Chapter 12: Cross-Era Chat
In the following days, Arthur's life became very regular.
Every day he trained himself, practiced Froakie, and updated his Star Blog once a day.
Besides taking photos of Froakie and uploading them, from the second day onwards, Eleanor Vance gave him another task.
That was to write a memoir on Star Blog and share his past life in Moonwhisper Mountain with netizens.
Of course, this memoir was all fabricated, mainly to solidify his persona and maintain popularity.
At first, Eleanor Vance was afraid he wouldn't know how to write it, and she sent him templates every day, probably a ghostwritten piece from someone in the company.
But in the beginning, Arthur refuted everything and completely disproved them.
"There are too many errors in this. For example, in this section: Although Beedrill are irritable, they are extremely territorial. Unless the queen orders, they would never chase a child out of their territory.
Another example is this: Sandslash are extremely afraid of water, Sandslash wouldn't appear below the waterfall where Suicune lives.
And this section has the biggest problem: Suicune can walk on air. It would be easy for her to drive away the Pidgeotto in the air, and she wouldn't need to use her body to block an attack for me. Moreover, it's impossible for ordinary wild Pokémon to dare to attack a mythical beast."
This ghostwritten article of less than 500 words had more than ten mistakes pointed out by Arthur. In the chat app, the person on the other end of Arthur's long voice message was silent for a long time...
From this, Eleanor Vance knew at least two things—
First: Regardless of whether Arthur had really lived in the mountains for fifteen years, this kid knew Pokémon much better than their company's amateur self-media writers.
Second: The article could be completely left to Arthur himself, and she didn't need to worry about it...
So, from the second day onwards, she stopped this futile effort and let Arthur write freely.
And the effect was quite good.
Although what Arthur wrote wasn't as sensational as the clickbait articles, it was surprisingly well-researched.
Every time it was posted, there were netizens who didn't believe his background and tried to find fault, but in the end, it was those who spoke recklessly who were proven wrong.
Gradually, more people began to believe that he was truly raised by Pokémon, and his follower count increased steadily every day.
When Eleanor Vance found him again that day, she couldn't help but praise him, "I didn't expect you to be so good at writing. This time, we didn't even need to manage you, and you got your first advertising cooperation by yourself, it's a travel agency, inviting you to film a travel ad introducing Moonwhisper Mountain scenery."
Arthur was very calm about this.
He wasn't really fifteen years old and had never gone to school, writing something wasn't a problem, only typing on the keyboard was a bit difficult and frustrating, everything else was easy.
As for being well-researched, that was even more obvious. He became a trainer at the age of thirteen, and he had fought for sixteen years since then. What wild Pokémon hadn't he seen?
In comparison, he was more concerned about—
"When can I participate in the trainer selection?"
Eleanor Vance looked at him with some surprise. "Oh? Are you so confident in Froakie? You're planning to compete now? Don't you want to train for a while longer?"
One word in Eleanor Vance's words puzzled him.
"You said, compete?"
"Yes, if you're really that confident, there's a semi-professional competition hosted by a local TV station in two weeks, open for online registration. In previous years, as long as you make the top four, you have a chance to debut. If you're interested, I can use my connections to get you registered now."
Competition? Debut? Registration?
Arthur was increasingly confused by these terms.
It was only at this moment that he finally realized that, after two hundred years, the meaning of the word "trainer" seemed to have undergone a tremendous change from his impression.
He asked the question, which took Eleanor Vance by surprise.
"The kind that cooperates with the military, you must be referring to the military trainer advisors in the past, right? That profession isn't something just anyone can get into, you're really overthinking it if you want to be that.
The trainers we usually talk about are professional athletes in the Pokémon competition."
Eleanor Vance's answer further deepened Arthur's confusion.
"Pokémon competition, what is that?"
Eleanor Vance looked at him in surprise.
"Oh? You don't even know this? Oh, right, you were pretty lacking in general knowledge. To talk about Pokémon competition, it's currently the most popular competitive sports event in the world, you can find the specific rules online.
When you said you wanted to be a trainer at first, I thought you knew about this."
Eleanor Vance was also quite helpless. It was only now that she realized that they had been having a cross-era chat all along.
And it was a two-hundred-year-long cross-era chat...
After Eleanor Vance left that day, Arthur hurriedly took the computer from Froakie and went online to search for information about Pokémon competition.
As soon as he saw the introduction to the origins of Pokémon competition, he suddenly had an epiphany.
"Pokémon competition originated in Alliance Calendar Year 82, a competitive sport that emerged after humans and Pokémon achieved a great reconciliation."
No wonder he didn't know...
This was a sport that emerged in the last two hundred years.
Come to think of it, in his era, Pokémon willing to follow humans were extremely rare, and trainers were extremely valuable combat elites. There was no time for them to participate in any competitive matches.
It was only after humans and Pokémon achieved great reconciliation that the number of people holding Pokémon expanded unprecedentedly, which gave rise to the globally popular Pokémon competition.
He continued reading the encyclopedia's introduction.
"The earliest Pokémon competition rules were completely different from the current ones and were relatively chaotic. Different alliances had their own different ways of playing. At the beginning, the sport even allowed trainers and Pokémon to fight on the field together. This rule is still preserved in some unofficial underground battles.
After a long period of development, the rules of Pokémon competition have continuously evolved, changed, and improved. Until Alliance Calendar Year 173, almost a century after the sport was born, Misha Rowicki from the Alola Alliance in the Southern Hemisphere established a set of extremely comprehensive arena rule systems, which established 11 basic principles such as trainers not participating, standardized arena size, and Pokémon skill restrictions changing with the level of competition. Later, this system was widely recognized and adopted by major regional alliances. Since then, the competition rules of Pokémon competition have officially moved towards standardization and unification."
This encyclopedia entry had many clickable links to view more definitions, such as Misha Rowicki and the 11 basic principles.
But Arthur wasn't in a hurry to click on more at this time, but instead lowered his head.
This was the first time he knew that in modern trainer battles, the trainers themselves were not allowed to participate in combat.
At that moment, he looked down at the dumbbell he had been holding for a while and fell into deep thought...