Like before I chose to allow everyone to slow down on the training front for this vacation as well. Training time got reduced to a minimum and the majority of the day was left for them to relax.
The same was not true for me, at least not for the first four days of my vacation, not counting the weekend after the exams. The reason I did not get to relax as much was that everyone ganged up on me using pleading and acting cute to make me start a grooming and massage session.
It was always funny to see Pokemon like Ursaring and Gyarados acting coy or cute since that was one of the last things one did expect from them.
Anyway, starting from Arcday, I spent roughly 6 hours a day grooming and massaging my Pokemon until I managed to go through all of them at the end of Palkiday. I have to add that grooming as well as massaging Pokemon can be pretty exhausting.
Still, even if I was busy every day due to that, all that effort was totally worth it because it made my Pokemon happy, and it was a great way to bond as well as spent time with them.
My massage skill once more proved itself when Anubis/Riolu's Endurance reached C after I loosened his muscles and help them relax as well as recover using my aura. That led to him reaching the (high) bronze stage, which meant that he could theoretically evolve since he already fulfilled the optimal condition for Pokemon with only a single evolution.
The relationship requirement was no problem since we had reached that point more than two weeks ago, and relationship requirements were an exception that did not up his category to the trigger group.
Still, like always this was not purely my decision to make, so I talked with Anubis about his evolution. After talking over everything Riolu informed me that he would like to wait until he was a bit stronger before he evolved to Lucario.
We settled on waiting until he completed his limit breaking. Anubis would evolve before his breakthrough to the silver stage so that the limit-break bonus could be added to his higher racial values as Lucario instead.
The topic of racial values (BS) made me think about the current racial value of everyone. I noticed that I tended to forget, or rather overlooked, the different racial values that some of my Pokemon had, due to focusing too much on Mothra/Butterfree's values.
Yes, she was closing in on the racial value (BS) that the pseudo-legendaries possess thanks to her queen gene, but that did not mean that I should overlook the fact that I already had three Pokemon whose racial values had long surpassed that point.
Namely Tiamat/Milotic, Moka/Crobat, and Shino/Yanmega. Tiamat's shiny gene boosted her racial value from 540 to 621, Moka's royal gene raised her racial value from 535 to 668.75, and Shino's ancient gene increased his racial value from 515 to 643.75.
All three of their values were above the racial value of 600 that the general pseudo-legendaries had, with Shino and Moka's racial value being higher by quite a bit.
My guess was that the thing that kept drawing my attention to Mothra's case, besides the obvious reasons such as her being my second Pokemon and her OP talent, was that the regular racial value of her species was only 395 and that we had managed to drag that up to 592.5.
The other three already had pretty high racial values from the start, with all of them being above 500, so surpassing 600 BS seemed less of an achievement than doing it for a Butterfree. Honestly, such an attitude was not really fair. However, I was only a human so not everything I do makes perfect sense.
Anyway, besides the realization of that piece of preferential manner on my part, the first week did not end at that. No, my actions and the reactions of my Pokemon did not go unnoticed by the other inhabitants of our home, so on Dialday, once they noticed that I was done with my group, mom and dad's Pokemon urged them to get on my level.
Well, that was the flattering way to say that I had to help them groom and massage their Pokemon as well, while they stood on the side and watched, trying to see how I did it so that they could improve their own methods accordingly. I naturally explained what I was doing, and answered their questions as well.
However, I rarely had them do the grooming or massaging themselves for hands-on examples or corrections because that took much more time, and I did not want to spend doing this for another week, so I did most of the work myself. This way I managed to go through everyone by the end of the week.
During the second week of my break, a wave of global excitement the likes that I had not seen since my arrival on Terra got set off. It was on Mewday, we were watching the 6 p.m news, when the anchor announced that Lance Wataru's official challenge for the position as regional Johto Champion got accepted, now that the champion's 20-year tenure was up.
The current champion was Casey Stripes, who had been the Johto champion for 3 terms already. Her Ace was a (mid) platinum stage Electivire, but her team was a mixed one.
Dad added that Casey was currently 137, which the news did not mention, and that she had announced that she was waiting for someone strong enough to take her position.
The news went on to mention that Lance was a genius hailing from Blackthorn City who was only 31 years old right now. He was a known dragon-type specialist, and his Ace was a Dragonite.
The official battle was scheduled to be next week on Arcday the 19.30.2180 at 6 p.m. Lance's challenge seemed to have set off a wave because one challenge after another got issued which drove the global excitement higher and higher.
The next challenge came on Giratiday from Shin Exriva for the position of Kanto Champion. The guy was 31 and had a mixed team with Jolteon as his Ace. The Kanto Champion's battle would be on Mewday the 20.30.2180.
That was followed the next day by Steven Stone, 32, announcing his challenge for the position as Champion of Hoenn. Steven was a steel-type specialist and his Ace was a Metagross. The battle would happen on Giratiday the 21.30.2180.
On the same day, Drake Yuji, 40, declared that he was challenging the Champion of the Orange Archipelago for his position. Drake was a generalist and his Ace was a Dragonite. The battle would take place on Palkiday the 22.30.2180.
