Life Is Unpredictable, Sausage Wrapped in Intestines~

Early the next morning, Ye Lan took Snivy to school for training.

Just yesterday, Snivy's evolution progress had increased by another 3%, reaching 68%.

With high-intensity training and sufficient nutrition, this kind of progress was within Ye Lan's expectations.

At this rate, Snivy would face its first evolution in around ten days.

In Ye Lan's view, while he sought perfection, this pace was not much slower than that of the other starter Pokémon.

He truly could not understand why Wang Siqi would waste a starter Pokémon's potential just for first place in an assessment.

The reward for taking first place in Mianzhou No. 1 High School's assessment should have been nothing more than a drop in the bucket to a Pokémon family like hers.

After losing, she had flown into a rage out of humiliation and even transferred schools without taking her Pokémon with her.

Perhaps to the core members of those lofty families, a starter Pokémon used for practice was unimportant. They could not develop feelings or bonds with a Pokémon that would never join their team.

They simply could not stand losing to trainers from a small city. They only wanted to win.

Ye Lan did not believe that he and Snivy were already invincible. They could lose to those with overwhelming strength, or to those who unleashed incredible power through their bond with their Pokémon, but they would never willingly lose to someone who looked down on Pokémon's feelings.

As Ye Lan considered the training plan ahead, the sound of a glass touching the table snapped him back to his senses. His gaze fell on Snivy, seated across from him.

Snivy had long since wiped out the food and Moomoo Milk in its bowl. It was elegantly offering him a napkin with Vine Whip while wiping food crumbs from the corner of its mouth.

"Snivy~ burp~"

Ye Lan's mouth twitched at the sight. If not for that final burp, he might have considered the Pokémon across from him a refined young lady.

After breakfast, the trainer and Pokémon returned to yesterday's training ground and continued with their training plan.

Their homeroom teacher, Liu Yan, had promised yesterday that she would help him solve the problem of finding sparring partners, but there was still no word from her.

With no other choice, he could only follow the original plan and first work on Snivy's sense of smell and perception.

The days passed quickly, and soon it was time for the new week's assessment.

Although the rewards were not as generous as those of the first week, whether they were students from the elite class seeking to hold their positions or students from the regular classes fighting for the remaining two spots, everyone was fired up today.

"Charmander, use Ember!"

"Pidgey, use Quick Attack!"

On the battle field, a Charmander and a Pidgey were locked in an intense chase.

Though Pidgey used its aerial advantage to evade Charmander's attacks several times, it eventually exposed an opening when its stamina failed. After being struck by Flamethrower, it lost its ability to battle.

"The winner is Chen Yang!"

As the referee's words fell, applause rose all around the field. Chen Yang himself was also thrilled.

This was a top-eight match in the regular class. With this victory, Chen Yang had successfully advanced to the semifinals.

That also meant that as long as Chen Yang won one more match, he was guaranteed a place in the elite class. If he still had something left in him, he could even challenge for a higher ranking.

After witnessing the battle between Lin Yan's Charmander and Ye Lan's Snivy, Chen Yang's attitude toward training Pokémon had changed.

He did not believe his Charmander was inferior to Lin Yan's, so the only reason for such a vast gap in strength had to be himself, the trainer.

Since he and Lin Yan had been assigned to the same area during the first assessment, Chen Yang had also battled Lin Yan before.

He had not been too affected when he lost. After all, Lin Yan's diligence and strength were both well known among the third-years.

But after the battle, he had personally seen that the food Lin Yan used to restore Charmander's stamina was merely a poorly rated Berry. He had been shocked.

Although he had always known that Lin Yan's family was poor, he had never imagined it had reached that extent.

Chen Yang's father was an advanced trainer, and his family was well-off. In addition to its regular meals, Charmander received expensive supplements every day.

His fighting spirit began to burn, and he finally changed his past attitude and started training his Pokémon seriously.

With Charmander's already decent talent, he finally had a chance to enter the elite class this time.

As for Ye Lan, he was reclining in a chair some distance away from the field, dozing while waiting for his homeroom teacher, Liu Yan.

Beside his feet, a little green snake was curled into a ball and taking a nap.

As for why things had turned out this way, both Ye Lan and Snivy had the same answer: What could they do? They were helpless too!

The elite class ranking challenge assessments were held first.

This was both to allow the regular-class students to watch the battles first, understand the elite class's strength and battle habits, and arrange their tactics in advance;

and to let them analyze their own Pokémon's advantages and identify the targets they needed to challenge ahead of time.

This could be considered an advantage provided to the regular-class students.

According to the rules, lower-ranked elite-class students could challenge those ranked above them. The challenged party could not refuse, and each person could be challenged at most three times.

Yet nine of the top ten had been challenged. Only Ye Lan was left, and no one paid them any attention at all!

They had arrived at the training ground early in the morning and had been sitting in those chairs for two whole hours!

Not a single student had called their names during that time, and not even a teacher had given them an assessment number tag. It was utterly inhumane!

If Liu Yan had not said she had something to discuss with him and told him to wait at the training ground, Ye Lan would have taken Snivy and slipped away long ago!

"Snivy? (Ye Lan, are we being isolated?)"

The newly awakened Snivy let out a yawn and looked at its trainer in confusion.

"Uh... well, the strong are always lonely! As they say, life is unpredictable, sausage wrapped in intestines..."

Just as he was about to explain some great truths of life to this snake that was not even a month old, Liu Yan strode over to them.

"Take it. The solution to the sparring problem you wanted."

Liu Yan tossed an envelope and a card into Ye Lan's lap.

"What's this?" Ye Lan looked puzzled. Just as he was about to open the envelope, Liu Yan raised a hand to stop him.

"This is a membership card for Jindu Battle Arena. You have to pay an entry fee for every battle there, but you won't need to with this card."

"The reason is that every victory there earns you points. Points can be exchanged not only for money, but also for certain rare items. It's very suitable for building up your battle experience."

Ye Lan's eyes lit up after hearing Liu Yan's explanation.

This really was the perfect place for him. Not only could he gain battle experience, he could also exchange points for resources he wanted.

Without battles, relying on training to accumulate sunlight points had become noticeably slower lately.

This was one of Ye Lan's greatest advantages over the geniuses, and he had to make good use of it.

"But Snivy is only at the early stage of intermediate level, nearing the middle stage. If it battles those experienced trainers out in society..."

As that thought crossed his mind, Ye Lan grew worried. Battle arenas with reward systems forbade deliberately killing a trainer's Pokémon, but running into a vicious trainer and ending up seriously injured was not uncommon.

Snivy was close to evolving. If it encountered an opponent far too strong and suffered injuries that were too severe, it might affect its evolution.