On the fourteenth day of survival on the desert island, Ryan woke up.
The day's plan began with morning exercise. "Poliwag, get up and start running…"
Magikarp was placed in a bucket, happily blowing bubbles while watching Ryan and Poliwag do their morning exercises.
After running and exercising with Poliwag for two hours, Ryan took a short rest before sending Poliwag to the water source to change the bucket.
With the buckets filled overnight, he no longer carried half-full buckets. This time, he transported them all back to the shelter in one go and stored them next to the treehouse.
Three buckets of fresh water were now stored beside the treehouse, and the remaining buckets were in the temporary shelter. There were more than twenty empty buckets buried in the sand, waiting for the next rain.
On his way back from changing the buckets, Ryan spotted a Caterpie and caught it.
Its potential remained the same, only 27%, and it couldn't inherit any moves.
Back at the temporary shelter, there was no rush to cook. It was still early, and by looking at the sun that peeked out occasionally, he could tell it wasn't noon yet.
"Poliwag, come here," Ryan called as he placed the bucket down and sat in the shade of the tree to rest.
"Yo?" Poliwag was about to return to the bucket to play with Magikarp but was called back by Ryan, so it ran back to him.
[Poliwag]
[Type: Water]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 31.01%]
[Level: 9.71%]
[Ability: Damp / 0.83%] [Hidden Ability: Swift Swim/ 1.53%]
[Mastered Moves: (Heart's eye / 0.21%) (Ice Ball / 0.31%) (Refresh / 1.01%) (Bubble / 1.31%) (Hypnosis / 0.82%) (Double Slap / 4.72%) (Pound / 0.91%) (Water Gun / 6.61%) (Water Sport / 2.51%)]
During this time, Poliwag defeated Spearow, three Caterpies, and some smaller creatures.
None of the other Pokémon matched Poliwag's strength, but its experience points still increased by 0.7, and it was nearing level ten, one step closer to evolving.
Its abilities hadn't changed much since no specific training had been done yet. Ryan would wait until the right conditions were met in the future.
The "Water sport" ability only improved slightly, by two or three decimal points.
This probably had to do with Poliwag's favorite pastime during this period—soaking in the bucket and playing with water.
Just from playing in water, its body swelled slightly while lying down.
The ability had a similar effect to "Damp"—wetting the area around the body, increasing environmental humidity, and preventing moves like Self-Destruct, while also halving the power of Fire-type moves.
It was likely the move proficiency was feeding back into the "Damp" ability.
Next, Double Slap and Water Gun increased by a little over 0.5 each. Double Slap improved by 0.1 more than Water Gun.
These were the two moves used the most during this period.
Hypnosis was only used once, against the Caterpie.
Its form was 100% damaged, likely due to being too eager to eat and getting burned.
According to the previous training plan, leveling up and Water Gun proficiency were the top priorities, followed by Hypnosis and Double Slap, with Refresh and Ice Ball last.
Experience points and Water Gun proficiency were increasing steadily.
Poliwag didn't like using Hypnosis, and its progress was slow.
It used Double Slap often, so that was leveling up quickly.
Refresh and Ice Ball were less relevant for now. Refresh could only be used when injured, and Ice Ball wasn't a native move for Poliwag—it was too early for that.
Since Poliwag wasn't keen on Hypnosis, they could focus on the other moves first.
As its level increased and it evolved, the focus would be on Water Gun and Double Slap, bringing a fresh new form.
Hypnosis and Ice Ball could take a back seat for now.
Using Water Gun required being near a water source so Poliwag could replenish itself, improving efficiency while training.
As for Double Slap...
Ryan had an idea for how to train Double Slap. He told Poliwag to wait and immediately went off to gather materials.
He collected some wooden sticks, foam balls, and rope...
After gathering the items, Ryan pushed a wooden stick through a foam ball, then stuck the stick into the ground to create a practice target. Poliwag could practice by hitting the foam ball with its tail to train its Double Slap move.
Double Slap is a move that can hit 2 to 5 times in a row. All Poliwag had to do was practice the consistency of its slaps, stabilizing the number of slaps at five, or even more.
Power and speed would gradually increase with more practice.
In addition to the practice target, Ryan also found some floating balls on the beach. There were so many of them that he hadn't realized their usefulness until now.
He tied the floating ball to a branch using the rope and pushed it to make it swing.
After hitting the floating ball with Water Gun, it would swing. Poliwag's task was to hit the swinging ball again with another Water Gun.
At first, it only needed to attack one ball. Once Poliwag became proficient, it could target two, three, or four floating balls at the same time…
Gradually increasing Water Gun proficiency, and as more floating balls were added, they'd start colliding, adding complexity to the challenge.
This would exercise Poliwag's speed, accuracy, power, stamina, and reaction time with Water Gun.
If the floating balls were missed due to slow speed, it wouldn't just be inaccurate—it would also throw off its predictions.
If the Water Gun was too strong, it would break the floating ball. While power isn't bad, Poliwag needed to learn to control it for the sake of conserving energy.
If the power of the Water Gun couldn't be controlled properly, energy would be wasted.
Not every situation called for a full-strength Water Gun.
If stamina wasn't saved, when it was truly needed, Poliwag could run out and lose.
When the floating balls collided, the difficulty increased, testing Poliwag's reaction speed.
Only by mastering speed and aim could it quickly react to the irregular movements and successfully hit the swinging balls.
If this skill could be mastered, as long as Poliwag could see the object and its direction, with enough range, it could hit any target.
Power would then be a matter of rhythm. A stable rhythm would bring control to the Water Gun's power.