"Excuse me, are you Bai Shi? Would you be interested in a practice battle?"
An unfamiliar Pokémon Trainer, looking pleasantly surprised, eagerly challenged Bai Shi to a battle.
Ever since Bai Shi won the Vertress Conference, scenes like this had become a regular occurrence.
Events on the scale of the Vertress Conference were generally broadcast live to audiences across the regions.
As a result, quite a few Trainers had witnessed Bai Shi in action through the live broadcast.
Curious about the Vertress Conference champion and eager to face him, they wanted to test his true strength for themselves.
During his travels, Bai Shi frequently encountered Trainers who recognized him and wanted to battle.
He had experienced something similar when he participated in the Double Battle Tournament in the Sinnoh Region.
Compared to his current situation, however, that had been nothing.
For the first time in his life, Bai Shi experienced the troubles that came with being too famous.
He found it difficult to turn down such enthusiastic challengers outright, so he ended up reluctantly accepting their challenges.
The Trainers who challenged Bai Shi varied widely in strength.
Most were fairly average, and Bai Shi could win easily with just a little effort.
Only a tiny handful could pose a threat to him.
Although the battles themselves were not taxing, there were simply too many challengers.
It was still manageable out in the wilderness, but things only got worse when he entered a town.
The most extreme case happened when Bai Shi went to the Battle Club in a nearby town to train his Pokémon.
The moment he stepped through the doors, a huge crowd of enthusiastic Trainers surrounded him.
His planned training session turned straight into a series of battles.
Bai Shi had to send out several Pokémon in succession