Today's matches were the round of nineteen to ten. They were incredibly close to the finals now.
"Morning!"
After taking his Pokémon for a lap around campus, Auron ran into Jace and Tim, who were just heading toward the arena.
"You're up this early exercising?" Jace looked at Auron and the Pokémon behind him with surprise.
Auron had become extremely well-known recently. Setting aside his two shiny Pokémon, Mega Charizard alone had made both Auron and Jace go viral.
Right now, tons of people online were trying to dig up information on Auron, but they hadn't found anything useful.
During the first two days, students at the school would gossip and crowd around whenever they spotted Auron.
But after they noticed Auron taking his Pokémon out for morning jogs every single day, everyone stopped paying much attention.
Once you saw it enough, it stopped being remarkable. Besides—everyone who made it into Skyspire was a prodigy in their own right. Rather than envying others, you were better off improving yourself.
Auron stopped, smiled, and waved to his Pokémon. Crobat led Elekid back toward home through the air, while Snorlax ambled off with a cheerful smile. Generally speaking, they all had their own training plans, so Auron rarely kept them in their Poké Balls.
"I called you, you know. Who's fault is it that you didn't come out?"
Jace spread his hands. "I wanted to! But the blanket and air conditioning wouldn't let me. I had to appease them first, didn't I?"
Auron rolled his eyes helplessly and stopped engaging with Jace. The three of them—plus two Dragonair—headed toward the arena together.
"Hey, morning everyone."
By the time Auron and Jace arrived, Serena and Simon were already waiting for them in the waiting room.
"Morning!" Serena greeted Auron cheerfully.
Their greetings caught the attention of others in the room.
The waiting room didn't have many people left now—after all, only competing contestants were allowed in.
And since everyone was a first-year freshman who didn't really know each other, most were alone. That's why Auron's little group stood out.
"So you're Auron?"
Just as Auron and the others were chatting, an extremely discordant voice suddenly cut in.
The group turned around to find the speaker was a man standing over 170cm tall with a shockingly bright pink hairstyle—and an incredibly muscular build.
Auron couldn't help but glance at the defined muscles bulging beneath the man's white tank top before asking:
"Yeah. What's up? Is there something you need?"
The muscular man smiled and clapped Auron on the shoulder. Auron's brow furrowed slightly, but seeing that the man didn't seem to have any ill intent, he didn't dodge.
"Hahaha! Not bad, not bad—your Charizard's great, and you're not bad yourself either."
After patting Auron's shoulder, the muscular man looked at him with obvious appreciation and spoke in praise.
"Tsk tsk... especially how you eliminated that Zhong Lixing guy. That was so satisfying! Let me introduce myself—I'm Sikong Ling."
Seeing Auron's confused expression, Sikong Ling finally explained his purpose and extended his hand toward Auron.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Auron."
Auron felt a bit helpless but still reached out and shook hands with him.
"Haha, good! Keep it up!"
Sikong Ling let out a hearty laugh, then turned and left—seemingly having come over purely to introduce himself to Auron.
"That guy's pretty interesting." Jace looked at Sikong Ling's bright pink hair and said excitedly to Auron.
He'd once wanted to dye his hair blue too. Not only that—he'd actually gone and done it, coming home with a sapphire blue dye job.
His mom had immediately taken clippers to his head, shaved him bald, and left him with a few extra injuries to boot. After that, Jace never mentioned dyeing his hair again.
"Interesting." Auron smiled, glanced at Jace, and murmured: "He's definitely interesting."
Jace and the others didn't know—but Auron did. Yesterday, Dax had already told him. This was Team Magma's young master—Sikong Ling.
He couldn't simply be summed up with the word "interesting."
His strength was also formidable. He'd been on the watch list Peter sent to the group yesterday. His current battle Pokémon were a Delphox and a Camerupt. Very strong. He seemed to be running a sunny weather team strategy, though oddly, he hadn't deployed a weather setter this time.
Sikong Ling was just an interlude. Aside from Auron, no one else in the group paid him much mind. They continued gathering together, laughing and joking in high spirits.
Before long, the matches began. The first to take the field was Simon and someone else they didn't know.
"Even though he's not on the list Peter sent us, you still can't underestimate your opponent. Use your full strength and give us a good start."
After Jace spoke, Simon nodded seriously. "I will!"
With that, the two of them headed onto the field together.
Simon's Pokémon was Haunter. His opponent's Pokémon was a Steel-type Klinklang.
In the end, Simon narrowly defeated his opponent and advanced to the next round.
Haunter once again swept both of the opponent's Pokémon—which raised Simon and Haunter's threat level another notch in everyone else's minds.
After all, up to this point, aside from Haunter, Simon's second Pokémon still hadn't appeared.
To outsiders, Simon looked genuinely strong. But Simon's own group knew—Simon probably wouldn't make it past the next round.
There was no helping it. Haunter was indeed powerful, but everyone else remaining was no pushover either. Simon only had Haunter as his ace. His other Pokémon—Night Patrol Spirit and Dragon Messiah—had been fine in the early matches, but if they took the field now, their raw strength simply couldn't keep up.
After Simon's victory, the next contestants quickly took the field.
On one side was Lucario. On the other was the dragon-slaying warrior—Azumarill.
Unfortunately, this match had no dragons for Azumarill to slay, so in the end, Lucario's trainer emerged victorious.
Third match—Serena's turn. Her opponent also wasn't anyone on Peter's list.
In the end, Serena relied on Milotic's tankiness and Cloyster's ferocious offense after Shell Smash to advance to the next round as well.
The fourth match was between Sikong Ling and another contestant. Sikong Ling likewise secured his spot in the next round.
As the fifth match began, Jace looked confused. He leaned over and whispered to Auron:
"Don't you feel like these matches have been rigged? All the strong ones haven't run into each other yet. I was waiting for them to tear each other apart."
Auron smiled and whispered back: "Of course they've been rigged. They're obviously saving the powerhouse matchups for the end. If they hadn't done it this way, wouldn't we have ended up fighting each other too? Look on the bright side."
Jace grinned. "True. After all, we're also among the 'strong ones' in other people's eyes now."
"Exactly." Auron gave Jace an approving look, as if to say you can be taught.
"Get ready. You're up next round. He won't last much longer."
After watching the match for a bit longer, Auron nudged Jace's shoulder.
The Galvantula on the field was still fighting hard, but type disadvantage was brutally real. As a Bug/Electric type facing the opponent's Ground/Steel-type Alolan Dugtrio, there really was nothing it could do.