The Pokémon Championship Begins

From the moment his momentum escalated until Ma Feifei reached the center of the field, he took six steps...

Then he successfully reached the peak Spirit King ninth stage realm.

A salted fish is still a salted fish; it can't turn itself upside down.

Although his cultivation level hadn't increased much, Ma Feifei was extremely confident. Standing in the center of the arena, looking at the 300,000 cultivators in the surrounding stands, Ma Feifei raised his hands and gently pressed them down.

Instantly, silence fell, and 300,000 people focused their attention on Ma Feifei.

"First of all, thank you all for attending the first Pokémon Championship, hosted by Mysterious Bookstore and organized by Wantong Trading Market. The 'pokémon' in question refers to a Yellow Quality book from Mysterious Bookstore called 'Pokémon'..."

"To better showcase the unique charm of the Pokémon, our Mysterious Bookstore is hosting this competition."

"..."

Bai Ma Feifei spoke for twenty minutes at the beginning, and finally left the stage amidst enthusiastic applause, giving his seat to Gongsun Qiong.

Gongsun Qiong then spent about five minutes explaining the rules and format of the competition.

Then he gave his position to Zhou Wuji.

Zhou Wuji then spent another five minutes giving a speech, as the mayor of Dubian Town, praising the Pokémon support and the tremendous contributions the Mysterious Bookstore had made to Dubian Town over the past six months.

Finally, with their departure and the referee's announcement that the Pokémon Championship had officially begun.

The Pokémon tournament format is simple. First, there is a preliminary round, in which 2,400 participants are randomly selected to compete against each other in pairs, and 1,200 winners are chosen. Then, the 1,200 winners continue to randomly select opponents, and 600 winners are chosen in the same way, until the final ten winners are selected to enter the final.

During this period, contestants who are not drawn will receive a bye and will be judged as winners to advance to the next round.

The final round was simple, using a "Twelve Kings" format, where each of the ten contestants had one chance to challenge the other nine, and the contestant with the highest score at the end won the Pokémon Championship.

Ma Feifei and his entourage then retreated backstage and sat in the VIP section reserved for important figures to watch the game.

Looking at Gongsun Qiong beside him, Ma Feifei couldn't help but ask curiously, "Didn't Steward Liu tell me you were going to participate in this competition? Why are you still here?"

Gongsun Qiong smiled and said, "I originally wanted to participate, but I was afraid that if I won the championship, people would say there was something fishy going on, so after thinking about it, I decided not to participate in this competition."

Upon hearing this, Ma Feifei couldn't help but ask, "Are you so confident that you can win the championship in this competition?"

Gongsun Qiong shook her head seriously and said, "No."

"..." Ma Feifei was speechless. Have all the people he's been around for a while become this cheeky?

However, Gongsun Qiong was indeed right. As the organizer of this Pokémon Championship, Wantong Trading Market Wantong Trading Market, and with Gongsun Qiong being its top leader, would face scrutiny even if she won just one match if she signed up for the competition. Therefore, it would be best for her to give up participating in this competition.

In fact, it wasn't just Gongsun Qiong who gave up this opportunity to participate; Zhao Xiaodao also gave it up because she needed to take full control of the Pokémon Championship and naturally didn't have time to register for the competition.

"By the way, what's your little sprite?" Ma Feifei asked curiously.

Ma Feifei hadn't really paid attention to Gongsun Qiong's little sprite, and he'd never seen Gongsun Qiong take it out either.

Gongsun Qiong smiled and said, "It's a very cute little elf named Eevee."

Eevee is a fox-like Pokémon, and it's considered one of the cutest in the Pokémon.

What left Ma Feifei speechless was that it seemed that whether it was Gongsun Qiong, Zhao Xiaodao, or Liu Ying, who ranked seventeenth on the Fairy Ranking, all of their little fairies were the cute kind.

Is it in a woman's nature to like cute things?

Thinking of this, Ma Feifei subconsciously glanced at Yun Qingyang on his right.

"What?" Yun Qingyang asked, puzzled, when Ma Feifei turned to look at him.

Ma Feifei shook his head, pointed to the field below, indicating that the match had already begun.

The venue for this event is very large, with nine different terrain maps. Ma Feifei specifically discussed this with Zhao Xiaodao, hoping that the competition venue could be built according to the competition venue in the book.

Because the more than two thousand Pokémon have different attributes, if a single Earth-type map were used, Earth-type Pokémon would have a significant advantage, which would be unfair to Pokémon of other attributes. Therefore, Ma Feifei had them create nine different terrain maps, including mountains, water, trees, plains, and so on...

The contestants draw their maps randomly, which turns these unfairnesses into a matter of luck; for example, if Water-type Pokémon faces Wood-type Pokémon and gets a Water-type map, then the Water-type Pokémon will definitely have an advantage.

At this moment, the nine teams of contestants randomly selected for the first round were ready and stood on either side of the map.

Looking around, Ma Feifei noticed that Li Bieli was actually ranked in the first round, and the map he was on was Water-type. If his opponent was Water-type Pokémon, Li Bieli would be at a disadvantage in this situation.

However, Ma Feifei wasn't worried because Li Bieli's sprite had already broken through to the fifth tier. Relying solely on map advantages wouldn't be enough to defeat a fifth-tier sprite that was a whole tier higher.

Apart from Li Bieli, no one familiar to Ma Feifei appeared in the first round.

"All nine teams are ready. I hereby declare the competition officially open!"

With the referee's whistle, the match officially began.

"Bang~"

"Bang~"

"Bang~"

A dozen or so sounds of releasing Pokémon rang out, and all sorts of Pokémon appeared on the map, immediately sparking discussion among the audience.

"Look, the Pokémon on map six is Pikachu! So cute!" a female cultivator exclaimed, pointing to the center of the arena. As the Pokémon that appears most frequently in the Pokémon, Pikachu is as familiar to everyone as the Pokémon book itself.

"Isn't that Growlithe standing in map number three? I saw a Pokémon that looked exactly like it next to James when I watched the projection before," another cultivator asked curiously.

"Is that little Pokémon flying on map number one Pidgeotto?"

"Is that horse on map number nine Ponyta...?"

"..."