Chapter 751: PWCS

Waves, sunlight, and a gentle breeze.

Above, crying long-winged gulls and large-billed gulls flew past.

This was the luxury cruise ship Royal Kraken King, departing from Waterway City in the Sinnoh region, passing through eight regions with plans to circumnavigate the globe.

On the top deck's water park.

Happiny wore sunglasses, lounging comfortably on a sunshade-covered chaise, beside it Baimu applied hair conditioner and Pokémon sunscreen to its fur.

On the other side, a giant Steelix curled up, its entire body gleaming so brightly it was mirror-like, as if its surface had been polished by an angle grinder.

Several little boys in swimsuits stared in awe, too afraid to raise their toy water guns.

Directly ahead.

In the crystal-clear swimming pool.

Shiny Milotic and Dragonite siblings splashed joyfully, racing to see who could swim from one end to the other faster.

Three Pokémon underwater moved like torpedoes of varying yields, their churning waves forcing many other swimmers and Pokémon out of the pool.

But they didn't care; instead, they cheered enthusiastically for Milotic, utterly captivated.

A bit farther away.

"Gurrr~"

Bonsly patiently taught Shiny Haunter to swim, but those short, chubby little legs flailed desperately back and forth—impressive to watch, yet barely moved it forward at all.

Swimming clearly didn't suit this gray fatso.

"Gengaa…"

It struggled, looking pitifully at Bonsly.

Bonsly winced, glanced around, then suddenly spotted how my lord was teaching a child to swim far off in the distance; silently, it extended a paw, grabbed Haunter's tiny chubby foot, and stepped backward while encouraging Haunter to keep kicking.

The scene carried an inexplicable harmony.

Even the distant father and son had stopped, watching them with interest.

The child among them pointed excitedly this way and shouted: "Dad! Is Haunter Bonsly's child too? Then who's Haunter's mom?"

"Uh, well—"

The father laughed awkwardly, unsure how to answer.

Bonsly, barely overhearing their conversation, felt like needles were pricking its back, "Gurrr…"

Haunter, however, noticed nothing—it simply closed its eyes and wiggled its short legs, imagining itself swimming freely in the ocean.

In all the world, only the sea and its presence remained—profoundly peaceful.

But at the same time.

Two large and small translucent blue water beds passed by forcefully.

The larger one carried two Pokémon.

One was the lazy Gyarados, its once trumpet-shaped neck hair now flattened against its head, resembling sleeves locked around its wrists.

The other was the invisible Dragonite; it feared its water bed might be mistaken for abandoned property while invisible, so with its trainer's help, it shared the bed with Gyarados.

The smaller water bed was occupied by a Weepinbell whose face was mostly hidden behind mirrored sunglasses; a drink rested beside its large jaw, and it radiated an unmistakable aura of "I'm the queen, confidence shining bright."

"Done!"

Baimu finished applying the conditioner and rubbed Happiny's round cheek.

"Happy~"

Happiny happily fluffed its fur, savoring the long-missed vacation joy.

Hearing its trainer say they were going to find other Pokémon, it waved a small hand as a farewell.

Now.

It was the second day after Baimu and his Pokémon had set out.

Although upon announcing the decision, the trainers of the Iron Arena had immediately burst into tears, begging him not to leave.

But nothing could change his decision.

Yet this meant.

The Silver Monkey and Silver Horse brothers, who had long promised to travel, could finally depart; had it not been for their attachment to Baimu's teachings, they should have left long ago.

Now the brother duo had gained Kendall, becoming a fiery trio.

In contrast, Da Zang, Cheng Hong, and others planned to sail to the Unova region, boarding the Furious, which was scheduled to dock at Cloud Flight Port, to continue as sailors.

Though the captain had been replaced by Yuan Zhi's senior disciple Liang Guang, they had always received more care from the other sailors on board; whether Yuan Zhi was captain didn't matter.

They even urged Lady Ayana to join them, and naturally, she refused.

Lady Ayana planned to venture alone into the Johto region, because Swampert hailed from Johto, and recently, affected by heavy rains, Swampert had suddenly wanted to visit its hometown.

After learning of this, Baimu asked his own Pokémon whether any of them wished to return home—

The response was utterly indifferent.

Most Pokémon had hazy memories of where they'd lived before; Gyarados still remembered its several siblings, but refused to let Baimu return to Dragon Village.

It believed that if it saw its trainer playing with other Dratini, it would die of rage.

