Pokémon Court
Chapter 587: Four Ways to Utilize Sunlight

Based on the research data provided by Master Victor, Terrance made rapid progress in his study of totem aura.

Within four months, he had nearly unraveled the essence of totem aura.

First of all, totem aura is also a form of “energy,” much like some status moves of Pokémon, which are manifestations of energy after undergoing transformation.

However, the energy utilization efficiency of totem aura is much higher than that of most status moves used by Pokémon.

Terrance conducted research on the bizarre aura found on “Totem Kommo-o” and the Pokémon suspected to be the Ultra Beast, “Celesteela.”

According to the direction provided by Master Victor, totem aura, the ultra aura, and the Abilities of Ultra Beasts are all very similar. They share a striking resemblance and are highly likely to originate from the same source.

Based on this foundation, Terrance redirected his research toward the three legendary Ultra Beasts said to have come from another world. In the end, by incorporating some unconventional knowledge, Terrance indeed made a breakthrough. His pace of achieving results surprised even Master Victor, who hadn’t expected Terrance to make such swift progress in such a short time.

This was thanks to the sudden arrival of “Celesteela,” which helped Terrance clear some directional obstacles. In addition, his mindset from being from another world prevented him from being constrained by this world’s conventional theories, allowing him to avoid many detours in his research.

Upon arriving in Mossdeep City and stepping into the laboratory he had booked, Terrance calculated his schedule and realized he didn’t have any spare time to relax. He had to get started right away and make use of every moment.

The energy essence of totem aura is light; this was something Terrance had already confirmed through multiple experiments.

Or rather, light is one of the necessary components in forming totem aura, but it’s not that totem aura can be created merely with light. It must go through a complex series of processes, converting light into a form of “radiant energy,” which then needs to irradiate and envelop the Pokémon.

This is the full process by which totem aura is granted.

To successfully grant Altaria a totem aura, Terrance must first collect enough light energy. Through numerous experiments, Terrance found that sunlight had the highest efficiency when converted into radiant energy, so he had been collecting sunlight all along.

For some Pokémon, after accumulating enough sunlight, they can directly compress it into “Solar Beam” and fire it as an attack move.

This, in fact, is also one way sunlight is utilized. What Terrance was now attempting was to convert sunlight through a different route into a form of radiant energy that could grant totem aura.

In truth, this research brought Terrance more than just the totem aura.

Terrance still remembered that in the third month of his journey, specifically, the second month after entering Crown Academy, he had made an important decision.

That was to give up one of the two techniques he had originally prepared for Beautifly: “Giga Drain–Morning Sun.”

Beautifly’s base stats were among the lowest of all Pokémon. Even if Terrance wanted to favor Beautifly, he couldn’t deny that fact.

Compared to other Pokémon, it was very difficult for Beautifly to become strong and to possess powerful combat capabilities. However, Terrance didn’t want to abandon Beautifly, his Starter Pokémon, so he conducted in-depth research into Beautifly’s moves and characteristics, and devised two alternative training paths for it.

The first: air current control.

The second: source of stamina.

As of now, in the field of air current control, after five years of effort, Beautifly had already developed it into the prototype of a top-level technique. With more time, mastering it completely wouldn’t be difficult.

But the drawback of this top-level technique was that it consumed too much stamina, which was exactly the thing Beautifly lacked the most.

In fact, the second technique Terrance devised was, in a sense, meant to compensate for Beautifly’s stamina shortcoming. Unfortunately, at that time, neither Terrance nor Beautifly was capable of pulling it off, they didn’t even have the faintest clue where to begin. In the end, Terrance had no choice but to abandon the technique to avoid wasting time, and instead focused on training Beautifly in other areas.

There are several ways to utilize sunlight:

Solar Beam – after gathering sunlight, it is condensed and compressed into a beam for attack.

Morning Sun – solar energy acts as a catalyst that influences the rate of stamina recovery.

Synthesis – directly converts solar energy into another form of matter to restore stamina; this is a type of energy conversion.

The move “Morning Sun” and “Synthesis” have similar outward effects, but their underlying mechanisms are different.

In terms of efficiency, Synthesis restores stamina much faster than Morning Sun. However, Synthesis is exclusive to Grass-type Pokémon.

That’s because Grass-type Pokémon are innately highly compatible with solar energy, thanks to the unique structure within their bodies.

Beautifly doesn’t have the bodily structure of a Grass-type Pokémon and thus cannot control light energy, nor can it convert sunlight into stamina. No matter how strong the sunlight, Beautifly’s affinity for it can never compare to that of Grass- and Fire-type Pokémon.

Terrance’s idea was to use Giga Drain in combination with the move Morning Sun to efficiently plunder the energy of sunlight and convert it into stamina, thereby raising Morning Sun’s stamina recovery efficiency to the level of Synthesis, or even higher.

However, Beautifly, whose body lacks the special structure of Grass-type Pokémon, has a limitation when it comes to controlling solar energy.

This limitation prevents Beautifly from manipulating solar energy as freely as Grass-type or Fire-type Pokémon.

In the end, sunlight cannot participate directly in Beautifly’s stamina recovery, it can only act as a catalyst. Even though Terrance considered enhancing the intensity of sunlight to improve Morning Sun’s efficiency, it wasn’t feasible due to the limitations of Beautifly’s capabilities.

If it were possible, of course Terrance wouldn’t want to give up on this technique. If it could be successfully mastered, then during the daytime—under abundant sunlight—Beautifly would essentially possess a source of stamina, allowing it to perform those extremely stamina-draining techniques at minimal cost.

However, now Terrance had a bold new idea: if moves like Solar Beam, Synthesis, and Morning Sun are all forms of utilizing light, then why couldn’t totem aura also be considered a way of utilizing sunlight?

Ever since Terrance began researching totem aura, he had started to develop new ideas about this technique.

He planned to take an alternative approach: since Beautifly couldn’t directly control or convert sunlight, what if he first transformed the sunlight, then controlled it afterward?

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