Chapter 4

~Jack Blake~

"So... Let me get this straight. One day, you decided you need some more hands-on training so you went on a journey. Without any Pokémon. Then you were suddenly teleported into a forest that turned out to be the Eterna Forest. Where you used the technology made by your late friend, who was a borderline-crazy scientist, to survive for two months with a Baby-Stage Pokémon that you accidentally trained up to the Advanced Stage in around a quarter of the time it usually takes. Did I get that right?"

She was looking seriously annoyed right now. With good reason he supposed. After checking his ID three times and even calling it in via the local equivalent of Police Radio, always getting back the same information, namely him being an orphan who lived alone for most of his life.

According to the files they had on him, he had never had any negative contact with law enforcement, had never really stood out except for his martial arts prowess, and had never really showed an interest in becoming a Trainer even though his potential seemed to be pretty high.

Oh, and he originated from Kanto, somehow landing in a different region entirely. He was also de-aged a bit. This body was 18 years old this year in comparison to the 23 years he had lived through in his previous life.

He smiled a bit helplessly at her. He was making things up as he went without lying too much. He disliked dishonesty, but not to the point that he'd blabber about being a transdimensional traveller who may or may not have snatched the body he had from his local equivalent. 'Does the Pokémon world have mental asylums?' He mused in the back of his mind.

"Why exactly did you find it to be a good idea to just wander into the wilderness on your own? Without a Pokémon to protect you? Without telling anyone? Are you suicidal?"

While he was a bit indignant at that line of questioning, he had to admit that she had a point. From the information she knew, it was a valid conclusion. And... It wasn't actually that far off.

He wasn't actively suicidal in his past world but life seemed... grey. Without any real reason to make an effort. He might have been suffering from mild depression that was only under control because he got into fitness and martial arts, using that to give his life a bit of meaning. He decided to be honest with her in that regard. The situation of this guy wasn't that different, so he could afford that much. He leaned forward slightly, being careful not to jostle Phantump too much, while letting seriousness take over his mien.

"Let me be frank. I lived much of my life alone and I truly struggled to find anyone to relate to. I wasn't traditionally suicidal. I just didn't value my life very highly. Everything was colourless since my family was ripped away from me in a most violent stroke of fate. You are surely aware of the circumstances so I won't bore you with that. What I will tell you is that I chose to either make something out of my life with my own hands or die trying. That was the reason for my reckless actions. Now though..."

Phantump had surrendered to her favourite status condition a while ago, slumbering away on his lap. He poked the side of her cheek a bit, causing her to flail her arms around in her sleep as she frowned. The gentle smile on his face entirely captivated the single mother, not that he'd noticed, as preoccupied as he was with teasing the sleeping cutie on his lap.

"I can't afford to be as careless as before. I am not alone anymore. I have someone else to live for. She will reach her full potential. It is my duty as her... Trainer to guide her and to make sure she can look into the mirror in the future and be proud of what she's seeing."

When he looked back up, he noticed a slight shine in Officer Jenny's eyes that was especially pronounced in the backdrop provided by the light of the open fire they had started up in her living room. There were also lines of determination set into her face.

"In that case, let me help. The least I can do is set you up to take the tests to increase your official Rank. The easiest way would have been challenging the gyms but you can't use a Pokémon above Regular Stage to challenge the first one. Your Phantump seems to be at the very limit of the Advanced Stage, making her unable to participate in that battle."

He mused over the information for a moment with a frown before asking a question that burned on his tongue for some time already.

"How do you know how strong she is?"

Her face lit up in comprehension. She quickly got up and left the room, leaving him to sit there slightly flabbergasted at being abandoned by his host. She quickly returned however. This time with a small booklet with the title 'A Guide for Aura Users. Information and Basic Techniques.' written by Samuel Oak.

She shoved the written guide into his hands and told him to read. He did just that and found that as long as one had a decent sized Aura pool, gauging the strength of your opponent was a rather trivial task. Most did it instinctively, even if the pool was inert.

This book described techniques that could be used if one was an active practitioner. From realising one's pool and affinities to first practice methods and how to pull Aura outwards. He looked at her seriously.

"This can't be common knowledge."

She nodded in answer and took a moment to formulate her answer while sipping on the drink she had brought back from her book hunt.

"It's not. And neither are active Aura Practitioners common. It's part of my duty to educate those I meet in the 'wild' so to speak. We work together closely with the Leagues in that matter. It's very rare to find people such as you. Those who awakened their inert Aura with talent and danger. Those without any formal training or family background."

