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"Who knows? It's not like they're masochists who actually want to come here for 'training'!"
Faced with David's question, Luke gave a shrug, unbothered. Who could say what those trainers from Sakura were thinking? He was just as confused as anyone.
It was worth noting that the current Cloudspire Alliance was not what it used to be. After the golden era of the previous generation — David's parents' generation — the younger trainers of the Cloudspire Alliance had, for more than a decade, struggled to keep up.
During that period, the Cloudspire Alliance had fallen behind in every international competition for younger trainers. Not only had it been overtaken by the rapidly rising White Eagle Alliance, but it had even fallen short of the Ross Alliance, which was itself living off past glory. The only Alliance it could reliably best was the internally fractured Europa Alliance.
But no nation can stay at the top forever. For a great and long-standing country, periods of rise and decline are simply a natural part of its history.
If the Sakura trainers had come to challenge them back then, they might have actually had a real shot.
But that was all ancient history now.
In recent years, talented trainers had been emerging across the Cloudspire Alliance like Oddish after summer rain. For the Sakura side to choose this moment to come stirring up trouble made it hard to believe there wasn't something more behind it.
"Forget it — don't overthink it for now. When trainers come to battle, you battle; when problems arise, you deal with them. There are plenty of high-ranking Alliance officials whose job it is to worry about these things. All we need to do is make sure those Sakura exchange students get a proper welcome when the time comes."
"Fair point. But speaking of which — where did Miles get to? He still hasn't shown up at school."
"What? You don't think he went and fell off an Arcanine during a speed race and hurt himself, do you?"
David asked with a grin, half joking and half genuinely wondering.
"Hey! What are you imagining? Miles got some benefits over the break, same as us, but he hasn't finished processing everything yet and needs a bit more time. Didn't he send us a message a few days ago? You didn't get it?"
Luke explained, then turned to look at David with a suspicious eye.
"Hehe — well, I was also…"
David trailed off. A few days ago — he suddenly remembered that he had still been inside Lugia's secret realm at the time, so of course he hadn't received any messages.
How would any device built by human hands ever get a signal through a seal set by a first-tier deity who wielded true divine authority?
In any case, the entire Sea God Festival incident had since been classified and sealed away to protect those involved. The outside world only knew that the Sea God Festival had seen some kind of accident, causing the long-sealed Sea God Ruins to resurface from beneath the ocean.
It made sense to keep it quiet. If others knew the full extent of what David had obtained, the major powers might hesitate to act — but the desperate, reckless types who cared only about treasure certainly would not.
As the saying goes, a wise trainer does not stand beneath a collapsing cliff. That was simply good sense.
So David could not yet tell his friends about the Sea God's Breath. He had started to speak, then caught himself.
"It's nothing. Since Miles is fine, we should go get ready for the opening ceremony!"
After the opening ceremony, there was nothing else scheduled for the day. David said goodbye to his friends and made his way alone to his Gym.
In the familiar VIP training room, he turned his thoughts to the exchange students.
He wasn't particularly concerned about whatever schemes might be behind the whole affair. His father and the others would handle those matters — it wasn't his problem yet.
He glanced at his system panel. His points had just barely passed 40,000, and he murmured quietly to himself.
"It looks like a good chunk of my ten-draw legendary pull is going to come from these exchange students."
The trip to Belon City had been very rewarding for David — not just in terms of real resources, but in system points as well.
He had already purchased the system-produced Pokémon Potion for Shelgon, though he had not yet used it, and he still had over 40,000 points remaining.
The one disappointing thing was that during the battles inside the realm, he had mostly used Dragapult — better safe than sorry.
Although his father's Pokémon had been with him, they clearly did not count toward the system. Otherwise, at his current level, if he had been landing hits against Elite-level Pokémon, the points he would have earned would not be as modest as a few tens of thousands.
Apparently, the system had no such loophole for him to exploit — and that also put an end to any ideas of using high-level Pokémon to farm points cheaply.
If he wanted to reach his short-term goal of 100,000 points as soon as possible, his best chances now were the upcoming exchange competition and the high school league a few months down the line.
But he had not come to his Gym just to look at his points.
"Come on out, Shelgon!"
He reached down and plucked a Poké Ball from his belt, giving it a casual toss. With a flash of red light, Shelgon's massive, armored form materialized in the training grounds.
It was a good thing the VIP training room was so large — otherwise, letting a Shelgon out indoors would have been a problem in itself.
"Rooaar!"
The moment it appeared, Shelgon let out a deep, rumbling roar. Still half-asleep inside its Poké Ball, it had clearly assumed its trainer wanted it for a battle.
But seeing only David standing there, Shelgon quickly settled down and dropped onto its side, looking just a little resigned.
David walked over and placed a hand gently on Shelgon's shell, running it along the steadily thickening armor. The marks left by their recent battles had completely healed over, and Shelgon's shell had regained its smooth, polished shine.
He let his Aura flow quietly down through his palm, reaching deeper, reading the faint ripples of his Pokémon's vitality.
According to the records in his Aura training manual, Shelgon's condition was near-perfect. It would not be much longer before it completed its transformation and evolved into a Salamence, soaring free through the open sky.
The drowsiness Shelgon had been showing lately was a classic sign that evolution was drawing close.
David smiled with quiet satisfaction and stretched up on his toes to give Shelgon a pat on the head. It was almost funny — this Pokémon had only been with him for two or three weeks, and it was already on the edge of its second evolution.
Shelgon really had extraordinary luck. It had benefited twice from resources tied to first-tier deity-level legends, and both times the power had been a near-perfect match for it.
The Black Sacred Scales were one thing. But even the Sea God's Breath had turned out the same way. Among all the Pokémon David had, the only one that would one day gain the Flying type was this so-called "little guy" in front of him.
"Alright. If there's nothing else, I won't keep you from your sleep. Now, take a look at this — it's something truly special."
As he said this, David made a show of reaching into his bag — but in truth, he quietly retrieved the Sea God's Breath from his system space and opened the container.
That was the only safe way to handle it. Even if someone managed to get their hands on what they thought was the item, they would find nothing but an empty box with a convincing disguise.
At that instant, Shelgon — who had been on the verge of dozing off — snapped its eyes wide open.
The moment the Sea God's Breath was freed from the container, its presence filled the air. Without the seal holding it back, it drew every bit of Shelgon's attention in an instant.