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The Norlandia Alliance had a well-developed aviation network, and most Trainers owned at least one Flying-type Pokemon as a means of getting around. Because of this, earning enough Gym Badges within a year to qualify for the Norlandia Conference was not actually that difficult.
A Trainer who only cared about collecting Badges, like those who challenged the Withered Gym with that sole purpose, could easily rack up thirty or more Badges in a year simply by flying between cities in their spare time.
And yet, despite how easy that route was, far more Trainers chose to pack their bags and travel on foot.
The reason was simple. The real goal of a journey was never just to challenge Gyms. That was something done along the way. The true purpose was to train the team and push its overall strength higher.
Not everyone was like Thelma, who came from a wealthy family. If she wanted training space, she had over a dozen private facilities of different styles at her disposal. If that still was not enough, she could follow her father, a Gym Leader, into the deep wilderness for real experience, or have Charlie Tucker take her through a secret training location.
For ordinary Trainers, finding a proper place to train near a city was a completely different story.
The paid training facilities available in most cities were fine for beginners or casual Trainers practicing the basics, but once a Pokemon's level reached the professional rank, only the training facilities inside major Gyms could offer the right environment.
Gyms, however, were not charities. Their facilities were well-equipped, but the fees were steep. Even a small city might have several hundred Trainers, and with only a handful of Gym training slots available, getting a turn could take a very long time.
On top of that, indoor training facilities came with strict rules. Releasing large or unusually heavy Pokemon was often not allowed, and powerful moves like Earthquake were completely off-limits.
When Nova had been working as an intern at the Luma Gym, he had been blocked by those rules constantly. At the time, he was convinced the regulations existed just to make his life harder.
Unable to use the training halls normally, he had found another way. He spent his days hanging around battle arenas, jumping into any match he could find. By using battles themselves as training, he managed to raise Nidorino's level step by step.
The cost, of course, was clear. His reputation among Trainers in Goldenlight City had taken a serious hit. He became someone that practically everyone in those circles knew and disliked.
All of this showed just how wide the gap between wealthy and ordinary Trainers really was, even more so than anything Nova had seen in his previous life.
Thelma could choose from over a dozen training grounds to suit her mood on any given day. Raising eight Pokemon at once was no burden at all. In a short stretch of time, she could push her entire team to the upper limit of the Superior rank. It was as if, through sheer effort and stubbornness, she could field a full Elite-level team and enter the Masters Tournament within six months.
Meanwhile, Trainers without resources could barely find a patch of ground near home to practice on.
That said, this world had its own kind of advantage.
Humans did not hold complete control over every part of the world. Large stretches of undeveloped land were classified as Uninhabited Areas, places where the Alliance's laws and regulations did not apply to Trainers.
As long as someone was not actively hunting down wild Pokemon or damaging their habitat, the Officer Jennys left them alone. You could use Earthquake as many times as you liked. No one would stop you.
That was what adventurous travel was truly about.
In other words, stopping at a city to challenge a Gym was just a rest along the road. The real heart of the journey was the training done out in the Uninhabited Areas.
It was precisely because of this that Layered Rock Town, originally just a small settlement tucked in the middle of the Layered Rock Mountain Range, had grown into a lively, well-supplied town that rivaled many smaller cities. Part of its draw came from being a stopping point for Trainers heading toward the Valen Gym in Sand River City, far to the south.
The moisture that rolled in from Harmony City was stopped by a series of high mountain ridges and spent itself completely in the valley where the Town sat. Like one last surge of energy, it fell as rain and turned the valley into a green, sheltered pocket in the middle of otherwise dry country.
Further north from there, the mountains turned bare and dusty. The water that could be found was salty and alkaline. The landscape shifted entirely into dry, inland terrain.
This stretch of barren mountain range, running for hundreds of kilometers, was clearly no place for permanent settlement. That made it perfect for Trainers looking to train between cities.
Even with dozens or hundreds of Trainers scattered across such a large Uninhabited Area, it was easy to go weeks without running into another person. But when Trainers did pass through, the spending they brought was more than enough to keep a small town running.
Layered Rock Town had become, in every practical sense, a rest stop and supply base for anyone training in the Layered Rock Mountain Range.
Nova had only just arrived, but he spent half a day walking around with Mudkip and Sprigatito to get his bearings. What he found surprised him. The Pokemon-related facilities here were even more complete than what he had seen in Harmony City.
There was a Pokemon Center run by the Alliance for healing, a Poke Mart stocked with a wide range of items, and a Trainer Club where Trainers could find partners to train with or pick up bounty missions to collect local goods from the mountain range.
There was even a dedicated counter at the Pokemon Center's mail service, and somehow, online orders arrived here faster than they did in Harmony City.
Most surprising of all, Nova came across a small auction house. It not only sold rare items for Trainers but also offered a listing service. If a Trainer found something valuable out in the mountains, they could put it up for sale on the spot, and buyers from across the Alliance would bid on it.
That went against something Nova had always assumed to be true.
In his previous life, he had grown up thinking that land which could not grow crops was essentially useless. Old habits of thought were hard to shake.
But the Pokemon world played by different rules. Barren land might not support farming, but it could produce things that only existed in dry, rugged terrain. Things that could not be found anywhere else.
For Trainers, the Uninhabited Areas of the Layered Rock Mountain Range were, in their own way, full of riches.
Any undeveloped area in the Norlandia Alliance could be thought of the same way. There was no shortage of valuable things out there. It just came down to whether you were willing to go and look for them.