Digimon: I really didn't want to be the Digimon Emperor!

The former Puppymon had a record of fighting against many opponents, but now that it has evolved into Gatomon, the students don't even have the courage to challenge it anymore.

"Why bother with team battles? One Gatomon can take on all five of us!" Wang Wei, the team leader from the next squad, jokingly voiced everyone's thoughts.

Cheng Yuan felt that this kind of mentality was not acceptable. They were all classmates in the special training class and comrades who had carried guns and fought together. If they could make progress together and enter the Beast Tamer University together, they could take care of each other whether they were in college or after graduation.

Remembering Xu Xin's words, he felt he should also find a way to help these students improve together.

The students were full of confidence, but the teachers were worried. Through communication among the teachers, they learned that the strength of the other participating schools should not be underestimated.

In addition to 12 public schools qualified to train animal trainers, 4 private elite schools also participated in the competition.

The students in these private schools come from wealthy families, and their Digimon are carefully nurtured from the egg stage with a constant supply of resources.

Even more frightening is that the Digi-Eggs they obtain through special channels are often rare varieties with astonishing evolutionary potential.

"I just heard some gossip that some schools may have secretly trained adult Digimon. Apparently, they have alumni who graduated in recent years and became professional trainers helping them," Professor Liu Liuyan reported worriedly at a teachers' meeting.

"Get your act together!" Principal Liu's roar echoed throughout the gymnasium. "You all need to take this seriously. Don't be complacent. The other schools' teams are also full of the elite students from the entire district. This mock exam is a great practice for your college entrance exam. If you don't achieve good results because of carelessness, it will be irresponsible of your future."

Following the school's internal selection competition, the final roster for the Pengcheng No.1 High School team is as follows:

Team Leader: Cheng Yuan (Gi-Oh!)

Team members: Zhao Lu (Gearmon X), Kang Zhaodi (Pangolin), Li Yue (Barumon), Wen Rou (Floramon)

Reserve players: Wang Wei (Hedgehog), Zhang Ming (Candle)

It is worth mentioning that the substitute players are elites selected from other teams to ensure the overall balance of the school team's strength.

This inter-school animal trainer league, organized by the Education Bureau and ostensibly as a mock exam, had 16 schools participating. Each school sent 5 individual fighters and a 5-person team to compete in the team battles. Substitutes were allowed to play in the team battles if the main team members were not performing well.

Even more appealing is that representatives from several prestigious universities will be attending the competition, and outstanding performers may be eligible for early admission.

This mock exam-style league was held in the most bustling and affluent Qianhai area, at the Penguin Sports Arena, sponsored by the Penguin Group.

Since the Penguin Group is sponsoring the project, the location will not be an official digital center. For the Ministry of Education, this saves a significant amount of money.

For Penguin Group, on the one hand, it can establish its own digital industry system and increase its brand awareness among these future animal trainers; on the other hand, if it finds any outstanding animal trainers, it can make early moves and train them so that they can join Penguin Group after graduating from university.

After all, these contestants are likely to become professional animal trainers in the future.

Although the Penguin Sports Centre's facilities are not as complete as the official digital sports center, which is a national-level center, it is more than adequate for a competition venue with a scale of over 100 people.

On April 24th, the Pengcheng No.1 Middle School team traveled to Qianhai District by school-arranged bus. In addition to the seven team members, their teachers Cao Jin (partner Big Ear Beast) and Luo Qiuyu (partner Lala Beast) accompanied them. School leaders and other teachers and students will be present to cheer them on on the day of the competition.

"Wow, this place is so grand!" Zhang Ming couldn't help but exclaim as soon as he stepped into the Penguin Sports Center. The metallic walls gleamed under the lights, and the central arena was spacious enough to accommodate hundreds of people.

If the hall is full, it can easily accommodate tens of thousands of people.

This sports center will utilize state-of-the-art digital space simulation technology to send Digimon into a virtual digital space built through algorithms for battle.

In the virtual digital space, various battlefields can be set up according to the needs of the battle, including forest battlefields, desert battlefields, swamp battlefields, mechanical battlefields, and even air battlefields... as well as composite battlefields.

It can even replicate the scene of a specific grid in digital space.

Digimon can perfectly enter this virtual digital space and engage in real battles. For Digimon, the virtual digital space is actually the real space. Inside, Digimon can still be injured, and their skills are not weakened.

