"Goodbye, everyone! I'll come back to see you!"
"Lulu~"
"Shroom, shroom~"
Ye Lan waved as he walked down the familiar mountain path. For a moment, he felt dazed. Everything looked the same, yet so much had changed.
He remembered the first time he had left the Green Sprout Gym like this, heading for the Unova Region. Back then, he had been accompanied by his newly evolved Serperior and his still-unevolved Cottonee.
He vaguely remembered that Cottonee had really eaten enough to become a "ball," the kind that could float in the sky. Granny Qing had even teased Cottonee for looking like a steamed bun, nearly making Cottonee faint with anger.
When he returned to the Green Sprout Gym, not only had his own appearance changed dramatically, but his team had also grown with the addition of the newly evolved Whimsicott and Rillaboom, who still hadn't moved on.
By the time he headed to Huaxia Academy, he already had Serperior, Whimsicott, Leafeon, Oh-no Amoonguss, and Rillaboom at his side.
And this time, Oh-no Amoonguss had evolved, while Applin and Bulbasaur had joined the team. Everything was moving in a better direction.
Sometimes, Ye Lan still felt that none of this was real. Had he really come to this world of Pokémon because he stayed up late playing a Pokémon game? Or had he been cursed because he'd worn his underwear backward that day?
Or was all of this simply an unusually realistic dream?
Yet watching his Pokémon grow, little by little, always strengthened Ye Lan's resolve. As the bearer of the title "Absolute Monarch of Grass," he was still nowhere near the point where he could stop moving forward.
As his team grew more complete, his journey was only just beginning!
"Once we leave the Paldea Region, it'll be time to