I spent the next three days after arriving in Pallet city and settling in the dorm exploring Oak's Lab as well as Pallet City. Well, rather than me exploring Oak's Lab it was an assistant sparing three hours each day to show me around.
Due to the sheer size of the place I obviously only got to see a part, but they told me I would get to see everything in time, and I was in no particular hurry as well. Still, I saw buildings for treatment, observation, and special care.
There was also a general egg center to care for and check up on the eggs that the Pokemon living on Oak's property laid. I was also shown several biospheres with special environments and multiple habitats reserved for certain species.
There were also many areas where multiple species lived, and we passed by sites reserved for sponsored trainers, where their Pokemon lived/stayed while they were not in the active roster. I saw those while the assistant showed me the area reserved for my Pokemon, just as I had been promised.
The area they had assigned my Pokemon was pretty big, with two ponds, two small groves, a few small hills, and all those on a grassland. They had pretty much considered all my Pokemon's needs, and the place was big enough to fit in a hundred Pokemon much less half that number.
Still, the assistant emphasized that that place was assigned to me and that I was free to use it however I wanted, even if I was not planning to use it at all.
Other than my visits across the lab property, I checked out the city as well, and I also visited the trainer school to see where it was since I had to show up there on Arcday.
The trainer school was actually on the outskirts in the opposite direction of the lab, but that kinda made sense since both needed a large space, even if the trainer school was a lot smaller than the lab, at a single square kilometer. The school was in North Pallet, while the lab was in South Pallet.
Anyway, I could say I had kept myself quite busy these last three days. However, now that it was Arcday, I had to visit the trainer school to settle the matter of my academic year, so I woke up at 7:00 a.m. finished my breakfast, and left for the trainer school at 7:35 a.m.
I made it to the school in 15 minutes, which left me with 10 minutes until the class orientation began at 8:00 a.m. Thanks to the previous visit I knew where the class I had to show up was, so I made it there without any problems.
The class seemed to be nearly full since only 2 out of 30 desks were empty, not counting the teacher's desk, and I could hear quite a few conversations happening. I felt the eyes of a few students being drawn to me for a moment upon my arrival.
However, that only lasted a brief moment before they focused back on their conversation or wherever else they had been doing. Regardless of their behavior, both empty seats were in the first row, so I settled on the closer one, and the last person also arrived shortly after I did.
Exactly one minute before 8:00 a.m. the teacher showed up, and he had a satisfied smile upon seeing that everyone was present. He looked around the classroom, and I felt his eyes linger on me for a tad bit longer. Still, he finished checking everyone out and cleared his throat before addressing the class.
"Alright, everyone, please quiet down," he began addressing us. "Let me formally welcome all of you to our Pallet City Trainer School. Despite the rather plain name, ours is the first and best trainer school in Pallet City, so all of you have done a good job being accepted as students at our school.
I'm Walt Hard, and I will be your homeroom teacher until your graduation, or rather for the next three years since I'm hoping none of you will be held back a year at any point," he started introducing himself next.
The look he gave at that moment conveyed that he really did not want to deal with that last point. Still, everyone kept quietly listening to him, and Mr. Hard continued his speech without pause as well.
"There are only three points on our agenda today. First, we will be grabbing your first-year course books from the repository. After that, I'll be showing you around the campus, specifically the places you'll need to know to seamlessly make it through the year, such as classrooms, the gym, and the cafeteria.
Finally, we'll return to this classroom, where I'll hand out your timetables, and afterward, you're free to go," he finished, and there was happy murmuring, probably at the early release.
Mr. Hard told us to follow him and headed toward the door. Everyone stood up and followed him while he led us to the book repository. That place ended up being on the bottom floor of the main building, while our classroom was on the second floor.
Unfortunately, a math book ended up being among the pile of books all of us had at the end of the handout. Thankfully, I would not have to sit through any math classes, even if I would have to go through the exams which meant that I would have to, reluctantly might I add, take a look inside the damn math book.
Still, I saw a book on Pokemon types, and one on proper behavior in the wild as well, so there were at least some interesting books in the pile. Nonetheless, I would be checking out all books at some point since I would need to know what was written inside for the exams, so I would see how interesting the content truly was, whether I liked it or not.
Once everyone had stored away their books, Mr. Hard brought us around the campus, starting with the main building. He brought us to different classrooms since many courses had their own room.
