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Speaking of which, if he remembered correctly, most of the top Trainers in the Pokémon world seemed to have their own side jobs, right?
Take the Pokémon League Champions, for example.
Lance, besides being a League Champion, also served as an investigator for the Kanto League, while for Steven, mining all over the world and collecting rare stones seemed more important than being a Champion or even inheriting his family business.
Cynthia was a hereditary mythologist, and Wallace—his identity as a Grand Festival Master was clearly more well-known than his Champion status. As for Diantha, she was directly a household name as a famous movie star.
The Paldea Champion, Geeta, simply took on both the League Champion and League Chair positions, directly achieving the impressive feat of "My authority as League Chair is limitless."
Not to mention the regional Elite Four members. There were people like Agatha who wrote novels, Koga who worked as a ninja, Drake who captained a ship, Malva who worked as a news anchor, and Chili who was a chef—someone David might become colleagues with in the future.
As for Gym Leaders, there were even more with side jobs, too many to count. To tell a somewhat dark joke, two of the most successful and most powerful Gym Leaders with side jobs were Giovanni of Viridian City Gym and Pryce of Mahogany Town Gym, which was truly a bit ironic.
However, David hadn't realized it until he carefully thought it over in his mind, and even he couldn't help but be startled. So many famous Trainers were involved in side jobs! Or rather, were these their main professions, and Pokémon Trainer was just a sideline?
Or was having a side job a standard requirement for becoming strong in the Pokémon world? Should he get one too?
"Ding!"
Just then, his phone notification rang at an opportune moment, finally pulling David out of his brainstorming session of wild thoughts.
"Hmm?"
He checked and found it was a special message from the Trainer Camp. After a long ten days, just when David was about to forget about it, the notification for the Novice Cup knockout rounds had finally arrived.
"Dear contestant David, please report to the Imperial Central Grand Arena tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM for the Imperial City Novice Cup elimination rounds (knockout stage). Please be sure to arrive within the specified time. A delay of more than 10 minutes will be considered an automatic forfeiture of your competition qualification..."
"Hey, is it finally starting? What perfect timing!"
After reading the message, David casually set his phone aside and remarked with slight amusement.
What a coincidence—his Zorua had just completed a breakthrough in strength that morning, and he had a match scheduled for the afternoon. He wondered which lucky opponent he would be paired against.
He turned his head and spoke to Zorua, who was still eating heartily.
"Zorua, you have work this afternoon! Make sure to perform well!"
"Zorua!" The little fox didn't even lift its head, answering with its mouth full of food. "Oh, I know! Don't worry, I'll let them know how powerful I am when the time comes!"
Early the next morning, Imperial Central Grand Arena.
The Imperial Central Grand Arena had been built at the beginning of the Alliance's establishment, making it the only super-large building, besides the Alliance Headquarters, that could be located in the center of Imperial City. The arena covered a vast area, and its main venue could accommodate hundreds of thousands of spectators simultaneously, making it one of the most famous battle venues in the Cloudspire Alliance. It could be said that most of the high-profile large-scale events in Imperial City were held here.
At the same time, the Imperial Central Grand Arena, along with David's Ascending Dragon Gym, the Imperial Research Center, and Imperial University, were known as the four major tourist attractions in Imperial City.
At this moment, David's friends and several classmates who were close to them had already arrived, while David, to the surprise of his friends, had arrived at the competition venue early.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Is that David? Am I seeing things? Isn't it still almost half an hour until the match starts?"
"Exactly! Is it real or fake? We didn't recognize the wrong person, did we?"
"Hey, hey, that's going too far! Don't I just usually arrive 'a little bit' late? You guys are too much!"
Facing his friends' teasing, David immediately retorted with mock sternness.
Then followed some vague remarks like "arriving just in time isn't late" and "not being late counts as a success," and the air was instantly filled with a cheerful atmosphere.
"Alright, let's stop here for now! By the way, David, which group are you in?"
It was Willow who stepped forward to help David change the subject.
"I think I'm in Zone D. By the way, what are the rules this time?"
"Not again, David!"
Hearing David's words and recalling the preliminary round, Emma couldn't help but sigh while pressing a hand to her forehead.
"Hehe, I've just been busy training! Busy training."
Knowing he was at fault, David could only chuckle sheepishly and make excuses.
After everyone's explanations, David finally understood the format. The rules for the knockout stage were quite simple: the contestants who passed the preliminary round were randomly assigned to eight major zones, A through H. Each major zone was then divided into upper and lower brackets, and participants would battle in pairs. Winners advanced, while losers were directly eliminated.
In other words, nothing complicated—as long as you kept winning, you were good to go.
David was in Zone D, Willow in Zone A, Emma and Luke in Zone H and Miles in Zone C. Except for Emma and Luke, their respective major zones were all different. This meant that at least before the quarterfinals, they wouldn't have any internal battles among themselves.
Amidst their chatter, the first round of matchup results had already been posted. David looked at his phone. On the Trainer Camp app, his participant number was D-136, and the app showed he was matched against D-231. He needed to arrive at the designated battle venue within 15 minutes.
After glancing at his friends, he saw that they had all successively been matched with their opponents as well. So after a quick greeting, David set off toward Zone D according to the route instructions in the app.
There were at least three to four thousand contestants who had passed the preliminary round, so their competition venues naturally couldn't all be in the central arena.
David's competition venue was Field 3 in Zone D. Following the instructions, he arrived and found it was a smaller sub-venue in the outer area of the arena. The entire venue was divided into four separate fields, but even so, it was quite adequate.
On the field, the Alliance-provided Rotom Referee was already in position, and a decent number of spectators had already begun to take their seats in the surrounding stands, though they were still somewhat sparse.
Although it was just the Novice Cup—a battle tournament for novices—given the popularity of Pokémon battles in this world, even a competition of this scale still had no shortage of spectators. In fact, for matches after the quarterfinals, the venue would shift to the main arena, and that's when it would truly become packed with people!
At that time, there would even be live broadcasts on the internet and television. Clearly, the Alliance placed considerable importance on outstanding rookie Trainers, and the audience at that stage would not be stingy with their attention and applause.
The annual Novice Cup was basically an opportunity for new Trainers to make a name for themselves. Whether achieving good results or delivering a brilliant performance that garnered attention, it could be said to be quite beneficial for their future development as Trainers.
And at this moment, on the battle venue, David's opponent had already arrived before him.