The senior leaders of each school will only arrive when the competition is about to begin.

Some senior high school students, even juniors and sophomores, and family members of the athletes also came to watch the games.

Penguin Group even secured the broadcasting rights and will be able to stream the content online for a fee.

“Playing in such a venue, with younger students cheering me on, and my parents watching the live stream online…” Zhang Ming murmured to himself, “I wish I could play on the field.”

"Ah! Why do they have matching team uniforms?" Wenrou suddenly exclaimed, pointing to something not far away.

Looking around, the students of No. 2 Middle School were dressed in neat and uniform team uniforms, with "No. 2 Middle School" printed on the front and "Victory" printed on the back. They were neat and uniform and particularly eye-catching.

And they were all wearing school uniforms, the same kind from many different schools.

Not only Wenrou, but the other team members also felt heartbroken when they saw that perhaps fifteen out of the sixteen teams had uniform and beautiful team uniforms.

Miscalculation...

"Wait a minute." Cheng Yuan suddenly turned and walked towards a nearby convenience store. A few minutes later, he returned carrying several boxes and gave everyone a pair of the same type of goggles.

"Although it can't compare to a team uniform, at least it has a unified logo." Cheng Yuan smiled as he adjusted his goggles. "Let's just consider it our school's 'special weapon'."

This small gesture instantly boosted morale. Zhao Lu was the first to put on the goggles, her eyes behind the lenses shining with unwavering determination: "We at No. 1 High School let our strength speak for itself!"

Chapter 109 Digital Curiosities and the Mental Realm

In fact, during the 20-day selection and training period for the school team, Cheng Yuan's life was busy and fulfilling, and he was not idle at all.

Every day after school, he would go to the Pengcheng Evolution Research Institute on time and not return home until evening with Gearmon.

At the research institute, Gear Beast has officially joined the team and become an important member of Zhou Mo's team.

With Zhou Mo's full support, they not only moved to a more spacious laboratory, but also obtained advanced metal refining equipment from Dean Zhou. This young female researcher went to great lengths to persuade her father for her new research project, and finally got her wish.

At the same time, Cheng Yuan also left the Seed of Light in the laboratory and continuously refined it, making the energy of the seed more and more solid.

“Cheng Yuan, according to our research, the Digimon Spirit is actually a special collection of data related to emotions.” Zhou Mo pushed up his glasses and pointed to the data graph on the screen. “It contains a huge amount of data, and the wavelength it releases can guide the growth direction of Digimon.”

Cheng Yuan nodded thoughtfully, his gaze falling on the Light Digital Spirit Seed in the center of the laboratory. After continuous refinement, this seed had become much more solid than it initially was, radiating a soft and pure light.

She pulled up the database of the National Institute for Evolutionary Research and showed several pictures: "However, they are more like crystallized digital nuclei. They cannot reside and grow inside the body like your seed of light. But interestingly, instrumental analysis shows that these crystals contain data fluctuations similar to emotions and feelings."

Cheng Yuan stared at the familiar crystal shape on the screen, his heart suddenly racing—wasn't this the digital spirit crystal he had seen in the Time-Space Secret Realm?

Although the shape and color are different, this style of having mental crystals growing on the outside of the digital core is definitely a digital mental crystal.

As expected, these research institutions have different resources; their huge databases and curio collections are sure to yield many good finds.

"Sister Mo, is it possible to find out the source of these crystals? Is it possible to obtain them in bulk?" Cheng Yuan asked anxiously.

Zhou Mo couldn't help but laugh out loud: "What are you thinking? These are rare items! They were all brought back from high-risk areas by professional animal trainers. Only those that the National Research Institute couldn't find any results from, or those that were in excess, are put into the Rare Items Archive. If a lower-level research institute wants to apply for research, it has to first get its project approved."

Cheng Yuan's eyes lit up: "Then let's start a research project too?"

What specific ideas do you have?

“I have a feeling that these crystals are closely related to my Seed of Light.” Cheng Yuan carefully chose his words. “And… has Sister Mo heard about the digital armor technology that the provincial research institute is developing?”

Zhou Mo nodded, her eyes sparkling with excitement: "Of course! Although the failure rate is still very high, this direction is very promising. It mainly involves developing enhanced weapons or armor, creating tactical chips, and loading them through an arc light machine to achieve tactical diversity."

