January 23, Friday.
With the challengers who were enthusiastic about Gym Challenges-or suffering-having already stopped by one after another, the Sunshine Gym was a little quiet today.
It wasn't as though no other talented youngsters had passed Qingyu's test during that time.
Overall, though, the pass rate was still a little low.
That wasn't because Qingyu's standards were too high. After all, he had already shown the challengers all his tactics, and even the two Pokémon he chose were fairly ordinary.
If they still couldn't get through, that simply meant his command skills had completely crushed theirs, even while he was holding back.
What was the goal of this year's Victory Road?
To select a new Champion to explore Area Zero in the busy Chairwoman Geeta's place and discover the true cause of the accident that had occurred deep inside Area Zero.
The difficulty of that task was plain to see. The group that had previously accompanied the two Professors down to investigate had consisted of Ace Trainers, with even Qingyu's parents, two Gym Leader-level Trainers, there to hold things together.
And something had still gone wrong.
That alone showed just how absurdly powerful the game's quartet of protagonists was overall.
The protagonist was on another level entirely. They could even take on that vicious Miraidon or Koraidon head-on, and on their second expedition, they straight-up brought Terapagos home with them...
Although Qingyu wasn't sure why Geeta planned to open Area Zero a year early, and had no idea where the game's protagonist, Juliana or Florian, currently was, he would see his responsibility through now that the League had set these requirements.
Higher standards now would mean a more reliable Champion later.
Although this year's Champion would most likely be Nemona, who had currently vanished from sight, Qingyu still treated