She pointed at the book in his hands with a slight smile on her lips before she directly emptied the glass filled with what he suspected to be a bit stronger than water. She continued afterwards.

"That guide was written by the legendary former Champion and most prestigious Pokémon Professor Samuel Oak himself to help those like you out. Every Aura Practitioner is indispensable. There are things that can only be done by those with active Aura. It makes you valuable. But don't let it get to your head. One doesn't need Aura to grow strong. There are numerous other ways."

He listened to her explanation, but something was bugging him she was talking as if she wasn't an Aura User. When he asked her if she was, she laughed lightly and shook her head.

"Even amongst the Jenny Clan, only a rare few awakened their Aura and I am not among them. I'd definitely not be stationed in this little city if I were. I can somewhat tell the strength of you guys but the reason I know about it as well as I do is that I have a specially trained Psychic Type Pokémon with me that passively scans individuals with whom I am interacting with and relays that information to me. It's something that most law enforcement officers from the team-leader rank and upwards have access to."

He nodded. It made sense. If Aura Users were that rare, then they wouldn't be stationed in one of the quaintest cities of the region. What worried him was that Psychic types could simply read them as if they were open books. It was disconcerting to simply be judged without even knowing. He had to look through the book if there were any camouflage and detection techniques in there. If there weren't, he'd have to make them up himself or search other places for them.

Psychic Pokémon and people weren't that rare in the games. Even the anime showed a fair number of them. If each one could just read them like this, it would become dangerous as soon as they encountered a criminal with such anilities who was stronger than them.

His eyes hardened as his determination surged. He couldn't keep them out of danger. But he could prepare them before running head long into things. Turning to Officer Jenny, he addressed her.

"Thank you for trusting me with all that information. It made me aware of things and it gave me a kick into the behind to not be complacent. The world is vast and there are myriads of secrets and wonders out there. Presuming that one knows all is a bad habit to get into. I know I am pretty clueless but it goes even further than that. I don't even know the basics."

He smiled wrily before getting them back on track with a serious expression on his face.

"This part of the conversation started when you explained that as long as I didn't catch another Pokémon, I'd be unable to increase my Trainer Rank by participating in my first Gym Battle since Phantump is too strong. You wouldn't have told me all that if there wasn't another way to increase my rank."

She nodded as she leaned forward.

"Yes. There are several ways to do that. The first and foremost, I already told you. The second one is by finishing League Missions to increase your contribution to the region and taking a test once you finished a set number of missions. It's what most Rangers and League Officials do to raise their Ranks since it directly influences their salary."

She looked at him to gauge his reaction. He pondered over it and thought to himself that that wouldn't be so bad. The missions had rewards and everything, so he wouldn't spend time at a loss at all. With an increased Trainer Rank, he'd be able to challenge the Gym Leaders for higher rank badges even if he had none of his own yet.

"You mentioned several ways. How else can I raise my rank? And why is it that important to do so, actually?"

He had some suspicions as to why but he didn't have the time and energy to read up on that stuff in the forest.

"Well, in the first place, you having that Phantump is kinda against the law. To somewhat curb nepotism, there is a limit as to how strong the Pokémon of a Trainer is allowed to be at certain ranks. The general rule is that the Pokémon is allowed to be one stage above the Trainer's rank. The higher it goes the more lax this rule becomes, simply because it isn't that rare for Trainers to disappear in the wilderness for a year or two and reappear way more formidable than they were when they entered."

'Sure enough, it is as I thought. This world is a strange one. Nepotism might have been one of the reasons for this system but it isn't the only one for sure. Probably not even the most important one. Do they simply confiscate those Pokémon that are too strong for their Trainers?'

He thought about it for a moment and shelved the question for later. If she hadn't tried to do that yet, he doubted she'd do so later on. He had some other things running through his mind too. There were concepts to be read about online that he hadn't even heard about in lieu with this world before coming here.

'On the surface it's the Pokémon world with all those known faces from the media in my previous world but deep down it kinda reminds me of those Cultivation Novels I've read some years ago. They were a guilty pleasure for about half a year before I got tired of the tropes and clichés. Instead of levels, this world has Stages and the Trainer's equivalent, which are Ranks. I've even read some things about potential and bottlenecks or some bullshit. I'll have to investigate that crap later on.'

