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[Ascender Ash: Uh—sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I just don't get what glowing food actually does. Does it taste better or something?]
[Chef Ash: No, you've got it backwards. Only when a dish is perfected will it glow. Glowing food is already the tastiest there is. Still, this Chat Group only rates my proudest skill as A-rank; I can't decide whether to be mad or happy.]
He was angry because his world-class cooking was stuck at A, yet happy because if his cuisine was merely A, then it hadn't hit its true ceiling.
The Chat Group holds every parallel-world Ash's abilities—even the opportunities they've gained—so the rewards can get pretty abstract, and every Ash's power can appear.
Powerful talents are rated S, like Viridian Power and Aura, yet some Ashs reach S purely through effort and genius, such as Breeder Ash. If you drew all of his knowledge and breeding skill, it would definitely be worth an S.
Chef Ash's ability is simple: cooking. His dishes come with all kinds of miraculous side-effects.
Healing, stamina recovery, boosted training efficiency, a brief spike in a certain stat, even letting a Pokémon temporarily gain a different typing—all achieved through food.
Since no one had ever drawn his ability before, Chef Ash didn't know where the group ranked it. Now he does.
Glowing dishes are the strongest he can make; if even those are only A, his overall score can't reach S.
The news stings, yet it fires him up—his era's culinary level isn't the ceiling; he can still refine it, make cuisine do even more.
He already stands at his world's gastronomic summit, but not at the absolute pinnacle of the craft. He's young; he can climb higher. Had he not learned today that the peak still lay above, who knows how long he'd have stayed complacent?
[Ascender Ash: So, Chef boss, what does glowing food actually do?]
[Chef Ash: Oh, right, forgot. In short, you push ingredient synergy to the extreme so their effects fuse into something new. Say you blend a speed-boosting Berry with a strength-boosting one into Poké-food—there's a chance a third effect appears while the original two stay and hit their max.]
[Chef Ash: How big the boost is depends on the ingredients; good ones give better buffs. Try it yourself.]
Glowing dishes appear when ingredient utilization peaks. Berries or any Pokémon-beneficial ingredient need top-tier cooking to unlock their hidden potency.
A mighty breeder or chef who extracts sixty percent of an ingredient's effect is already elite.
Chef Ash's skill pushes that to ninety or even a hundred percent. Even he can't hit a perfect hundred every time.
Still, he towers at the world's apex in this field. He guesses that to reach S-rank he'd need a hundred-and-twenty-percent utilization.
How? Long, slow accumulation. Right now, he can't.
After the explanation, Ash understands: the A-rank skill simply makes him cook better, and the food powerfully benefits humans and Pokémon alike.
The draw was worth the three months he'd saved. Future pulls will only get harder, but the group's big shots say that if he keeps improving, theoretical pulls could top a hundred.
He's only drawn about thirty times—so seventy left. He just doesn't know how to earn them. If the vets spelled it out he could speed things up, but they insist discovery is half the fun, and he agrees, so he doesn't dwell on it.
[Ascender Ash: If nothing else, I'll head out, bosses.]
[Champion Ash: Go. Digest what you gained today; you'll leap forward soon. I'm looking forward to the day you walk the path of the Eight Masters.]
Plenty of parallel Ashes exist, but only a handful reach the Eight Masters tier. Champion holds high hopes for the newcomer; so do the others.
Newbie Ash shows potential beyond most parallels. Every Ash in the group stands at his own world's pinnacle in one field—impressive, yet…
They can only peak in that single domain. Expanding elsewhere hits hard limits. Reaching another summit isn't impossible, but the time required rivals what they spent on their first.
Even a lifetime wouldn't let them master every trade. They're complete individuals with their own minds; they won't blindly copy someone else's path. The newcomer is different—he's a blank sheet.
Now, colors splash across that sheet—colors the whole group painted. Coupled with the rookie's absurd luck, he could stand atop every field before he turns thirty.
This might be the only Ash in the entire Chat Group who can stand at the pinnacle of every field and earn the title "all-powerful," and perhaps the only one who could ever challenge Arceus in the future.
