Chapter 49: Brothers in Misfortune
Many students have this experience in their school years: when you and your friend both do poorly on a test, you'll both sigh in despair, but if another friend does even worse, your mood might suddenly improve.
And now, Arthur was roughly playing the role of that last friend.
That's right, in this test, he and Froakie very generously secured the bottom two spots, boosting the confidence of everyone else in this batch of youth training camp recruits.
A true philanthropist of self-deprecation...
He, however, remained quite calm about this.
Because Arthur had always been a very pragmatic person.
The previous top four finish in the competition had a "ticket" incentive, so he gave it his all. But this test didn't bring any tangible benefits, it was roughly just a way for the club to assess their abilities, so he didn't care much about winning or losing.
A temporary low ranking didn't really matter, anyway, graduation wasn't something that could be achieved overnight.
But this inevitably lowered his standing among his fellow trainees.
To the point that he even became a tool often used by others to diss Galen.
"Look at you, so spineless. Your roommate has more guts than you."
Every time this happened, Arthur could only innocently touch his nose.
He was truly an innocent bystander in these arguments.
But he was indeed very curious about Galen's transformation after joining the youth training camp.
The hot-headed cap-wearing boy he knew from the amateur matches wasn't like this.
One day, after finishing training and returning to the training camp dormitory, Arthur took the opportunity to ask Galen.
"Why are you always so certain that we can't catch up to Flora?"
"Why? Isn't this obvious? Pokémon competition is ultimately about the Pokémon, and her Pokémon are just strong.
I've seen so many cases of this. In the amateur circuit, everyone is still a beginner, and often, a trainer's commanding skills can bridge the gap in Pokémon strength, because at that level many people don't know how to fully unlock their Pokémon's potential.
But after entering the youth training camp, when everyone starts using the most scientific methods for training, the gap between Pokémon will only widen.
This competition has never been absolutely fair, it's just that you guys haven't realized it yet."
Galen's words carried a strong sense of unwillingness and resentment.
Only now did Arthur suddenly realize what this young man might have witnessed in the past.
Considering that he had mentioned that his older cousin was a professional player for this club, and he had grown up around the youth training camp, Arthur seemed to understand something.
But he still wanted to ask: "If that's the case, why did you still join the youth training camp?"
"Of course, it's to accumulate experience and then quickly acquire better Pokémon."
Galen said without hesitation.
At that moment, Arthur was at a loss for words.
To be honest, before this moment, his overall impression of this era was extremely positive.
Although he sensed a hint of conspiracy theory in the historical documents, which made him feel a bit cold, the subsequent two hundred years of peace were largely something he was happy to see.
He thought this era was great in many ways, whether it was the coexistence of humans and Pokémon after the Great Reconciliation, or the progress and exploration of Pokémon breeding in the new era.
All these developments were wonderful in his eyes.
Only the trainers of this era always made him feel... complicated.
Admittedly, the term "trainer" itself had a new definition in this era, and was no longer the same profession as the alliance combat personnel he remembered.
But the similarity of both working alongside Pokémon still made Arthur unable to resist comparing the two.
However, so far, the trainers of this era hadn't left him with a particularly good impression.
Galen might have thought he had seen through the essence of competition.
But Arthur only found this idea laughable.
Speaking of the gap in Pokémon potential, what could be greater than the gap between mythical beasts and regular Pokémon?
In reality, pseudo-legendary was just a glorified term humans gave them. The innate difference between so-called pseudo-legendary Pokémon and true mythical beasts was like a chasm!
Yet even so, in Arthur's time, countless trainers were willing to risk their lives to challenge mythical beasts, and some of them even managed to train their ordinary Pokémon to rival the strength of mythical beasts!
These people were called Heavenly Kings!
Coincidentally, Arthur was one of them!
If you give up just because you see the gap and admit defeat, then two hundred years ago, the Eastern Alliance would probably still be huddled along the Huang River, unable to even cross Moonwhisper Mountain.
Pokémon naturally have differences in potential.
But if you don't even try to bridge or overcome that gap, then what's the point of having trainers?
So even though Arthur understood that absolute fairness didn't exist in competition, he still didn't agree with Galen's point of view.
However, he wasn't exactly the kind of person who could eloquently persuade others.
Instead, as time went on, Galen gradually convinced most of the new recruits in this batch...
Later, Arthur found that most of his fellow trainees only showed up for the trainer courses in the morning, attending classes on type matchups, Pokémon moves, and match strategies.
But in the afternoon, most of them followed Galen to work part-time - they were all saving money, preparing to buy a Pokémon with better genetic potential.
Just like Galen himself said: he felt his Scyther's potential couldn't compare to Dratini, so he decided to simply give up on training Scyther and quickly save enough money to buy his next, better Pokémon.
In the end, only Arthur, and the teenager with the Pidgey, Justin, who was ostracized by his peers for his loudmouth and ended up becoming closer to Arthur, were the only ones who persisted in spending a lot of time training their initial Pokémon at the training camp base.
One day, Justin, as always, was vehemently complaining about everyone else, even though the other trainees weren't even at the training camp base at this time.
"Are those guys all heartless? Do they really just treat their initial Pokémon as tools to get into the professional youth training camp?! It's outrageous!!"
Arthur watched him from the side, amused.
He had originally thought that he would become friends with Galen, who was from the same league as him and someone he had met before. But who would have thought that the person who spent his days ranting by his side would be this loudmouthed teenager who had argued with him and Galen on their first day here?
In a way, they were now brothers in misfortune.
And coincidentally, in the previous test, they had ranked last and second to last.
But at this time, Arthur's response remained unchanged.
Or rather, his mindset had never changed in the past two hundred years.
"This era, not all trainers are like that."
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