Pokémon: I picked up a reborn Eevee at the start of the game

Early exposure to truly top-tier trainers will be more beneficial for his future.

Therefore, Lian Shuxiang chose Long Ye as Xia Chen's opponent.

However, although the opponent has been decided to be the powerful Master Ryūno, it does not mean that you must defeat him to pass the test.

Just like a regular dojo challenge, you don't necessarily need to defeat your opponent to succeed in the assessment; you only need to gain their approval.

Although this is a very subjective judgment criterion, the dojo assessment tournament is an open competition with public oversight, so the credibility of the competition is still quite good.

Whether the examinee is capable of serving as the gym leader will be revealed after this all-out battle.

As for Ryūno's strength, generally speaking, any Pokémon that can defeat him is fully qualified to be a Gym Leader.

If the process is exciting, even one is acceptable.

Considering that Xia Chen's Sylveon can Mega Evolve and that he has several Fairy-type Pokémon that are natural counters to Dragon-type Pokémon, raising the requirement to three is also acceptable.

Any more than that would be unrealistic.

After making the decision, Lian Shuxiang sent the official alliance document to Xia Chen and also posted it online.

As a result, this long-awaited dojo assessment competition in the Donghuang region quickly attracted the attention of onlookers.

…………

Journalists have gradually figured out a pattern: if a headline includes the name "Xia Chen," the number of views for that news story will increase dramatically—it's practically the answer in the news industry.

After being silent for over a month, Xia Chen stirred up trouble again, unsurprisingly making it back to the top of the trending searches.

Gym Leader Xia Chen? The Gym Tournament Open will begin on November 15th at Qianlong Gym! VS. The strongest Gym Leader, Long Ye!

The title is concise, but it contains a great deal of information.

Is Xia Chen going to become the gym leader? Which gym in Donghuang would be suitable for him to take over?

People initially thought the news headlines were clickbait.

Because the construction of Yuanling Island and the application for Yuanling Dojo were not made public, this news was only known to a small group of people around Xia Chen until now, when it has become known to the public.

Xia Chen's longtime fans on Pixiv are quite emotional - from the first day he started making videos, Xia Chen never hid his dream of becoming a "salted fish restaurant owner" in the future. Unexpectedly, he actually realized it, and in just three years!

His inspiring, almost fantastical life story has once again redefined people's understanding of genius.

However, according to the official announcement from the league, the "examiner" for this assessment match is Longye, which is somewhat ominous.

Known as the "strongest Gym Leader in the East," Ryuno is a face of the East's trainers. In last year's World Gym Leader Tournament, he narrowly lost to Giovanni and finished as runner-up—which is the best result in the East's World Tournament in recent years.

At the same time, he is also the strongest in his class in the world, and as a gym leader, he has squeezed into the top fifteen.

Only two people from Donghuang made it into the top twenty: Long Ye and Gu Kunshan, the Donghuang champion currently ranked tenth in the world. This shows how strong Long Ye is.

And this person is actually Xia Chen's opponent in the assessment competition?

It has to be said that the league knows exactly what the general public wants to see.

This match is getting interesting...

Netizens have been discussing this extensively, but Xia Chen, the person involved, has no way to express his suffering.

He hadn't expected his first official battle against his old acquaintance, Ryūno, to come so soon—although he had challenged the Hidden Dragon Gym before, the two were on completely different levels...

The intensity of this battle is a bit too outrageous.

Even so, Xia Chen wasn't particularly worried.

Mega Sylveon and Mega Gardevoir are at least Elite Four level in strength. With their Fairy-type attributes, they are barely capable of going head-to-head with the main Pokémon of the Dragon Realm.

As for the rest, let's do our best and leave the rest to fate.

With that in mind, Xia Chen began his preparations, and the day of the competition soon arrived.

…………

November 15, Kamijyo City, Senryu Dojo.

Inside the arena, a match with few spectators but a large number of cameras is about to begin.

The reason there are few spectators is that the dojo does not bear the heavy responsibility of hosting large-scale competitions and cannot afford too many spectators.

However, fewer people do not mean lower quality. Most of the people watching the game today are high-ranking officials from the Donghuang Alliance.

Their perception of the competition will greatly influence the outcome of the assessment.

The large number of cameras was due to the large number of media outlets covering the match, including most of the regional media branches based in Beijing.

This is a special competition that has generated a lot of buzz online.

At this moment, the two main characters of this match, Xia Chen and Long Ye, who hadn't seen each other for several months, were having a pleasant chat in the preparation room.

"You little rascal, you've come back and haven't even come to sit here for a while."

Longye laughed and cursed.

Having known each other for two and a half years, their relationship is that of mentor and friend, and they still keep in touch frequently.