She became more and more excited as she spoke: "Imagine a Digimon suddenly growing claws or wings during battle, how unexpected! Even more advanced would be a complete set of custom armor, but that involves digital materialization and metal refining technology, which is difficult to achieve in the short term."

"Sister Mo, I have a bold idea. With these crystals, we can forge even more powerful armor. Gear Beast has some experience in this area."

Gear Beast: "666".

"More powerful armor? You mean armor that can be combined with these digital artifact crystals to develop armor with even higher data bonuses?" Zhou Mo's eyes lit up.

However, her understanding still limited her imagination, and she clearly hadn't grasped Cheng Yuan's true idea—to replicate armor evolution in the real world.

Cheng Yuan didn't explain further, but simply asked her to try her best to apply for the project, focusing on armor enhancement. If that didn't work, he would think of another way.

However, the application process has not been smooth, and the project review has not yet been completed. But Zhou Mo also said that there is some progress, because she recently added Dean Zhou's name to the list of project applicants.

The influence of a municipal-level research institute director is enough to get many research projects approved.

At the same time, research on the Digital Spirit of Light has also made groundbreaking progress.

"Look at this!" Zhou Mo excitedly displayed her latest experimental results. She encapsulated the Light Digital Spirit into a specially made chip, inserted it into the Arc Light Machine, and released a hazy halo of light. Data fluctuations within the area showed that the environmental attributes were highly similar to those of the Divine Digital Space.

“Within this domain, the combat power of Holy and Light type Digimon will be significantly enhanced!” Zhou Mo explained excitedly. “The most amazing thing is that this bonus is not only for Digimon bound to Arc Machines, but also for all matching type Digimon within the domain!”

Cheng Yuan was amazed. Wasn't this the "halo" effect in the game? Although the coverage area is still small at present, with the growth of the DigiSpirit, future Beast Tamers may really be able to change the battlefield environment through the DigiSpirit and Arc Machine, and no longer just be a bystander shouting "666".

“Gearmon has been a great help in this research.” Zhou Mo looked at Gearmon, who was operating the instrument, with admiration. Since officially joining the company, this mechanical Digimon has shown amazing learning ability and has become an indispensable assistant in the laboratory.

Cheng Yuan felt that collaborating with Zhou Mo was a wise move. He provided the ideas and materials, and Zhou Mo and Gear Beast were able to transform them into concrete research results. The field of digital spirit, digital evolution armor... every direction is full of infinite possibilities.

Zhou Mo once revealed that once these research results are put into application, the patent fees alone will be a considerable income. In Cheng Yuan's view, the commercial value of digital evolution armor may even surpass that of digital songs—after all, it is a technology that can directly enhance combat power.

"Now, please welcome the animal trainer candidates from each school to the stage!"

The host's voice pulled Cheng Yuan back to reality. The Penguin Sports Center was brightly lit, and the stands were packed. The teams from sixteen schools stood in neat rows, waiting for the competition to begin.

Cheng Yuan adjusted his goggles, and Gatomon quietly perched on his shoulder. After this period of special training, the little guy could now skillfully switch between the four attributes, and his strength had reached a new level.

The flame and shadow rings on her left ear shimmered faintly under the light, highlighting their contrast with the surrounding light.

"Are you nervous?" Zhao Lu asked softly. Her Gear Beast X was making the final voltage adjustments, emitting a faint "buzzing" sound.

Cheng Yuan shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the athletes from other schools. In the front row, he noticed a boy in a navy blue team uniform stroking the shell of a clam.

Not far away, a boy in a team uniform with a Chinese style stood next to a magpie with its wings folded.

"It seems the rumors are true; there are indeed Champion-level Digimon participating," Kang Zhaodi said in a low voice, causing Pangolin to shrink back nervously.

Chapter 110 A Gathering of Heroes

The Penguin Sports Competition Center, where Pengcheng No. 1 Middle School is located, was packed with students. The younger students sat neatly in their designated areas, excitedly whispering to each other.

In the teachers' section, the teachers of each subject looked serious and occasionally lowered their heads to take notes.

The VIP area at the very front was even more star-studded – the three vice presidents of the Pengcheng Beast Tamer Association, the leadership team of the Education Bureau, and the observation groups from more than ten top beast tamer universities, including the Beijing Beast Tamer University, the Shanghai Beast Tamer University, and the Huadu Beast Tamer University, arrived one after another.

