It is said that this year's Grand Festival has attracted a gathering of outstanding Coordinators. To ensure his chance of winning the championship, Terrance naturally has to make several preparations.
When it comes to primary judging, the performance round, Terrance isn't too worried. This is just a threshold; it won't decide who becomes the Top Coordinator.
The rules of the Grand Festival differ slightly from regular Pokémon Contests. Depending on the number of participants, there will be a preliminary round first.
The preliminary round is straightforward: each Coordinator is only allowed to send out one Pokémon to perform a single move, which will be scored by the judges.
A single move... While it sounds simple, it's hard to stand out.
This round tests the fundamental skills of the participating Coordinators. All those who can participate in the Grand Festival are already among the best Coordinators, so selecting only a few from this pool requires comprehensive evaluation and thorough effort.
Depending on the number of participants, the number of qualifiers from the preliminary round will be capped at a certain number, which could be 64, 32, or even 16...
In short, based on previous competition practices, this is done proportionally — the more participants there are, the more people will pass the preliminary round.
Then...
This is the Performance Stage, which is often seen in the first round of regular Pokémon Contests.
Both of these rounds are collectively referred to as the Performance Round in the Grand Festival.
In fact, in regular Pokémon Contests, there are even Coordinators who manage to impress the judges with just one boring move. These are undoubtedly exceptional Coordinators, using the simplest technique to outshine others who perform more complex and extravagant routines. While it may seem less difficult, only a few people can truly see the effort behind it.
Terrance is confident that he could impress the judges with just one move and advance to the second round, the Contest Battle. However, that would go against his original intention.
How many Coordinators are competing in this year's Grand Festival?
Conservative estimates suggest that there are over a hundred, with each of them having collected five Ribbons. Among them, there must be some who have been collecting for several years. It's impossible that they are all rookies who started from scratch this year, as there aren't even enough Ribbons handed out in one year for so many Coordinators to use.
To stand out among these hundreds of people, Terrance knows it won't be possible without putting in extra effort. The audience doesn't have the keen eyesight of the judges. No matter how dazzling a single move may be... how many people would truly understand it?
It's not just the participants—even a few Top Coordinators can appear some year. If Terrance wants to differentiate himself from them, he must make some changes.
After the Performance Round comes the Battle Round, commonly known as the Battle Stage. [TN: Contest Battle]
This is the key to determining the Top Coordinator. The final winner will also receive the Ribbon Cup!
"It's going to be tough on you..." Terrance said to Beautifly.
"If we were competing next year, you might not have to work this hard."
With a wry smile, he noticed that Beautifly was not discouraged at all. On the contrary, it was brimming with enthusiasm and confidence, making him secretly look forward to Beautifly's upcoming performance.
This year marks a transitional period between old and new in the world of Pokémon Contests.
In recent years, Pokémon Contests have been growing in scale. Next year, for the next Pokémon Contest, some rule changes will be made to increase its entertainment value.
For example, in this year's Grand Festival, in the final Contest Battle round, participants could only use one Pokémon for the Contest Battle.
However, the newly disclosed rules have changed it to a double battle format for next year...
Coordinators will send out two Pokémon to compete in the Contest Battle, and the coordination between these two Pokémon will better showcase the Coordinator and their Pokémon's understanding of the true essence of "elegance".
"For us, this might just be the best era..."
Looking at Beautifly, Terrance chuckled. This way, the entire stage would belong to Beautifly alone.
Having reached this point, Beautifly's wish might finally come true.
"But before that, there's still a lot of work to be done."
Just as Terrance thought, when it comes to performances, he is confident that Beautifly wouldn't lose to anyone.
Breaking through the Performance Round and advancing to the second round, the Battle Stage, is not Terrance's goal—it's something he must achieve.
However, in the Contest Battle, he would need to be cautious. If he encountered Coordinators using powerful Pokémon, there would still be risks.
Although it's possible to use your skills to defeat an opponent, one's own strength can't be too far behind. There have been plenty of cases where weaker Pokémon, like Beautifly, helped their Trainers achieve the title of Top Coordinator, but that didn't mean Terrance would relax his standards for Beautifly.
As long as they haven't stepped onto the Grand Festival stage yet, constantly improving themselves is the most basic requirement.
If they couldn't even do that and lost at the Grand Festival, Terrance and Beautifly would definitely blame themselves.
"Alright, you go warm up. I'll make arrangements for Castform first, and then I'll set up your training tasks."
Terrance turned his attention back to Castform.
For now, Mismagius, Altaria, and Arcanine already have a training direction, along with corresponding training measures and methods.
However, Castform still relied on external objects. Simple weather training was just the most conventional method, and this method wasn't producing fast enough results, which left Terrance dissatisfied.
So, with no better option, Terrance and Castform had to continue relying on external objects, as it is still a viable path.
But the downside of this method is... if the research yields results, growth undergoes a sudden qualitative change, while slow training results in minute quantitative changes, which will eventually lead to a qualitative change through accumulation…
Castform was currently in this awkward situation. Only in rainy weather could it truly show its strength; in any other weather, it was merely average. To truly stand on a bigger stage, it wasn't enough.
"You know Weather Ball, so you should also try learning Sandstorm weather. Although there aren't any other moves that can synergize with Sandstorm weather, just having Weather Ball is worthwhile."
"And our main goal isn't just this. The priority is to take advantage of this special environment to carefully study the Smooth Rock!"
Having finally arrived at the place which is the origin of the Smooth Rock, Terrance naturally wants to explore it thoroughly and find out how this magical rock was formed.
Castform looked at Terrance with a mix of understanding and confusion, but when it saw the serious expression on Terrance's face, it eventually nodded.
Sensing that Castform understood him, Terrance continued, "Sunny Day and Rainy Day are easy for you to control, Hail is more difficult, and Sandstorm is the hardest. So, I don't expect you to master it in just a few days. What you need to do is use the environment here to build a connection between you and Smooth Rock."
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