Chapter 009

North of Hurik Town was a large and mostly unexplored forest area. The unexplored area was huge, with rivers, lakes, and a series of caves. The forest was connected to both Mount Moon and the Cerulean cave. Hurik Town used to be a rest stop for trainers who explored this stretch of wildlands hoping to find rare items or Pokemon. After the establishment of a Pokemon Center here, some people started settling here and it slowly grew into an officially recognised town. The primary means of income for the townsfolk were from inns, restaurants, and shops catering to explorers and trainers who frequently came by. Tourism was also a part of the local infrastructure, as some controlled parts of the wildlands, with no dangerous Pokemon but relatively intact wild environment would be open to tourists.

Ever since the town was established, a bunch of Zubat would fly from the east of the town towards the west during the evening, from approximately 6 30 to 7. And they would fly back the next day at about 5 30. The Zubat mass migrated every day like this because there were a large number of Bloodsap trees in the west. The tress secreted a sap that was kind of like blood. This functioned as food for the enormous number of Zubat that hid in a network of caves to the east of the city. Every day, they would go west towards the trees and spend the night there sucking the tree's sap. And they would go back to the network of caves in the morning when daylight was breaking out. The Zubat used to do this long before Hurik Town was established. The Zubat themselves were not strong and did not have a strong desire to attack. Hence the officials decided to ignore them. Just to prevent accidents, a curfew was put into effect from 6 to 7 30 in the evening and 5 to 6 in the morning. This had worked for 10 years so far, as no Zubat were roaming around outside this time frame, and the stragglers who were posed no threat.

The curfew was just a precaution since the total number of Zubat were enormous.

But apparently, today was different. For some reason, the Zubat came at 5 30. The sun had not set, there was plenty of light outside. Zubat would usually be hiding in dark caves during this time as they did not like the light. It was odd for them to come out now, when they usually should have come an hour later.

"Zubat? Now? That's not good. Did they have an idea of why this happened?" questioned Nurse Joy.

"They told me they were unsure. Sheriff Roger was worried that this may be caused by some external factors. Hence the raid shelter alarm was sounded just in case." replied the staff member.

"Is that so? Then let us stay inside," said Nurse Joy. She then turned to Alex and said, "Looks like you can't go back to Cherry Grove now. I will call Jasmine and Roger and let them know you are stuck here. You can use the computers here to keep studying for the PIT. If the situation isn't resolved, you will have to spend the night here in the center. I have to man the counter, in case I am needed to treat anyone injured by this Zubat riot"

Alex nodded and walked towards the computer area. The computers in the center were meant for registered trainers of the Alliance, and normally he wouldn't be allowed to use them since he was not one. But now with the riot, there probably wouldn't be any trainers who would want to browse the internet. And since Nurse Joy had already granted permission, he had to make the best of the internet access he was getting.

He already had a basic solid knowledge of Pokemon from what the body's previous owner had studied. Both him and Joseph were confident of passing the first round and were hopeful of passing the second. Since he integrated those memories with the help of the black sphere, he also probably wouldn't have a problem in the first two rounds. The third round was a format that tested you deeply about Pokemon. With the thousands of hours he spent on Pokemon pages in his previous life, he actually had solid knowledge about Pokemon. What he urgently needed was to confirm the knowledge about Pokemon he had from his previous life, and check whether they apply here. So instead of studying about each different Pokemon individually by reading about them deeply, he needed to look at the basic research papers and journals on each Pokemon and quickly make a basic profile on each of them.

For example, instead of studying the dozens of different journals, books, and research papers on Staryu, he could simply read a few basic papers and glance over the journals and books. With this, he could eliminate information he had from his previous life that weren't known or mentioned here, add information he only learnt in this life, and make a kind of profile on Staryu, which he could refer to if any question about Staryu came up in the PIT.