Although Liu Qing had battled quickly, finishing all three qualifying matches in a single morning, the competition for more than two hundred entrants did not end until around four that afternoon. Now, the scrolling screen in the Pokémon Center lobby began displaying photos of the forty-eight Pokémon Trainers who had advanced.
Even though he had known he would make it, Liu Qing only breathed a sigh of relief when he actually saw his own photo. He looked again and found five familiar faces among them: Ash, Misty, Hua Yan, Dushe, and Gary.
"Liu Qing, so you're here too?" Ash and his friends came over to greet him.
"Yeah! Ash, Misty, congratulations on advancing." Liu Qing pointed at the big screen.
"Oh, it's true! Misty and Gary made it too, and sure enough, Tyson passed the Preliminary Qualifiers!" Ash said excitedly. "All right, next stop: the championship! Straight ahead!"
"But will you really be able to reach it so easily?" Just then, an elderly voice sounded behind them.
"President Damaranchi?!" They all turned around and exclaimed in surprise.
"Mr. Damaranchi, what do you mean?" Misty asked, puzzled.
"Oh, the champion of the last Indigo League Conference is here too." Damaranchi was also a little surprised when Liu Qing stepped out from behind Ash and his two friends, then gave him an appreciative look. He went on to explain, "Making it to the tournament finals is no easy task. In the Silver Conference preliminaries, competitors are divided into groups of three. Only the Pokémon Trainer who earns the most victory points in each group can enter the final tournament. The sixteen Trainers who win their way through the preliminaries will then compete in a fierce tournament."
"So to win the championship, we'll have to battle through lots of exciting matches before we