294 CH62 (292), The Regional Competition Begins

The time had come for the regional competition to take place. It was 6:55 a.m right now, and I, along with the other 6 students that represented the academy met up with Mr. Cameron in front of the academy gate.

There were two more teachers present, one male and one female, who would be supervising the boys and girls respectively during the three-day stay away from Rota City.

This year the regional competition was going to be held in Dawn City, and last year it had been Root City. Sorrel and Marlene were the only ones I knew among my fellow students since the others were from other classes.

The two thanked me profusely, saying that they made it here thanks to me coaching them, which drew the attention of the other four. I told them they were welcome and tried to close the topic as fast as possible, but I was not fast enough, since the rest approached the two to ask them what that was about.

Both Sorrel and Arlene did not hold back at all and began praising me a lot, telling them how I coached them and how that had helped two of their Pokemon break through to the silver stage.

The others had obviously known about me since I was the most famous student in our academy, but they had not known that I was a good teacher/coach, so they looked at me appraisingly after they heard the praise from my student duo.

I simply chose to ignore that and thankfully it turned 7 a.m within the next minute. Once that happened Mr. Cameron began addressing us, and he told us the few rules we had to follow in Dawn City.

Anyone breaking those rules would be punished harshly since we were representing not only ourselves but also the Academy, so unruly or bad behavior was not tolerated.

Don't think that the Academy had no way of punishing us just because we already went through our exams or something like that. They could still leave a bad (re)mark on our alliance file, or deduct academy points from our balance.

Depending on the severity of the offense the academy could even decide to kick out the offending student since none of us had yet to truly graduate.

Also, I don't know if that's true or not, and even if it is, I don't know what kind of offense could elicit such a punishment, but I heard rumors that it was even possible for their aura to be bound and the memories on any aura methods to be locked.

They would still have it, along with the passive advantages, but they would be unable to actively use any aura. As for the aura methods, that was the academy preventing the leaking and misuse of their own methods. In some ways, they were simply taking back what they gave out.

Now, just to make one thing clear, I had only heard about this punishment, but I did not see it being used even though I witnessed students having to leave the Academy for various reasons.

None of them had their aura bound, or their memories tampered with. I mean if they did that with everyone, there would have been no "dark" aura users. I had to admit I was curious about what one had to get up to, to earn such a penalty.

Anyway, back to the topic before my thoughts went down a darker path. After Mr. Cameron was done with his speech, he called out his Alakazam, who teleported us to our destination.

The regional government had booked the Dawn Hotel for the duration of the regional competition. All visiting academies had rooms reserved for them until Kyoday evening, and considering the number of academies that were present, it was not that surprising that a whole hotel was needed to accommodate everyone.

All Knight Academies, Psychic Academies, Aura Academies, Elemental Academies, and other Academies that were located in Rota, the region not just the city, had sent their best for this occasion. There were no trainer schools since those were tertiary education establishments.

From what I had heard, there were a total of 420 academies participating in the regional competition, with 6 to 8 students per academy, which resulted in 2520 to 3360 students. Then there were the supervising teachers from each academy, which ended up being 840 to 1680 depending on how many supervisors the academies sent along.

Taking the total number of students and teachers into account it was no surprise that we needed a whole hotel to ourselves. Unlike many other groups I was seeing, Mr. Cameron directly led us to the elevators, instead of moving towards the reception desk.

It seemed he already knew which rooms we were assigned to. The elevators stopped on the seventh floor out of 49. It seemed we were assigned the rooms 601 to 607.

Mr. Cameron said that Room 607 was his, and Room 606 belonged to Susan, the female teacher/supervisor. Room 605 was assigned to the only girls in our group, Marlene and Je-something. Hmm, Jennine, Jeanette, got it, it was Jeanine.

Henry, the male teacher/supervisor got Room 604, while Sorrel and another guy got Room 603. The other two boys got Room 602, and I got Room 601 to myself since there was an odd number of male students. None of my fellow students complained probably due to my stellar reputation.

To be honest, I had thought that one of the guys would complain and ask why I was the one who got a room on his own, but I was proven wrong. I did not know whether I should be happy or disappointed each time such classic situations did not play out according to the script I was expecting.

After Mr. Cameron told everyone their room number, he handed out the keys and told us that we would be meeting in front of the elevator at 8:15 a.m, which gave us nearly an hour to settle in our rooms and freshen up, or eat some snacks since we were told that we would be skipping breakfast.

I went to my room, did a quick sweep to check out the place, and pulled out one of the ready meals I had stored. Once I was done with breakfast, I cleaned up a bit before simply meditating for the last 30 minutes. One minute before 8:15 a.m, I left my room and went towards the elevator where everyone but Mr. Cameron was already waiting.

At exactly 8:15 a.m, Mr. Cameron showed up as well, and we headed down before leaving the hotel to head towards the Dawn Stadium, where the opening ceremony was going to be held at 8:45 a.m.

Normally, I'd say that we were cutting it close, especially since everyone else seemed to have headed out before us, but seeing how Mr. Cameron led us towards our destination without having to consult anything with the staff at the stadium showed me that Mr. Cameron knew what he was doing.

Anything I said would simply be seen as grumbling, or worse nagging, especially since we made it to our designated seats with 15 minutes to spare. Letting my gaze sweep around the stadium, I began estimating the number of people present.

I could be wrong, but I guessed that there were currently around 6000 people attending this opening ceremony. The alliance/government staff I could see was included in this.

