Pallet Town.
The ever-enthusiastic Professor Oak invited Li Wei and Cynthia to eat at a little restaurant in Pallet Town.
As a small town, Pallet Town naturally had no particularly luxurious restaurants.
But this one had plenty of local charm.
Professor Oak said cheerfully, "I invited Yellow and Blue over, too."
Of course, Professor Oak's assistant Crystal would be joining them as well.
They had a reason for getting together, too.
It was a celebration of Red's hand injury finally healing completely.
After a month of treatment at the Hot Spring Wellness Center, Red's hand had fully recovered.
Even without soaking in the hot springs on Mt. Silver or Cinnabar Island, Red no longer had to worry about his hand injury.
Red rotated his wrist. "My wrist has never felt this good."
Professor Oak quipped, "Well, healed is healed, but if you keep practicing your throws like that, sooner or later you'll give yourself tenosynovitis..."
Earlier, while they were at Professor Oak's Laboratory, Red had been practicing his throws on Back Mountain.
"Registration for the Master League opens tonight. Are you signing up this year?"
Red nodded. "Yes."
With this year's format changes, Red could compete in the Kanto Region without having to travel all over the place.
That rekindled his enthusiasm for competing, even though he had originally planned to sit it out.
Across all the regions, including the Alola Region, thirty-two competitors would ultimately advance to the final knockout round.
Advancing to the knockout round also meant qualifying for the points-based round robin introduced for last year's top sixteen.
The points-based round robin had been well received by viewers, so naturally, they kept it.
The Kanto Region had four slots, the Johto Region had four, and Hoenn and the Sinnoh Region also had four each.
Meanwhile, Unova, which