Speaking of the last super evolution experiment, he had contacted Longye, but unfortunately he had gone off to wander around somewhere at the time, so he had to invite him again for the second batch that started not long after.

Xia Chen shrugged helplessly. "You know perfectly well that my island is in the busiest time right now. After this battle, I still need to go back and incubate the eggs."

"That Burning Bug from Alder, right? Nurture it well; the future belongs to you young people."

Longye suddenly sighed, "I'm also preparing to hand over the position of head of the museum to Longyue and start my retirement."

Xia Chen asked in surprise, "So early?"

Longye smiled and replied, "At least the year after next. After all, not everyone has your freakish rate of growth. By the way, I won't hold back in today's match!"

Xia Chen smiled and raised an eyebrow. "I couldn't be happier."

Regardless of what you're thinking, you can't let your momentum falter.

The two exchanged a smile, and then headed towards the battlefield amidst the urgent ringing of the bell.

Although it was only a short match, the assessment tournament was organized quite well, with the venue, referees, and scoreboard all following the most standard international 6v6 format.

Having just finished catching up, the two naturally had nothing more to say and silently waited for the competition to begin.

Shortly after, the whistle signaling the start of the match suddenly rang out, and two Poké Balls flew onto the field with a flash of white light.

The battle has officially begun!

…………

With a flash of white light, the starting Pokémon of both sides made their appearance.

Standing on the left side of the battlefield is a kind-looking but exceptionally powerful orange-yellow flying dragon spirit, Dragonite.

On the right is a slender figure in a white dress, Gardevoir.

Both sides had a very standard opening, and Ryūno didn't send out his ace, Nume Ryū, so quickly.

Xia Chen didn't dare to be arrogant. Facing the Dragon-type Gym Leader, he directly used the Fairy-type Gardevoir as his counter.

"Dragonite, close in at lightning speed!"

Just as predicted before the match, Ryūno showed no intention of holding back. The match had barely begun when he immediately directed his Dragonite to launch a fierce attack without any hesitation.

Gardevoir's troublesome aspect lies in its unpredictable teleportation; the tactical intent behind this lightning-fast maneuver couldn't be clearer—

You'd better hand over your teleportation ability!

Despite its somewhat bulky appearance, Dragonite started moving at an astonishing speed, instantly transforming into an orange meteor and flying towards Gardevoir.

The afterimages behind him and the straight lines of flowing clouds all demonstrated his amazing speed.

Generally speaking, Gardevoir, being a fragile Pokémon, will inevitably avoid the opponent's most aggressive attack at the start of the battle when facing a physical attacker several levels stronger than itself.

However, Gardevoir unexpectedly gathered energy, seemingly preparing to counterattack.

Ryūno raised an eyebrow, vaguely guessing what was going on—this was Zoroark disguised as Gardevoir!

Zoroark, being a Ghost-type Pokémon, is immune to Normal-type Extreme Speed, which is why it is so fearless.

Thinking of this, Ryūno quickly changed his mind and said, "Dragonite, switch to Hurricane!"

Although he had a guess, he didn't dare to directly use Dragon Pulse or Meteor Shower, just in case this guy played a trick on him.

As expected of Dragonite's main Pokémon, it paused in a very short time, then tilted its head back and took a deep breath before exhaling violently!

Chi-

A howling wind raged across the field. Under the precise control of the near-championship-level Dragonite, the turbulent airflow swirled in one direction and instantly coalesced into a terrifying whirlwind.

The wind howled and swept across the short distance between Dragonite and Gardevoir, and it looked like it would swallow the latter in the next second. Ryuno waited patiently for the result.

Zoroark's ability [Illusion] is annoying, but a little bit of intelligence will prevent you from falling into its trap.

In the current situation, Gardevoir has only two possible responses: either teleport away to prove she is indeed Gardevoir, or use a stealth attack, thus revealing Zoroark's true identity.

Long Ye had thought so; he had even written the script. But Xia Chen unexpectedly did not follow the script.

…………

A transparent barrier unfolded, tightly protecting Gardevoir at the center of the storm from any harm.

Hold on!

The emergence of the third scenario left Longye somewhat bewildered about the truth.

But he quickly realized something—if it really was Gardevoir, why would Xia Chen use the precious Protection instead of teleporting directly?

His attempt to cover up the truth only strengthened his belief that this was Zoroark's idea, but he still cautiously commanded, "One more time, Storm!"

Although I am confident, rationally speaking, it is most reasonable to use a move that can hit both targets at this time.

Thus, the second storm was born.

A fierce wind swept past, this time even faster than before.

To be honest, even with superior strength, such a move wouldn't deal much damage; it was purely to test Longye's idea.

This time, he finally got the answer he wanted.

A stealthy attack!

As a dark crack opened, Gardevoir entered, and the truth was finally revealed—

This is Zoroark!