The stages and ranks were pretty straightforward and he roughly sorted them into a level range.

Baby: 1-5

Rookie: 6-20

Regular: 21-30

Advanced: 31-40

Elite: 41-50

Veteran: 51-60

Ace: 61-70

Authority: 71-80

Champion: 81-90

Master: 91-100

Guardian: ???

He only did this to have a reference in mind. From what the ROB had told him in the letter, later stages probably escalated in strength, and severely so. Trainer ranks were similarly sorted.

Civilian - Split in two. True civilians were only allowed to possess one Pokémon, more a pet than anything else. The Trainer License increased that limit to three.

Rookie - First real step into Trainerhood. Pokémon limit increased from three to four.

Regular - Regarded with some seriousness since it took a bit of perseverance and knowledge to reach this rank. Standard limit of 6 mons.

Advanced - Most Trainers did not advance past this rank.

Elite - The cut-off for serious Trainers with some talent.

Veteran - The resources needed to advance past the Veteran rank were quite steep since rearing Pokémon with enough strength to go beyond the Veteran Stage was expensive.

Ace - That was the stage most Gym Leaders were at. Carry Limit increased by two in addition to any other increases through contribution.

Eminent Authority - Elite Four had that official Rank with a rare few being in the following one. No real Carry Limit. Official matches need prior registration of a 6-Pokémon-Team.

Champion - The rank was self-explanatory, really. Some outliers among the Elite Four were in the early stage of this rank.

Master - There weren't many of those. The strongest Champions reached this rank. Some 'hidden Monsters' were rumoured to possess this rank as well as some retired champions.

Beyonder - Not much information on those.

He was surprised that there was hushed talk about some fellows even stronger than Masters. They were rumoured to be completely outside of any scope since their strength was not really measurable anymore.

He mused about all that for a moment before returning his thoughts to his own situation. She still hadn't answered his question completely, so he just looked at her expectantly after thinking things through and coming to some conclusions. She sighed and, somewhat reluctantly, answered the unspoken question.

"There are some more ways, such as apprenticing under a strong trainer, raising your rank alongside a profession, beating a trainer of the stage you want to test into in front of a jury of at least two Trainers of higher rank or subduing a Pokémon of an equal threat level in front of a certified witness."

He nodded along and his eyes lit up at the last two options. Seeing her stern gaze doused his enthusiasm a bit, though.

"Don't even think about it. I know there are hidden depths to you. You haven't talked at all about what you yourself are capable of besides being a martial artist and whenever it comes up, you change the topic. But the same goes for every trainer of notable strength out there. Everyone has their own secrets, their own trump cards. And while I can tell that you'll probably be a rather special Butterfree, I'd rather you didn't take risks needlessly."

While he thought she was a bit out of line, she was also right and he could admit that. His hot-headed nature got him into trouble in the past and without tempering, it could have far worse consequences here. Raising his rank by battling was a thought born of a man's romance. To pit himself and those he trusted with his life against a presumably superior opponent and come out victorious.

But it didn't make much sense here if he could safely reach the necessary rank by doing some missions and shore up on the basics before testing into the rank. He didn't really know if he was a good trainer or not yet. It didn't really matter as he was determined to reach those heights, no matter what. If he wasn't good right now, he'd be better later on.

But what years of martial arts taught him was that the basics were essential. Without a solid base, every building, no matter how fancy, would crumble away soon. He wanted a firm foundation to build upon and that was what was offered here.

He supposed he could also catch a Pokémon, train it up and compete against the gym leaders, but he was a bit apprehensive at catching some random Pokémon. He was like that in the games too, sticking mostly with the first six Mons he caught. There were run-throughs where he beat the league with four or five Pokémon because the last one he wanted on his team was only available in post-game.

After talking things through with Hazel, Officer Jenny's given name that she told him to use, they (she) decided that he'd spend the night and she'd lead him to the trading center in the morning to trade away some of the stuff he found in the forest.

Moments before falling asleep, he remembered Marley the Unlucky. 'Tomorrow, I'll need to tell her about him and ask about what to do with those Pokémon.' He thought while shifting a bit on the couch and pulling Phantump closer to snuggle her against him. Something she eagerly reciprocated subconsciously.

He smiled softly while looking down at her. 'A shower, a homemade meal, and good company. That's all that's needed for rebirth.' Those were the last thoughts that went through his head before he sank into a comfortable slumber.