Chapter 1: Please Sign for the Grass-type Champion Development System!
As the alarm clock rang, Ye Lan groggily opened his eyes.
Feeling a piercing pain in his brain, Ye Lan struggled on the bed for a long time, gave a final lurch, but still failed to get up.
If I'd known, I would've gone to sleep earlier last night instead of playing for so long...
Last night Ye Lan was playing Pokémon battles, using the substitute-protect-toxic tactic and the dirty Whimsicott to torture his opponent to the point of existential despair. It got him so hyped up that he stayed up until three in the morning before falling asleep.
Grass-type Pokémon really are the dirtiest... ahem, the coolest Pokémon!
Just as he was thinking this, Ye Lan's mother's voice came from downstairs. "Get up quickly, Ah Lan! Later we're going to go pick out your starter Pokémon!"
Ye Lan, who had finally managed to sit up in bed, froze. What starter Pokémon? School for senior year of high school was starting in just a few days, wasn't today supposed to be for him to finish his summer homework?
Right at that moment, the ringtone for a phone message suddenly sounded.
Picking up his phone to look, it turned out to be a prompt sent by his childhood friend, Chen Yang.
"Ye Lan, are you ready? You couldn't possibly still be in bed, right? Have you figured it out yet? How about we both choose Fire-type Pokémon, how cool would that be!"
Rushing to get up, he looked out the window and saw that Chen Yang and his parents were all waiting downstairs.
Yet at this moment, Ye Lan was still in a daze. What starter Pokémon? What Fire-type Pokémon? Was he still not fully awake?
Coming to the sink, he splashed cold water on his face, and the piercing pain in his brain struck again.
Leaning against the wall to take a breather, Ye Lan finally came to his senses.
So that's how it is... I am still Ye Lan...
A massive flood of memories rushed in, and after sorting through the memories in his brain, Ye Lan understood that he had come to a world that coexisted in harmony with Pokémon.
And the place where he was right now was precisely the Huaxia Region, one of the Pokémon League's ten regions!
Unlike in the games, in order to reduce casualties among trainers, the Pokémon League had issued a decree a long time ago stating that one could only own a starter Pokémon and embark on a journey at age 16.
Reality was not a game. Encountering fierce-tempered Pokémon carried a very high risk of costing one's life.
After all, not everyone possessed a Super New Trainer physique like Ash, who could take a Thunderbolt head-on, face-tank divine beasts, and shake the black soot from his body while looking totally fine upon a closer look.
After clearing numerous leagues and finally winning the championship in the Alola Region, one looked back and—good grief!—he started traveling at age ten, and when he won the championship he looked even more like an eight-year-old child!
In the Huaxia Region, high school students were granted the qualification to acquire their first starter Pokémon during the summer vacation right before their third and final year of high school, and they officially began learning Pokémon-related knowledge at the start of that third year.
Actually, starting from childhood, all students received introductory education regarding Pokémon knowledge, but it was not systematic; they only began comprehensive exposure once they actually owned a Pokémon.
The high school Ye Lan currently attended, Mianzhou No. 1 High School, was a key high school that specialized in training Pokémon trainers.
The difference between a key high school and an ordinary high school lay not only in the strength of their trainer foundations, but more importantly, in the matter of tuition fees.
Cultivating Pokémon was not as simple as just feeding them; the resources required by Pokémon and the expenses consumed in training were the most realistic thresholds blocking many ordinary people.
Just the tuition fees required for the senior year at Mianzhou No. 1 High School were between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand, and that didn't even count the costs of purchasing Pokémon and registering as a trainer.
Ye Lan looked around his familiar bedroom. Fortunately, nothing else had changed, except that Pokémon had been integrated into this world, and his familiar friends and parents were still by his side.
Just as Ye Lan was feeling emotional, Mother Ye's furious roar from outside the bedroom door came floating up again.
"Ye Lan! If you don't roll out of that bed right this instant, your starter Pokémon is going to be a Caterpie!"
What? A Rayquaza to start with?! Ye Lan hastily shook his head. No, no, no! He couldn't handle that!
Tidying up briefly, Ye Lan dashed downstairs, quickly choked down a few bites of breakfast, and the two families hurried toward the Pokémon House.
