The Three-Year Deadline Has Arrived

The entire match had ended. In the end, Xia Chen defeated Wallace by a score of 6:3.

The process had been far from easy, but the score showed that there was already a slight gap between the two Trainers.

Xia Chen and his Pokémon were all thrilled to have won this match.

In terms of importance, this had only been a quarterfinal of the Donghuang Conference, but his opponent had been Wallace, someone fully qualified to contend for Hoenn's Elite Four or even Champion position!

This had been Xia Chen's first time facing an opponent of this caliber in a full-scale official 6v6 battle.

And did winning mean that... he, too, now possessed the strength to challenge a Champion?

This match had made Xia Chen reassess his own strength.

Frankly, the definition of so-called Champion-level strength had always been somewhat vague. Once you became a region's Champion, your main Pokémon naturally became Champion level.

In many past tournaments, there had often been cases of Champions slipping up and losing to Elite Four level Trainers.

Thus, "Champion-level Pokémon" was more often like the Champion title itself—a title rather than a specific measure of strength.

There were also considerable gaps between Champions. Not to look too far afield, in this current generation, Cynthia and Caitlin were clearly in a league of their own.

Leon lagged slightly behind them, while Diantha and Geeta, who came after him, were even farther behind the leaders.

So Xia Chen might now have the strength to challenge for the Donghuang Region Champion title, but he was still some distance away from Cynthia and Caitlin.

This was the conclusion Xia Chen reached after seriously reflecting on the match, and it was also what he used to encourage his Pokémon to keep moving forward.

Of course, his Pokémon would