No extra fourth head was allowed to intrude!

Thus, the Pokémon version of "Little Tiger Returns Home" was impossible—this saddened Baimu greatly, as he was curious about where everyone had lived originally.

Especially Dragonite's former life.

Unfortunately, this socially anxious old dragon refused outright to speak of where it had lived; Baimu could only infer whether it had once lived nearby by examining the past residences of the Dragonite siblings.

Shan Ren expressed no opinion on Baimu's renewed journey; this mayor, who had participated in many contests, knew well that Baimu would never stop after visiting just one region.

Shan Ren had only one small request—

Remember to call before making any big news.

Baimu naturally gave a full promise, though whether he'd actually follow through would be seen when the time came.

Before departure, Shanren gave him a card containing his salary as captain of the Rainbow Team and a Tepin Sect guest instructor.

Guest instructor?

When he heard this, he felt strange—his own impulsive act had somehow earned him a salary.

Anyway, after seeing the number on the card, Baimu immediately decided to spend lavishly during this period, upgrading his ordinary passenger cruise into a luxury resort cruise.

Ticket prices surged dozens of times over.

The level of luxury was also dozens of times greater, since the Royal Roarwhale King was currently the largest luxury cruise ship in the world, without exception.

And he happened to catch its maiden voyage, with far fewer passengers than expected.

"Poliwag! Sunflora!"

Baimu shouted as he arrived at the water slide area, just in time to see Poliwag II racing down the slide carrying Sunflora.

Pula-Wu La La—

The splashing water soaked his chest.

"Pali!"

Poliwag II happily leapt out of the pool; its back-mounted Sunflora, no longer its usual cynical, sluggish self, now had a curled-up smile revealing its excellent mood.

That's right.

This lazy creature, who had always known only how to slack off, had finally developed a third hobby besides sleeping and eating—sliding down water slides, or rather, the thrill of free-fall.

Baimu couldn't understand: wasn't the thrill of battle stronger than free-fall? Why was it so ecstatic over a water slide?

Pokémon are hard to understand.

"Pali!"

Poliwag II activated its Mega Evolution form, transforming into a board he could ride, while Sunflora floated above his head giving orders.

"Sang!"

Set off for the water slide battle!

Baimu had come specifically to play with them; without hesitation, he climbed the platform, sat on Poliwag II, and shot down the spiral pipe from dozens of meters high—the rush of water against his face was exhilarating.

"Ooh—"

"Pali—"

"Sang—"

The man and his two Pokémon plunged into the pool, burst out of the water, and looked at each other, laughing heartily.

"Next time I'll take you to the Pokémon Resort! It'll be even more fun!"

Baimu remembered the Pokémon Paradise Resort in Alola; since he'd be going to Alola soon, he couldn't miss it.

For now,

they were heading toward the Hoenn region.

After using the Legendary Pokémon clue yesterday, the information given to him was as follows—

【Proceed to the Celadon City port; every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday at 6 p. m., a ship painted with a Pupitar pattern will return for resupply.】

A ship? Returning for resupply?

Is the Legendary Pokémon on that ship?

Faced with such an abstract clue, Baimu found it impossible to determine which Legendary Pokémon it pointed to; fortunately, no time was specified, so he decided to take it slow.

That ship… could it be a salvage vessel that had fished up some sleeping Pokémon?

Not impossible.

But if so, wouldn't he just be watching others catch Legendary Pokémon? That would be so frustrating.

Baimu refused to dwell further—better to wait until he arrived.

He did need to go to Celadon City anyway, because to open the ancient tomb, besides deciphering its ancient Braille, he had to find the Notice Stone Chamber.

He'd forgotten the exact procedure, but the Notice Stone Chamber held the relevant answers.

And the Notice Stone Chamber's location was at the bottom of Waterway 134, east of Celadon City; entering it by his own power was virtually impossible.

He needed to find a way to ask Champion Dawu for funding a diving suit.

Of course,

taking the shortcut to Hu Pa would be far simpler—what Legendary Pokémon couldn't Hu Pa summon? Whatever he wanted, he could just have it appear.

But such a Wind Spirit Moon Shadow kind of move would drastically reduce the joy of travel.

Besides, he'd already decided to reduce reliance on Hu Pa's Light Wheel unless absolutely necessary; it was convenient, yes, but it bred laziness.

He'd pretend he'd never met Hu Pa!

"Again!"

Baimu wiped the water from his face and ran back up the platform with Poliwag II and Sunflora.

