Chapter 920: The Fiery Preceding Moment

"Are you quiet now?"

"I am."

After waking up, Shan Ren looked at the Three Sacred Pillars, a hint of fear lingering in his gaze.

Those who haven't experienced it firsthand truly cannot understand how terrifying it is to be chased by three colossal beings.

He clearly remembered why he passed out—

It was the shockwave from Regirock pounding the ground that had blasted him and his Pokémon into the sky!

How absurd!

This made Shan Ren curious: how had All All Baimu captured all three of them?

"Of course one at a time!"

Did your brain get knocked loose?

All All Baimu was speechless—he remembered sending individual photos to show off before gathering all three Sacred Pillars.

Forgotten already?

Shan Ren, whose memory had been overwhelmed by the ultra-luxury lineup—Five Sacred Pillars—coughed awkwardly twice.

He forced a grin: "You've got a point. Three really… ah, before I came up the mountain, I thought such a big peak could fit all five."

All All Baimu's face remained expressionless.

Five?

You didn't expect challengers to survive coming down the mountain, did you?

"One's fine then. But honestly, isn't the difficulty still pretty high with just one?"

Shan Ren mused aloud.

All All Baimu replied: "Try it and you'll see."

"Why don't you—"

He reflexively shot back, then realized he'd been an idiot again, immediately covering his head and hugging his knees in self-imposed isolation.

Clearly a symptom of being brain-damaged.

All All Baimu nodded with absolute certainty: "Figure it out yourself."

"What are you going to do?"

"Train my Pokémon, of course. Do you think my strength fell from the sky?"

These past two days have been busy, so daily training has been minimal.

Now that life is stable again,

Time to start training hard again!

Shan Ren blinked, watching All All Baimu walk away with effortless grace, then turned his gaze to the three silent Sacred Pillars beside him.

"L-Let's begin."

Though he still had a slight psychological scar, for the sake of creating an attractive, moderately difficult challenge, he could overcome it!

Shan Ren hypnotized himself like this.

He forgot the phrase he often repeated—let professionals handle professional matters.

Clearly, he was still half-asleep.

On the other side,

Barza sought out All All Baimu upon his return and hesitantly expressed his desire to enter the tournament.

"Go ahead. Reduce your farmland to free up time for training—it'll also help train your wild Pokémon to forage independently, so they don't come begging for food."

He encouraged him.

According to Hu Pa, during the previous food distribution schedule, hungry wild Pokémon often knocked on doors at night begging for meals.

It had almost become a habit.

This made All All Baimu realize wild Pokémon shouldn't be fed indiscriminately—he silently reflected on his past behavior.

(Articuno: Chirp?)

"Great!"

Barza left eagerly.

Clearly, in his view, All All Baimu was an authority on battles, and his support mattered greatly.

Yet without Hu Pa's help, Barza's strength would struggle to reach the finals.

All All Baimu carefully considered the strongest contenders for the Champion title—

Hmm.

All of them are trash!

—

Undoubtedly.

To improve through daily training requires immense time.

Once energy levels stop increasing, to make All All Baimu's Pokémon noticeably stronger, it takes at least months.

Champions' Pokémon require years…

It's like fitness: when you approach a certain threshold, breakthroughs can only come through drugs.

The Pokémon anime world has drugs too.

That is, the various stat-boosting items from the games.

But these boosters require long-term use to show results—they're nowhere near as instantly effective as in the games.

Fortunately, compared to fitness drugs, these boosters have almost negligible side effects.

The Pokémon world places great emphasis on drug safety; drugs with major side effects are typically banned, and there's no notion of "you're responsible for your own body."

If a Pokémon Center detects any such ingredients, you'll be waiting for Officer Jenny to check your water meter.

Think about it from a conspiracy angle.

Perhaps it's because too many forbidden experiments have been conducted behind the scenes…

Like creating Pokémon, cloning Pokémon, and so on.

In the Special Episodes, Team Rocket even made a drug that triggered immediate evolution—how outrageous.

Back to the point.

When daily training improves too slowly, what should you do?

The answer is—

Real combat!

Though each Pokémon, depending on personality, doesn't necessarily enjoy fighting, their combat instincts are undeniable.

Real combat unlocks their potential—this is also a major reason why anime characters often achieve breakthroughs during battle.

Five Pillars, two Horses, one Crowned Deer.

All eight Pokémon can serve as formidable opponents.

Occasionally, even Lugia and Mega Lugia can be invited as event bosses.

