The Path of a Genius to Becoming a Pokémon Champion

Chapter 190: The Champions Cup Begins

With the graduation tournament over, the trainees finally welcomed a long-awaited vacation.

The final ranking results would be announced in a few days, but on the Sea Carp Club's side, Arthur taking first place was already a sure thing.

Among all eleven seeded teams, the second and third-place teams below Arthur and Justin's group were both from the Otter Club, unable to shake Arthur's position.

Those ranked further down had no chance of competing on the same stage with him at all!

As a first-year student, whose last recorded ranking in the system was dead last in his grade, to have forcefully battled through the entire youth training camp in just a few short days and dominate the exchange tournament—Arthur's experience was truly the stuff of legend!

The only remaining suspense was: since the final results were based on individual rankings, where would Justin, who had teamed up with Arthur, place?

Could he also make it into the top ten and be listed for transfer?

If so, the Sea Carp Club would be listing two first-year students at once this year!

And if Justin was also bought by a professional team after October, then the record for the fastest graduation might even be broken by two people at once!

Terrifying to this extent!

However, a few days later, the news came—

The story of a dual record-breaking did not happen.

Justin's final graduation tournament rank was confirmed to be 13th.

Only the top ten in the youth training camp would be listed for sale during the transfer window.

Justin ultimately fell a little short and couldn't graduate this year.

"Sigh, what a pity. Now I have to pay tuition for another year, and there's no discount next year..."

Justin lamented, holding his bowl during mealtime that day.

As a result, he was immediately locked onto by the murderous glares of a group of new students, which made him shiver on the spot.

Sitting around him were many first-years who were being advised to withdraw with a price increase by the youth training camp due to poor performance.

Justin was only losing his discount for the next year; these students with insufficient grades would have to pay extra if they wanted to stay!

For Justin to be "humblebragging" (Versailles) here was like dancing the hula on their faces!

It made them want to grab a tray and smash it over his head.

As for the fact that Arthur was next to Justin?

Have some sense! That's a true big shot!

When a true big shot says something like that, is it humblebragging? No, that's just reality…

Thus, Justin tragically discovered that all the murderous gazes were directed at him, while Arthur, sitting opposite him and eating, remained completely unscathed.

The circumstances of different people truly cannot be generalized.

Afterward, the two chatted about other things.

"Are you going home for the upcoming vacation?" Justin asked.

"No," Arthur replied succinctly.

In this era, he was all alone. Wherever he was, that was home.

"That's perfect. I'm not going back for a while either. Why don't we stay and watch the Champions Cup together?"

"Okay."

Arthur naturally had no objections.

Unfortunately, this promise was tested the very next day.

The next day, Justin looked at Arthur, who was surrounded by the two professional players from the main team, Bella and Luna, and couldn't help but feel a lamentation welling up in his heart:

"A sad barrier has already been erected between us..."

Why did it turn out like this? But I was here first…

"Um... sorry, I promised to meet them on WeChill before. I didn't expect this either," Arthur explained feebly.

There was no helping it. Bella had been an old fan supporting him since his debut when he was still accumulating popularity by streaming the Golden Autumn Cup qualifiers. She had often been tasked by his agent, Eleanor Vance, to help promote him.

When Arthur had ghosted the mid-term ranking tournament and run off to the border without a word, she had looked for him on WeChill. At that time, Arthur had been forced to promise that he would definitely make time to meet her when he got back.

So this time, Arthur had no reason to escape. He was caught red-handed and could only apologize to Justin.

Fortunately, the place they were meeting wasn't a train station; otherwise, the atmosphere would have inexplicably been turned into something resembling a "world-famous painting" by these few...

This left Arthur, who was in the middle of it all, with an expression of utter dejection.

However, after being "abducted" by the two beautiful players, Arthur wasn't actually subjected to anything terrible.

He was just forced to take off his shirt in their room and expose his abs, while Bella, her eyes shining, took a hundred and eighty photos of him...

After that, they did get dressed and watch the matches properly.

Really properly, the kind where each person sat on their own sofa…

Bella and Luna were both professional players. After the Champions Cup match days began, they even had to check in by posting photos in their team's WeChill group every day to prove they were watching the matches.

The youth training camp only encouraged everyone to watch the matches together, but the main team required every player to watch, no exceptions.

You could be away from the base, but if you dared not to watch the matches, the coach would obliterate you in minutes.

So, in reality, the three of them couldn't really do much together.

They could only watch the match day live stream on a single TV.

This year, a total of four teams from Kubfu were competing in the Champions Cup: Otter, Yankee, Blaze, and Mowang.

Among them, the Mowang team had the best domestic results, while the Otter team was the most popular.

The Champions Cup league was divided into two stages: the Group Stage and the Knockout Stage. The Group Stage was divided into four groups, with eight teams in each group, for a total of thirty-two participating teams.

The subsequent Knockout Stage used a double-elimination format. The top two teams from each group would directly enter the winners' bracket of the Knockout Stage, the middle two would enter the losers' bracket, and the bottom four would be eliminated in the first round.

However, there was one piece of good news: the four teams from Kubfu were historically never placed in the same group, so they wouldn't face each other early in the Group Stage.

Before the start of the tournament this year, the morale of the audience within Kubfu was exceptionally high.

They were generally very optimistic about the competition's outlook, and even before the opening ceremony, some had started chanting slogans about all four teams meeting in the winners' bracket.

The predictions for the first day's matches were all positive, as if they already had their sights set on the championship.

However, while watching the opening ceremony, Arthur asked Bella, an active professional player.

"How are Kubfu's four teams looking this year? Are you guys optimistic about them too?"

Arthur had expected to hear a relatively optimistic answer.

Unexpectedly, Bella, sitting cross-legged on the sofa and kneading the Luxray in her lap, said very bluntly,

"Optimistic? Don't be ridiculous. That's just for the team's external PR. Everyone knows that being pessimistic at a time like this gets you flamed online, so no one dares to tell the truth."

This answer took Arthur quite by surprise.

"Are you saying Kubfu doesn't have much hope this year?"

"Correction, it's not just this year," Bella held up a finger and said,

"Kubfu hasn't touched the championship trophy for this league for twenty-six consecutive years."

"Er…"

Arthur was speechless for a moment.

Kubfu had been without the Champions Cup trophy for over twenty years and without the World Cup trophy for over thirty years.

Whether it was from Bella's attitude or the information revealed in Andrew's words before, it seemed that these professional or quasi-professional players were more or less aware that there was a problem with Kubfu's current Pokémon competitive scene.

Connecting this to what Old Master Everhart had complained to him about at the birthday banquet, Arthur seemed to have a moment of insight: these problems in Kubfu's Pokémon competitive scene had likely been going on for many years, and had never been fixed.

But Arthur still didn't know—what exactly was this problem?

To this day, he still couldn't see clearly: where exactly had the great Kubfu gone wrong…

(End of chapter)

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