"Lucario really does seem to be a natural teacher. In a way, doesn't this count as being certified by the system itself?"
Three days had passed, and David was leaning against the second-floor railing, idly "watching" Lucario put his "students" through their paces below. In truth, though, his attention had drifted long ago to the virtual screen only he could see.
On that screen, invisible to everyone but him, the details of a newly drawn item were displayed.
Exp. Share: A high-tech held item that quickly boosts a Pokémon's strength, significantly enhancing the user's growth.
"Getting a good item from a single pull is one thing, but is an effect like this even legal in the real world?"
Staring at the item's data, David couldn't help but feel a little stunned.
Thanks to Lucario's efforts these past few days, the system had unexpectedly triggered an achievement titled [Imparting Knowledge, Dispelling Doubts], handing David a free 1,000 system points along with a random item draw ticket. At the time he hadn't thought much of it. His hard-earned Legendary Ten-Pull was nearly complete anyway, so using the ticket to pad the pool a little more seemed harmless enough. He'd used it without a second thought.
He never expected a single pull to hand him a purple-tier item, and clearly one that stood out as overpowered even among other purple items.
He'd used the Exp. Share plenty of times back when Pokémon battling was just a game, tossing it onto newly caught Pokémon to speed up their leveling. Back then, it was just another ordinary item. But here, in the real world, while the effect wasn't as absurd as instantly granting experience points and leveling a Pokémon up on the spot, simply accelerating a Pokémon's natural growth with no drawbacks at all was already remarkable. For new Trainers especially — the kind who hadn't even filled out a full team, whose Pokémon sat at wildly different levels — an item like this was nothing short of a treasure.
"Setting everything else aside, this alone will make training up new Pokémon far more convenient down the line. For me, it's like finally getting a pillow right when I need to sleep."
David let out a sigh. He'd already been thinking about which Pokémon to add to his team once the High School League wrapped up — though really, David was one of the few Trainers who even had that luxury to consider. Most new Trainers at his stage — what people called first-rate level — would be lucky if their second Pokémon had reached Superior rank by now. A Trainer like David, with four Pokémon all roughly matched in strength and level, was a genuine rarity. If it weren't for a string of fortunate coincidences, even with the system's help, David doubted he could have pulled this off, since the order in which Pokémon joined a team mattered more than people liked to admit.
Most new Trainers started with Pokémon younglings, or even eggs, whether they were thinking about compatibility or long-term potential. A Pokémon raised from scratch, nurtured step by step, would always outclass a wild Pokémon whose combat strength had already matured before being caught.
"It's almost like my luck is too good right now…"
Lucario's impromptu teaching session had triggered an achievement out of nowhere, and then a single casual pull had landed him a top-tier purple item — for a new Trainer, practically on par with a golden-tier item. Could this all be borrowing against his luck for later? He really hoped it wouldn't come back to bite him during the actual Legendary Ten-Pull. Having sunk more hours into gacha games than he cared to admit, and usually landing on the unlucky end of the odds, David couldn't shake a flicker of unease.
"Forget it, doesn't matter! I've gotten this far on my own effort, my Pokémon's hard work, and just the tiniest sliver — [fingertip-sized universe.jpg] — of luck…"
"David! David—"
A voice from behind pulled David out of his thoughts.
"Ah, Miles, what's up?"
Miles came jogging up, out of breath by the time he reached David.
"What's wrong? Catch your breath first."
David studied Miles's flustered expression, a little puzzled, but grabbed a bottle of water from a nearby table and passed it over anyway.
"Hoo — Hoothoot, David, the elimination round groupings just came out."
Miles took a few gulps of water, steadied himself, and finally started talking. The grouping list had just been released, and Miles happened to be in Dominic's office when it came through, so he'd run over to pass the news along to David and the others, just as he'd been asked.
By now, everyone else in the Battle Center had drifted over as well.
"What's wrong, Miles? Is our group bad?"
Emma asked, reading the look on his face.
"Our luck seems to be running a little short…"
Miles let out a helpless smile at Emma's question.
"We landed in Group B. Just from what I've seen so far, our group includes Magic City No. 1 High School, Southern sky Affiliated High School, Sea cloud High School..."
"Stop, stop, stop—"
David and the others cut him off, their heads already starting to ache from Miles rattling off names like he was reading a restaurant menu.
"Is the League organizing committee out of its mind? Did they just stuff every strong team into Group B?"
Luke couldn't help but grumble after hearing that lineup of names.
The names Miles had listed off so easily weren't just any names — every one of those schools carried real weight and reputation across the entire Cloudspire region, including last year's champion, Magic City No. 1 High School. The rest weren't far behind, each one an established powerhouse in its own right.
"Word is there are a lot of dark horses this year too, teams that have improved a lot since last season. Even the other groups have schools whose strength outstrips their reputation."
"Then we're just the unlucky ones, aren't we! Dark horses or not, we won't know what they're really made of until we actually fight them. Our group's already stacked with proven strong schools as it is!"
"Don't count us out either. Sure, our results haven't been great these past two years, but Imperial City First High is still an established powerhouse in its own right, isn't it?"
The moment Miles shared the news, everyone burst into chatter, tossing complaints back and forth. And it was true — as someone had just pointed out, even though their results had been lackluster the past two years, Imperial City First High still ranked among the League's real contenders, having barely scraped into the top sixteen the previous year. The reason their recent record looked so unimpressive was simple: two years earlier, it had been David's own older sister, Aria, who led Imperial City First High all the way to the championship.
Watching everyone talk it over, David nodded, satisfied. Sure, they were all grumbling about their rotten luck and taking shots at the organizing committee, but there wasn't a trace of real fear in anyone's voice.
It seemed that after all this hard training, everyone had genuinely built up confidence in their own strength — and that was exactly how it should be. After all, unless this were some all-out arena deathmatch where a single Trainer fought every match alone, even David couldn't carry a team of Pokémon that only knew how to hang back.
"Alright, everyone!"
At the sound of David's voice, every eye turned toward him.
"What's our goal?"
"Champion!"
The answer came back in unison. It wasn't often that Imperial City First High fielded a lineup this strong, and after everyone had worked so hard for so long, nobody intended to hand the top spot to anyone else.
Beyond that, their team had David anchoring it — a walking secret weapon in his own right. His teammates, who trained alongside him every single day, knew exactly what he was capable of, and that gave them plenty of confidence in chasing the championship.
"That's right. So what if there are a lot of established strong schools in our group? We're right there with them, so it's hard to say who's really the unlucky one here! We'll be the nightmare of this whole tournament!"
"Alright, that's it for training today. Everyone go pack your things — we head out for Magic City this afternoon."
At David's word, everyone scattered at once, grabbing their Pokémon and hurrying off to pack their bags, no further discussion needed.