Coincidentally, or not, I don't know, but all challenges came from the northern continent. The excitement did not die down at all. On Palkiday two more challenges were declared, and they both came from the western continent. Leon Dande, 29, announced that he was aiming for the position of Galar's champion.
Leon was a generalist with a Charizard as his Ace. Surprisingly, his Charizard was known to have the Primal Gene. It looked more ferocious than a regular Charizard and with a height of 5 meters, it was more than double the size of a regular Charizard one as well. Leon's battle was scheduled for Dialday the 23.30.2180.
The second announcement came from Glenn Kentou, 41, who challenged the Champion of Ferrum for his position. Glenn was a fighting-type specialist whose Ace was a Machamp. The battle was scheduled for Kyoday the 24.30.2180.
The southern continent did not stay silent either, and on Dialday Cynthia Shirona, 28, announced her challenge as well. She was a known generalist with a Garchomp as her Ace. The battle was scheduled for Grouday the 25.30.2180.
Ransei's champion also got challenged, and Hiro Shujinko, 32, was the one who issued said challenge. He was a trainer that specialized in eeveelutions, and his Ace is an Espeon. Hiro's battle was scheduled for Arcday the 26.30.2180.
Finally, the eastern continent joined in on the fun as well. On Kyoday, Diantha Carne, 29, issued her challenge for the post as Kalos's Champion. Diantha was a generalist as well, and her Ace was a Gardevior. Her battle would take place on Mewday the 27.30.2180.
The final challenge came from Wes Leo, 32, who challenged the Champion of Orre. Wes was a generalist and an Umbreon was his Ace. His battle would take place on Giratiday the 28.30.2180, and just like everyone else's battles, his would also happen at 6 p.m.
This was something that happened for the first time in history, for so many championship challenges to happen back to back. 10 out of 18 champions got challenged and if the challengers won that would mean humanity would welcome 10 new regional champions within just two weeks.
They were already calling them the brightest generation, since all of them were under 50, with most being only in their early thirties. Heck, 3 of them were younger than thirty by a year or two, and the global populace was praising all of them to the high heavens since everyone was confident that all of them had a high chance of becoming Legendary-Class trainers as long as they did not encounter an accident.
Without living in a situation like ours, one could not understand what that meant for humanity as a whole. Anyway, I had no idea what made them all schedule their battles so close to each other, but I was happy that they did it since that meant I got to watch them all during the break.
Well, the fact that I knew each one of the challengers from my meta knowledge meant that they were pretty strong people, at least if they were like their meta counterparts.
Anyway, on Grouday no major news came, at least not on the global scale, but dad's Azure/Kingdra reached the (high) gold stage, so that was happy news for us.
On Arcday, at 6 p.m, Lance's battle took place, and like most of humanity, our family was also glued to our TV. We were watching the live transmission of the battle, glued to the screen, afraid to miss a single moment of the battle between Lance and Casey.
Casey showed why she was the reigning Champion, and that for three terms, since she managed to bring the battle to a final confrontation between Ace Pokemon despite Lance revealing two more Dragonite during the battles beside his Ace.
Ultimately, Lance's Dragonite managed to beat Casey's Electivire, which allowed Lance to become the new Champion of Johto. The "crowning" ceremony was broadcasted as well, and the alliance president officially "crowned" Lance as the Johto Champion.
The following challenges ended with the challenger winning as well, which meant that the alliance president was busy "crowning" one new champion after the other.
Honestly, at this point, I was curious whether one of the challengers was going to lose or not. Kyoday brought a bit of variety, not because Glenn lost, cause he won, but because Hera/Pidgeot's Vitality increased to S that day. While not some big news, it was pleasant news for me and I praised her for her efforts.
My Pokemon had all been enjoying these champion battles as much as I did since I have been streaming all of them in open-cinema style in Utopia, so they had seen them all, and I could say that they all got super motivated watching such strong Pokemon battle each other.
The days kept going, and finally, on Giratiday the 28.30.2180 Wes won his challenge as well, and got "crowned" the champion of Orre. With his success, all 10 challenges ended up being successful, which was a historical event, since humanity had for the first time so many young champions.
Well, the fact that they were so young also meant that they had mostly focused all of their time on becoming stronger, so running a region was not really something they were good at yet.
Well, while there had never been so many young champions at once, thankfully there had been precedents where a young champion got "crowned", so the alliance already had a modus operandi in case something like this happened.
In case the regional champion was not able to fulfill the alliance's conditions for the role of the regional presidency, the alliance assigned someone to the role instead. The regional president led the region, but the champion had equal authority and could veto his or her suggestions.
Additionally, the champion had to shadow the president to learn the rules of the job if he wanted to take over, or they had to manage to fulfill the conditions in another way. I was happy about this arrangement because being just strong was not enough to run a region, which practically was a large country in my old world.
I was confident that I would not have that problem when it was my turn to be champion and president, at least knowledge-wise since I was confident in my mental abilities. I could definitely learn everything I needed to know for the role in a relatively short timeframe.
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