"Leo... stop crying. There are ten thousand rookie trainers in the province this year. To stand in this arena, to be in the top hundred—maybe even the top eighty or seventy—is already amazing."
In the dining hall of the athletes' village, the original trio of the "Rising Star Project" gathered for a meal. Lynnea, seeing Leo's eyes red and watery as he talked about his results, tried her best to comfort him.
"He's not crying," Owen interjected. "Look at what he's eating..."
Lynnea looked down. Insanely spicy... noodle soup?
Drenched in sweat, his eyes bloodshot, Leo looked up and nodded solemnly. "Spicy..."
"..." Lynnea went silent.
Leo took another huge, painful slurp. Between gasps, he managed to say: "Actually... hiss... if crying worked, I'd really like to cry right now... hiss."
"Because my dad said if I made it to the Preliminaries, my allowance would double! If I made it to the Main Tournament, it would quintuple... hiss..."
As he spoke, Leo actually started tearing up for real. Battling was too hard—harder than the final bonus question on a math exam. Owen and Lynnea shared a look of wordless exasperation and went back to their food, leaving Leo to his spicy misery.
"Eat up," Owen said. "We have extra training after this. Our Team Battle opponent tomorrow is not to be underestimated."
By relying on the "Provoke-and-Bombardment" strategy, Fairview No. 1 had already defeated two more mid-tier high schools.
Even though the opponents knew what was coming, they couldn't stop Eevee. This strategy was a "Grand Scheme"—even if you saw it coming, if you didn't have the mental fortitude to resist, you couldn't stop the Swagger.
It wasn't a matter of being caught off guard; it was an inevitable disaster.
With three consecutive wins in the Team Battles, Fairview's advancement to the next round was already set in stone. One could say that Fairview No. 1, usually just a "standard" key school, had truly achieved an underdog reversal thanks to Owen and Eevee.
That night, after the extra training session, Owen and Eevee settled in with their phones. The competition had only been running for a day, but the internet was already buzzing.
The citizens of Azure Province were particularly obsessed, and videos of battles and leaked contestant profiles were everywhere.
"Vee..."
As Eevee scrolled, it saw plenty of its own heroic moments. What pleased Eevee most was that its photos and videos seemed to be the most popular.
Its ego began to swell. It spent the entire night "liking" every post about itself and even posed as a random netizen to interact with fans (though for now, it could only reply with emojis).
"Holy crap, what is this post?"
Owen stumbled onto a thread that made his skin crawl. Naturally, Captain-level trainers received a lot of attention as "seeded" players. He expected to be discussed. But this...
A user named "Little Shuang" was claiming that Owen was the "Rookie King" and the strongest newcomer of the year.
Owen fell silent. Isn't this just pushing me into the line of fire and farming hate for me? However, considering the poster's "excellent eye for talent," Owen decided not to hold a grudge.
The next day.
Before the Individual Preliminaries were even bracketed, the Team Battle Preliminaries reached their climax. Fairview No. 1 inevitably ran into a "hard bone" to pick: Salt River Middle School.
Salt River's comprehensive strength was easily in the top five among the province's key schools. As a famous institution in an education-heavy province, their power spoke for itself. Nationally, Salt River was a name that carried weight.
"One last reminder: you must pay a hundred times more attention to their Captain," Dean Wu warned in the lounge an hour before the match. "A Vigoroth is in a state of 'excited rampage' all day long."
"Not only is its blood constantly boiling, but its mental energy is incredibly active. While that doesn't necessarily mean it has high mental strength, if it's well-trained, its resistance to mental moves is very high.
Zuan, the Jinghai Captain, comes from three generations of Professional Slaking Trainers. There's no way he hasn't trained for this."
Owen nodded silently. The teachers' concerns were logical, but perhaps a bit unnecessary.
"Regardless of whether Vigoroth can snap out of it early or overcome the confusion, your primary goal is to eliminate it first."
Because the gap in overall strength between the two schools was significant, Fairview would almost certainly lose in a standard fair fight. They had to establish an advantage quickly.
"Maybe... we can try a different approach?" Owen suggested.
Grass Field.
The contestants from Jinghai and Fairview took their positions. As they stepped forward for the friendly handshake, Owen noticed that the Salt River's Captain, Zuan, looked quite heavy-hearted.
"Zuan." "Owen."
Zuan's somber mood came from the immense pressure of his school's prestige. As the Captain, he couldn't afford to lose in either format without facing public scrutiny.
Based on previous matches, Owen was a dangerous opponent. Fairview feared Salt River, but Salt River feared the potential embarrassment of losing to Fairview. The higher you stand, the harder you fall.
"Battle begin!!"
The command was given, and Eevee charged forward again, exposing itself to the entire enemy team. Previous schools had tried various ways to stop Eevee's advance, and Owen had counters for all of them.
Salt River, however, did something unprecedented: they ignored Eevee entirely. Instead, they unleashed long-range attacks aimed directly at Fairview's other four Pokémon.
"What is Salt River doing?" the crowd wondered.
Usually, attacking Eevee at range was useless because of its insane reaction speed. But by targeting the "weak links," Jinghai hoped to break Fairview's formation. After all, besides Owen, the rest of the Fairview team looked... average.
Sure enough, after a brief exchange, Sarah's Ivysaur took the brunt of the fire and was knocked out almost instantly.
Simultaneously, Eevee reached the optimal range. It used Swagger just as the opponent used Heal Bell. However, this time, Eevee didn't target the whole team. It locked its mental suggestion onto every Pokémon except Vigoroth.
Fewer targets meant a stronger effect!
The powerful mental wave of Swagger shattered the soundwaves of the Heal Bell. The provocation was a success. Immediately after, Eevee closed the distance to Vigoroth, intending to engage in close quarters.
"Vee!" As Eevee attacked, it offered a "greeting" to the big, lumbering Vigoroth.
Have you ever heard of "pig teammates"?
The other four Salt River Pokémon, lost in a confused rage, began firing attacks indiscriminately. They didn't care if Eevee was in the way—or if their own Captain's Vigoroth was in the line of fire.
Eevee was using its superior reflexes to dance between the chaotic attacks, forcing Vigoroth to fight not just Eevee, but its own allies' stray fire.
Under a rain of haphazard moves, Vigoroth watched a stray fireball land right next to its feet and froze in pure confusion.
Vigoroth: ???
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