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Though picking on a little girl might be a bit unethical...
Li Xiang still chose to step forward and challenge Lü Ling, successfully claiming a token from her.
Of course, he held back—not draining her Pokémon's stamina too much, only knocking them out temporarily.
This also gave him a clear look at Lü Ling's three main team members: Chandelure, Mismagius, and Decidueye.
Most girls couldn't resist the charm of "Rowlet the South Bird."
Honestly, if Litten hadn't been more appealing, Li Xiang might've picked Rowlet himself.
'Cuteness is justice!'
A Grassium Z, Disguise, and Everstone Rowlet combo would've been pretty sweet.
Lü Ling's Decidueye, now Li Xiang's new opponent, displayed far greater skill than the one he'd faced before.
Its arrow speed, attack power, and agility were all superior—especially in this forested terrain, which amplified its ranger-like fighting style.
Moving through the trees, it almost felt like a phantom of the woods.
Fortunately, Li Xiang had chosen Greninja, whose tree-frog elements made it just as adept in this environment.
Even as Decidueye tried to stay hidden, facing an invisible Greninja forced a complete role reversal.
The long-range sniper became the target.
"Enemy in the light, me in the dark" turned into "Enemy in the dark, me in the light."
The situation rapidly deteriorated for Decidueye.
Left with no choice, it relied on its sharp hearing and vision to guess Greninja's general direction, firing arrows the moment it detected the slightest disturbance.
But all it ever hit were afterimages.
Greninja had already dodged, moving even faster.
This scenario repeated endlessly, wearing Decidueye down. By the time Greninja stood right behind it, the owl still hadn't noticed.
In the end, it fell to a pair of jet-black daggers.
A crossed slash across Decidueye's neck, and the green-headed owl collapsed instantly.
Night Slash. Super effective!
This battle only solidified Greninja's resolve to become an assassin.
'Toying with the opponent like this… is just too fun. What do they call it? "Appear from nowhere, vanish without a trace" (leans back smugly).'
For a while after, Greninja strutted around with an insufferably cocky aura.
"Alright, alright, enough gloating."
Li Xiang chuckled, swatting at it before suddenly turning serious.
"A true assassin should go in guns blazing! If all your enemies are dead, who's left to know you were ever there?"
"Ninja?"
Greninja tilted its head, baffled, as if asking—"Is that how it works?"
"Hahaha! Just kidding, just kidding! Don't take it seriously—that style doesn't suit you."
Li Xiang laughed, waving it off.
Without a greatsword and riot shield, how could it possibly emulate the "stealth" tactics of First Hassan?
It'd get itself killed in seconds.
After collecting tokens from the Lü sisters, Li Xiang lost interest in them. Even when they tried to strike up conversation, he responded half-heartedly.
Their topics were too trivial.
He'd rather mentally reconstruct the map's unexplored zones.
As expected, the group lingered at the southern rest stop for half an hour before splitting into three teams to scout the blank areas.
They had no choice.
Students were getting smarter—spotting a large group like theirs would send targets running instantly. Not ideal for Li Xiang's token-collection goal.
Camping at a rest stop would also risk exposing his location.
Despite the exam site's size, news traveled fast. Since there were still uncharted zones, why not put his "tools" to good use and satisfy his own OCD in the process?
The six agreed to regroup at a designated rest stop by evening.
The Lü sisters and Bai Zhou, having overheard Li Xiang's plan, unexpectedly asked to join.
More tools = more efficiency.
So Li Xiang agreed.
Thus, nine people divided into four teams, each heading in different directions.
The primary goal was to satisfy Li Xiang's obsessive need for a complete map.
The secondary goal? Pinpointing high-traffic student zones.
Not everyone roamed the exam site like Li Xiang. Most students stayed in one area unless they had riding Pokémon, only heading to rest stops when exhausted or low on supplies.
They preferred "waiting for prey to come to them."
Or maybe they were just too lazy to move around.
From Li Xiang's observations (and WeChat Group lurking), certain spots did see more foot traffic—usually open, flat areas with good visibility.
Dark forests, uneven cliffs, and damp ponds?
Almost no one went there.
The plains he'd visited yesterday were one such hotspot.
But today, he avoided them.
His previous victims had already spread the word—that area was now a death trap. Going back would mean waiting forever for one or two unlucky stragglers.
Better to change locations.
...
The New Hunting Grounds
Soon, they arrived at another vast plain—one with uncharted sections.
Just as Li Xiang predicted, it was packed with students. At least thirty, scattered evenly across the field.
Even if he only challenged ten, it'd be a massive win!
Grinning, Li Xiang and Song Jie split up to cover more ground.
At first, his hood and relatively low-profile Riolu helped him secure matches. But as his wins piled up, someone finally noticed something off.
"Wait—isn't that the final boss? Holy crap, he's here?!"
"No way! Wasn't he supposed to be in the east?!"
"Why didn't anyone say anything?!"
"Hah! Glad it's not me!"
"The mini-boss is over there too! I saw him!"
Panicked chatter erupted. Students who realized the "boss" was here didn't stick around—they bolted.
But Li Xiang wasn't about to let them escape.
Wrapping up his current battle, he used his agility to corner fleeing challengers.
By the end, he'd scraped together eight more tokens.
A decent haul.
Now, he just needed to fill in the remaining map gaps and camp a rest stop.
'Try not coming. I dare you.'
Song Jie returned with six tokens, having been less aggressive in pursuit.
The white-haired teen had no grand ambitions for this exam—just enough points to pass.
"Let's go. Place is cleared out."
Li Xiang sighed at the now-deserted plains.
'Don't these guys have any pride as trainers?'
If only they were all like late-series Ash—happy to throw themselves into hopeless battles.
.....
Filling the map, hunting hotspots, and ambushing rest stops were simple but time-consuming tasks. By late afternoon, Li Xiang's second-day total hit 45 tokens—a slight improvement.
But his Pokémon were reaching their limits.
At noon, he'd run into Gong Xu (and his two lackeys) at a northern rest stop.
After claiming their tokens, he let them pass, ignoring Gong Xu's muttering about "support roles."
'I've already got enough backup options. Who's supporting who here? Riolu hasn't even had its moment to shine yet.'
By 4 PM, the exam site was nearly empty.
After wandering fruitlessly, Li Xiang and Song Jie settled at a rest stop to wait.
Students trickled in—one every ten minutes.
At 5 PM, Lin Feng and Xu Wan stumbled in, exhausted and grumbling. Spotting Li Xiang, they hurried over, sketching a rough map with a stick.
Once satisfied, Lin Feng plopped onto the ground, while Xu Wan rubbed her sore calves.
"Feels like this exam's testing our stamina more than anything," Lin Feng groaned. "No water, no food outside rest stops—it's brutal."
(In this world, drinking untreated water could still give you diarrhea.)
Li Xiang, busy refining the map, shrugged. "Could be worse. At least they're not using the old-school trainer methods."
Back in the day, exams like this allowed Pokémon to attack humans directly—pushing trainees to their absolute limits, Pokémon Special-style.
Only when trainers became more like athletes did society abandon that brutal (but "efficient") approach.
After all, the "survival of the fittest" model only produced one or two elites—everyone else was left broken or dead.
Not exactly compatible with modern peace.
That said, some traditionalist factions still adhered to the "trainer and Pokémon facing life-or-death together" philosophy.
(Think: dumping people in monster-infested wilderness for "training.")
But these were underground practices—unofficial and unacknowledged.
The mainstream world favored the peaceful approach Li Xiang was experiencing.
Not a bad thing.
...Unless interdimensional troublemakers got involved.