Pokemon: Reborn Rich Alternate Earth

After the battle, Julian walked back from the battlefield to stand beside John, who gave him a satisfied pat on the shoulder. Then, looking at Victor and the others, he said with a smug grin:

“My dear grandson, you really have no sense at all. How could you finish the fight so quickly? Where does that leave those five Elites dignity?”

“Though, to be fair, those five opponents of yours really were quite average.”

The scheduled time for the battles to end was 12 o’clock, but Julian had wrapped it up in just a few minutes.

The five defeated trainers: 'If I were Champion, I’d be this shameless too...'

Julian didn’t respond. There was no need to chime in when his grandfather was showing off.

After all, his grandfather was the Champion, and he himself was a junior. Jumping into the conversation would just seem disrespectful.

Instead, he turned his attention to the matches of Asher, Rowan, Pierce, and Ember.

The four of them were also in the middle of battling their fifth challengers. While they were a bit slower than Julian, they weren’t lagging by much.

And just like Julian, none of them had switched Pokémon during their matches.

- Asher’s Pokémon was Salamence.

- Rowan used Abomasnow.

- Pierce had Regirock,

- And Ember had Blaziken.

Except for Regirock, the other three Pokémon all had Mega Evolution forms.

Ever since Mega Evolution was discovered decades ago, trainers often considered whether a Pokémon had a Mega form when choosing their partners.

Of course, this wasn’t an absolute rule—but Pokémon with Mega Evolutions were generally more popular.

Even if you didn’t necessarily have the Mega Stone—which was incredibly rare and difficult to obtain—you never knew when you might get lucky and find one.

So if two Pokémon had the same type, similar potential, and equal growth prospects, but one had a Mega form and the other didn’t, most trainers would choose the one that could Mega Evolve.

Mega Evolution could give a Pokémon a significant power boost—sometimes enough to jump an entire tier.

For example, after Mega Evolving, a Pokémon at the peak of pseudo-Elite level could become an Elite for a short time.

So, if your opponent could Mega Evolve and you couldn’t, and your strength was otherwise equal, you’d likely be at a serious disadvantage.

The Pokémon used by the three trainers hadn’t Mega Evolved, and although they’d taken some damage, they still looked to be in decent shape.

As for Pierce’s Regirock, being a legendary Pokémon, its strength was clearly greater than it had been during last year’s Hundred Schools League. If Regirock had been that strong back then, Julian would’ve had a much harder time defeating him.

As for now—

Five minutes should be enough.

Once Metagross Mega Evolves, it should be able to take down Regirock and the other three Pokémon in about five minutes.

Unless the Pokémon they sent out just now weren’t their strongest, then Julian’s earlier assumption would be invalid.

Julian quietly observed the four ongoing battles and gained a better understanding of their overall strength.

After all, once they entered the Top-tier secret realm, these four would become his teammates. If any of them were too weak and ended up dragging him down, that would be a serious problem.

He simply stood there watching, completely unaware that his actions of ending the battles early had actually put a lot of pressure on Asher, Rowan, and Ember.

Pierce wasn’t affected—because he already knew how strong Julian was.

But for Asher and the others, they’d only heard people say that Julian was powerful.

And now, not only had Julian already finished his battle, but based on what they'd heard, he also fought the strongest trainer among the 25 challengers.

And even when facing a strong opponent like Murphy, Julian still finished faster than them.

Adding to that, he was younger than all of them, that just made the pressure greater.

They were all considered prodigies—so why was Julian still more outstanding than them?

Unconsciously, the three had already started to treat Julian as a rival.

Five minutes later, the remaining battles came to an end. All four managed to defeat their final challengers and officially earned the qualifications to enter the Top-tier secret realm.

As for the twenty-five defeated trainers, they left dejectedly under the staff’s guidance.

When they arrived, they were full of confidence, convinced that they could defeat their opponents.

Now, they walked away in a daze, completely crushed.

They had seen what real prodigies looked like. Compared to them, they were just playing around—nothing more than rookies.

The four winners returned to their respective elders’ sides.

But each of them, more or less, kept glancing at Julian.

Meanwhile, Julian had already stored the Temporary Mission's rewards into his system space, and was eager to leave and take the Mental Recovery Potion as soon as possible.

The sharp pain in his head kept reminding him that his psychic damage wasn’t going to heal easily.

Though his five battles might’ve looked easy from the outside, he had been intensely focused the entire time. That level of mental strain was what brought on the pain in his head.

His injuries hadn’t fully healed yet, and now he was overusing his mind again—of course it would hurt.

“You five should introduce yourselves to each other. From now on, you’re teammates, and once inside the secret realm, you’ll need to cooperate closely,” Duke said.

The other four might’ve had some prior interaction, but Julian wasn’t familiar with any of them. Even Pierce had only fought him once during the Hundred Schools League.

“I’ve wanted to meet little brother Julian for a long time,” Ember said with a smile.

As she spoke, her eyes naturally settled on Julian again. She continued, “Before I came here, I didn’t think that little brother Julian would be qualified to stand alongside us.”

“Now it seems that if you’re not qualified, then we are even less so.”

Julian had ended his battles earlier than all of them, and while their Pokémon had taken varying degrees of damage, Julian’s Metagross looked like it hadn’t suffered a scratch.

Right now, Metagross stood calmly by Julian’s side.

The other four trainers also had their Pokémon beside them.

Metagross was only at the peak of pseudo-Elite level, yet the strength it had displayed was astonishingly overwhelming.

There was no way Ember and the others could take him lightly after witnessing that.

But this was actually a good thing for them. Just like Duke had said earlier, they were now going to be teammates.

The Top-tier secret realm was full of dangers—if their teammates were strong enough, they might even be able to win without doing much.

Wasn’t that just like playing Pokémon Glory? Your own skills didn’t matter too much—as long as your teammate was strong enough to carry the entire team, you could just sit back and win.

That was exactly what Ember was thinking—but her Blaziken, standing behind her, clearly didn’t agree.

'I haven’t battled you yet—why should I believe you’re stronger than me?'

In fact, it wasn’t just Blaziken. Even Asher’s Salamence and Rowan’s Abomasnow looked at Metagross unconvinced.

Metagross had finished its battle ahead of them, but did that mean it was stronger than all of them?

Regirock: 'I'm fully convinced.'

Just the memory of being overwhelmed by Metagross last year was enough to make Regirock silently pray for Blaziken and the others to pick a fight—then it could sit back and enjoy the show.

Metagross: 'Are we about to fight?'

Seeing the defiant looks from the three Pokémon, Metagross suddenly felt that it should educate them.

Blaziken: 'You really wanna take me on?'

The air suddenly grew a bit tense.

Regirock: 'Fight! Please fight! Let’s goooo...'

*****

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