Chapter 85: My 28-game Winning Streak..
“Match end! The winner of this battle is·······Glaceon!!”
The host, who was also serving as the referee, passionately announced.
Time had reached exactly three minutes, and the points board on the big screen remained as it was at the end of the countdown.
Glaceon defeated Starmie with an absolute lead of 98 points to 60.
This seasoned Contest Trainer Xue Xiangwen widened his eyes and stared fixedly at the scoreboard.
It had been how long since he last saw himself beaten with such a huge score gap.
From a newbie climbing to today, he had taken nearly two years intermittently; his Starmie had also broken through from Elite Level to top Elite Level, just one step away from Professional Level. He had already planned to use this final Contest Ribbon as the opportunity for his Starmie to officially enter Professional Level, but he never expected to flip the car here, to lose to this Glaceon whose data said had just evolved not long ago, only a few months old.
“You’re great, I’ve remembered you! Next time, I absolutely won’t lose to you!”
After saying these harsh words to Li Wei, Xue Xiangwen left the Grand Festival arena with his Starmie, slightly regretful.
Although this was a failure, it couldn’t be considered regretful; he should have realized earlier that a combo couldn’t go from debut to ‘graduation’.
He should have been prepared long ago.
Underestimating the opponent, thinking this was just an overconfident and arrogant newbie, was the most direct reason for his failure. If he hadn’t been careless about this Glaceon at the start and had opened with a big move, he definitely wouldn’t have been resolved so easily by the opponent, leading to being stuck in an unfavorable position.
“Sigh, sorry, Starmie, I held you back.”
Walking among some fellow competitors, Xue Xiangwen turned to Starmie walking beside him and said.
【？】
Hearing his trainer’s apology, Starmie expressed its doubt with its mind and stretched out an arm to pat its trainer’s leg.
【It’s fine! We’ll win next time!(*^▽^*)】
“Mm.”
“Next time, we must make a more perfect plan, and you have to remind me not to underestimate the enemy like this again.”
【Leave it to me!】
“But hey, Starfish, it seems like there won’t be much for you in the next competition······”
【？？？】
“You’re about to advance to Professional Level, and Intermediate Grand Festival is tough; looks like you’ll have to take more beatings for a while.”
【······】
【My······ my twenty-eight win streak······】
“It won’t be there anymore; counting the simulation battle with Senior Student and them, you’ll need at least two hundred eighty consecutive losses to enter the professional group for Grand Festival.”
【No！！！！】
￥￥￥￥￥￥
Guided by the staff, Li Wei and Eevee came to the player lounge backstage for a short rest and sat in front of the big screen watching the subsequent matches.
The 8-to-4 schedule progressed much faster than Li Wei had imagined; in just the time to eat a snack, the matches ended.
After all, it was just a three-minute schedule; most competitors played full three minutes before the result was announced, with no tiebreaker or complicated procedures.
All in all, this Grand Festival main competition was much faster than the Provincial Competition Li Wei had participated in before.
With time and points limits, everyone couldn’t use ‘prolong’ tactics; it was basically quick battles, showcasing their Pokémon’s advantages as much as possible to suppress the opponent’s Contest Points in a short time.
Soon, the list of competitors advancing from 8-to-4 was displayed on the big screen.
Li Wei quickly scanned the screen and found his 4-to-2 opponent.
His opponent was named Xiao Jin, with a Serperior.
Serperior is a Pokémon with a long, snake-like light green body. Unlike its pre-evolution form, the evolved Serperior lost its hind limbs; its forelimbs degenerated into leafage, and three deep green long leaves grew near the tip of its tail.
Besides the basic changes in appearance, its looks had also greatly improved; it had light yellow patterns on its body, like noble royal patterns or the wondrous embroidery on some luxury goods scarves.
This Pokémon was highly favored by Grand Festival just from its appearance; it didn’t need to do anything, just stand there posing arrogantly, already fitting this Grand Festival’s elegant theme very well.
The two curled leafage near its neck were like suit collar cuffs; its eyes were red, matching its temperament, giving the first impression of ‘noble’ and ‘elegant’.
To Li Wei, for this elegant theme, swapping to Milotic, if nurtured white and plump······ nurtured shiny······ nurtured well, just spray some water without doing anything, it could absolutely advance easily.
After all, choosing Pokémon to participate based on different Grand Festival themes was also a skill.
Li Wei felt that in terms of appearance, it was disadvantageous for his side, but in attribute and battle aspects, his Eevee still had an absolute advantage.
Serperior’s attribute was very good, Grass-type, double weak to Ice.
Besides that, for this battle, there were two pieces of good news for Li Wei.
The first good news was that after learning the opponent’s name, he immediately logged into the Grand Festival official website to check this trainer’s Grand Festival information.
Fortunately, this competitor Xiao Jin, like him, was also participating in Grand Festival for the first time.
Moreover, based on the performance of this Serperior seen in the performance round before, Li Wei could infer that this Serperior had just evolved not long ago.
In other words, Li Wei could infer that this Serperior’s level was just barely mastering the power of its evolved form, solid Elite Level strength; Eevee, with attribute advantage, absolutely had the capital to clash head-on, or rather, could crush it.
The match was about to start; due to the order, Li Wei coincidentally was again the first to enter the match.
Picking up Eevee who was eating snacks on the seat and returning it to the Poké Ball, Li Wei once again walked to the back of the stage, waiting for the host to finish the complicated opening remarks before going up.
The Grand Festival schedule was much tighter than ordinary battle matches; since it needed to decide the Grand Festival champion in one day, competitors’ rest time was also relatively short.
Its matches were very short, so ordinary Grand Festival battle schedules wouldn’t last long, basically all ending in about three hours.
Both competitors were already prepared and ready; with the host’s passionate “Match start!”, trainers Li Wei and Xiao Jin released their Pokémon.