"As expected of Pengcheng," an observer from the capital city murmured in admiration. "Although it can't compare to the foundation of the capital, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, the quality of its students is truly enviable for other cities."

His companion nodded: "I heard that some high school students have already reached the graduation stage this year. In previous years, they would have been directly admitted to universities without taking the entrance exam."

"Please be quiet, everyone!"

Suddenly, the large electronic screen in the center of the venue lit up, accompanied by rousing background music, and a smart-looking man in a dark blue suit strode onto the stage.

Beside him followed a strangely shaped Digimon—its round body topped with an LCD screen, comically mimicking its owner's actions as it watched.

[Display Beast]

【Data Type - Puppet Type】

[Growth Period]

[Skill: Fireball (launches a fireball for attack, but its power is not very high)]

[Description: Its face is like a monitor screen, capable of displaying various expressions and information, much like emoticons. Wearing green clothes and sporting a large belly, its overall appearance is both cute and somewhat comical.]

"Good morning, leaders, teachers, and students!" The host's voice resounded throughout the venue through the loudspeakers. "I am He Ling, the host of today's simulation battle league, from the Penguin Group News Department. This is my partner—Monitor Beast!"

The word "HELLO" immediately flashed on the monitor's screen, eliciting laughter from the audience.

He Ling raised his hand to signal everyone to be quiet: "Before the competition begins, please allow me to emphasize some spectator etiquette—except for cheering during the contestants' excellent performances, please remain quiet at all other times. After all..." He winked, "this is an important exam that concerns everyone's future!"

Cheng Yuan stood in the preparation area of ​​Pengcheng No. 1 Middle School, looking around.

The flags of the sixteen schools were neatly arranged on both sides of the field, with five to eight animal trainers in school uniforms standing under each flag.

The sight of the crowd around him reminded him of the forger exam he took in the Digital Space Secret Realm—except that back then, he was surrounded by various Digimon, while now he was surrounded by a dense crowd of people.

"Now I announce that the first Pengcheng High School Beast Tamer Simulation Competition has officially begun!" He Ling's voice suddenly rose. "This competition has a total of 16 high schools and more than 100 top beast tamer candidates. They are all the new generation of beast tamers in Pengcheng, the best among the new beast tamers. Please welcome the candidates to the arena!"

As the stirring march played, the teams from each school marched past the podium in turn.

Cheng Yuan noticed that, in addition to the prestigious public schools such as Pengcheng No. 1 Middle School and No. 2 Middle School, the teams from four private elite schools were particularly eye-catching—their uniforms were well-tailored, and their school badges gleamed under the lights.

"Pengcheng No.1 Middle School, Pengcheng No.2 Middle School, Qianhai Experimental Middle School, Hongling Middle School, Bao'an Middle School, University of Science and Technology of China Affiliated High School, Nanshan High School..."

“There are also private schools like the Overseas Chinese College, Meisha Bilingual School, Fu Yuan Middle School, and Mathematics High School…” Li Yue muttered to herself, “I heard that half a year’s tuition at these schools is enough to buy a high-quality Digimon. They’re all for rich people.”

Kang Zhaodi curled his lip: "So what if you have money? We'll see how it goes on the field later."

After the entrance ceremony, He Ling began to explain the competition rules in detail.

The league is divided into individual and team competitions, and the matches will last for two days.

The individual competition is divided into a preliminary round and a main competition. The preliminary round uses a points system, and each player needs to play three matches. The main competition is a brutal single-elimination system, and only the sixteen players with the highest points can advance.

“A win earns 3 points, a loss earns 0 points, and a draw earns 1 point each,” He Ling explained. “The judging panel will make the final evaluation based on the overall performance in the battle and the growth rate of the Digimon.”

Listening to the rules, Cheng Yuan started counting on his fingers, his mind a little confused.

If we keep winning, we'll definitely advance.

After the preliminary rounds, there will be 16 players left, and these 16 players will officially compete in the main competition.

The main competition is actually secretly referred to as the mini-college entrance examination.

Because of the 16 main contestants, it is estimated that some animal trainer universities will pre-book them and extend offers.

After all, it's one of the top 16 in the entire Pengcheng.