——

During the more than a month he'd spent in the Orre region,

Baimu had been busy, but no news reached the outside world.

Therefore,

the Pokémon world's internet quickly forgot him and turned its attention to another major event—

【Pokémon World Championship Series, abbreviated PWCS】

A global tournament led by Galar League President Lutz, with multiple regions responding, open to all trainers worldwide.

The goal: to crown the strongest champion—the pinnacle figure atop the Trainer Pyramid.

The first season begins next month; online registration is now open, requiring no special review—just download the corresponding app on your phone to enter.

No doubt about it.

This was the top-tier competition All Baimu planned to participate in the future.

Helplessly, he currently had no ability to arm-wrestle with Champion Dan Di, so for the first season he only planned to play casually and get familiar with the format.

Besides, the champions participating in the first season were few.

He remembered that in the anime, the only champions participating in the first season were Dan Di and A-Du; the others all joined in the second season, together with Satoshi.

When All Baimu opened his blog, the trending searches were almost entirely about PWCS.

As the world's number one marketer, Losee's people knew very well how to attract the world's attention, so it was understandable that there were many hot topics.

Clicking in to look, one would discover that as a brand-new competition, many people had adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward the World Championships.

Even though Dan Di had announced his participation right away.

For a world-class competition like this, having only one champion participate clearly wasn't enough to generate buzz.

"A-Du hasn't announced? Maybe he'll join mid-season?" All Baimu searched A-Du's topic and found quite a few people @-ing him, asking whether he'd participate.

Unfortunately, this Elite Four champion showed absolutely no sign of replying.

His blog hadn't been updated in over two years; the last post was a promotional soft article warning the public to be on guard against scams.

Quite fitting for his other identity as a Pokémon Inspector.

All Baimu silently backed out, opened the World Championships app interface, and tapped to register.

The first season, after all… the important thing was to participate.

He turned off his phone and took Gengar out to find trainers to battle.

After Aggron, Mawile, and Steelix successively completed Mega Evolution, the only one left in the team that could still Mega Evolve was Gengar.

It didn't matter that the Mega Stone hadn't been obtained yet; building up the bond in advance so that once the stone was in hand later he could operate directly wouldn't be too late.

He'd mentioned this some time ago.

For no apparent reason, he felt Gengar seemed to harbor some fear toward Mega Evolution.

Why?

Had the Mega Wave from before left a psychological shadow on it?

All Baimu thought it very likely. The Mega Wave differed from normal Mega Evolution; normal Mega Evolution was certainly painful, but that was because the energy granted by the Mega Stone was too vast and it couldn't bear it all at once.

The pain of the Mega Wave, on the other hand, stemmed from the sensation of bodily destruction brought by forced evolution—

Gengar had once described the Mega Wave in exactly those terms.

It said that after Mega Evolving, its body ached as if about to split apart, making it impossible to form any extra thoughts, and it could only endure the pain while obeying Jarvis's commands.

It hated Mega Evolution.

But if All Baimu wanted it to, it was willing to try again.

The way it put it.

Made All Baimu both guilty and moved, always feeling as though he was about to do something bad to Gengar.

Fortunately, he quickly came to his senses and called Aggron and the others over to share their genuine Mega Evolution experiences with Gengar.

All three Pokémon indicated—the pain of being unable to bear the energy was actually only the very first stage of Mega Evolution; once you gradually adapted, the pain would vanish.

In its place came a special kind of pleasure; every time they communicated with their trainer in their hearts, they only felt an extra measure of happiness.

Gengar listened, dumbfounded.

Mega Evolution could actually make you happy?

Wasn't that nonsense?

But Aggron and the others all wore utterly solemn expressions, so Gengar could only agree, keeping its doubts tucked away in its heart.

It knew the likelihood of being deceived wasn't high.

The trainer was different from that human scum Jarvis; if it truly said it was unwilling, the trainer would definitely give up on making it Mega Evolve.

Gengar believed him.

And the reason the trainer hadn't given up now lay in its own ambiguous attitude.

Was Mega Evolution a bad thing?

Not necessarily.

Gengar knew that its post-Mega Evolution self could boost its strength; pain was pain, but the power was genuinely powerful.

By Jarvis's side, it would rather not have that power.

But by the trainer's side, Gengar felt that power was worth having.

Pain, it could endure.

Falling behind the team in strength and gradually being marginalized— that, it absolutely could not endure.