These Legendary Pokémon, naturally powerful individuals, provide a strong catalytic effect on Bonsly and the others.

Just from this alone,

All All Baimu's efforts this past half-year weren't wasted.

As real combat training began, the wild Pokémon living in Platinum Silver Mountain grew increasingly well-behaved.

They had to be—Bonsly and the others were terrifying in battle!

The planned migration of the Rockruff pack to the opposite mountain was temporarily halted.

The dogs still remembered All All Baimu's promise: once Platinum Silver Mountain turned green, he'd grant them the mountain across the valley to live on.

Now the condition was met.

But the leader of the Night Rockruff pack didn't know how to bring it up.

What if he had to defeat Bonsly to move over?

He worried deeply.

But All All Baimu didn't really care—he only needed four or five hundred Pokémon to remain among the thousands.

Species didn't matter; the key was to keep Platinum Silver Mountain from feeling too lonely.

Time.

Flew by like a white horse passing a crevice.

Before long, All All Baimu had returned to Oure for several weeks.

Life seemed monotonous—daily training and battles, yet many things had happened around him.

For example, Oure's total vegetation coverage increased to eighty percent within a week.

Only the southeastern prison and a few scattered areas remained desert.

Another example: much of Oure's soil changed from yellow or red earth to black earth, drawing a flood of environmental and ecological researchers to investigate.

And another: Oure announced the tournament eligibility criteria—

Pass four trials.

The news that the legendary giant would serve as examiner at Huang Tie Arena ignited blogs.

Applications surged overnight.

Trainers from all over rushed to Oure, eager to battle the legendary giant.

After all, Legendary Pokémon are something that has nothing to do with ninety-nine percent of Trainers.

Yet they inspire intense longing in them.

As a result, the number of applicants on the blog quickly surpassed a thousand and rushed toward fifteen hundred.

As for exactly how many will actually show up…

It's hard to say.

Shan Ren naturally hoped for more participants—quantity may not equal quality, but it allows for filtering out quality.

At the same time, to prevent applicants from signing up solely to fight the Legendary Giant,

Shan Ren added a rule requiring participants to have earned at least three Badges.

Few complained about this on the blog.

After all, many Gyms across regions already have rules requiring Trainers to hold a certain number of Badges before challenging.

By the way,

the Orai Arena's Tongguan condition is three consecutive three-on-three Lunzhan victories; the Xionghuang Arena requires ranking on the leaderboard;

the Silber Arena is simpler—just finish in the top eight in its weekly tournament.

Zheng Yi originally mentioned that only the winner gets a Badge, but Shan Ren shut him down.

Winner?

One big tournament per week, and you pick twenty-some people over six months?

That's ridiculous!

In short, All All Baimu was automatically granted entry.

Shan Ren thought it unfair to other Trainers who had a real chance at earning Badges.

That's absurd!

Yet the upper echelons of the Salvation Organization thought it perfectly fine, and Zheng Yi and Lei Lei Jiaisi agreed.

Batras… had already entered seclusion after his battle with Master Shan and vanished everywhere.

He was also on the automatic entry list.

Also, Ge La Ji Ou somehow got it in his head to come to Orai for the tournament.

All All Baimu was startled when he heard the news.

Not you, buddy?

Fine, Ash's rival is one thing—but why come to Orai to get crushed?

He urged him to focus on preparing for the Alola tournament, but Ge La Ji Ou seemed determined.

This…

You've lost your runner-up spot!

Although All All Baimu didn't yet know exactly how many would attend, he was certain that among those confirmed, Ge La Ji Ou could beat most of them.

What was he thinking?

He had no reply.

Of course, Ge La Ji Ou didn't contact him just to announce his participation.

The Aether Foundation had decided to invest in the Multibit Phone, aiming to launch it alongside the Rotom Phone before November.

Professor Akiba was moving too slowly alone—he couldn't possibly compete with the Rotom Phone.

And Chu Hao Ji had originally been reluctant to let so many humans join the project, but after seeing the Rotom Phone prototype, he immediately changed his mind.

If we delay any longer, the market will be completely taken!

Hurry up!

Make money!

Otherwise, its rockets will only be good for boiling water and washing coal!

Seeing how busy Professor Akiba and Chu Hao Ji were, All All Baimu didn't mention the short-video app to them.

But he did bring it up with Ge La Ji Ou.

The conversation, inexplicably, shifted to Li Li Ai.

The reason was that this girl frequently posted photos of her Alolan Vulpix glowing white on the blog, along with her school experiences.