At 8:45 someone went up to the podium and welcomed everyone to this year's regional competition among secondary-level students before he left the podium to the head honcho of Rota's education department.

For the next 10 or so minutes the man held a speech in which he not only praised the academies for doing a good job in raising the next generation but also exhorted the good qualities as well as attitude everyone should strive for.

All in all, it was a pretty classic speech, and everyone was thankful that he kept it at only 10 minutes, which they expressed by clapping once he was done speaking.

After the head honcho left the podium one of the organizers took the stage and began to explain how the competition was going to go down. Today at 9:30 a.m the elimination-style preliminaries for both the personal combat as well as Pokemon combat categories would take place.

Besides the Dawn Stadium, they were 15 more venues prepared for the battles, so that they could finish the preliminaries in time. Today's battles would go on until 7 p.m, and they would continue tomorrow as well, starting from 8:30 a.m until 2 p.m. After that the round of 128, and 64 would be held.

On Kyoday, the round of 32 would begin at 9 a.m, followed by the round of 16, quarterfinals, semi-finals, and then finally the finals. All battles starting from the quarterfinals would be held in the Dawn Stadium.

Since the place assignment was done automatically by a system, there was no need to worry about one's fights overlapping if one participated in both categories as I did.

Besides, the staff gave us the option to leave behind our phone number so that they could send us a message with the time of our fights, as well as update messages in case our fights got delayed or brought forward. I naturally gave them my number since I did not want to have to stay at the battle venue for the whole day.

The organizers also prepared a website where we could register and look up where as well as when our next fight was, and against whom we had to fight.

Everyone in our group registered and looked up his or her fights. My first fight was in the personal combat category. I would have to be somewhere called "Rising Star Gym" in 30 minutes, and I would be facing a boy, called Bob from some water academy in Root City.

That one was followed by a Pokemon battle at 10:10 a.m back here in the Dawn Stadium against a girl called Sandy from some psychic academy from Dawn City itself. I bid my fellow students and our supervisors goodbye, before making my way towards that "Rising Star Gym".

Thankfully, the organizers were prepared for "foreign" guests and prepared maps that were being handed out at the entrance of the stadium that led to each of the battle avenues.

They were of the "you're here" kind, which meant that even a little child should be able to reach his or her destination as long as they stuck to the map. I took one of each map before following the one for the "Rising Star Gym".

I made it there with some time to spare which I used to check out the competition website some more. I learned that the time of my next fight in each category should be determined at most 20 minutes after I won my previous one, so I should learn at 10 a.m when my next personal fight would be.

At 9:40 a.m they called me to the ring, and I got to see my opponent. Bob and I exchanged polite greetings and the referee explained the rules of engagement. Pretty standard stuff, don't try to kill, cripple, or permanently maim the opponent, and "I will interfere if I deem it necessary".

Once the referee gave the start signal, I rushed my opponent. I knew that he was from a water academy, so I was not planning to give him time to gather a lot of water. Additionally, long-range combat would be to his advantage, hence why I was rushing up to him while boosting my legs.

Bob stopped drawing out/creating more water and formed it into a whip so that he could whip or trap me while I was approaching. Unfortunately for him, I was not only too fast for him, but also had an insane reaction time, so I dodged all his tries to hit me.

Once I was too close he returned the whip to water that he let float around him in a form of a fluid shield. I focused my aura on my fists and delivered a devastating punch that exploded the targeted area of his water shield. I used that moment to slip through his shield and came face to face with Bob.

He tried to use something that seemed to be a combination of Karate and water manipulation, but it was useless since I went full boost and delivered a blow to his solar plexus which left him open for a hit on his temple that knocked him out, officially ending the fight within 90 seconds.

Honestly, it was not Bob that was too weak, since he was a Tier 2 Third-Class Water-Elementalist, but I who was too strong. I thanked Bob for the fight and refrained from saying anything else, leaving the consolation to his supervisors.

Once I got the go-ahead from the referee I left the gym and headed back to the Dawn Stadium. Before my battle against that Sandy from whatever psychic academy, I check the website to see when my next personal battle would be and saw that it would happen at 10:45 a.m, somewhere called Harley Stadium. My opponent was not yet determined, but I was sure that would be confirmed within the next few minutes as well.

Still, after I found out when and where my next fight would be, I focused back on the Pokemon battle that would start in a bit less than 15 minutes. Since all battles were 3-vs-3 battles, the same applied to the preliminary battles.

The little I knew about my opponent, which was that she was from a psychic academy, led me to believe that she would have psychic-type Pokemon. Since I had promised Mr. Cameron to try to hold back a bit, I would not use Nyx/Umbreon against her.

I ultimately decided to use Thor/Raichu, but that proved to be a bit overkill. Sandy started out with a (low) silver stage Exeggutor, but it only held out for two minutes under Thor's offense, despite my guy holding back since I asked them to avoid sec-killing our opponents.

Exeggutor's psychic moves were countered by Thor's own psychic moves, So it got taken out without too much difficulty. Her next Pokemon was a (low) silver stage Kadabra, but that one lasted even less than Exeggutor since Thor went for a physical approach.

Her final Pokemon was a (high) bronze stage Baltoy, but unfortunately for her, its immunity against electric-type moves proved to be useless against Thor who took it out using other moves, such as Brick Break, instead.

The reason I did not swap out Thor was another promise I made, but this time to my Pokemon. I promised them that I would let them keep fighting until they were knocked out, at least until the finals, which was why Thor got to sweep Sandy.

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