It wasn't a lot but the fact it had happened that much was plain weird in my opinion. Still after a few hours on the ocean and a couple of stupid water types that met rune in a less than healthy manner and we arrived at Dewford once again. "I'll be staying the night at the training grounds , what about you two?" I asked Mr. Briney as he moved the ship next to the dock. "Not to worry lad! me and Peeko will just head on back to the old homestead till it's time to come find you tomorrow after your challenge. Best of luck with that by the way." he said with a grin.-

I nodded since I wasn't all that surprised about it to be honest as while the old man didn't seem like a hermit by any means he also wasn't the sort to enjoy staying in a city either. Dewford might be an odd city architecturally speaking but it was none the less still a city. So with that I parted with Mr. Briney and walked into the city casually. "YO Alex!" I heard a voice call out and turning to look I was surprised to see that it was Brawly himself.-

The man had a wetsuit and was carrying a surf board under his arm while his blue hair was dripping wet. "Shouldn't you be busy with challenges at the moment?" I asked genuinely confused to see the guy in what I can only assume is sports wear. I am not judging him for what he does in his free time but I was very confused how he even had the free time for this. 'I suppose it is possible that he is done with all of his challenges for the day if there are none scheduled past a certain point.' I thought before Brawly cheerfully stomped on that idea.-

"Nah dude I took today off so I was in my best state for our battle tomorrow!" he said with a excited smile. I was left speechless at this answer and how casual he was about it. I mean it makes sense that the gym leaders could take days off if they wanted to during the season but for some reason I had never thought any ACTUALY did that. Anyways I recovered from that mental shock a moment later and chuckled awkwardly "I am glad you are so eager ... I think?" I said not sure if i should be happy about this or not.-

"Indeed! As like the waves of a storm against the rocks so too will we crash together in a display of ferocity like no other!" He said all smiles. "Right , well i'm off to the training grounds to set up camp for the night so I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." I say while trying to be friendly. I wanted to get some distance between me and this dude as his whole personality made me uncomfortable , much too chipper for my tastes.-

I'm not saying he was a bad guy or anything like that but merely that his personality and my own heavily clash and it makes me tempted to punch him. I have enough self control to not do that but you can understand my reluctance to remain anywhere near him. "Alright bro you do you and I'ma go grab me some more waves!" Brawly said before eagerly jogging back off to the beach. 'Well i've got a few hours before the sun goes down so why not see what sort of local delicacies this place has?' I thought with a shrug after Brawly left.-

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The answer as it turned out was sea urchins or rather royal urchins as they are called that were about the size of a cantaloupe and royal purple with long ass spikes. The things loved to eat the seagrass that grew in the rocky waters around the city and were a pain to harvest apparently. According to what I was told it was because of how strong the currents were so it was difficult to grab them without getting spiked in the process as the water pulled and pushed you hard.-

Not going to lie it was positively delicious to eat as the strange orange meat was creamy and rich in flavor. My only gripe was that it was expensive as all hell with a single urchins worth of meat costing me almost two thousand poke. I bought three by the way since I also wanted to treat my pokemon to the stuff as well. Preparing it was also stupid easy as you just needed some rice and you were basically set , no cooking required otherwise. Other than the urchins most of the local cuisine was pretty much like you would expect with a heavy inclination for seafood and soups.-

Not going to lie though the grilled Corphish skewers with sweet and spicy glaze were fantastic. They were cheap too as one , Corphish were plentiful in the surrounding waters and two , each one gave a lot of meat. Obviously the ones that showed signs of intelligence were left alone in case a trainer wanted them for their team but the stupid beastly one were fair game. I made the stall owner a happy man by ordering close to four dozen of the skewers at fifty poke each.-

I alone ate about ten of them while the rest were split between Vulcan and Rune alongside the urchins. I spent the rest of the day after that meditating on my aura with Vulcan while my other pokemon also tried to do the same. They failed of course as unlike Vulcan who was naturally able to use it the rest needed to unlock it through effort like everyone else. That actually gave me an interesting idea that i wasn't quite sure would work but would be great if it did. See normally when I used an exp ticket on my pokemon they got a weeks worth of intense training in all regards but I wondered if it was possible to focus it on a single aspect instead?-

If so then it was entirely reasonably to believe that I could in fact teach each and every one of my pokemon how to use aura in a short period of time so long as I had enough exp tickets. It was much the same way that pokemon could be taught other skills as well such as a Machamp learning metal working or an Alakazam learning alchemy. Hell the most famous example is the Blisey line learning medical skills.-

There was even a benefit to this idea in the form of the benefits that come from the bond I shared with my pokemon. I don't remember if I explained it but the benefits I received from my pokemon were actually because of their own auras boosting and rubbing off on my own. This meant that as they grew more powerful and their auras did with them as per normal with pokemon those benefits increased greatly. However in theory if they actively trained their auras then I would get even more benefit from it as their aura would grow from twice as many factors.