In the midst of the lightning, thunder, and raging winds, trees swayed in the storm, many uprooted by the tempest.
Inside a small mountain cave, barely able to shelter from the wind and rain.
Qing Wu, clad in tattered clothes, sat by the side of the cave.
Qing Wu held a sharpened branch in his left hand and rubbed wood shavings with his right to start a fire.
After much effort, Qing Wu finally produced a spark, which quickly ignited the wood shavings, forming a pea-sized flame.
Qing Wu carefully transferred the flame to a stack of branches.
Layers of dried leaves rested on the branches. The small flame quickly grew into a roaring bonfire, and only then did Qing Wu breathe a sigh of relief.
The flickering bonfire illuminated the young man's face.
Qing Wu watched the weak Aron nestled beside him with a complicated mix of emotions.
Under the flickering firelight, Aron's body glowed with a silvery luster, currently huddled tightly.
Qing Wu's hands, from rubbing to start the fire, had developed several large blisters.
Qing Wu carefully touched the creature before him, as if Aron were a priceless treasure.
Qing Wu's hand slowly caressed Aron's silvery, lustrous back. As he stroked, his eyes welled up with tears, large droplets pooling in his eye sockets.
Drops of crystalline tears continuously overflowed from the young man's eyes, tracing down his gaunt cheeks and landing on the small creature's back, each drop a testament to his guilt.
Caressing the creature's rough back, feeling the familiar and real touch on his hand, the young man choked up.
"I didn't expect to be reborn again." Qing Wu said with a calm expression.
He looked up at the lightning-streaked, thunderous sky, feeling the wild winds raging outside, with only the faint bonfire illuminating the ink-dark world.
Everything felt as if it had happened yesterday. A vast torrent of memories flooded into Qing Wu's mind.
Qing Wu remembered now why the scene before him felt so familiar: this was when he had just arrived at Team Rocket's Trial Island.
Qing Wu was originally a Pokémon Day Care owner in the Hoenn Region. His Day Care faced closure due to mismanagement.
Qing Wu resolutely went with Aron from the Hoenn Region to the Kanto Region, wanting to introduce Pokémon unique to the Kanto Region. Unexpectedly, Qing Wu encountered a Team Rocket ambush upon disembarking and became a trialist captured by Team Rocket.
This island was where Team Rocket trained trialists. Trialists who passed the assessment became official members of Team Rocket.
In his previous life, Qing Wu successfully passed the trialist assessment, joined Team Rocket, and steadily rose through the ranks to become an executive second only to the Four Generals. He was known as Team Rocket's rising star.
If not for the failure of his final infiltration mission with the Aqua Gang, perhaps after completing that mission, Qing Wu would have been elevated to the Fifth General by Leader Giovanni, who would have been overjoyed, becoming a high-ranking member of Team Rocket.
"Where did the information leak?" Qing Wu was still puzzled. His disguise couldn't have had any flaws, and he had lived a secluded life during his mission to avoid any oversights.
"Besides Boss Giovanni and other high-ranking Team Rocket officials, no one knew my true identity." Qing Wu was utterly frustrated.
In fact, he harbored a faint suspicion: that other Team Rocket members had colluded with the Kanto Alliance and leaked his identity. After all, upon completing the mission, he would have been on par with the Four Generals.
Now, the storm grew even fiercer, with a significant amount of rain even drifting into the outer reaches of the cave.
This made Aron, who already disliked rain, huddle even tighter. Qing Wu painstakingly moved himself and Aron deeper into the cave.
Qing Wu lay gasping in the depths of the cave, his left hand occasionally turning the bonfire with a branch to prevent the hard-won fire from being extinguished by the rain.
Qing Wu looked at his hands, covered in calluses from long-term work, and gaunt from prolonged hunger.
His entire hand showed only skin, bone, and protruding veins.
A month of Team Rocket's intensive training had made him endure all the suffering of the world and witness all its evils.
Qing Wu had hidden his already existing Pokémon, Aron. He and Aron had saved and sacrificed, enduring long periods of hunger together to get through those difficult days, and successfully passed Team Rocket's knowledge assessment.
Having passed the knowledge assessment, he had only recently been assigned a Pokémon by Team Rocket for training.
"Archie!!!" Qing Wu gritted his teeth, clenching his hands tightly. Sharp stones dug deeply into his palms.
The sharp stones even cut Qing Wu's palm, and blood dripped onto the cave floor, one drop at a time.
A pool of blood soon formed on the ground.
Just then, Aron, nestled beside Qing Wu, woke up. Smelling the blood emanating from its Trainer, it weakly opened its eyes.
Looking at its injured Trainer, tears seemed to fall from Aron's large eyes.
It lamented its own weakness, its body's frailty, hating that it couldn't protect its Trainer and alleviate its Trainer's worries!!!
Qing Wu felt the small creature beside him stir slightly. He turned his head to find Aron awake, and the gloom in his heart immediately dissipated by more than half.
Aron's awakening instantly pulled Qing Wu from his memories back to reality. He offered a slight smile to Aron.
Aron was Qing Wu's first Pokémon, and the one that accompanied Qing Wu as he grew.
Qing Wu caressed Aron's rough, uneven surface, his heart filled with guilt.
Qing Wu knew this was due to the lack of good ores, which led to Aron's stunted development and malnutrition.
A normal Aron's surface is very smooth, shining with a bright, metallic silver luster.
Qing Wu's Aron, however, was somewhat dull, due to prolonged lack of proper care.
"Aron, it's truly wonderful to see you again!" A heavy weight in Qing Wu's heart finally lifted.
Aron, during Qing Wu's encirclement by the three Elite Four, became Qing Wu's most steadfast shield.