The blog's video function was hard to use.

So Li Li Ai genuinely wanted a mobile app that could post videos individually.

She excitedly said that if such an app were made, she'd definitely ask her father to invest.

All All Baimu, having been handed a pie in the face, became enthusiastic.

He didn't actually know if the short-video app could go viral—the Pokémon world differed from his past life in so many ways…

Just make it and see.

Even a little profit is still money!

At least, from what he'd seen so far, blog users had a strong desire to share!

Aside from all the busy things happening around him,

All All Baimu also went to Maluan Village.

The quiet village nestled deep in the high mountains, above the sea of clouds, was truly an ideal place for seclusion.

No wonder the Trainers from Mount Shan had fled here for refuge.

Under the guidance of Village Chief Luo Gen, he found the ruins once used to purify Dark Pokémon.

Too bad.

Shaymin never appeared to meet him.

All All Baimu sadly took a few photos, then went to the waterfall outside the village to greet Dark Lugia.

Lugia's mother had said this creature lived in a cave deep within the waterfall and hadn't emerged since entering.

He tried calling out—but not even a hair stirred.

He had no choice but to send a Multibit II clone down into the water to scout, then enter the cave with his Shiny Milotic.

Who knew Dark Lugia was sound asleep!

Its snores shook the entire cave, nearly dispersing the Multibit II clone.

Luckily, the waterfall was outside.

And since All All Baimu learned it was sleeping soundly, he didn't dare wake it—only carried in the food he'd brought.

He hoped Lugia would wake up and eat before it spoiled.

Just as he was about to leave,

his Shiny Milotic suddenly got it in its head to climb the waterfall and stubbornly refused to go.

All All Baimu couldn't argue with the idiot.

He could only silently watch as it charged from the base of the waterfall all the way to its peak, lost in the clouds.

Honestly, it was quite impressive.

But when it came down, Shiny Milotic was furious.

Why?

Because it thought the waterfall was too easy.

It remembered the power boost from leaping the Dragon Gate, and seeing Maluan Village's great waterfall, believed that if it could scale its peak, it could replicate that miracle.

Then…

Then it climbed right up.

Clearly, Milotic had no sense of its own strength—the waterfall outside Maluan Village looked big, but its vertical height was only about seventy meters.

What was it against?

At least a hundred-meter waterfall with no moves allowed could pose a real threat to it now!

But where in Orai was there a hundred-meter waterfall?

All All Baimu soothed it for a while, then took the sulking Milotic back to Bai Yin Mountain.

That night,

during a conversation with the traitorous Multibit II, he learned Milotic had developed a new wish—

to have a giant waterfall.

All All Baimu: "..."

—

Midsummer.

A Wu returned.

This friend who had once fought alongside them against Team Shadow and summoned massive reinforcements.

Because All All Baimu had gained fame in Xiang Xiang Fengyuan, he felt threatened and returned to Hoenn to grow stronger.

After half a year,

upon learning the tournament required four Badges, he traveled a great distance to take the test.

Shan Ren held his usual welcome party.

From the level of excitement, it was clear that during All All Baimu's year away, A Wu had earned considerable goodwill among the people of Huang Tie Town.

Too bad N didn't come.

This puzzled A Wu.

Before he left, N and Shanren had some tensions, but nothing close to a complete breakdown.

He never imagined that after half a year, the two were now just one step away from parting ways forever.

Wu was also deeply shocked upon learning the full details, and waited until the banquet ended and everyone went home.

Angrier by the moment, he hurried straight to Pokémon Park.

The young Dragon Tamer was a person who clearly distinguished right from wrong.

He didn't care what reasons N had for hiding the Specter matter—if it was wrong, it was wrong.

Apologize?

What good would an apology do!

He should have actively made amends and restored their friendship!

N didn't know Wu's purpose and greeted him with a smile, only to be berated from head to toe.

After yelling, Wu wasn't done—he grabbed N's hand and demanded they go reconcile with Shanren.

Unexpectedly,

N didn't resist.

Wu wasn't clear on how N and Shanren eventually talked things out.

Wu, tasked with recounting the events, wildly exaggerated his own role and knew nothing else—only that their relationship had improved.

When Wu asked N and Shanren separately, both insisted it was all his doing.

Annoying.

I know it was my doing.

What about the details!

Wu deeply regretted leaving too early—if only he'd stayed until the small hours…

That didn't seem realistic.

Feeling he'd missed some crucial plot, Wu began his monthly simulation.

Let him get an Orange Talent this time!