This badge served as "proof of ability" at work, something to flesh out a résumé. For most practical applications of type energy, a trainer with abilities near the top of T3 was already good enough.
"So that means!"
"Jili!"
Looking back over the battle, Shen Qi had put on a brilliant performance.
He had used cunning schemes, but he had still forced Ni Shang to bring out her Mega Gengar within the battle rules, knocked off 5% of the examiner's barrier points, and even come just a little short of actually taking her out.
In truth, a detailed analysis of that "little" gap would reveal it was enormous, but there was no denying Shen Qi's excellence.
"Don't celebrate too soon. Your situation... I need to discuss it with the other assessment staff."
Following the staff's arrangements, Shen Qi went to rest at the sidelines while Ni Shang entered the preparation room on the other side to confer with the assistant examiners who had been watching from outside the arena.
"You're rather interesting."
The cool remark drifted over. Sabrina had watched the entire assessment.
Had Shen Qi not had experience averting a world-scale disaster, Sabrina would never have been interested in watching some candidate's badge assessment.
Shen Qi gulped down a bottle of juice and handed two more bottles to Dodo and Blissey.
"I thought I did pretty well. I should've just about reached the threshold for the front ranks of T3-class trainers, right? Why can't they give me my result straightaway?"
"Because your overall strength definitely isn't upper T3."
Sabrina's judgment was entirely correct.
She could sense Shen Qi's tactical arrangements and roughly guess that the Pokémon he held in reserve were low-level, which was why he had fought all-out at the start.
Still, with sensible tactical deployment that brought