3 days passed like this as Eric continued to train in the forest.
A lot of progress has been made in this time. Gastly's energy control improved steadily, both in capacity and density. Each cycle broke his previous limits, making him stronger.
In addition to this, Gastly also learned a new move! Though its creation was somewhat unexpected.
Eric wanted to teach Gastly Shadow Ball, which was one of the strongest ghost type moves. The problem was, he didn't know how the shadow ball worked.
Based on his understanding, it's just a super condensed ball of ghost type energy that a Pokemon uses to attack others. So that's what he made Gastly try to do. And after some practice, Gastly managed to do just that.
It was powerful, but it felt incomplete and nowhere near the strength of a normal shadow ball. If anything, this was just a little stronger than Clear smog. And that was mostly because his Gastly was more talented with ghost type energy and had more progress in it than poison energy.
Eric named this move "Ghost Ball"
From the guide, he did learn that customised moves do exist but are often inferior to standard moves. These moves are much more researched and come naturally to Pokemon, so It is often considered better to increase the mastery of these moves.
Moves are generally classified into 4 levels of mastery.
Basic - Intermediate - Expert - Mastery.
It gets increasingly difficult to improve the moves mastery with each level. Trainers often never reach the completion stage with a move, especially strong moves.
As the mastery of a move improves, you can do a lot more with it and get creative.
Outside of Ghost Ball, Gastly had reached the Basic level in all his other moves.
Clear smog now barely takes a second to form, making it very effective in battles. The corrosiveness of the smog has also improved significantly.
After Clear smog, the moves Gastly trained the most in were Disable and Toxic!
It has now become very difficult to resist disable even for Pokemon with a level higher than him. He managed to successfully use disable on a level 11 Rattata while still being Level 9.
As for toxic, it's strength is dependent on how poisonous Gastly's poison type energy is. Right now it works on most pokemon who are under Level 10. For those at a higher level, it works for a bit before they manage to resist its effects.
[It should also be mentioned that all humans are vaccinated at birth for Pokemon poison(I'll call it just that for simplicities sake). This vaccine was the invention of a genius physician, Edward Jenner. As a result, most humans are fine from the toxins that a poison type Pokemon releases.
Of course, this also depends on the strength of the poison type Pokemon. Incredibly strong pokemon have deadly toxins and can still poison a human. In which case they would need to take an antidote.
A vaccine for Pokémon is yet to be made, however and is still in the research phase with barely any progress.]
Moving on, both confuse ray and hypnosis were a lot faster now, taking 1.5s and 1.7s respectively. Their speed was much better as well, making them a lot more reliable. Hypnosis was still slow and easily avoidable.
Ghost Ball is pretty slow as it takes 2 seconds to charge up. It's not yet usable in high speed fights.
For better understanding, his move mastery can be classified as follows:
Clear smog: Basic++
Disable: Basic+
Toxic: Basic
Confuse Ray: Basic+
Hypnosis: Basic
Ghost Ball: Unrated
His other moves like Lick and Astonish are yet to be trained.
In addition to the improvement in his moves, Gastly has also successfully reached level 10!
This level up was a qualitative leap for Gastly. You can even see the colour of the purple Haze around him go deeper. The bottleneck from level 9 to 10 was very easy for Gastly to cross, thanks to his potential.
Speaking of, the difference in potential was clearly visible after Eric started training Spearow. In the past 3 days he and Spearow have developed a decent relationship.
Unlike Gastly, Spearow needs actual food and can't sustain herself by just absorbing energy. Her training is also different and involves strengthening her body alongside training her flying type energy. Eric bought light weights made for training flying type Pokemon, and had Spearow fly with them on to strengthen her body. She would also use flying type energy to strengthen herself and increase her flight speed.
This was another major difference from the games. Pokemon can use their energies for more than just using moves. They can use them to boost themselves or for increasing defense, creating a coat of energy around them to reduce the damage they take.
Of course, each type of energy works differently. Ghost type energy for example is not good at blocking physical moves, since its nature is not physical and you can pass through it.
Getting back to Spearow, Eric noticed that Spearow is a lot less talented than Gastly. It takes much longer to master moves and her command on energies of her type is much worse than Gastly. She is also having a bit more trouble crossing the bottleneck to level 10.
---
Eric was now more confident in his Pokémon and decided to venture a little deeper into the forest. In just a few minutes, he started encountering more and more wild pokemon. They weren't too strong however, hovering between level 7-10. Gastly and Spearow made quick work of them. It was only after an hour or 2 when Eric stumbled upon a Beedrill colony!
He had learned about Pokémon colonies in the beginner's guide. It's a gathering of Pokemon from the same species to better protect themselves and occupy their own personal territory. Colonies are dangerous as you are attacked by a huge horde of Pokemon if u disrupt them, but also equally rewarding as these Pokemon collect a bunch of useful items for their colony.
The average level of this colony was between 9-13 as far as Eric could see. He was sure that if he went further in he'll encounter stronger Pokemon.
"It's too risky. Beedrill are very territorial and prideful. They don't tolerate anyone attacking their own. But it's also a good training ground. Gastly and Spearow should be strong enough to atleast escape if things go south.
Should he enter or retreat? Eric considered for a bit and soon made his decision.