Chapter 74: Are You There, Professor?

The Huang Tie Arena's battle tournament arrived as scheduled.

Although it was held once a year, it was even more popular than Baimu had anticipated.

The reason naturally lay in its generous prizes — aside from anything else, simply qualifying earned one a Pokémon as a reward, and on top of that there were various evolution stones and other precious items, enough to send countless Huang Tie Town trainers rushing in one after another to take part.

The qualifying round's rules were one-on-one; only a single Pokémon was needed, and there was a chance to obtain a satisfying big payoff.

When Baimu arrived—

The hall was in an uproar, the noise nearly bursting through the roof, hung all over with brocades and ribbons, and a great variety of people packed the interior, each carrying various Pokémon.

They queued up in a long line to register, cursing and grumbling, occasionally letting out a shout to urge the person ahead of them forward.

Rarely did anyone cut in line or surge forward; no matter which faction they belonged to, everyone queued obediently from start to finish.

Such a strange sight once again let him feel the deterrent power of the arena's master, the Silver Ape.

Quite a few people from the Quicksand Team had also chosen to take part.

Unfortunately, not a single familiar face — after all, the people he knew in the team weren't that many to begin with; two hands plus two feet would be about enough to count them.

Registration went quickly.

Before long—

Baimu received his participant ID card.

Once the tournament officially began, he only needed to tap it at the entrance to complete check-in.

"I hope this tournament can find the trigger for your evolution…"

He sat on a bench, reaching out to stroke Roggenrola's head. "But less than a month — isn't that a bit too short for you?"

"Gugido?"

Roggenrola saw his trainer both expectant and worried, and tilted its head curiously.

As everyone knew, a Pokémon's evolution would, to some extent, affect its personality.

A docile, cute Charmander would become aloof and arrogant, and there were no shortage of examples of Pokémon losing control because they couldn't adapt to their new bodies.

Baimu was worried that he was rushing things, affecting Roggenrola's development in all aspects.

One had to remember the doctor had said Roggenrola wasn't very old, still a child — what kind of strange mutation might occur if it evolved twice in quick succession was something he, who had only ever raised Pokémon in games, didn't understand.

Perhaps he should ask Professor Yamanashi, who specialized in Pokémon evolution.

He thought this to himself as he pulled out his phone and started fiddling with it.

A thing like a phone — like the games and galge from his previous life that had no Simplified Chinese, even when the language was unintelligible one could sometimes force one's way through, let alone that over the past month Baimu had already mastered quite a lot of vocabulary.

Various apps unique to the Pokémon world had also been downloaded by him.

For example, the one he had just tapped into — PokéLine — was a chat app equivalent to QQ. Besides that, there was also PokéSearch, similar to a search engine, and PokéBlog, similar to Twitter or Facebook…

There was even an online shopping platform.

The rest of the lineup was simply too many to count.

Baimu had to admit that he had arrived in a Pokémon era where the internet was fully developed, making it nearly impossible to use the ideas from his previous life to make money.

He opened PokéBlog, and the homepage recommended a selfie of the Galar Stow-on-Side Stadium Gym Leader — Bea. That fellow was so narcissistic he even took photos of himself brushing his teeth and uploaded them to the internet.

The key thing was his fans were especially numerous, and every time the little heart below would blow up with likes.

He tapped the search bar, found Professor Yamanashi's post from memory, then tapped in to find the private message interface.

"No reply as expected…"

Baimu sighed. The question about Roggenrola's evolution had been on his mind for more than a day or two; he had long ago sent a private message to Professor Yamanashi, hoping for some response.

Even if it was just the student or staff member managing his account, that would be fine!

Unfortunately, it was like Shi Chendahai.

Understandable — after all, which researcher wasn't busy enough that their feet barely touched the ground, let alone a world-renowned figure like Professor Yamanashi.

Getting a reply would be a bonus; not getting one was no loss.

He turned off his phone, and before a few stuck-up fellows could swagger over and try to force him to give up his seat, he recalled Roggenrola, stood up, and left.

Time for the tournament.

——

The qualifying round consisted of three matches.

After successfully defeating three opponents, one would qualify for the preliminaries.

Although Roggenrola, with its two four-times weaknesses, wasn't well suited to this kind of one-on-one battle, considering that the purpose of entering was on the one hand to prove his own strength, and on the other to seek a trigger for Roggenrola's evolution—

At least one match, he had to let it fight.

Passing through the long corridor—

Baimu, well familiar with the way, swiped his card and walked into the area ahead; the familiar semi-enclosed battleground immediately came into view.

Over the past half month he had come to the arena to battle plenty; he had fought on basic flat terrain, and had been lucky enough to try a few special sand-and-gravel fields and pool fields as well.

The only thing he hadn't done was perhaps the wager battles where both sides agreed on a price.

That kind of match format involved too much; when someone with a bit of a name fought, people outside would even open book and act as bookmaker, and the gamblers' frenzy during the match and their vicious expressions surrounding the loser afterward were still fresh in his memory.

First-round match.

His opponent came from some third-rate little organization, with a team uniform Baimu had never seen before.

Usually such organizations existed by attaching themselves to other powers; the Quicksand Team also had this kind of sub-force, responsible for managing places where frankly not much juice could be squeezed out, and occasionally helping with things inconvenient for the Quicksand Team to do directly.

The situation was quite complicated.

Of course, this had nothing to do with the current match.

As the flashing red light on the wall turned green, Baimu sent out Mawile.

"Chee-doh!"

"Ice Punch!"

He got a clear look at the Pokémon his opponent had sent out — a Sandshrew — and without hesitation, he waved his hand and gave the order.

Mawile's legs drove hard, and with a bang she shot toward the opponent like a missile, the icy-blue glow on her right fist trailing a long afterimage as she accelerated.

It looked just like the tail of a comet streaking across the sky.

Where had the opponent — or his Sandshrew — ever seen an attack this swift? The latter had only just opened its mouth to call out "Rollout—" when—

The next instant.

Bang!

Sandshrew went whistling backward through the explosion of white smoke, then slammed into the wall with a thud, dropping weakly to the ground with a pair of swirly eyes.

It had plainly been one-shot KO'd by Mawile.

"The level of competition in the qualifying rounds really isn't that high."

Baimu saw the stunned look on his opponent's face and understood perfectly well.

The Iron Arena tournament was certainly popular, but getting someone of the highest Executive's caliber to enter was impossible — they might not have the status or strength of a Champion, but they had tempers that rivaled or even surpassed one.

They wouldn't deign to take part in a small tournament like this.

An Executive is probably the highest rank in the tournament, and there probably aren't many of them either.

All Baimu had to do was see who he'd lost to, and who he'd beaten, then look into that person's standing within the faction to get a sense of where his own strength sat in Iron Town.

"Keep up the good work."

He patted Mawile on the head, and she nuzzled back with a smile.

As Roggenrola grew stronger and gradually became more durable, Mawile had indeed gotten better-behaved than before. Though part of the credit also went to the two of them being more familiar with each other.

Just the other day, the little fellow had even spent a night cuddled up with Chansey in his bed.

And as Baimu understood it, when a Pokémon was willing to sleep defenselessly close to you, it was the same as showing affection.