skid marks on the ground and Xiu lying there, she rushed over, alarmed.
Before she could reach him, Xiu got up by himself, patted the dirt from his clothes, and asked with a smile, as if nothing had happened, "How was it? Did you see anything useful that time?"
"Are you okay?" Rinko did not answer him but walked quickly to his side and carefully checked whether Xiu was injured.
"Don't worry, Abra and I play this game often, and we are good at controlling the force. It's okay!" Xiu stretched his limbs to demonstrate and said to her reassuringly.
It had looked quite dramatic just now, but not only did he have Abra's subtle psychic force field cushioning him, but the few tumbles he took were also a practiced way to dissipate most of the impact force.
So, he was far from being seriously injured. If there had been a real risk of significant injury, he wouldn't dare to play like this. How many lives did he think he had?
Seeing that he was really fine, Rinko was relieved— but she was still a little scared when she thought about what had just happened and couldn't help but remind him, "Don't do this again in the future! What if you get hurt!"
"Don't worry, I won't do anything that I'm not sure of," Xiu waved his hand dismissively. He was quite awkward when faced with other people's direct concern because he often didn't know how to respond appropriately.
"Have you always trained like this in the past?" Rinko asked in confusion after hearing what he had just said about "playing this game often."
After a few days of cramming Pokémon knowledge, she was no longer a novice and had some understanding of how Trainers usually worked with their Pokémon.
When she thought back to the way her parents had trained their Pokémon, she couldn't recall any Trainer who would do something like this, using themselves as a direct target.
"Everyone has their own method, Rinko," Xiu replied. "There is no absolute distinction between what's good and bad, when it comes to training styles.
The best method is ultimately the one that suits you and your Pokémon best." Xiu knew that most ordinary, conventional Trainers would definitely complain or be shocked if they saw his unorthodox methods, so he didn't care much for their opinions.
"You should also develop your own set of training methods in the future. All I can do is to show you the way, offer some different perspectives."
"Yes, I understand," Rinko said, though she still looked a little dubious.
"Let's get back to the topic just now," Xiu said. "What did you see from that demonstration?" Xiu and Abra had worked so hard, not just for a show, but to use an actual situation to teach her what skills truly were.
Rinko stood there in deep thought for a moment, replaying the scene in her mind.
Then she slowly said, "The key is not the specific means used, but the result achieved. And timing, the moment of application, is also very important."
"Yes! You put it very well," Xiu did not hesitate to praise her. "The fact that you can see and articulate it means you already understand the essence of what skills are. There is nothing more I can directly teach you in this regard."
Rinko was confused by Xiu's exaggerated positive reaction. Is this really the reason why Xiu is such a powerful trainer? she wondered.
"You don't believe it?" Xiu knew she was doubting herself when he saw her expression. This problem was easy to solve. "If you don't believe me, tell me what you think now about Grass Knot, and let's see for ourselves if it's true."
Xiu did not directly say whether her initial understanding was right or wrong but chose to illustrate it with actual circumstances and her own reasoning.
"Um… okay," Rinko agreed after just a slight hesitation. "You just did two different demonstrations. The difference between the two was your speed and the measures Abra took, which led to two different effects.
The essence of Grass Knot is to disrupt the opponent's balance and topple them . As long as this effect is achieved, it can effectively be called by that name, or achieve a similar purpose."
"Exactly!" Xiu followed her words to explain the points further. "The skill is not fixed. There are many variations, many ways to achieve a similar outcome.
It's just that the mainstream Trainers now like to follow the well-trodden paths that the older generations have already opened up, often without truly understanding the underlying principles."
Xiu had learned from Director Bao Ba, and later under the guidance of Professor Oak, to understand the fundamental nature of skills.
Based on this understanding, he had developed a series of unique skill applications tailored to Abra's and Scizor's specific characteristics. The same was true for Scizor and Abra so when they took action, it would not be bothered or limited by the so-called "rigidness" of conventional skills at all.
The highest level of skill application was to have a fluid, adaptable application of core principles and elemental energy.
In fact, all Pokémon skills could be simply summarized into a few core concepts: "Attack, Evade/Move, Defend/Endure, and Support/Heal/Status.
These four concepts covered almost every aspect of combat. In other words, as long as a Trainer and their Pokémon truly mastered these four fundamental principles, then they can open up several opportunities to open up a lot of variations for mastery.
Just like Grass Knot: Abra could use its psychic powers to trip an opponent, simulating the effect of the move, and it could indeed be called by that name if one wished— but Abra could also achieve the same result and give it another name, such as "Psychic Trip" or "Telekinetic Pull-Down."
The name was irrelevant; the effect and the understanding behind it were what mattered.