Chapter 37

The reason for this was that Gunter's parents owned a medium-sized company that processes pokemon parts and turned them into other products. With their relatively successful business, his parents were able to get a slot into this academy and even found a seller who had a rare pokemon for their boy. Alas, the root of all evils was money. Using their wealth, the two overprotective parents didn't want their son going out in to the wild to fight pokemon so instead, they bought expensive Rare Candy and gave them to Gunter. Not knowing anything else besides what was generally accepted as fact, Gunter fed his Ralts the rare candy to her current level.

The thing about Rare Candy was that like the anime, games, and manga, it did indeed increase a pokemon's level by 1. What was not mentioned; however, was that by forcibly drawing out the pokemon's potential to unnaturally raise their level, the pokemon's grade slightly decreased and since it didn't see much action, their skill mastery tended to be low. With the decrease in potential, once the trainer realized this problem, it would take an awfully long time to train their pokemon's skill mastery to the appropriate level and it was even harder for them to hit maxed-out levels for even one of their moves. What was once a Shallow Gold graded Ralts with a bright future ahead of her was now an Iron pokemon with almost no prospects.

"Okay, Buddy. I'm getting bored. Let's end this."

"Yeah, same."

Telekinetically communicating, Jax told Vioarr to go with Triangle 1. Having seen enough out this pathetic trainer and his pokemon, Jax didn't want to be in this ring for a second longer. Going on the offense, Vioarr made quick work of the Ralts with a series of spamming Protect, Endure, and another new TM the other day that he didn't get to try out on the Beedrills, Iron Tail. Even if Gunter and Ralts weren't worth their effort, they were still experience points and could be used as training dummies to increase Vioarr's mastery levels.

Stepping off the battlefield, Jax noticed that Ally had just finished her fight too even though she started after he did. Running off to go chat with her, which was now becoming his new favorite pastime, Jax paused midstride and after a quick second, proceeded to calmly walk towards her. 'I can't be coming off as desperate! I heard that females hate desperate, clingy men the most!'

"H-hey, Ally! How was your battle? I can't believe you started after I did, and we finished almost at the same time."

"Hi, J-Jax! It was actually a lot harder than I thought it was g-going to be. Mewton kept ignoring my c-commands during the battle. I just got lucky that their pokemon f-fainted from their own move."

Hearing Ally's recount of how her battle went, Jax glanced at her neck, more specifically, the blue worm that was clearly glaring at him. Smirking at the worm's expression, Jax pieced together why Mewton was being stubborn. He was simply expressing his dissatisfaction with Ally about kissing Jax in the restaurant and then letting Jax touch her hand and finger. 'Mhm, you think I'll lose to the likes of you? Ha! I didn't even flinch in the face of death, what's a blue worm like you compared to two blue tanks?'

Wanting to mess even more with Mewton now that Jax knew why he was ignoring orders, Jax cozied up to Ally and whispered into her ear, the side that was closest to Mewton's head so that he could hear too. "In my next battle, I will dedicate my win for you."

'That brat! He dares! Ugh, I can't keep ignoring Ally. I'm only harming her and not even touching a hair on that bastard! Pray you don't meet us sooner because that's how long you have left to live!'

As the last battle was finishing up, Jax saw that all four of the students he had his eyes on also made it to the second round. Jax already knew that Ally had won her match, but he was surprised that the bookworm did, too. She didn't seem like a very strong trainer from what Jax had observed so far. Oh well, if she is that strong, he'll just meet her up in the ladder. Doesn't matter who, they couldn't beat him anyways. Turning his head, Jax paid attention to Professor Uriel walking up towards the platform.

"Congratulations on all those who've passed the first round of elimination. As some of you must be wondering, the 15 students have been disqualified after losing their first match. As such, 15 students have successfully cleared their first trial to claiming one of our amazing prices. As much as I want to keep this competition fair, one student will either have to battle twice, or directly advance to the next round of elimination. After much deliberation, the staff and I felt like it would be too unfair to have a single student face off against another opponent; therefore, I would like for the 15 of you to come up here and draw lots to decide who will directly advan-.".

"Wait! Professor Uriel, while it is unfair that a single student will have to battle twice, with adequate rest in between battles, I think this more than makes up for it. However, if a student directly advances to the next round of competition, you might as well give a second chance to the most outstanding student that has already been knocked out a redemption match against whoever wants that freebie." Saying so, Jax stood at the front of the crowd. Handouts? Jax didn't need handouts!

Taking Jax's words into consideration, the staff discussed amongst themselves. After a heated debate, Professor Uriel faced Jax as he was the one to bring up the proposal. "The staff and I have discussed your point but couldn't come up with a single outstanding student. Not to say that no one caught our eyes, there was simply more than one and we had a heated debate about which representative to choose. Therefore, with my rank as the highest ranked professor in attendance, I have rejected your proposal. Going back to the original topic, please come up here an-."

"In that case, I volunteer to battle twice!" With that quiet but bold statement, all the students turned towards Jax and looked at him with disdain. Obviously, he was just trying to make things difficult for the teachers. Why doesn't he just let someone get a free pass!?