The tires were actually the game item [Adaptive Tire]. As for the brakes, his driving had been so brutal lately that they were badly worn, so he had simply replaced them.
What Lilligant couldn't understand was why Shen Qi had spent money upgrading his Skill Slot.
Usually, a driver only replaced it when they had a powerful Pokémon partner whose abilities had outgrown their original Skill Slot.
Shen Qi... shouldn't have had a powerful Pokémon partner.
[That Chansey...]
Cold sweat broke out on Shen Qi's forehead. Fortunately, the narrator offered a hint.
[Narrator: Lilligant has met Chansey and can clearly tell that she knows nothing about racing, so she wouldn't be a powerful support Pokémon.]
"A friend gave me this Skill Slot. A very close friend was leaving Island 6 and didn't know when they could come back, so they left me something to remember them by."
[Oh, I see.]
After testing it, Lilligant smoothly used Growth, raising both horsepower and torque by one stage. She also cast Synthesis, using the healing move to reduce wear on the vehicle.
"Lilligant, there's a race car up ahead."
[Heehee...]
Nothing more needed to be said. The unspoken understanding between racers clicked into place instantly.
With another stage of Growth applied, Shen Qi signaled that it was enough.
Without Chansey to boost its defense, he didn't dare push the vehicle too far beyond its limits.
The racer ahead spotted a vehicle following in his rearview mirror. In racing circles, that was an unspoken challenge.
Over a stretch of road, if the lead vehicle couldn't pull twenty meters ahead of the following vehicle, the leader lost;
For the next round, the following vehicle took the lead.
"Nice! I was just wishing someone would relieve my boredom... What?! A Little Sheep?!"
The driver rubbed his eyes in confusion, confirming that he hadn't mistaken the model.
Taking a Little Sheep up the mountain was one thing, but since when did one dare compete in a race?
As they continued along the course, his confusion gradually turned into concentration, then shock.
He couldn't shake the Little Sheep anywhere along the mountain road. Forget twenty meters-the vehicle behind stayed firmly within five meters, apparently with ease.
When they switched stretches and the Little Sheep took the lead, it disappeared from sight before reaching the end of Marker Mountain's latter half.
An utterly crushing defeat.
The driver slowed down and spent several minutes questioning his life by the roadside, then recalled the rumors that had recently spread across Island 5 and Island 6.
Shan Sheng, a reserve driver for the Perilla Racing Team, had almost no rivals on either Island 6 or Island 5.
The last two opponents he intended to challenge were Tsareena and...
...a Little Sheep of unknown origin.
Chapter 50: Brother Chun!!!
"We're running out of time-"
"Over here, over here!!"
Under the blazing summer sun, plenty of students were running around Pokémon High School with phones in their hands.
Today was the final submission day for the Pokémon Photography activity. They had to hand their photos to a teacher before school ended.
The event had lasted a month, which was actually quite a long time. Precisely because it had lasted so long, everyone had felt they still had plenty of time.
It was like remembering a pile of unfinished homework at the end of summer vacation and frantically rushing to finish it.
"Honestly, these kids." Shen Qi could feel the heat outside through the windowpane. "Taking photos in a panic and scrambling to submit them at the deadline-how could they possibly produce anything good?"
"Not necessarily. This sort of thing depends a lot on luck."
The girl in the row ahead held a hair tie between her teeth as she tied up her hair, and Xiao Chun, diagonally behind her, chimed in.
"Rosa, you look pretty confident."
Hearing Xiao Chun call her that gave Shen Qi a start.
The male and female protagonists of Pokémon Black and White were Nate and Rosa, whose Chinese names also had alternate transliterations.
For an instant, he thought the game's protagonists had shown up.
It was a little ridiculous when he thought about it... Shen Qi had been enrolled for two or three months, yet he had only just learned the name of the girl sitting ahead of him.
"Of course-" Rosa tilted her head back, her hair now in a ponytail. "I'm aiming for the top five."
"Only the top five?" Xiao Chun sounded unimpressed.
He hadn't spoken quietly, and his words drew the attention of the surrounding students.
The boy behind him slung an arm around Xiao Chun's shoulders.
"So... you think you're pretty bold, huh?"
"I'm super bold, okay!" Xiao Chun lifted his chin and puffed out his chest. "I'm going to make you all call me Brother Chun and mean it."
Boooo-
The students around him booed enthusiastically, and the racket gradually died down with the class bell.
