Because they had arrived so late, Ash's room had been assigned to the very top floor of the Athlete Village building. Although the view was better up there, getting around was inevitably somewhat inconvenient.
Once they had put away their luggage, taken the elevator back to the ground-floor lobby, and met up with Xia You, they all headed to the outdoor battle venue to take part in the Selection Tournament.
The Selection Tournament gathered the more than two hundred registered contestants for an initial screening, eliminating them until only forty-eight remained. It was a closed group competition held before the preliminaries. Each contestant had three chances to battle different opponents, and advancement depended on their performance. Even if they were unlucky enough to lose once, they still had a chance to enter the upcoming preliminaries.
After these rules were explained to Ash, he nodded in understanding. "So as long as you perform well and earn the judges' approval, you could lose two matches and still have a chance to advance, right?"
"That's right." Xia You smiled. "Since everyone can only use one Pokémon per battle, it's very easy for things to go wrong in matches like these. So if you want to advance without a hitch, you still have to give it everything you've got."
Since this was a mandatory stage for every contestant, and the contestants arrived at the venue on different days, the Pokémon League had scheduled this qualifying competition for the day before the conference's opening ceremony.
Whether it was Xia You, Ash, or any other Pokémon Trainer, everyone had to participate. So even though Xia You had arrived so many days early, he could only complete his matches today along with the other contestants.
When they arrived at the venue, the first thing they saw was