Even when battered and bruised, Aron protected Qing Wu, carving out an escape route for him.
Until the very last moment, Aggron stood in front of him without hesitation, shielding him from wind and rain.
If not for the collaboration between the Aqua Gang and the Alliance, with the Alliance's Elite Four ambushing him beforehand and deploying type-advantaged Pokémon, Qing Wu was confident he could have made a full escape after obtaining the Primal Reversion gems of Groudon and Kyogre.
Qing Wu never expected that after such a difficult battle, he would fall in such circumstances.
Qing Wu, immersed in his memories, didn't notice the patterns of Groudon and Kyogre, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, flashing on the back of his hand.
Before transmigrating to the Pokémon world, Qing Wu, as a modern man, was a seasoned Pokémon expert. He could recite the plots of modern Pokémon comics backward, and even knew the species of the latest Pokémon from the Galar Region.
However, Qing Wu didn't master all Pokémon abilities, after all, this wasn't a Pokémon comic, but a real Pokémon world. However, Qing Wu didn't master all Pokémon abilities, after all, he wasn't an all-rounder.
Trainer cultivation is a crucial means of assisting Pokémon growth. Qing Wu endured many hardships and apprenticed under several cultivation masters to become a seasoned Pokémon cultivation master.
In his previous life, after taking many detours, Qing Wu rose to the challenge and eventually broke through to become an Elite Four.
"Aron, in this life, I will nurture you even more meticulously, helping you break through the Elite Four bottleneck. We will strive together to see higher landscapes and become the kings of this world."
Qing Wu caressed Aron's rough exterior, speaking gently.
"Huga," Aron felt the warmth of Qing Wu's palm and let out a comfortable cry.
"What a pity, I didn't return to the moment I was first captured." Just a little bit off. If he had returned to that moment, Qing Wu would have been 100% confident in escaping Team Rocket's pursuit before being caught.
Qing Wu sighed regretfully. He had returned to the dark moment; he yearned for light.
Qing Wu was captured by Team Rocket immediately upon arriving in the Kanto Region and subjected to brutal training and learning in their dark underground base.
The types of rare Pokémon and various valuable Pokémon items were all knowledge they needed to master.
Only by passing the knowledge assessment would they have a chance to become trialists and enter the next round of assessment. Those who failed the knowledge assessment would be secretly disposed of.
Now, it was Qing Wu's first day at the uninhabited island trial base. Team Rocket had just finished assigning Pokémon.
In Qing Wu's hand was a Poké Ball, containing a ferocious, bloodthirsty Zubat.
Qing Wu started with two Pokémon, which was probably his biggest asset.
Unfortunately, his biggest asset now was one severely injured and one unruly and untamed.
In his previous life, Qing Wu failed to tame Zubat, allowing Zubat to escape.
Team Rocket's initial Pokémon were only a few types: Arbok, Weezing, Muk, Zubat, Geodude, Meowth, and Tentacool.
Team Rocket also had ill intentions. All assigned Pokémon were untamed; they deliberately chose wild Pokémon to assign to trialists.
Unless they were absolutely confident, trialists it's best not to open the Poké Ball.
Often, these Pokémon, the moment they are released from their Poké Balls, would attack their Trainers.
They would use their maximum power to kill their Trainers, thereby defecting to the wild.
In Qing Wu's memory, many trialists entered the next round of trials, about four hundred plus, and only by passing the trial could they become official Team Rocket members.
However, many trialists got stuck at the Pokémon taming stage, and usually less than half of them successfully tamed their Pokémon.
Trialists who failed to tame their Pokémon, even if they survived, would become Team Rocket's lowest-ranking laborers, confined to the Team Rocket base for life.
But more trialists who failed to tame their Pokémon ended up as corpses in the wilderness, their bodies torn apart by powerful wild Pokémon.
Trialists who successfully tamed their Pokémon and survived would be directly assigned to various Team Rocket squads based on their final trial rankings.
The first-place finisher in this trial could obtain a rare, green-colored Pokémon.
The first-place trialist would receive a significant amount of resources from Team Rocket and would be hailed as Team Rocket's favored one.
In his previous life's trial, Qing Wu's Zubat flew away directly, and Aron suffered severe injuries.
Qing Wu did not achieve a good rank, so he lived a very bleak life, lingering at the bottom, until he obtained a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn his life around.
At this moment, Qing Wu looked at the ferocious Zubat in his hand, struggling desperately within its Poké Ball, and a cold gleam flashed in his eyes.
"If only my system for collecting vast amounts of data had come back with me."
Qing Wu sighed. In his previous life, Qing Wu had risen precisely because he obtained a "Golden Finger" system bound to his mind.
This was Qing Wu's biggest secret in his previous life, and the secret to his rapid advancement.
Initially, the system Qing Wu received was a blank template, essentially a white-board system. Its only function was to record and collect Pokémon aptitudes.
Through Qing Wu's efforts, he collected a vast amount of data, transforming the Golden Finger system into a top-tier system capable of Pokémon aptitude detection and Pokémon cultivation analysis.
The system stored massive amounts of data, laying the foundation for Qing Wu to become a top-tier Pokémon breeder.
Through Qing Wu's continuous improvements and enhancements, the Golden Finger system was now a mature system. It contained various Energy Cube recipes developed by Qing Wu and could obtain detailed Pokémon statuses through scanning, automatically configuring matching Energy Cube recipes for Pokémon.
"System initiating." Suddenly, a mechanical voice appeared in Qing Wu's mind. Qing Wu was ecstatic, as if he had heard the sound of nature.
"Indeed, I am blessed by Heaven." In the raging storm, a brilliant smile, mixed with the flickering firelight, rippled across Qing Wu's handsome face.
His most powerful Golden Finger from his previous life had returned.
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