Opening his textbook, Shen Qi kept feeling that something was off. Xiao Chun wasn't normally such an extravagant braggart.
When he joked around with the other boys, saying he would become a top professional Pokémon Trainer and so on, that was perfectly normal. They could brag all they liked about something decades away.
But the Pokémon Photography activity was right in front of them.
The results would be announced in three days. If he couldn't produce something that genuinely impressed his classmates, he would only embarrass himself.
Xiao Chun wouldn't make an empty boast like this. He probably really did have some confidence in his chances.
Rosa in the row ahead was equally confident. She had submitted her entry first thing that morning, almost at the same time as Shen Qi.
While sorting through his photos on the computer, Shen Qi had been very confident in the shot of Lilligant bending down to play in the water. The model was beautiful, the light and shadows were beautiful, and the composition was beautiful. Even more beautiful was the contrast between her moving hair, captured through sheer luck, and the still background.
Now he kept getting the feeling that his classmates might have something up their sleeves...
He just didn't know whether they were exaggerating or genuinely had something good.
Three days passed with him feeling slightly apprehensive, and all the students of Pokémon High School gathered in the auditorium.
Today's school assembly would announce the top five entrants in the Pokémon Photography activity.
The judges included all the teachers at Pokémon High School, along with invited guests such as Officer Jenny from the Island 6 Police Sub-bureau and the manager of the Island 6 docks.
All five would receive prizes.
In addition, the students could vote for the most popular entries outside the official top five, with encouragement prizes for the top three.
The popularity vote's first-place prize was Pokémon Rations worth 500b and two Poké Balls. That was equivalent to the official fourth-place prize—not bad at all.
"Ahem."
An elderly gentleman in a crisp brown suit and a rounded formal hat stepped onto the stage. He was Principal Gui of Pokémon High School.
Apparently, his health wasn't very good, so he didn't teach any classes. Shen Qi had only seen him at the opening ceremony before this.
Running a school like Pokémon High School, taking in injured Pokémon that couldn't be released into the wild without concern for profit, seeing class after class of students graduate safely, and helping group after group of Pokémon learn to live in society-all of that deserved admiration.
It was a miracle the school hadn't gone under.
Principal Gui's speech was fairly short, filled with thanks and gratitude.
Since he was rather frail and had difficulty speaking, another teacher took over as host.
After the students' applause, Ms. Jixiang stepped onto the stage. Just as everyone thought she would get to the main event, she put away the script in her hands.
"First, let's have Teacher Tieguan discuss the rule violations in this event."
Iron Pipe... His name sounded hard and unyielding, and he was indeed a very sturdily built man. He primarily served as Pokémon High School's PE teacher, teaching every PE class across all three year groups, and took the students' physical development very seriously.
Quite a few students were afraid of him. Seeing Teacher Tieguan was like seeing some fearsome fiend, and they would take a long detour to avoid him.
"Hey."
The classmate beside Shen Qi nudged him. "What kind of rule violations could there even be in a Pokémon Photography activity?"
"How would I know? I'm an upstanding model student."
Shen Qi broke into a nervous sweat. If he had accidentally submitted the candid photo of Lilligant falling over, he probably would have been called out by name.
Given Teacher Tieguan's personality, he might even have been made to run thirty laps around the teaching building as extra punishment.
As they spoke, Iron Pipe's booming voice had already called a student's name.
"How could you submit a selfie?"
The student who had been called out stood up sheepishly. "Sorry, sir. I just thought it would be funny..."
"It isn't a major issue, but it created extra work for the judges. Don't do it again."
"Yes, sir."
The student sat down with his tongue poking out, relieved that he hadn't gotten into serious trouble.
The students around him merely laughed. Adolescence always came with students who had too much energy and wanted attention. It was hardly unusual.
However...
Click-
The projector displayed that student's selfie on the large screen. He had struck a muscle-flexing pose in front of the mirror by the school restroom, but his body was scrawny...
"Hahahaha!"
Amid the explosive laughter, the offending student learned what it meant to die of embarrassment.
The projector switched to the next photo.
Beneath a small tree, Bellsprout and Oddish huddled together, trembling.
"When Pokémon are frightened or don't want to be photographed, you mustn't force them."
Teacher Tieguan pointed at the projection screen. "Look at this photo. Those poor Pokémon! They were placed at Pokémon High School because their injuries meant they couldn't be released back into the wild. Everyone needs to get along!"
Before you continue