Challenging Arceus is still an unreachable goal for both Champion Ash and Ash, the friend of legendary Pokémon; even though their battle strength already tops the world, even though they no longer fear the deified first-tier gods and can defeat them, they still have absolutely no idea how to beat Arceus. Both had once attacked it six-against-one; the outcome was obvious—unable to inflict any damage, they were crushed by Arceus.
Fortunately, Arceus itself is righteous and benevolent, so the two were unharmed; only their confidence took a heavy blow.
To defeat Arceus you must face not only its unmatched Creator-level rank but also its ability to nullify every attribute—summed up in three words: can't win.
Anyone who has ever fought Arceus would probably agree it feels impossible, yet Arceus is not truly invincible. After their battle it left them a single piece of information.
To win, they must first gather eighteen items. What those items are, Arceus did not reveal; they will have to scour every corner of the world to find out.
Right now Champion Ash and Ash, the friend of legendary Pokémon are traveling while searching for those eighteen things. They don't know what they look like, but each item bears Arceus's aura; once they find one, they should be able to identify the other seventeen.
As for when they will find them—that's an unknown; still, they're young and have plenty of time.
They want Newbie Ash to grow up quickly, hoping that with his outrageous luck and terrifying destiny he can locate the prop items faster.
[Ascender Ash: Don't worry, I'll definitely make the Eight Masters preliminaries. This season I'm taking the Champion title—can't let you big shots down!]
Only a year remains until this season's Eight Masters, and apart from outliers like Mewtwo and Gengar, Ash's strongest Pokémon is merely at Gym Peak.
Anyone else would call that bragging, but his parallel-world selves would not.
[Ash, the friend of legendary Pokémon: Hurry up, rookie—we're waiting for you to complete the Arceus-challenge trio!]
Ash never saw that message; he had already left the Chat Group.
Outside, he immediately received the data on the three S-rank abilities. The effect of Breakthrough Limit ② was simple: let Pikachu push past its current ceiling once more.
For now, though, Pikachu couldn't use it; the big shots in the group had warned that only after reaching Elite Four Class could Pikachu fully draw out that power.
The further you push the current First-Cycle limit, the closer you stand to the world's summit later.
So the Breakthrough Limit ② had to stay unused for the moment.
Next was the Sky-Dragon Orb · Guide, which—as the veterans had said—would steer him toward the Green Orb, a chance encounter much like stumbling upon Ralts back then.
Finally came Light of Hope. The single line of information that came with this S-rank reward was: no matter when, never give up hope; the light of hope will guide you to victory.
Reading that explanation, Ash just stared.
He couldn't make sense of it—too abstract, no clue what it actually did, like a pie in the sky you can see but never taste.
And unlike the earlier passive encounter rewards, this one had to be used on a Pokémon, yet he had no idea what effect it would have.
'An S-rank reward can't be trash, right? Let's give it to Pikachu,' he thought, targeting Pikachu with the prize. A flash of light vanished from his mind.
He watched a gleam sink into the sleeping Pikachu; the glow lasted an instant—without his sharp perception he might have missed it.
After the light merged, Pikachu scratched its cheek, rolled over, and kept snoring.
Ash just stared.
Looked like it did absolutely nothing. Whatever—when it's needed, it'll probably kick in.
Judging by the description, it might only trigger in a crisis or dead-end situation, but he wasn't about to rely on something so vague; if he ever faced something even he and Mewtwo couldn't handle, he doubted this so-called light of hope could save them.
Right now both he and Mewtwo wielded God Domain Level power—what could drive beings like them into a corner?
And beat that force with "hope"? Don't be ridiculous.
After sorting the rewards, Ash rolled over and drifted off. Had he used the Eye of Insight on Pikachu right then, he would have seen the species name change:
Species: Pikachu (Miracle Form)
The next morning Misty sat up groggily; beside her, Togepi was still fast asleep. She glanced at the clock—8:30 a.m.
'So late! Get up, Ash, we need to move—if we miss the airship…'
'…we're done for!'
Their plan was to head for the Orange Islands that morning, stop by Professor Oak to pick up a Poké Ball called the GS Ball, then fly from Viridian City straight to Valencia Island in the Orange Archipelago to find someone named Professor Ivy.
The airship departed at 11:20, so they had to leave early.
But when Misty climbed down and looked up, Ash's blanket was already neatly folded.
Ash had left? When? How had she not noticed?