Chapter 213: Galar’s Trainer Arms Race Taken to the Extreme

Chapter 213: Chapter 213: Galar’s Trainer Arms Race Taken to the Extreme

"I looked up some information about her online, but there wasn’t much useful intelligence."

Clearly, Galar’s Stadiums belonged to the category that was protected by the League.

To prevent information about powerful Trainers from being leaked and exploited, the League only released the most superficial information, making it difficult for people to target them.

But that information was already useless to Sora.

He had Cynthia.

Miss Shirona was a woman standing at the very top of the League’s hierarchy.

If even Cynthia didn’t know some piece of internal League intelligence, she would have to wonder whether the Sinnoh League had developed corruption like the smuggling syndicates in Kalos.

As for revealing classified information to Sora...

In Cynthia’s eyes, Sora would eventually join the League anyway.

More importantly, with Sora’s strength, if he ever stood on the opposite side of the League and established an evil organization like Team Rocket, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The Kalosian incident involving Balfam was ultimately an exception.

Most people within the League were still good people who sincerely wanted to serve the public.

"Mm, Motostoke Gym..."

Cynthia rested her chin on her hand and began searching her memory for information about it.

"The Gym Leader of Motostoke Gym is Kabu. He’s quite experienced. Given his age, he’s probably over thirty and approaching forty."

At that age, the Pokémon under his command had basically reached their limits, making further improvement difficult.

The Trainer profession favored the young.

The hearts of boys and girls were purer, allowing them to better inspire their Pokémon’s fighting spirit and strengthen their bonds.

Someone like Kabu, whose potential had largely been exhausted, would have difficulty raising a new generation of Pokémon.

"Speaking of which, Kabu’s history is actually quite legendary."

As she washed vegetables, Cynthia told Sora about his past.

And once they started discussing that, they inevitably came to the history of the Pokémon League.

Sora was quite interested in that as well.

Before crossing over, the official sources had never released detailed information about the Pokémon Leagues.

A lot of the supposed history circulating online was merely fan fiction and secondary interpretations.

"Has the League been around for four or five hundred years?"

"How could that be!"

Cynthia couldn’t help laughing.

"The earliest Kanto League is only about two hundred years old."

"As for the Galar League, it wasn’t established until eighty years ago."

"Compared with old-established Leagues like Kanto and Johto, the Galar League can even be considered a newly established League."

There was nothing strange about this.

The League itself had developed gradually, expanding toward different parts of the world.

Its earliest origins could be traced to the Kanto region, followed by Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.

These four regions were relatively close to one another. Their Leagues were established within roughly twenty years of each other, and all had histories approaching two centuries.

The games themselves had never explicitly stated when the League was founded.

Based on the development of this world, the oldest League was the Kanto League, established two hundred years ago.

The Hisui era mentioned in Legends: Arceus—ancient Sinnoh—should have existed roughly two hundred to two hundred and fifty years ago.

At that time, ancient Sinnoh was still in a primitive era.

There was no League, let alone the modern concept of Trainers.

"The world’s first Pokémon League tournament was held in Kanto, and that was forty-two years ago."

Interestingly, the champion of that very first League tournament was none other than Professor Oak himself.

Professor Oak was fifty-six years old this year.

Forty-two years ago, at the age of fourteen, he won the inaugural Indigo Plateau Conference and subsequently became the first regional—and effectively the world’s first—Champion.

That was also when the concept of the Elite Four was first introduced.

"The first League tournament in Galar was held two years after the Indigo Plateau Conference."

"And Galar’s first Champion was Leon’s teacher, Mustard."

Forty years ago, Mustard defeated his rival, Poplar, becoming Galar’s first Champion.

Unlike the white-haired old man from the games...

The Mustard of this world was only about ten years older than Professor Oak, making him roughly sixty-five.

"Mustard is the oldest Champion in the world, but he retired a long time ago."

"He handed the Champion title to Leon, then bought the Isle of Armor and retired there."

"That is the history of the original Elite Four and the Gyms throughout Galar."

Cynthia continued, "Kabu belongs to the second generation. The Gym he inherited had already existed when the Galar League was first established."

This Gym wasn’t the predecessor of the current Motostoke Stadium.

Or rather, the Stadiums throughout Galar were newly constructed only after Rose took office.

Chairman Rose’s reforms changed many things.

They also pushed League tournaments and Pokémon battles to an entirely new level, turning competitive battling into a nationwide sport in Galar.

For that alone, Chairman Rose deserved enormous credit.

Every professional Trainer had reason to thank him.

In another four or five years, a new generation of Trainers would emerge throughout Galar.

Fighters like Bea and Nessa belonged to the third generation of Gym Leaders.

"Ever since Chairman Rose’s reforms, the League’s requirements for Gym Leaders have become much stricter."

"Kabu couldn’t withstand the challenges from the younger generation and lost his position as Gym Leader."

Such a situation was relatively rare in other regions.

Not to mention the old-established Leagues of Kanto and Johto, where many Gyms were even privately operated.

Then there was Paldea.

Having only recently joined the League system, its Gym Leaders practically treated the job as a game, and even its Elite Four were considerably weaker than those of other regions.

And Alola?

Sorry.

Alola hadn’t even established a League yet. It wasn’t qualified to compete with the other regions.

"This is the first time I’ve heard of a Gym Leader being forced to step down."

Sora frowned.

"Did he make some kind of mistake?"

"No. His record was simply poor."

Cynthia also felt that the arrangement was rather unreasonable.

Kabu had worked diligently for years, yet simply because his battle record wasn’t impressive enough, he was being forced to step down.

"Isn’t a Gym Leader’s duty to nurture the next generation and provide challenges for new Trainers?"

Sora said, "Why place so much importance on winning and losing?"

"Kanto and Sinnoh aren’t quite so strict."

Because those regions had been established much earlier, their systems were more mature.

The world’s first League tournament had been held in Kanto, but Gyms had already existed before the tournament.

At that time, the primary purpose of Gyms was to cultivate outstanding Trainers.

It was only after the League tournament appeared that Gyms became checkpoints, serving as a means of screening Trainers who wished to participate in the competition.

—------------------------------

Pat reon Advance Chapters: patreon.com/YonkoSlayer