I doubted I would visit any of them for a lesson, but I still made sure to remember their location, since usually the respective exams were held in these rooms instead of the homeroom class. At least it had been like that in the aura academy, so I was assuming it would be like that here as well.
The last place Mr. Hard brought us to in the main building was the cafeteria.
"This here is our school cafeteria," he said while pointing behind himself.
"You'll be able to buy food here thrice a day since it is open during the long breaks after the third, sixth, and ninth classes. I genuinely recommend you to eat there at least once a day since the food they offer tastes great and is full of nutrients that will be helpful to your development.
Additionally, the price for the food is extremely cheap compared to its actual cost due to the Alliance and Pallet City subsidizing a majority of the cost. You would have to pay at least ten times the price if you want to eat that kind of food in a restaurant, so I hope you treasure the opportunity, and take advantage of it.
As I said, prolonged ingestion of the food is beneficial to you thanks to the ingredients used while preparing the meal, so I highly recommend eating there. Those that can't afford to spend any money there every day can come to me, and I will introduce them to some odd jobs around the school so that they can earn food tickets.
The jobs won't take up too much of your time since we want you to focus on your schoolwork, and you'll be able to eat without burdening your finances," he announced and everyone was excited.
More than one person looked relieved when Mr. Hard mentioned the possibility of earning food stamps. Afterward, we left the main building, and he showed us the regular gym, an obstacle course, and a swimming pool, which were for our use.
Following those, we passed by multiple Pokemon battlefields, such as one with a sand ground, grass field, stone field, another swimming pool, and a fake grove.
"Now, I'm sure you're curious why I've shown you the battlefields when you only receive your official starter after your graduation," he said after stopping at the fake grove.
"There will be lessons where you will get to borrow Pokemon from the school for a class, and those will be held on one of the fields we passed on our way here," he announced, and obviously the group reacted with excitement at the prospect of interacting with Pokemon during some of the lessons.
Mr. Hard gave everyone some time to calm down before he led us back to our homeroom/classroom. Once everyone was back in their seat, he took out a stack of papers.
"Alright, here are your timetables," he said while patting the stack. "The periods, breaks, class titles, and rooms are clearly denoted on them, so I don't have much to say about it," he declared with a shrug.
"You can take a copy while leaving the class, but I want you to leave one after the other to prevent chaos. We'll start from the left of the front row, " he announced seriously. "As for all of you getting to know each other, you can do that on your own," he added that bit with another shrug, clearly thinking that he couldn't be bothered with an introduction exchange.
"Anyway, you can start now," he said and the first one stood up before heading to the stack to get his timetable.
Once he had it, he directly left the classroom, while the next one stood up and followed his example. My turn came quite quickly since I was sitting in the first row, but Mr. Hard told me that I did not need a timetable and instead told me to wait until everyone was gone since he wanted to talk to me privately.
The others looked curious when Mr. Hard said that, but still kept moving, and after the classroom was cleared, he told me that I did not need a timetable since I was exempted from all classes/lessons this year.
Apparently, I did not even have to participate in all term exam periods, but only in two of them. The two were the midterm exams at the end of the third term, and the end-term exams at the final term of the academic year, so my first year at the trainer school was pretty much free.
Still, he told me I could take a timetable if I wanted to, in case I decided that I wanted to participate in one of the lessons/classes for some reason. Before I left, Mr. Hard gave me a paper that had a list of dates that had classes he recommended I visit since they could interest me.
Obviously, the choice was left to me, but I saw that nearly all of them were lessons that involved school-owned Pokemon. I thanked him for the list and information before I returned to Oak's Lab.
I was pretty happy with how the visit to the trainer school had turned out, especially since I now knew that I was only obligated to visit the trainer school twice more this year if I did not want to visit any of the classes.
This meant that I could freely focus on my internship and still have enough time to spend some quality time with my Pokemon. Nonetheless, school free time or not, today was my last "vacation" day for now since I had been told to show up at the main lab tomorrow at 7:30 a.m.
Specifically, I had to wait in front of lab no.2 where James would tell me what exactly my job for the next five months would be. It seemed that my internship would follow the course of the academic year, so my breaks/vacations and working days were identical to the academic terms, which meant that I had many more free days than I would have had in a regular internship.
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