The Pokémon House was the official place under the League for selling Pokémon and Pokémon eggs.
Of course, there were also plenty of private Pokémon shops to choose from, though their prices were quite a bit more expensive than the Pokémon House.
Yet many well-off families would choose private Pokémon shops because, by spending a high price, they could reserve Pokémon with high potential or extreme rarity.
After all, who wouldn't want to possess a powerful and rare Pokémon right from the start?
Ye Lan had been pondering this question all the way on the road to the Pokémon House.
His family's financial situation was ordinary. To support his dream of becoming a trainer, his parents had already sacrificed a great deal, not to mention that they still had to pay a hefty tuition fee when school started.
Not only that, registering as a junior trainer also required paying taxes for five consecutive years.
Subtracting these alongside the expenses needed for household operations and buying food for the Pokémon, what remained at the very end was the money Ye Lan could use to buy a Pokémon.
Considering this kind of situation, Grass-type Pokémon had become Ye Lan's primary choice.
Setting the starter Pokémon aside, among civilian Grass-type Pokémon, there were also many extremely dazzling options.
Such as the Grass-and-Fighting-type Breloom, the Solar Power Ability Sunkern, the super-fast Whimsicott, and Ferrothorn, which possessed nine resistances and one immunity—all of them were exceptionally good choices.
However, Breloom with its Fighting type and Whimsicott with its Fairy type wouldn't be cheap; Sunkern had weak early-game battle power and required a Sun Stone to evolve into Sunflora later on, meaning expenses would be another issue.
Ye Lan's mouth suddenly twitched. Could it be that he could only choose a tank-type Pokémon like Ferrothorn? Besides, if it had the Steel type, the price didn't seem very cheap either!
Just as he was thinking, everyone had already arrived in front of the grand entrance of the Pokémon House.
Looking afar, there were quite a few parents bringing their children inside, and quite a few carrying Pokémon eggs as they walked out.
Mianzhou had three high schools: Mianzhou No. 1 High School primarily trained trainers, No. 2 High School leaned toward Breeders, and Jindu No. 3 High School was not among the key high schools.
Right now was the peak period for purchasing Pokémon, so a situation like this was completely normal.
Following the arrival of the guide assigned to the two families, Chen Yang and Ye Lan also parted ways, heading off separately to pick out their Pokémon.
Just as the guide booked by Ye Lan's mother and father was about to speak, Ye Lan's voice already came over from the side.
"Please take us to the Grass-type Pokémon section."
Xiao Zhang the guide froze. Shouldn't boys all like Fire-type or Steel-type Pokémon? Or powerful Dragon-type Pokémon, even though their Pokémon House didn't have any, of course. He immediately thought of something, secretly sighing that this high school student named Ye Lan was truly sensible.
Ye Lan's father and mother also exchanged glances, then turned to look at Ye Lan.
"Ah-Lan, actually your mom and dad still have some savings. Besides, a beginner Pokémon affects college entrance examination battle scores..."
Hearing his old man say that, it left Ye Lan, who had already prepared what he wanted to say, feeling a bit dumbfounded.
"Dad, what are you thinking? It's that I personally prefer Grass-type Pokémon."
Why is it that whenever people mention Grass-type, they instinctively lump it into the categories of easy to raise, cheap, and weak? Although there was some truth to this, and even Ye Lan had thought that way at the very beginning.
Yet on the way here, Ye Lan had already figured it out. He had always been someone who trusted Grass-type Pokémon the most!
Indeed, Grass-type lacked the comprehensiveness of Steel-types, having five weaknesses and four resistances; it lacked the trickiness of Ghost-type; and it lacked the Fairy type's suppression of powerful Dragon types.
Even though Grass-type didn't have a single pseudo-legendary, in Ye Lan's heart, Grass-type Pokémon were always the coolest Pokémon!
Boss Giovanni could raise even a Beedrill with a base stat total of 395 to go toe-to-toe with divine beasts, so why couldn't his talent-brimming, large Grass-type family do it?
There are no weak Pokémon, only trash trainers! He, Ye Lan, insisted on using an all-Grass-type lineup to stand on the stage of the Champions!
He was going to drive the prices of Grass-type Pokémon, right back up!
Ding, congratulations to the host for successfully activating the Grass-type Champion Development System!
Before you continue